So, let’s get the self-promotion out of the way. Prime Day is coming up this 15th and 16th. During that time my first book, “Exile’s Redemption” will be on sale for FREE! If you have not read it, or have someone you would like to introduce to the series at no risk to your wallet, mark your calendar. The actual sale starts on the 14th and goes through the 18th. In addition, the second book “Exile’s Gamble” will be on sale for $2.99 – that’s $2 off, for the same period. And as always (makes puppy dog eyes) reviews are always desired. You can post reviews for any of the books at the following links:

Exile’s Redemption

Exile’s Gamble

Exile’s Legacy

Enough of that. Let me tell you about sleep apnea. It’s a horrible, horrible thing. It’s bad enough always feeling hung over, but it can kill you. I don’t just mean because you fall asleep behind the wheel (which I have done). It can lead to heart failure. In fact, one of my favorite artist/writers, Drew Hayes, died from this very thing. They didn’t catch it on time and the damage to his heart was too great. The man was one of my great inspirations, even if all his girl elves looked like strippers.

And now I’ve been diagnosed with it. I don’t know about elsewhere but here in Central Oregon it takes about six months to get in to see about a sleep disorder. I got in and they agreed my symptoms warranted testing. They told me they’d send a home tester with me. I reached out my hands and said, “Gimme.” No, they couldn’t do that. Seems that despite the huge number of people with issues, they only have a total of four, count ’em, four testers. I had to wait another month to get one. Then I had to wait another two weeks to get the results – extreme sleep apnea. My oxygen levels were getting down into the mid-sixties anytime I managed to get into REM. So, I’m getting CPAP machine. Of course, they couldn’t give me one immediately. The bureaucracy involved is phenomenal. I’m supposed to get it on the 23rd of this month. That means I will have waited an additional six weeks since my diagnosis to get the treatment.

There is good news, however. When I got my diagnosis and was told I couldn’t have a machine right away, I asked if there was anything I could do to help myself in the meantime. Sleep upright, I was told. I’m kicking myself I did not think of that on my own, but oh, well. I am now sleeping propped up by a wedge pillow and two additional “normal” pillows. Overnight my sleep improved. I’m still expecting things to improve more once I’m on the CPAP, but since I’ve adjusted my sleep position I haven’t fallen asleep during the day once. I feel immensely better and my work output has gone way up. I may actually finish book IV before you’ve all forgotten the events of book III.

So hurrah!

Let this go as a friendly bit of advice. If your sleep sucks, get it checked out. Even if you don’t develop a heart condition or drive into a tree, chronic fatigue leads to some nasty depression. It sneaks up on you over time. You don’t even realize it. Just everything becomes a chore.

Take Care, all of you.

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!

So the stars finally aligned between Amazon and Book Barbarian, and I was able to run a freebie sale for Exile’s Redemption. If you know of someone who has yet to give the series a try, let ’em know they have a couple of days to snap up the first book at no cost. Lots of folks have already taken the plunge and I’m excited to announce that for the moment, Exile’s Redemption is #1 in the free Kindle store in two categories! With luck it will stay visible for a few days and more folks will discover the series.