All Blog Posts Tagged 'thrillers' (183)

Well, after many long weeks and many refinements, AFTER is complete and available for sale at the Kindle bookstore for a mere $1.79. I've been approved with Smashwords and am just waiting for it to appear in their premium catalog. Then it will be available everywhere. Here is the pitch followed by the link to purchase. I've hardly started to market and I've already sold a few. Major marketing promo blitz starts June 1st.

AFTER

On the day we’re born we’re all destined to die.…

RIVER BONES was a FINALIST in the 2011 National Indie Excellence Book Awards.

However, it didn't win, but this is the 2nd award for this book. On the winners's page, scroll down to the Thriller section:

http://www.indieexcellence.com/indie-results-2011.htm

Work. Work. Work. That's all I seem to be doing these days. And not the good kind of creative work, but the work that pays the bills. I'm still waiting for AFTER to be editted into professional ebook form. While I wait I continue to work on my new YA novel, WASTED, which is nearly complete. With WASTED, I'm going to try to get an agent, which may be a mute point in publishing. I guess wanting representation is just a desire to fill my ego. There are blogs saying all agents will be…

I know. I know. In my last post I said AFTER was finished. But then last night I received feedback from a woman on the opening chapter. She said that it was great except for a few miniscule details, like one sentence in the wrong tense and changing a word. I wouldn't have taken the advice so seriously except that this woman was a bona fide LITERARY AGENT and she gave this advice free and willingly on her own time. Obviously by the detail of the critique she had spent some time on it, even…

That's it. AFTER is finished! I've contacted the formatter and I am waiting for his reply. I'm going to get the ISBN but not the bar code, since this will be an ebook and only available hard copy through Create Space. The ISBN will allow the book to be distributed worldwide. I've begun very simple marketing and promo by mentioning AFTER in two new blog interviews that I've done. Here's that info:



July 30th--Sylvia L. Ramsey: Thoughtful Reflections Blog--…

Now that I've finished with AFTER except for final, tiny fixes in the first chapter, I begin the process of letting go. This feeling of euphoria and depression happens everytime I send a book off to a publisher knowing I will never be able to change the manuscript again. Even if I get an idea for a change, which happens rarely once I've let go, but it does happen, I can't do a damn thing about it. Sometimes I'll be leafing through one of my published books and I'll come across a…

I finished what I consider the absolute final read of AFTER before I send it to the formatter. This was no easy task. This book is eleven years in the making. It has been through many stages based on what editors and publishers have said and critiqued. AFTER did make the NY publishing rounds a few years ago when I had my agent. It got very close to being published as either a graphic novel, comic book or published work. There was interest in all three routes and the book was even…

I've gottten responses from quite a few formatters. All seem nice. Basically, there's a few ways to go about this. Some formatters will literally create the book for you and upload it to all the major POD devices. Some will even run their business like a publisher and take royalties for each book sold. I'm not going that route. Some will do it for real cheap, basically running it through a program and sending you back the file. But this can have dire consequences if something screws up. I've…

Today I approved the final galley for the cover. It looks awesome. We tried a few different variations but finally found one that I think will blow away the competition (hopefully) I asked my cover artist for a recomendation for someone to format the manuscript appropriate for all the POD devices. I'm waiting to hear back from her before I begin my own blind search. I'd much rather use her resources since I'm so satisfied with the cover. Should have an answer soon, then it's time to…

As I said before, I chose the more expensive cover designer because I know how important the cover is. I sent this summmary off to the woman who is designing my cover for AFTER. She said she could design the artwork solely from this. We'll see.





Swept up by dark adventure, Nick learns the devil has caused global war in the mortal world. The devil intends to collect billions of souls and then turn them into a massive zombie army to take over…

Here's a great new site I stumbled upon. It's a good way for Indie writers to get their stuff noticed. And, it's all free. I signed on and in ten minutes my books and all the sales info were live on the site. Give it a shot if you've got books to sell.
 

http://www.indiebooklounge.com/

If you want to be in all the online catalogs and bookstores you must get an ISBN. It’s a relatively simple process of filling out a form, paying the fee, and then assigning the title of the book to the ISBN. Sure, I can do that. But here’s the thing. The price in acquiring an ISBN vary widely, as I’ve discovered, just like most things associated with creating the e-book. So far I’ve done only research and spent nothing on this project. Once I’ve gotten everything in order I will give a…

Okay, so I spent some time researching formatters. There also is a big difference in price when it comes to these. Some people charge a flat fee anywhere from $30-$200. There are also people who work hourly at @$25 an hour. Only problem with that is how do you know for real how many hours this person has put in? I know there are computer programs that will convert books automatically in almost no time. The big drawback to these programs is that they don’t often catch every format…

Mark today as the day I set in motion a new venture in my writing career. The production of my e-book. Since most people judge a book by its cover I’ve decided to hire a professional cover designer. I spent some time researching and came up with prices ranging anywhere from $25 to more than a thousand for a custom artist. After much soul-searching and checking my budget I decided to go with a woman who charges $100 flat fee. But for that money I get as many revisions as I want. I…

Instead of doing a full-fledged blog tour, I coordinated something a little bit different for my books -  a Book Review Block Party. I contacted numerous book bloggers about publishing their reviews during a certain time-frame, and the end result was 21 book reviews being published across the Internet in one week for my mystery novels Twenty-Five Years Ago Today and Sink or Swim. You can read snippets of

the reviews and more about the…

***Attention Readers and Bargain Hunters***

Various authors, publishers, and ebook stores are celebrating Read an Ebook Week by offering discounted or free ebooks and short stories this week.…