Giveaways, Special Pricing, and WIP Updates

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I decided to kick summer off by running a few promotions. Starting tomorrow, Friday June 6th, Fate’s Haven will be available free on Amazon until the evening of Sunday June 8th. The second book in the series, The Enemy Within, will also be available at a reduced price starting Friday. The sale price will be $0.99 until Saturday evening and will gradually increase throughout the following week. Also, my novelette, Tales From the Abyss: Paradox, is always available free of charge so you can pick up a copy too.

So spread the news and help me drive sales up. Having a higher standing with Amazon always helps overall sales. Leaving reviews also helps tremendously since many people are easily swayed based on the opinions of other readers.

It’s been a while since I’ve made any updates and don’t want anyone thinking the site has been abandoned or anything. I’ve been busy with my day job (I’m an IT security consultant by day) and my personal life has me a bit busy these days.

I began writing the third installment of my series and am about 20,000 words into what I’m estimating to be a 90,000 word rough draft. After my (long) editing process, I’m expecting the final draft to be about 95,000 words, which will put it about the same length as the other two books. I’ve hit a bit of a slump while I work out some of the details but hope to be back on track soon. I had a couple of really good writing days last month and hope I can regain that momentum.

My slump is a result of a snag I hit last week. I’m not entirely sure how I want to proceed. Since I don’t map out every single action of every scene there are times where I write something that works so well that I just know I have to keep it. The problems arise when I wind up backing myself into a corner. But after looking at what I have and where I’m going I’m back on track and am very pleased with what I have thus far.

Filed under: Fate's Haven, Marketing, Paradox, The Enemy Within (Fate's Haven 2), Writing Tagged: Amazon, Book Writing, eBook, Fate's Haven, Free, Kindle, Marketing, Publishing, Self-Publishing, The Enemy Within, Writing

Bird’s-Eye View: Rough Draft to Final Draft

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Fate’s Haven

This is similar to my previous post in that the image shows the progression from one draft to another. I was able to use some of Word’s comparison and tracking features to recreate every change made during the course of my first book, Fate’s Haven. The difference here is this is every change from first draft to final draft. For an enlarged version of the image, click here.

To recap the history behind the idea…

A user on kboards.com and I were discussing rough drafts and I made the comment that I once zoomed out my first manuscript to get a look at how much red covered it after tracking changes using Word before accepting the changes for the next draft.

The conversation basically began because a lot of people don’t know just how much effort goes into writing something the length of a novel.

So in case anyone ever wondered what one looked like or how much markup was actually on a draft, this is one of mine. I may see if I can get Word to compare two versions from Fate’s Haven and track those changes automatically. I’d love to share that image. Being my first book, it was a learning experience and as such was littered (I mean seriously littered) with red where corrections were made.

As you can see from the image, it was given a serious face lift before hitting the publish button.

Filed under: Fate's Haven, Writing Tagged: Amazon; Creative Writing; Ebook;, Editing; Kindle; Kobo, Nook; Self-Publishing;, Writing; Fate's Haven

A Bird’s Eye View of a Rough Draft

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Rough Draft – The Enemy Within (Click to enlarge)

A user on kboards.com and I were discussing rough drafts and I made the comment that I once zoomed out my first manuscript to get a look at how much red covered it after tracking changes using Word before accepting the changes for the next draft.

The conversation basically began because a lot of people don’t know just how much effort goes into writing something the length of a novel. The attached screenshot isn’t from my first novel. I didn’t keep a copy. This is actually from The Enemy Within, my second novel. This draft was about 97k words in length, only 1k words or so shorter than the final draft (not including headers, footers, title pages, etc.).

So in case anyone ever wondered what one looked like or how much markup was actually on a draft, this is one of mine. I may see if I can get Word to compare two versions from Fate’s Haven and track those changes automatically. I’d love to share that image. Being my first book, it was a learning experience and as such was littered (I mean seriously littered) with red where corrections were made.

Enjoy.

Filed under: The Enemy Within (Fate's Haven 2), Writing Tagged: Amazon, Creative writing, eBook, Editing, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Self-Publishing, The Enemy Within, Writing

Paradox now free on Kindle

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Amazon finally lowered Paradox to free, matching their competitors listings. Get your copy for Kindle here!

Filed under: Marketing, Paradox, Writing

All books now available on Google Play Books and Kobo

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I just received word that all my books are now listed on Google Play Books. If you prefer Google’s reader to the competitors, now they’re available. This is something I should have done sooner.

• Fate’s Haven


• The Enemy Within (Fate’s Haven, #2)


• Tales From the Abyss: Paradox (A Fate’s Haven Novelette)

On the iTunes and Amazon fronts, I’m still in a holding pattern. Kobo is experiencing some kind of serious technical problem. I’ve heard rumors of books waiting months before users give up, though Kobo has assured me it’s just a small delay. iTunes is a bit more convoluted so I’m using an intermediary vendor to help push it through. I wish I had a time-frame to put out there. Amazon is still fighting me on price-matching Paradox to its competitors prices. I’ve assured them once its available it will be free on all competitor websites but they’re still groaning about dropping the price to zero. I don’t understand why. It’s just a process of dragging them kicking and screaming. And well… Amazon is kicking and screaming. Rest assured, I am hitting them with price match requests every day.

Filed under: Marketing, Paradox, Writing

Amazon dragging its feet. Want to help speed up their price match?

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I released Paradox three days ago and so far its seen some decent web traffic on the one free site it’s available, Smashwords. I have some direct links for download here as well, but I have no way to track activity. Since traffic to this site has been lower than usual the past dew days I’m assuming the number if downloads is darn near zero.

My assumption was Amazon would price match to Smashwords within a day or two but since they’re dragging their feet, here’s my request: visit Paradox’s Amazon page, scroll just past the reviews section, and report the lower price listed at Smashwords. Maybe a few dozen reports will get them to act a bit faster. Amazon is my primary market and right now my downloads for Paradox are zero (which isn’t surprising since it isn’t the expected price of $0.00).

Filed under: Marketing, Paradox, Writing