Monthly Archives: May 2019

Book Review: Conflict

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For any of you interested in writing, this book sounds like it goes a step farther than the usual. I’m looking forward to consuming it.

Mad Genius Club

In the too-many weeks since I’ve been well enough to write (if you’re interested, continual nausea shuts off my creative mind, just as constant pain does to other people) I’ve tried to keep a tiny bit of the Muse interested by looking at books on writing technique. OK, most of them get walled before I’m more than 20% in, usually because they are based on blanket prescriptions that I don’t agree with. But in the most recent survey I did come across one book that interested me all the way through and that inspired me to make copious notes.

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Now Available on NetGalley!

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The first book in my series, “Exile’s Redemption” is now available at NetGalley. That means folks who do not have Amazon Prime can read it for free if they get a NetGalley membership. If that sounds like you, or you know someone who this applies to, point them toward: https://bit.ly/2LXbYLX

The overall ploy is to get more reviews for the first book. The greater number of reviews, the more likely new readers are willing to take a chance on an unfamiliar series. Once they read the first book, I of course hope they’ll read the next two. Fingers crossed, they’ll leave reviews for those books as well.

Based on sales and borrows of the entire series, people seem to enjoy the books. It’s a sad truth, though, that only one person out of a hundred readers generally leave a review. The deeper into the series they go, the less likely they are to continue writing reviews. The general feeling is that they’ve already expressed a like for the writing by leaving a review for the first book, it shouldn’t be necessary for them to do follow up reviews for the rest of the series. The fact is, those books are in need of feedback as much as the first book. It shows potential readers that the series has (or has not) maintained a certain level of readability. The more reviews, the more likely Amazon will feature the books in their reader mailings. Also, third-party advertising often requires a certain number of reviews before they will accept the book.

This is a not-so-subtle request for readers of my series to write reviews for any of my books you may have read and have not already reviewed. I have renewed my determination to do the same for the books I read. I have not done well by the writers I admire, not even leaving them a one or two sentence blurb on Amazon and Goodreads. Being a hypocrite is not one of those things I aspire to – changing that as of a month ago. I also plan to go back and catch up on the reviews I missed. Sorta a late New Years’ resolution.

Here’s that NetGalley link again: https://bit.ly/2LXbYLX

Thanks everyone!

Release Day and Events Leading Up To It.

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New book out by Amanda S. Green. Check it out if you enjoy strong female protagonists and/or military sci-fi.

Mad Genius Club

Okay, if there was ever any doubt I am mad, as in insane, these past few months should put those doubts to rest. I knew my production had been down the last year or so. I was still putting out books, but not at the rate I wanted to. So, when this year began, I decided to make a few changes to my routine to see if that changed. It took about six weeks for the changes to really kick in. When they did, everything changed and I swear Myrtle the Evil Muse turned more evil than ever. How so? Starting mid-February, the real work on Nocturnal Revelations began. A month ago, the book went live on Amazon, all 120k words of it. This morning, Battle Flight, a prequel to Vengeance from Ashes, went live. That book is more than 50k words. To say my brain is fried…

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Anatomy Lesson

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I would love to have the time to do serious research. Just not gonna happen. I did read a few books about horses, so I wouldn’t totally screw them up, and I have referenced images of sword anatomy, but if I went much deeper it would take ten years to put out a book instead of 2-3.

Mad Genius Club

Talking about swords is kinda difficult. Case in point: last week I tried to give a definition, and ended up skewing off into the weeds of history almost immediately. In discussing this very difficulty with Tom (who has just founded the Albany Study Group of Schola Saint George) he suggested I leave you with the definition with which I started last week, and tell you to go an prosper, under the assumption that suffering produces better art. Now, I didn’t tell him to get bent (I figure his mettle is better than *that*) and I’m not going to let him know his oh-so-clever japes actually helped.

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