21 May 2014

New BookBub promo: “Going Alien”

posted in: ebooks, science fiction, short stories, specials | 0

Time for another price cut! I couldn’t afford William Shatner to shill for me on TV, so I went with BookBub again to help me spread the word. My short-story ebook collection Going Alien has been marked down to just $.99, for a limited time only!

Did you read that right? Yes, you did! Just ninety-nine thin, copper-tinted Lincoln disks, or a one dollar bill with a corner snipped off! You can afford that. You can’t afford not to! Limited time only! You like short stories, right? Well, the more you buy, the more you save!

COME ON DOWN!

Kindle | Nook
Smashwords | iBooks
Kobobooks
Edit: Also now at Book View Cafe

And if you enjoy it, please thank me for the fantastic savings by posting a review! Thanks in advance!
12 May 2014

Fussy, Fussy Librarians

posted in: ebooks, publishing, specials, work in progress | 0

Okay, I’ve been absent here for a while, I know. I’ve been exceptionally busy with life—including but not limited to getting some new book covers done, preparing for some writing workshops, making some minor but important changes to ebook files, and, of course, working on The Reefs of Time. You’ll probably get a rash of posts from me with updates on a lot of this. And then I’ll probably go silent again for a while, because the outlook for the next couple of months is Crazy Busy, with Intermittent Chance of Madness.

My reason for emerging? I have a little promotion running today through a service called The Fussy Librarian. It’s a site that offers you a selection of discounted books, filtered by reviews and by your (the reader’s) personal preferences, such as genre and amount of sex and violence. They asked me to post today’s list of daily deals, so I am—but there are no links, so if something catches your eye, you’ll need to do a quick search. (Visit The Fussy Librarian if you would like to get your own daily email of new deals, which will have links.)

I had to chuckle when I saw the last book in the list.

Mysteries:
The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader (A Richard Sherlock Whodunit)
Jim Stevens
Price: $0.99

Thrillers:
Death of Secrets
Bowen Greenwood
Price: $2.99

Science fiction:
Neptune Crossing
Jeffrey A. Carver
Price: Free
(Okay, if you read this blog, you probably already know that Neptune Crossing is free. But the purpose of the ad is to draw new members readers into the cult fold.) 

Young adult:
Life’s What You Make It
Theresa Troutman
Price: $2.99

Romance-contemporary:
Dangerous
Suzannah Daniels
Price: Free

The Start of Something Good
Renee Vincent
Price: Free

Fantasy-epic:
Two (The Godslayer Cycle)
Ron Glick
Price: $0.99

Romance-suspense:
Savage Secrets
Cristin Harber
Price: $0.99

Romance-historical:
The Marquess (Regency Nobles Series, Book 2)
Patricia Rice
Price: $4.99

Fantasy-urban:
A Witch’s Tale
Rue Volley
Price: $0.99

Stormrage
Skye Knizley
Price: $2.99

Mysteries-Female sleuths:
A Dead Red Heart
RP Dahlke
Price: $2.99

Horror:
Unholy Testament – Full Circle
Carole Gill
Price: $0.99

Children’s / Middle Grade:
Keeper of Reign (Reign Fantasy, Book 1)
Emma Right
Price: $1.99

Romance-western:
Jaded
Chelle Chelle
Price: $0.99

Gay / Lesbian:
Somebody to Love
Merry Farmer
Price: $4.99

How-to:
Jump Start Your Book Promotions
RP Dahlke
Price: $0.99
(Starting, one presumes, with advertising on The Fussy Librarian?)

17 Apr 2014

The BookBub Promotion Went Great

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction, specials, The Chaos Chronicles | 0

If you were reading here last week, you know I marked down my omnibus ebook of The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1-3 for a week, in conjunction with a promotion on Bookbub.com. The sale went amazingly, gratifyingly well. Better than I expected or dreamed. In fact, there are more than 2500 people out there with shiny new copies of my omnibus on their Kindles, Nooks, iPads, whatever. More than 1500 people grabbed it on the first day alone. We broke into the top 100 sellers of all books in the Kindle store, and briefly lingered at #65 among all Kindle ebooks. More importantly, I’ve already heard from one new reader who discovered my work through the sale and has already ripped through it happily and gone on to download Sunborn.

That’s the most gratifying thing about it, is the new readers. The extra income is nice, too, of course.

If you’re one of those readers, I hope you enjoy the book! And if you do, I’d be eternally grateful if you’d take a moment to post a review wherever you bought it, or at Goodreads, or anywhere, really. Word of mouth means everything. And thanks!

8 Apr 2014

Bookbub Promotion on The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1–3!

posted in: books, ebooks, my books, Neptune Crossing, specials, The Chaos Chronicles | 0

Starting today, and for one week, The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1–3 (an ebook omnibus edition) will be steeply discounted, down to $1.99! That’s for three complete books—and would be a great price for just one book! Here’s another exclamation mark, for good measure! This is my second promotion through Bookbub, and I’m hoping it does as well as the first.

These three novels are enough to get you well into the Chaos story, starting with Neptune Crossing, and continuing with Strange Attractors and The Infinite Sea. I hate blowing my own horn, so can I let some others do it for me? Here are some honest-to-God quotes from other people:

  • Neptune Crossing – Called one of the best SF novels of the year by Science Fiction Chronicle 
  • Strange Attractors – “An irresistibly readable story line reinforced by fascinating speculative science.” —Booklist 
  • The Infinite Sea – “Another splendid adventure, with intriguing puzzles, first-rate problem-solving, and an impressive array of alien characters, motives, and methods.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Chaos Chronicles — click to biggify

It’s available at Nook, Amazon, Smashwords, and iTunes. It’s now also marked down at Book View Café. And at Kobobooks.

If you haven’t already added this set to your ebook collection, what are you waiting for?

6 Apr 2014

A New Look for Neptune Crossing—and First in a Series at Itunes!

posted in: books, ebooks, my books, Neptune Crossing, specials, The Chaos Chronicles | 0

A lot’s been going on since I last wrote. One exciting thing is that I’ve put a new cover on Neptune Crossing, which will join my list at Book View Café next Tuesday. It’s still free everywhere, both as a thank-you to my readers and as a way for new readers to discover my work.

In addition, Neptune Crossing has been selected as part of an iBooks promotion called “Free First in a Series at iTunes.” This is via my Smashwords edition which distributes to the Apple store, so a big thanks to Mark Coker of Smashwords for that. To see all the books being promoted as free first books in a series, go to the iTunes store, click on Books, and browse the front-page banner until you come to it.

Here’s the new cover, designed for me by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, fellow BVC author. In her spare time, she’s now working on a new cover for Strange Attractors.

Neptune Crossing cover

I have to get back to doing my taxes now, but look for another book-related announcement in a few days.

15 Mar 2014

E-Reads to Become a Part of Open Road Media

posted in: ebooks, my books, publishing | 0
Nine of my backlist books are currently published by E-Reads, founded in 1999 by my agent, Richard Curtis. E-Reads was a pioneering enterprise in the ebooks business, putting books up for sale when hardly anyone knew what an ebook was.
E-Reads is about to become a part of Open Road Media, and in the coming months my E-reads titles will become Open Road titles. Beyond a long-time acquaintance with Open Road editor Betsy Mitchell, who got her start in publishing at Dell at around the same time I was getting my start at Dell, I don’t know too much about the company. I guess I’m about to learn, though!
Here’s the detailed announcement from Open Road, and a summary by Publishers Weekly.
The times they are a’changing.
12 Mar 2014

Report on the BookBub Promotion

posted in: ebooks, specials | 0

I recently finished a special promotion on Eternity’s End, via BookBub. For a little over a week, the book was deep-discounted to $.99. On opening day, when the promotional email went out, it sold over a thousand copies at the Amazon Kindle store! After that, it tapered off pretty quickly, of course. But in all, it sold over 1600 ebooks, some in the Nook store but most in the Kindle store.

Now that the promo is over (the price is now $5.99), things have really fallen off at the Nook store, but at Kindle, although numbers have decreased, it continues to sell better than it did before the promotion. I hope it continues!

My writer friends told me to expect a lot more reviews as a result of the sales. (Reviews are considered by some experts to be one of the most important factors in continuing sales.) Well, at first I didn’t get any new ones. But today, two new reviews appeared at Amazon. Let’s just say they canceled each other out nicely.

The first one reads:

I had to force myself to read this book . It was a very dull and boring read . Entirely too much fill .
It drones on an on with no real action .
THE ONLY THING I COULD SAY TO PUT IT SIMPLY IS THAT IT , REALLY, REALLY SUCKED.
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS AUTHOR OR HIS BOOKS TO ANY ONE AT ALL

 Well, what can I say, except: We aim to please! You can’t go out and buy that kind of customer satisfaction. Out of curiosity, I looked to see what this reviewer’s other reviews were like. He has reviewed three other SF books. He thought they all sucked. (Including one by Andre Norton.)

The next one, fortunately, is more charitable:

Eternity’s End is a high-space adventure that hearkens back to the days of sailing ships, complete with space pirates and romance too. This is one of those rare books that has stuck with me long after I finished reading. I enjoyed it from cover to cover and hope to find time to read it again someday.

That’s more my style!

Ordinarily I don’t pay much attention to reviews, because that way lies madness. You fixate on the bad ones, and try to hold to the good ones to salve your pride, but it doesn’t really work. Best just not to read them at all.

Having said that, I would like to encourage you, if you’ve read Eternity’s End, to go post a review at your favorite store or book-related social networking site. (Even if you thought it sucked!) It would help me, and it might even help new readers discover the book!
 

3 Mar 2014

“Read an E-Book Week” Specials

posted in: ebooks, specials, The Chaos Chronicles | 0

It’s that time of the year again! Smashwords is sponsoring their annual Read an E-Book Week blowout sale. Tons of books discounted or free, through March 8. I’ve put up two boxed sets at 50% off. Just use the coupon code REW50, which you can also find on the books’ product pages, in case you forget it.

My colleague Doranna Durgin has not only put a slew of her own books for sale, but also invited other authors to list theirs. (I imagine a list will begin growing on Doranna’s blog over the next day or two.)

And I say, why not? If you’re an author with a book or books on sale, list it here in the comments section! The more, the merrier!

By the way, my Bookbub promotion has been very successful, and Eternity’s End is still on sale, through March 7.

28 Feb 2014

Happy Birthday, Bookbub!

posted in: ebooks, my books, personal news | 0

No, wait, I got that wrong. It’s Happy Birthday, Allysen! (It’s my loving wife’s forty-two-plus-somethingth birthday today. Yay!)

It’s also the day of my first Bookbub promotion! Eternity’s End is on sale for $.99, for one week only. At Kindle! At Nook! At Smashwords! This is the one that was a finalist for the Nebula Award: a big, sprawling star-rigger story, complete with space pirates, amphibious aliens, cyber-enhanced love, and cosmic wonders. Get it for less than a buck, for one week only. Heck, for that price, buy six and give it to your friends!

If you like the book, I sure would appreciate your posting a review to your favorite store or review site. Believe it or not, reviews matter!

After March 7, the price goes up.

And did I remember to say: Happy Birthday, Allysen!

29 Jan 2014

Why Is Craig Shaw Gardner Writing Dinosaur Porn?

posted in: ebooks, quirky | 0

Or is he? I didn’t even know dinosaur porn—excuse me, erotica—existed, until Craig told his tale. It seems his innocent fantasy ebook, Temporary Monsters, was temporarily removed from the shelves of the Amazon Kindle store because—apparently—someone at Amazon thought it might be dinosaur erotica. Craig says no. To quote from his blog: “I therefore state, for the record, that my book contains ABSOLUTELY NO HUMAN/DINOSAUR EXTRA-MARITAL INTERACTIONS OF ANY KIND!” Can we trust him? I dunno, he seems to leave in the possibility of human/dino relations within marriage. What does that say?

But as Craig says elsewhere in his blog, go to Amazon and do a search on “dinosaur erotica.” Then read some of the reviews of the books that come up. I don’t know about the books, but the reviews are hilarious.

Then forget that and give Temporary Monsters a try.

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