SOP for Authors Using Audible ACX by Bob Mayer

Audible ACX is an extremely user-friendly system allowing authors to produce their titles in audiobook format and make them available across a variety of platforms.

The information listed below contains my experiences and lessons learned using ACX over the past six months.  I have invested over $35,000 in audiobooks and while my experience has been great overall, there are a few things I would have done differently from the start.

1. When preparing a book for auditions take your time when drafting the product description.  You automatically get Amazon’s current product description. You can go in and change it as you’re preparing the book for audition, so I recommend you do so before sending the book into production.  I’ve found the product descriptions are usually truncated.  Also, any reviews or blurbs you might have are missing.  Even when I include them in the product description, they still aren’t there when the book is ‘published’. The only way to include them is to contact Audible.  Make sure all the information is correct as it’s difficult to go back and fix it once the book goes into production.
2. I recommend finding a professional narrator from the talent pool Audible provides.  For an audition you want to give a couple of pages, including a section that has dialogue to see how that is handled by the narrator.
3. While the auditions are a good method, I’d recommend finding other titles that narrator has completed. Listen to the sample and check the customer reviews.  Those are the best determiners of quality of talent.  If you are not someone who has listened to audiobooks, you need to understand that people who do listen value the voice as much as they value the content.  So take your time and make sure you have top talent and be willing to pay for it (more on this below as you have two options on paying).  Have someone who is familiar with audiobooks listen to the auditions and the first fifteen minutes when completed.
4. Be patient.  It takes time for the book to be produced and then it takes time for Audible to approve the book and place it in the production pipeline.  Start with one book and wait for it to be completed. Listen to the end result and have others listen to it and make sure you are satisfied before contracting the same narrator to do other books.  Duty, Honor, Country ended up being 18 hours as it was over 175,000 words.
5. Once you are happy with a narrator, try to use the same one for all the books in a series.  Listeners expect to hear the same voice just as they expect the same writing from authors.
6. Payment:  you have two options.  Pay for production up front OR do a 50-50 royalty split with the narrator.  For all my books I’ve paid up front so I can’t really comment on the royalty split.  I generally posted for a payment window between $100-$200 an hour and ended up paying between $150-$200 per hour.  Frankly, that’s about the lowest you can pay and expect quality work.  I think $175 is a solid pay rate, but have ranged up and down from there.  Remember, this is a long-term investment and quality is key.  This means a 100,000 word book is going to cost you around $1,500 to $2,000 up front.  When you consider what a good editor costs, this is a reasonable amount.
7. As far as royalty split I haven’t done it so can’t comment.  I think you’d have to ‘sell’ the book to the talent, so they believe it will sell enough copies to make it worth their time.  However, if you can sell that, than you also believe it will ‘earn out’ and thus I’d pay up front.  Just my opinion.  Also, by paying up front you have more control over the book in that you are not locked into a contract with the narrator beyond payment.
8. When the book is finished it is important to download all the files for the entire book and check them One of the files will be a retail audio sample.  You can use this for promotion on your web site and other locations.
9. Make sure the narrator labels the files in a coherent manner.  Most have their own preferences but it should be very clear in what order they go.  Usually title and then chapter number.

10. Your cover must be square, so have your cover designer redo your eBook cover into a square. I recommend the cover be as close to the eBook and paperback cover as possible.

The way Audible ACX matches content creators with talent is a template I believe other companies, including publishers, will use in the future.  It’s extremely efficient and easy to use.

 

Teaching, Shark Tanks and Covers

I’m heading down to Easton PA where I’ll be presenting a 3 hour workshop on Self-Publishing: What Really are your Options to the Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers. A few years back I went to a mini-conference for this chapter where the speaker was the one and only Bob Mayer. He was presenting his full day workshop on craft (highly recommend). I still have the notes. Really. Bob talks so fast that I had to write fast and when that happens I write in mirror image. My DH says that I have a real talent with writing backward…he just doesn’t know what the talent could be used for.

Back in the day when I was a high school business teacher I found that writing backward on the chalk board was a great opening day icebreaker (even better when I was a substitute teacher). It got the classes attention and most of my students thought it pretty cool. Let me tell you, capturing the attention of a 30 students between the ages of 14-18 when the topic is Accounting is no easy task, trust me.

I still occasionally use this unique talent when I am teaching or presenting depending on the topic and situation. This weekend I will be discussing the writers publishing options, the basics of self-publishing and bit on marketing and branding. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve meet a few of the writers in this group and they are fantastic! Also, I really enjoy talking on the topic.

Branding is a topic I really enjoy speaking about and I also love working with authors regarding developing brand and making that unique connection with their readers. My favorite part is the creation story because it forces the author to really look at themselves. Who they are. How their personal journey has shaped them as writers. And how all that will translate into the ultimate consumer interaction: the reading of the book. Get your readers excited through your own person excitement.

I got hooked on Shark Tank. Its the one show that my DH and I watch pretty much all the time together. If we don’t watch it together we are constantly discussing it. One of the things I love about it is these inventors have to come into a room full of “sharks” or the investors. These people are experts in their fields and have helped many business achieve their ultimate dream. I kind of find similar to pitching, but a little more brutal. There are times the sharks down right hate the product and pretty much tell the inventors to take a hike. Other times there are harsh negotiations. But here is the key: the inventors have to know their business, their product and what they bring to the table and convince the sharks to invest their money into their product. Sound a little familiar? They once even had a publisher on the show who seeking an investment into his ghost writing business. It was very interesting.

When I watch Shark Tank I pay close attention to how the inventors package their product. Packaging is very important. It’s often the first thing your consumer will see. I’ve actually learned a lot about covers from watching Shark Tank, at least in theory. There was one episode where a couple was seeking investors in their sippy cup product. It was a great product, but the packaging was all wrong and the sharks agreed.

On the last post Bob showed some of the covers we’re considering for the Atlantis Series. We have a few minor adjustments and tweaks (thanks to everyone–the observations and suggestions are appreciated) to make and the new covers will be revealed next week. But I’ve also been revisiting other covers that through market research we have found are not performing well. One is Synbat. Let me know what you think of this cover.

Write It Forward!

Covers, covers, covers and more covers—how do covers for a series work?

As an indie publishing house, we’re able to move quickly at Cool Gus Publishing (yes, the official change-over will occur later this week as our web site shifts to CoolGus.com).  We track our sales and our metadata, always looking for ways to improve sales and our brand.  I’ll blog more about the Cool Gus brand in future posts, but today I want to focus on covers.

The Atlantis series was the first of my backlist that we published.  We learned a lot doing that.  We learned scanning was very imperfect and copy-editing was essential (we still have those early reviews on the Amazon page and that was the price of ignorance).  We learned how to do covers, by starting with some pretty bad ones.

I think we hit our stride with my new Area 51 covers, Duty, Honor, Country and I love our cover for the upcoming release (11 June) of I, Judas: The 5^th Gospel.

Having cycled through over 70 titles in back and front list for our authors, we felt it was time to revisit our beginning.  We decided it was time to redo the Atlantis covers in order to make the six books seem more like a series and also so that they “popped” more.  That’s the word we use for a cover that really stands out in thumbnail.

Jen came up with a cover for the first book I really loved.  So then we had to figure out a way to make the next five books align, yet be different.  We decided to us the same base concept but with different colors and a different image on each one that represented something key from the story.

We spent days emailing back and forth as Jen tried concept after concept and I dove back into the books, trying to determine what images would be key.  So we’re putting this out there for your input.

Here were the concepts:

Atlantis—just the gate opening.  A gate to where?  By who?  That’s the story.

Atlantis Bermuda Triangle:  Opens with a ballistic nuclear submarine doing . . .  So we wanted a sub theme.  Here are two choices.

Atlantis Devil’s Sea:  Amelia Earhart plays a role in this book (and in subsequent books).  So first we tried the plane image.  But a gladiator in 79 AD also plays a role as Mount Vesuvius is erupting, so we had that image.  Then we also went with just the gate, but in red.  Here are three choices.

Atlantis Gate popped right away as the Battle of Thermopylae plays a key role in the past tale (the last 5 books have dual storylines from past and present).  I liked the helmeted image right away (although Jen did have one with the face in a shadow and glowing eyes).  I’ll show you that one here.

For Assault, I wanted the image of Crazy Horse, but in a statue (better than Custer with a few arrows in him).  They’re building a huge one near Mount Rushmore and I found these images.  We asked the photographer’s permission, Mike Tigas, and he graciously gave it.  Then Jen presented it in three different ways.

And for the final book, while the past storyline included Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, the present storyline featured an assault by Special Operations Forces against the Shadow and an advanced version of the Osprey figured in the storyline.  So we’ve got two options.

Feel free to weigh in.  Also, is it important that the covers in a series look alike?  Because the reality is, you’re never really going to see them like this, are you:

The Super Secret Sacred Words and our Fearless Leader

People ask me all the time how old my children are and I reply with a proud smile, “I have a 91, a 93 and 97.” Everyone reading this post who has a child who has played or does play hockey is rolling on the floor laughing hysterically because they get it.  They also understand that my nearly new SUV has more miles than the average 1966 Chevy owner. Seriously. Of course there is the advice I give my boys every time they leave for the big game, “make mama proud and hit someone.” Yes. I really say that. $20 bucks goes to the first Talty who “drops” someone. For those of you who have hockey players or follow the sport, this all makes perfect sense, for the rest of you it’s a foreign language.

All of the above is what is known in the “branding” world as SACRED WORDS. Sacred words are simply terminology that helps people feel as though they belong, and we all want to feel like we a part of something.

Sacred words are important because they are created out of communication with your readers and in such a way that makes them feel as though they are part of a special little world. When Bob and Jenny Crusie did the He Wrote/She Wrote blog their fans (the Cherrybombs) took a hold of things that Bob and Jenny said and made their own little language consisting of living the dream, we’re all doomed, nothing but good times ahead, and whose turn is it to watch moot?

Bob and I use things like: many roads to Oz, content is king, know the rules, break the rules, write it forward, lead follow or get out of the way, writers create the product, readers consume the product, readers rule, and of course Bob has been abducted by aliens 14 times and knows exactly what that mothership looks like.

Scared words are simply sayings we use over and over again that when people hear them they think back to us, or our books, or our blog, or whatever it is we are working on branding. These words or phrases should happen organically and not forced on our readership, but they are things we need to think about because they support our Creed: the singular notion we want people to think and feel.

Everything about Branding I’ve talked about so far (Creation Story, Creed, Icon, Rituals, Pagans, Sacred Words) are meant to be used as a looking glass into the connection between you and your readers. Remember, we writers produce the product and readers consume the product. That is a relationship and every relationship has a beginning (creation), a special meaning (creed), a symbol that connects them (icon), a set of interactions (the rituals), the people who don’t like your books (pagans) and a set of words or sayings that bind you together (sacred words).

And then there is the LEADER. A leader is a visionary. A leader has the ability to make tough choices and do what is best in the long run. A leader is good with big picture and projects out, but also has the ability to make adjustments when the big picture shifts. A good leader listens to the people he/she works with. Not everyone is built to be a leader. I always joke with my husband that I’m really, really good at being the support vehicle. The one that takes the visionaries plan and implements it. The joke is I take direction well, but at the same time, taking direction well is a good quality.

In your own branding plan YOU are the leader. In your network of followers YOU are the leader and it is important to exercise good leadership. This comes at the reader level and also at a professional level. Bob mentioned in his last post that no one is going to care as much about your book as you, and for the most part I agree totally, except YOUR readers care and any one else you bring on your team. Readers are a big part of your team and if we go back to the very first post I did on branding I talked about the promise you make to your reader. That promise is a trust and a bond.

Branding isn’t about marketing as much as it is about understanding yourself and finding that comfortable place where you belong…with others. This entire series is meant to show you how we as humans connect with others and build communities. Understanding that dynamic will help you develop a real reader/author community.

The 7 parts of primal branding are important and I truly believe it is important for every author to really examine each part. The creation story is who we are and from that everything else is built. It will change and grow over time, because we change and grow.

What are you doing to make that connection with your readers? And just for fun, what are your personal sacred words?

I’ll start. One of my sacred words/sayings that I use in my circle of friends all the time is: write ugly, it’s beautiful.

Aggressive versus Obnoxious in the Land of Publishing

When I give presentations to writers I joke that the difference between being aggressive and obnoxious is that the aggressive writer has a good manuscript and the obnoxious one has a bad manuscript.  For over a decade that’s always gotten a good laugh.

The only problem was, I wasn’t following my own advice.

I’ve grown much more assertive in the past six months.  One of the largest mistakes I made coming out of Special Forces and going into traditional publishing was trusting that other people would do their jobs without having to look over their shoulders.  This cost me.  I have to remember Special Forces are the elite.  I could trust my life to the men on my A-Team to do their jobs to the utmost of their capabilities and I did.

Now I push others, gently, but consistently, in order to achieve goals.  No one cares more about the success of your book than the author does.  Always remember that.  Perseverance and persistence count for a lot.

My experience over the last several years as an indie is this:  the absolute best bang for the buck and time is networking.  To actually meet the people who make this industry run.

The biggest mistake I made in traditional publishing was sitting back and thinking my agent, my editor, my publisher, etc. would take care of me.  They’re not bad people, but like any job, they focus on the fires and not the person who isn’t on their radar.  Getting on the radar is key.  I actually thought that by not calling, emailing, etc. they would appreciate me more.  Wrong.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Sitting back and expecting people to come to you is a fatal assumption.  There’s a reason the entire staff at Cool Gus Publishing—which is Jen Talty and I—have/will be attending in 2012:  Digital Book World, Romantic Times; Thrillerfest; Spellbinders in HI; Indiana RWA; Desert Dreams; New England Romance Writers; NJRWA; Utah RWA; Valley Forge RWA; and a score of other conferences.

I’m sitting in the Delta Crown Club on the way back from Desert Dreams in Phoenix.  Was it worth it?  Yes.  I gave a four-hour presentation on Write It Forward.  But the most important part is talking to people.  At this conference I talked to a Vice Dean at Ohio State who said I might be a good person to speak at their faculty retreat this summer.  We agreed ‘retreat’ is a bad word for something that is supposed to be a positive experience.  Retreat, hell.  We just got here.  I also talked to Brenda Novak for a while.  Have to remember to donate some stuff to her auction.  I’m thinking a year’s free enrollment in our on-line classes.  You donate something too or bid on something.  Yeah. YOU.

I listened to a panel of agents and editors.  And it confirmed that no one really knows what’s going on.  I’ll do a post on my instant reactions to that on Wednesday morning at Genreality.

It takes persistence to really network.  You have to look at all the cards you gather at a conference and after a few days to let everyone gather their brains, follow up.  Another thing I got at this conference was a three CD set of my presentation.  So we have to upload that to digital.  Then I want to figure out a way to coordinate the audio with the actual slide presentation.  I believe there is a program to do that, correct?  It’s something I just emailed Jen that we probably need to outsource rather than learn another entirely new skill set.  We’ve got enough work.  So, hint, if you know how to do this—drop us a line.  See. You can even network on a blog.

I force myself to go talk to people who I need to meet.  At Digital Book World I stood like one of those doofuses you always see hanging at the edge of the circle after the speaker is done and everyone else is talking to them after an exec at Amazon spoke.  I waited until everyone had said their piece, then talked to him.  Here’s a key though—you need an icebreaker.  Bella Andre says “I made a million dollars selling eBooks last year.”  She says it tends to get people’s attention.  Duh.  I said to this guy:  “I’m selling one thousand eBooks a day on Kindle.”  That got me some face time.

Actually, one piece of advice I give people now is that one of the best networking tools is to go to people’s blogs and leave cogent comments.  People tend to read the comments on their own blogs.  If you make sense, you will get noticed.

Bell Andre said something at Digital Book World:  you email someone and they don’t reply, you keep doing it.  Politely, spaced out.  Nine times you won’t hear back as they’re swamped with work.  But sooner or later you’ll hit that window where they have the time to respond.

As important as the writing is, networking is also important!

By the way, Jen’s new cover for Atlantis is working.  Sales doubled last week.  We have to redo the rest of the books in the series now.  But this is what I love about being an indie publisher.  We can change things quickly.

What do you do to network?  Any special tips?

Author Branding: Rituals, Pagans and Conferences…Oh My!

Rituals:

There isn’t much to say about rituals other than they are repeated meaningful interactions you have with your readers. It starts with the promise you made to your readers when you published your first book, since that is generally the first introduction your readers have into your world.

It used to be the author ritual consisted of a few media interactions during release, a book tour, book signings and then disappears to write the next bestseller. Today’s author can’t afford to shut down and shut off.

Meanwhile, Bob is heading “down the hall” to his writing office where there is no Internet. The difference is he’s not shutting down for months on end. He knows the new rituals of the digital author have to be fulfilled pretty much on a daily basis, but the most important ritual for the author is still CONTENT: the book.

You can look at the Area 51 as a ritual. Why? Because Bob’s readers are chomping at the bit to get the next installment. We constantly get emails asking if there will be more in this series (as well as other series). Of course, Bob responded with Nightstalkers (and oh boy is this one good!)

All this branding stuff I’m throwing out here is very important to long-term success, but nothing is more important than writing the book. You don’t create rituals and relationships with readers without a book. You can’t create a brand without a product: the book.

Pagans:

Or Non-believers. Pagans come in various sizes and shapes. Pagans are often your competition, so not necessarily an adversary, but simply another product. Coke versus Pepsi. The Buffalo Sabres versus Boston Bruins. Nora Roberts versus Jen Talty. Okay, the last one is a stretch, but you get the point.

The reason why Pagans of this variety are important is they help define who we are. 7-Up became the un-cola. Wendy’s asked “where’s the beef?” and Taco Bell told us to “think outside the bun.” But first you have to figure out who your non-believers are and then you can focus on those who might be believers. People who have to have their Starbucks every morning are not the same personality type as those who drink instant coffee. People who prefer to read Stephen King are probably not going to enjoy a Jen Talty romantic suspense novel…ah, but perhaps a Nora Roberts fan might.

Defining what you are not is just as important as defining what you are.

Once you do that you can learn to take with a grain of salt someone who hates your book for the simple reason it wasn’t their brand of coffee. They are not your readership and therefore the repeated meaningful ritual will not actually be repeated and that’s okay, focus on where those rituals will be repeated.

Conferences…on my…

I’m heading to the Romance Writer’s of America New England Chapter Conference; Let Your Imagination Take Flight where I will be presenting a workshop on how to get the most out of your conference experience and tips on pitching. This was the very first conference I ever attended and I believe it was the very first time Bob and I meet. Well, I had heard him speak before, but this was the first time I had a conversation with him, so I find it very fitting that I’m giving this workshop at this conference.  I also just registered for BEA in June and Bob and I have already begun our planning for what my goals will be at this conference. Planning is key to making a conference more than a success, but an experience.

Conferences are important rituals to the writer’s life because they put us with a group of people who actually understand.

I’m also really looking forward to this conference because my good friend Dena De Paulo’s debut novella Painted with Pleasure is a finalist in the Bean Pot Readers Contest. The only negative is Dena is making me wear a Tiara. Don’t ask. But I’m so excited for her. This being her first book and all. Validation is important, whether we want to admit it or not and I’m honored to be there for one of the nicest women I have ever met.

Write It Forward

Just Another Day in the Life of a Writer

After a while, you feel like you’ve said just about everything there is to say about writing and publishing, etc. etc. and I’ve been doing so many guest blogs this month, my brain is about fried with it.  One thing about being indie is it never stops.  I think if I took an entire day off, my email inbox would explode.  Right now it’s down to one screen, which is where I like to keep it.  Once I have to start scrolling, I’m in trouble.

I also sometimes feel like I’m either writing to the converted or just pissing people off who don’t want to read what I’m posting.  Who knows?

Still, it’s the greatest job and I love doing it.  I’m going through I, Judas: The 5^th Gospel once more, changing some things.  And then I have to jump into Area 51: Nightstalkers, my first book that will be published by Amazon’s science fiction imprint: 47North.  It’s the first of what will be at least a three book series.  With it, I will be merging the type of books I had in Area 51 with my Special Operations books.  In essence it’s about a very different Special Operations team operating out of Area 51.  More than that, I won’t say.

It’s been a hectic month and I fly out Thursday to Phoenix for Desert Dreams where I’ll be presenting for a half day on Friday with Write It Forward, which is my program teaching writers how to be professional authors.

Last weekend I did a day-long workshop for the Indiana Romance Writers.  It was a superbly run event and I’d like to thank Judith and the rest of her team for the great job they did.

I posted a blog at Digital Book World where I said traditional publishing as we know it died in March 2012 and it received surprisingly little response.  My emphasis was on the traditional.  Publishing will always be around.  The extreme change in business models from print to digital is a lot for any business to go through and survive.  And I’m just not getting the sense a lot of people in publishing are embracing the change.  I see a lot of defensiveness from the same people who were sneering at eBooks just two years ago.  Defensiveness is not good.  The first true step of change is to surrender.  Accept the current situation is not the best.  Until that happens, people hold on to untenable positions and eventually they will be swarmed under.  The recent DOJ situation has big time implications.

By the way, if you’re interested, please take a look at my guest blog at Digital Book World:  It’s a Business—Is Amazon an Enemy or a Potential Ally?

The Write It Forward Author Branding Plan: The Icon

So far we have discussed The Creation Story and The Creed in the Author Branding Plan. Now lets move on to The Icon.

An Icon is an image or words that represents your product/company/service to your consumers. The Golden Arches: McDonalds. The Swoosh: Nike. The Apple: Apple. We see these images and we know exactly what they represent and what we as consumers can expect from those companies. Icons can also be the name of your company. Amazon is a good example. Or it can be your face. Dr. Phil is a good example. However, many experts would argue that it is the presentation of his name that is the Icon, not his face. In this case, both are Icons because both make a promise to his fans.

I’m not a fan of using your mug shot as the Icon for your author brand. While YOU are the BRAND most authors are not recognized because their author photo is not the biggest marketing tool. A good book, cover, title and author name are they keys to branding fiction. Now, if you are a non-fiction writer, then using a professional image of yourself might be the way to go, but I would suggest developing some kind of symbol as your Icon along with your photo. Something that goes well with your Creed.

The majority of us aren’t going to achieve global recognition. However that doesn’t make our Icon any less important, so take some time to really consider what you to put out there and remember, you can change this and your readership will embrace it if its done for the right reasons.

The Icon has always been the weakest part of our branding until recently. We struggled with coming up with an Icon that fit every aspect of our business–more importantly–every aspect of Bob and all that he does. Our first Icon was the chess piece: The Knight. This was something Bob had done for his Who Dares Wins Consulting business and since we decided we’d keep that as the publishing company name (after days of wargaming) it seemed fitting. But it never felt right. We then made the switch the cool looking keyboard, but it still didn’t feel right. We really loved the next one, the globe with the SAS patch, but shortly after we came up with it we had an MOE (moment of enlightenment). As we explored our business plan from where we started, to where we are now, to where we want to be five years from now we realized it was time to make some big changes and move more mainstream.

Then came a 4-day war-gaming email session that landed us on…drum roll please…Cool Gus Publishing with Cool Gus as the Icon. Gus, with those sunglasses and the bright light gleaming off in the background screams, “lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.”

It’s ironic in a way because 3 years ago, when Gus was just a pup we tossed around the idea of Cool Gus Publishing, but we were more focused on building the foundation of the business, which is Bob’s backlist, so we were looking at all things military. As we went from 2 authors to 10 authors, as our sales grew and as our focus reached beyond the foundation and looked to where we planned on being 3 years from now, this change makes perfect sense.

It also solidifies our brand, pulling it all together with image and message and making the connection between author and reader. Cool Gus is fun and entertaining (remember Cool Gus and the Giant Whale expedition)? But Cool Gus also has a deeper side. He’s a thinker and very intellectual (Intellectual Gus is the one that does all the heavy lifting).

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for one our authors’, Amy Shojai who is making the jump from non-fiction to fiction. We contracted her for her debut fiction release coming out this fall. We are very excited for one of our resident experts on pets to bring that expertise into her fiction writing with one of the main supporting characters being a dog! Got to love that. Cool Gus is beaming with pride.

The current publishing climate makes the branding process even more important for the writer. Its one of many tools you have to help create discoverability and sustainability. The emphasis is on ONE of MANY. Nothing happens in a vacuum. AND it all takes time to develop. Don’t feel as though you have to immediately go out and come up with every aspect of the WIF Author Branding Plan. You don’t. In actuality, you can’t. It develops over time as you grow and develop as a writer and as you put more quality books out there for your readers to enjoy. It happens as you begin to have real interactions with your readers outside of your book.

Those interactions are part of your Rituals and that will be the next topic we discuss in our branding plan.

Write It Forward!

Related articles

• The Secret Success of the Digital Author (writeitforward.wordpress.com)
• Market Your Fiction with Non-Fiction (wordservewatercooler.com)

Romantic Times Wrap Up, Nook First and FREE eBooks

I’m back home and have spent the entire day just trying to clear out my email in-box and my physical in-box.  I also took Cool Gus & Sass Becca for a run.  It was about 85 out, but luckily we cross a creek during the run and they can splash about and drink some water.  They’re still getting used to the big move and the much different weather.  Becca chased a fox, which might not have turned out well, but it got away.

Free on Amazon 17-21 April

I’ve got a stack of business cards from RT that I have to go through and follow up on.  It was a very worthwhile trip.  I’m indebted to Romantic Times for my career achievement award even though I missed being there on time to get it—those who know me, know that when I teach, I tend to stay afterwards and answer all questions and time just away from me.  Mea Culpa.

I also talked for a long time with a friend from the King County library system and big plans are brewing in my brain.  I can see the smoke.

Free on Amazon 17-21 April

Free on Amazon 17-21 April

Beyond that, starting today, we have three free books for Kindle:  Aztec by Colin Falconer, Rekindled by Jen Talty and Atlantis Devil’s Sea by moi.

Terry Brooks had this to say about my Atlantis series:  “Spell-binding! Will keep you on the edge of your seat. Call it techno-thriller, call it science fiction, call it just terrific story-telling.”  That’s what you get when you teach with him seven straight years at Maui, but also it is a really cool series.

This book is one of my favorites because my hero, Ragnarok, a Viking in the year 1,000 AD, must protect a Seer from Valkyries, Kraken and other forces of legend and help her on a quest that connects through mysterious gates to my modern former Green Beret, Eric Dane’s battle in the present.  Ragnarok was one of those characters that just clicked.  He’s a guy’s guy.  Very concerned about the condition of his axe.  Seriously.

Also this week, one of my books is being featured on Nook First:  Psychic Warrior: Project Aura.  I based the book on an actual program (once classified) we ran in the 10^th Special Forces Group (Airborne).  If you’ve seen the movie, Men Who Stare At Goats, well,– strangely, while it was a funny movie, there was a lot of really true material in there.  We did some strange things in Trojan Warrior and also, the First Earth Battalion was a concept I was briefed on at West Point.

There’s a lot more interesting stuff happening, including, a name change for Who Dares Wins Publishing.  I’ll blog about it later, once the LLC is formally established, but there’s a really big hint on this page for what the new name will be.

Write It Forward!

RT Day 2 Report and Missing Getting An Award

When I teach, I tend to really get caught up in it and yesterday during the last session of the day there were so many people asking questions after it that I lost track of time and by the time I got to the RT awards ceremony people were like “Hey, you missed getting your award.”  So I wasn’t being rude, I just lost track.  But it is pretty cool to get a career award because I had just emailed my wife that it felt like 20 some odd years of writing were coming together with all the people I’m meeting who I’ve run into over the years and how my career has really evolved.  Listening to people and studying the business, I feel pretty good about the decisions I’ve made the last couple of years to take the risk of going indie and other choices since then.  A lot of that started back in 2010 when Jen Talty approached me about publishing my backlist in eBook.  I didn’t take it seriously until 2011 when I made the decision to go indie 100%.  So Jen gets big kudos.

Back to RT.  Thanks for the award, first off.  I did notice I was the only man getting an award, so I’m not sure what that says about me, but it certainly is interesting.  The award says for thrillers and in my early books the protagonist is named Dave Riley and my new grandson is named Riley, so that is extra cool.  Actually, the more I think about it, I am very, very appreciative.

Some observations at RT:

Lines.  I’ve never people more willing to wait in lines.  Weird.  In fact, when I arrived I saw a huge line downstairs, no idea what they were waiting for, so I went upstairs and sat in a chair in an isolated part and tweeted about lines and as soon as I did that, a line started forming in front of me.

There are some costumes here.  The steampunk ones are interesting.  There was a borg steampunk one last night that was pretty cool.  The Victorian dresses are really great.  And no, I’m still not breaking out my kilt.

I listened to a panel of authors talking about Special Operations heroes because I figured I needed to know what people write about.  Cherry Adair, who is quite wonderful, seemed to be quite concerned about those men’s sperm.  Enough said.

I told her I would blog about her and sperm and she said make sure I said “super-sperm.”

But on a serious note, they kept talking about honor as one of the key traits to those kind of heroes.  I kind of disagree with that.  It’s loyalty that is key, not honor.  There is a big difference between the two.  My Duty, Honor, Country book has that at it’s core.  Outside of that, though, they were very on target.

The panel by Liz Edelstein and Megan Frampton on self and trad publishing was very good.  They were very honest and up front.  Made me think I needed to get back into writing romance again.  Of course a man really can’t write romance that women want to read because we view it very differently.

Well, hell, I got a career achievement award as a writer.  Never expected that.