All Blog Posts Tagged 'I' (162)

They are here! They are hidden among us! They will stop at nothing to destroy us!

That’s right! After much anticipation, SILENT INVASION is live and available for sale! If you’ve read DREAM TRAVELER or INSECTLAND, this is the book that started the series. I had release the sequels first, but now the full storyline will all come together. SILENT INVASION took fifteen years to finish. Not write, but finish. Here’s the history. The first draft was completed in September 1997 as…

Since my last giveaway was so successful I’ve decided to do it again with a different book. From now until Monday DREAM TRAVELER is absolutely free on Kindle!!

DREAM TRAVELER

Every time Jamie Richards falls asleep, she’s bounced through time and injected into possible futures. And all of these diverse futures lead to one horrifying conclusion; the end of everything. Can Jamie save trillions of lives, prevent a war that has already occurred, and stop herself from…

Continuing to showcase queries that got agents and publishers interested in my work over the years, when there was a publishing industry willing to take on new writers (ha ha), here is the query that got the head of Random House Children’s Division (Jim Thomas) interested in AFTER. It was submitted by my agent at the time and was given a read in less than forty-eight hours. This is his exact reply.

“Thanks for the look at AFTER. There’s a lot I like about it. It’s quite inventive,…

Just another example of how the internet has changed authors and the exposure that their books are capable of receiving with a little marketing and promotion. Here is a review and blurb about me that appeared in Italy. I couldn’t even read it and had to have my step-daughter translate it for me. This was a totally unsolicited article and I thank the writer for it. Also, now that it’s over, the free book promo on Kindle is resulting in paid sales. Quite a few I might add. The way I understand…

With just hours remaining on my promotion here are the latest stats. Sales in the U.S are DROP OUT – 751 and INSECTLAND – 281. In the UK my sales are DROP OUT – 251 and INSECTLAND – 67. In Germany my sales are DROP OUT – 7 and INSECTLAND – 1. DROP OUT is close to breaking into the top 100 in sales and might in the next few hours. I’ve done a last minute promo blitz of the free books so maybe there may be a final surge. Not bad. If I can get ten or fifteen reviews out of this it will have…

I used to think I was a really strange person. While everyone else was out socializing and going to concerts, movies, and having meals out, I would stay home and sit in my room and write stories. I thought I was even odder when I got older and went to college. While I did my fair share of partying, I never got into that whole social clique thing. While my friends would be outside playing football or Frisbee tag, I’d be in my dorm room cranking out poetry (that’s what I was into at the time)…

As my five dollar blog ads end I can reliably say that they resulted in maybe a dozen sales. Since I only get like thirty-five cents a book the result wasn’t worth the expense in monetary terms. But it’s all about exposure. This brings me to the next level of my experiments in marketing. After reading forums on the pros and cons of making your ebook free to the public, I decided to do just that. Kindle Direct offers a program where you can offer your book free for up to five days. I’m doing…

That is the goal of most novelists. Not so much because of the greed factor, but that money affords the life of being a writer. Indie publishing can make it happen! That said, here are the final results of my relatively expensive blog ad campaign. I got maybe twenty extra sales because of it. So my advice would be only to place ads that are cheap and give great exposure. My mistake was that I jumped right in with the $40 ads instead of doing more research and finding numerous little ads for…

Since my website and blog pages are getting so much attention I’ve decided to submit SILENT INVASION to try and get an agent, again. Though, as I said before, it’s more of an ego thing than anything else. I figure with my sites getting so much traffic I can use that info in my query as a great platform. Since most agents won’t even look at an author unless he’s got the basic WWW promotion down, at least I might spark someone’s attention. Although I’ve made money from my books, it would be…

Yeah! Sales are increasing! My blog is now averaging about 75-100 hits an hour. My Facebook Fan page has almost 3,500 “likes” and my Authors Den profile is averaging 100 hits a day. So, here’s the breakdown of all my promotional and marketing efforts so far. The newspaper article scheme did nothing for sales but probably exposed me to a few new people. I would recommend against it. The ads I paid good money for, like the Litopia and YA Reads.com did almost nothing for sales. Perhaps, I got a…

As some of you may have noticed the counter for my blog has exploded. For the last week, I’ve been averaging about 600 hits a day and it’s going up. Yesterday, I got 1,700. It seams the search engine optimization is kicking in after all, and it will only get better over time. It’s a bit overwhelming to think that so many people are reading my posts and checking out the kinds of books I write. Every morning I jump from bed, come down to my office, and check my stats on my various sites. It’s…

The first ads of my winter campaign are live. The combined cost for both was $100. They will run for the next two weeks right on the home pages of these sites. This should give the ads about 100,000 views at least.

http://litopia.com/

http://www.yareads.com/

Now, I’m not expecting to sell 250 books because of these ads, which is what I’d need to break even, what I’m looking for now is exposure, plain…

LaNiyah Bailey is a 6‐year‐old author with a message for children like her – just because you are bigger than other kid, that doesn’t mean that people have the right to bully you.

In her debut book, Not FAT Because I Wanna Be, LaNiyah details the struggle of Jessica, a fictional girl who has an underlying medical issue that causes her to gain…

   You are my Father, my Redeemer, the Light unto my path, my Rock, my Fortress, my all conquering KIng of Kings, You are my Salvation.  You are my Provider.  You are my very breath.  You are my Love and Compassion. You are my Virtue.  You are my Honesty.  You are my Forgiveness.  You are the wind, you are the snow covered mountain tops.  You are the inner habits of every living creature.  You are the sun and the moon.  You are the vast oceans.  You are the green grass and beautiful…

(c) Satis Shroff in Berlin 

Martin Heidegger Triology:

The Silence of Existence I (Satis Shroff)

Plato once said:



Megala panta episphale,´



Questionable,…

Hatfield House

A fortnight ago I visited Hatfield House with a friend and made notes.

When visiting a stately home, personal items always make a great impression on me.  In one of the display cases are Queen Elizabeth I’s straw garden hat which has an intricate pattern, a pair of her gloves and a pair of silk stockings, which are believed to be the first pair made of silk to be worn in England.  In another display case I saw a…

The Sacred Purse

The idea for The Sacred Purse started one morning at Debi Wacker’s kitchen table as our writer’s group of women talked about how busy their lives were .…

From the moment we are born, someone is telling us to be careful. No matter what country we call home or what language we speak, these words follow us our entire lives. You might hear parents, friends, family or children lovingly say this phrase at least once a day. Think about all of the times that a loved one goes off to school,…