Hey there! So the blog tour is all set up and ready to go, and I want to hold my first giveaway.
"Did he say giveaway?!"
"Yes. Yes I did."
With a little help from Rafflecopter, I am going to be giving away a $50 Amazon gift card and a free copy of The River Runes at the end of the tour. All throughout, from June 4th to June 15th, you will be able to tweet, blog, follow, share, and answer questions to earn entries that could make you a winner. Some of the stops are also holding drawings for you to win your own ebook version of The River Runes, and there is another gift card out there somewhere!
Make sure to visit all the stops as you go and come back here to enter for this prize. There are more chances to win all throughout the tour, and another gift card out there at one of the stops!
I don't see any reason for all the commotion, really. This vs. That, Us vs. Them... it all seems kind of silly to me. Independent publishing is not a new thing, but it is definitely on the rise. Does that mean it's the only option? Not at all.
There are lots of authors out there just looking for a way to get their work out there. I'm one of them. But guess what... Stephen King was one of them at some point as well. King is one of the highest selling and most read authors in the world. Basically, he could spit on 1000 pieces of paper, bind them together with a picture of two dogs humping on the cover, and he would probably sell a million copies. However, it hasn't always been like that. King wrote for years while he still had to keep a day job. Rejections and bills piled up for him, just like anyone else that is just starting out. Would he have self published if the tech was then what it is now? Who knows.
That's not the point.
The point is: It doesn't happen over night. Not for anyone. Whether you self pub or query agents and publishers to get your work out there, success won't come overnight.
Things are changing. Does anyone really know where publishing will be in ten years? No. If they did, there would be no reason for all the arguing. However, one thing that will always be the same; If you want to make it an author (or hell, if you want to make it as anything) you have to keep working. Keep writing, keep reading.
"But I self pubbed and my book didn't make it to the best seller's list and I can't quit my job and spend all my time writing and the world isn't made out of fluffy puppies and rainbows and robot unicorns!"
Right, well get over it.
"But I queried eight million agents until I found the right one and they contacted a thousand publishers until we finally got a deal and now my book is out there but I still don't have a million dollars and I don't live in cloud city and etc..."
Yeah, get over that too.
No matter how you decide to get your work out there (btw, there is no reason you can't do both throughout your writing career) you still have to keep working. Here are some quotes, because I love quotes:
"They pay me absurd amounts of money, for something that I would do for free" -Stephen King
"Work hard for four years, and you can get an
engineering degree. In seven years, you're a lawyer. Eight and you can
practice medicine. Hard work = success"- J.A. Konrath
Are you willing to work hard, really work hard, to get what you want? Then you should already know that it won't happen overnight. If you don't want to work hard, then writing isn't for you. Simple as that.
Would you keep writing if you could never make a dime from it? Be honest, this one's important. If your answer is no, then it's time to move on. If you don't read and write because you can't not do it, (see if you can swim through all those negatives) then it means you don't love it. If you don't love it, then you won't succeed.
If writing is what you love to do, keep doing it, no matter what. Can I guarantee you will make money from it? No. Can I guarantee that you will spend lots of time doing something you love? Yes. There's no reason for self publishers to hate on authors that publish traditionally or vice versa. We all write because it's our dream, it's what we want to do.
My point in all of this. So what if other people are taking a different road than you are. Let them. Everyone's idea of success is different, so everyone's journey will be different as well.
Okay, those are my thoughts today. Thanks for reading, buh bye then
I know, it's strange. Why would I spend time writing when I could play Angry Birds or Robot Unicorn Attack: Evolution (yes it's real and it's fun and addicting and I'm not going to link it here because I don't want to be responsible for the untold hours you are likely to waste playing the game and the only thing I will say is that if you do play it, turn the music off because it may cause suicidal/homicidal tendencies) or even just hit that little StumbleUpon button for the rest of the day?
Because I love to write. I always feel better when I'm writing, and when I am writing well and leaping through pages without much effort, I feel a bit like a keyboard Superman. I am so incredibly excited about Clockwork Charlie and book two of the Caithiir series, and all I want to do is write and write and write and drink coffee. And write.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to get back to Flipped anytime soon. :( Sorry if you're looking forward to it, but I just don't have the 4-8 hours it takes to write, edit, draw, do sound, etc... I would like to come back to it at some point, but for right now I have to let it go. I do have a few reviews to catch up on, but I'll be doing them here, just as written reviews.
"So, what's so damn important that you can't take a few minutes to draw your big fat head being mauled by angry unicorns once a week?" you may ask.
Well, as I said earlier, I've been writing.
Also, I am gearing up for my blog tour, which will be going on June 4th-15th. There will be interviews and guest posts and basically you will see my goofy face all over the internets for two weeks. This is my first blog tour, and really, it's a trial run. I want to see what affect it will have on sales, readers, blog numbers, and so on and so forth, before I am finished with my next few books. If it goes well, I will have a much better idea of how to launch a book than I did a year ago. If it doesn't, then I still have plenty of time to readjust my plans before my next ones are ready for human consumption.
There will be lots of free copies of The River Runes going out during the tour, and I will even be hosting a big giveaway here, for folks who will follow and participate throughout the whole thing. As we get a bit closer I will post all of the tour dates and blogs and more info about giveaways and other stuff and things and yeah.
I still don't have a microphone :( so no Flipped Book Review this week. But I wanted to give you guys something, and I only just realized that I have yet to review Wrath and Remembrance, by John Walker. I read this book months back, and somehow never got around to the review. So here it is :)
Title: Wrath and Remembrance by John Walker
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Goodreads description: As Jack Parrish
struggles to survive and hold onto his sanity in an ever-changing world,
someone from his forgotten past is hunting him. The car crash he survived as a child has left him without parents and struck by amnesia for the next 18 years. What do his nightmares mean? Are they distorted flashes from his past or premonitions of what will be? Why is someone out to kill him? Just
when life seems to be going right for Jack those close to him are being
murdered and Jack is forced into a deadly game of cat and mouse.
First and Foremost, I really enjoyed the story of Wrath and Remembrance. There is some great character development and the plot is strong and easy to follow.
Jack Parrish is the protagonist, and I have a hard time believing that anyone could read this book, and not be on his side. The author guides us seamlessly through Jack's world, and kept me on the edge of my seat through most of the book. Since I remark on editing for all of my indie reviews, I have to say that Wrath and Remembrance was well crafted and honed and well as any big label book. However, I am not a huge fan of the cover art for this one. I think with such a great story, John would do well to get a cover that will draw people to his work.
Now I don't have any problem with an author sharing some political or religious views through his or her writing, (in fact, I think that this is one of the things that most great literature has in common throughout history) but it's something you should be aware of before you start reading. This one has some definite religious themes, but they don't take away from the story at all.
I give John Walker's, Wrath and Remembrance, 5 stars out of 5!
This title is available at Amazon.com, right now for only $.99!
Hope you've all been having a wonderful week, mine's been good :)
I have a blog tour coming up! Yay! It will run, on weekdays, for the first two weeks in June. There will be giveaways and I will be doing interviews and guest posts and some kind folks will even be reading The River Runes and telling other people what they thought of it. (hopefully most of it is good)
I'm excited. The second edition is now out for all the world to see, with more editing and polishing, and now I want to learn all I can about this new world of internet marketing. It's one of the pieces of the indie publishing world that I am still not all that sure about. I know that a lot of finding readers comes down to luck, but I'm sure that if I do the proper work, I can at least point my novel in the right direction.
I hope. :)
If, by chance, any of you lovely people has a blog and would like to be a part of the blog tour, please send me a message. I would love to expand the tour and talk to as many people as possible!
Other things and stuff!
Some of you may have noticed that right after I posted my new schedule, I missed my Thursday post (Flipped Book Review). I'm sorry, but I have excuses. (Don't we all?!)
I don't have a working microphone! That's right, it's lame, but true. It's hard to make a video, where speaking is a large percentage of the work, without the proper equipment. (fun fact: I'm low on coffee right now, and I just typo(-ed?) the word equipment about four times. Is there a correlation? I think so!
But, Ken! you said you had excuses... as in more than one?
I do. The other reason there was no post last week was that I put a lot of time into reading a book... a book, about which, I just could not find nice things to say. I really wanted it to be good. I wanted the story to be good enough to make me look past the not-well-edited writing. It didn't work out.
I feel like crap because of it. Every story has some redeeming qualities, but I promised not to give any review if I couldn't give a book three stars. I guess it's bound to happen, but I hate it. It bothers me so much because I want to support my fellow indies out there. I want to believe in their work, and promote them as much as I can. However, I can't, in good conscience, give a positive review for a book that had me cringing every time I turned the page.
I almost didn't even mention it here (or anywhere). But I want other indie authors to know how important it is for us to put out the best possible work we can. We are asking folks, loved ones and strangers alike, to believe in what we're doing. We're asking them to spend their hard-earned money on the work we are putting out there, and they deserve our very best efforts.
Here are some of the steps I take, with links to some of the tools I use (not that my writing is anywhere near perfect): Ken's Editing Tips
I get it. I can't afford an editor either. But there are tools out there for us, you just have to look. No one is asking you to be perfect, (well, some people will) but you have to go as far as you can. Not just for you and your readers, but for your story. It deserves every chance in the world, but it won't get a chance if you send it out before it's ready.
Okay, now I feel mean. Here is 8-million pounds of cute to make up for it:)
