Smashwords Books Reviewed

Promote your book

2011-05-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

I'm having everyone post their own reviews and promo at the Facebook page. You can do the 10 questions in Discussions as well. This is a good way to post, Twitter and bring friends in as well.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Smashwords-Books-Reviewed/159991364017657

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Smashwords-Books-Reviewed/159991364017657

Post, tell your friends, and remember to Like and Share. Your posts will automatically be Twittered.

Neil

The Barricades of Heaven is now available at Amazon.com

2011-02-06T14:24:00.000-05:00

Rooster is now available as a paperback at Amazon.com.http://www.amazon.com/Barricades-Heaven-First-Rooster-Novel/dp/1456466852/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1297018747&sr=8-12

DIY Book Reviews

2011-02-05T17:59:00.000-05:00

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Smashwords-Books-Reviewed/159991364017657?v=app_2373072738#!/topic.php?uid=159991364017657&topic=253

You can now post your own book reviews at my Facebook Smashwords Books Reviewed page, and go to the Discussions page and do the Q&A--10 Questions--to let readers know more about you and your work. It's free, and gives me time to actually write and watch SuperBowls.---Neil

Believable Lies at Kindle Nation

2011-01-15T21:52:00.001-05:00

Read my story, "Land of Opportunity" at Kindle Nation today.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=rbehgxcab&v=001rxOp_4aBK0qG5AWLYF3nmbaXBxm8TD1j5yb9ElsICxLBta1cf-LgfUSX5s3Uozn4yoiOYUWcLzfm3fS9AdzKpMLhXHTWXGNPzKkupNOsgPE%3D

Thanks to Stephen Windwalker for his encouragement and support. Any indie writer looking to reach a larger audience should get involved in Kindle Nation.

The story deal with the collapse of Social Security, and a new Early Termination option for seniors. People I've discussed this with have told me Early Termination would be voted for in any kind of referendum.

Neil

Featured Author: Richard Sutton

2011-01-05T20:28:00.001-05:00

Richard Sutton has 2 terrific books, The Red Gate, and The Gatekeepers, for sale at Smashwords, featuring an Irish/Celtic family with a secret that they must guard. I love the theme of guarding the past against today's world, and the setting plays an important thematic role in both books.

I asked Richard to do the Q&A:

10 Questions

1) How long have you been writing?

About 40 years now – since I was 18 or so.

2) How are you marketing your books?

I’m trying to work online through online as well as print media, direct marketing to booksellers and through my own blog site and other writers and readers sites. I still don’t tweet, and facebook gives me headaches!

3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.

The second book in the O’Deirg family saga looks at serious issues using humor to “grease the joints” and keep things moving, Overall, I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope my readers will feel that in the reading.

4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?

I have a couple of principal editors I’m involving now each step of the way. The first is my wife, who is called upon regularly even during drafts. I also use a series of Beta Readers, authors themselves, who can give me important observations and comment regarding the mechanics of the work beyond simple proofreading.

5) Where are your books available?

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Gate-Helped-Uncover-Familys/dp/1441472258/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245847439&sr=1-1

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002BDU5HC

Barnes & Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Red-Gate/Richard-Sutton/e/9781441472250/?itm=2&usri=The+Red+Gate+Richard+Sutton

Kobo Books: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Red-Gate/book--KLJpSpAy0Ct0SRPU2D9eg/page1.html

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/4927

In addition, they’re in the Bowker listings and the Ingram catalog, so they’re carried by a few bricks and mortar booksellers as well.

6) What have your reviews been like so far?

I’ve been very lucky that they have been very good, even when they were not so good! My most recent was one I was really pleased with, by author C.J. Good:

http://www.amazon.com/Gatekeepers-story-ODeirg-secret-continues/dp/1449924182/ref=sr_1_109?s=STORE&ie=UTF8&qid=1283957055&sr=1-109

7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?

I use it to tackle a range of writers and readers subjects plus my own rants covering a lot of the annoyance duJour.

8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?

I have found some discussion among Irish and Celtic forum groups on Amazon and on the web, but hope to broaden the range based upon my writing in more than one defining genre.

9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?

Of course! It helps if it is someone I know, as I hate writing reviews of work that has been thoroughly dissected before I come to it.

10) What are you working on now?

The current Work in Progress is a novel I’m tentatively calling Sullivan. It’s another family issues book, but it is set in the present, here in the Southwestern USA. It reveals a devastating secret as human remains are uncovered that point towards the title character. He has anger management issues that are close to getting the better of him and his resources are vague at the best. It’s more mainstream than my last books, and I am going to pitch it as John Nichols channeling Elmore Leonard. Oh, did I mention that it’s very entertaining, too?

Post your books and specials at my Facebook page

2010-12-23T09:16:00.000-05:00

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Smashwords-Books-Reviewed/159991364017657

Smashwords authors, derelicts, artists, friends and anyone else with a pen and paper, post a picture, link, bio, review and even a Christmas special at my Smashwords Facebook page. Use the hyperlink above. Send a friend request too. Valerie and Markee did this and at first I was pissed off, but they're right. I'm the world's slowest blogger, and this is a quick and easy way to share. So thank Valerie and Markee, and tell them they're not gross.

New: My Combo Book, Dead Mayberrys and Big Kaboom

2010-12-15T22:09:00.000-05:00

As an attempt to remember that I, your humble reviewer/featurer, am also a writer, I have combined 2 of my books, The Dead Mayberrys and Other Stories, and, The Big Kaboom, a preview of my novel, The Barricades of Heaven, into one 99 cent download. Thank you to the 456 people who have downloaded samples, and freebies, of each. Now if you have a friend who has one (1) dollar to spend, you can con them into buying 2 books for the price of 1. I'd do it for you.

The Combo Book

Where else can you spend less than a dollar, and get so much brain damage in return?

Christmas Story for Charity

2010-12-11T08:03:00.001-05:00

Kristen Tsetsi and the good people at Inside The Writers Studio are helping feed the reindeer, and better yet, the hungry people, by participating in a sell-a-story-funds-to-charity www.feedingamerica.org.

R.J. Keller, an SBR Featured Author, and Kristen, also an alum, interview Craig Lancaster about this project, and his writing, and share it here:

Craig Lancaster, author of the widely praised 600 Hours of Edward and the forthcoming novel The Summer Son (to be released by AmazonEncore in early 2011) wanted to do something for others this Christmas season, so he wrote a fantastic holiday-themed story, “Comfort and Joy,” to sell on Smashwords for $1.

However, that he plans to donate 100% of the proceeds to Feeding America, whose 200+ food banks distribute to all fifty states, wasn’t enough for us at Inside the Writers’ Studio. When we learned of his plan to write some short fiction, he hadn’t yet begun “Comfort and Joy,” and we were more than happy to catch him early enough to challenge him to find a way to incorporate a few random words.

The words: snowman, hot chocolate, and jingle balls.

LANCASTER: I thought my "Jingle Balls" solution might have been a little reach, but I was 12 years old once, and it's something I might have come up with.

He managed to write the (approx.) 5,500-word story in just 24 hours.

LANCASTER: The idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, and it's easily adaptable to a holiday angle. Short-story productivity, for me, comes and goes, and for whatever reason, I've been in a fertile period. I'll sit down in the next couple of days and knock it out. The funny thing is, I've never really written fiction on a deadline, but I have one now: I've pledged to send this story to the in-boxes of donors by Dec. 15.

He made good on his pledge; “Comfort and Joy” is available at Smashwords right now (click the link to buy a copy – you can always come back here when you’re done), and it will stay there indefinitely with the proceeds continuing to benefit Feeding America. And, as promised, it’s only $1. “But why not charge more to give more?” we wondered.

LANCASTER: Two reasons. The first is the greater-volume-at-a-lower-price idea. The second is that I hope this isn't the be-all, end-all of people's giving. A few folks have written to me and said, "I want to give more than a buck," and my response has been this: "Send me a buck. Send your local food bank, or some other charity there at home, as much as you feel like you can give."

INSIDE THE WRITERS’ STUDIO: What made you choose this particular charity?

LANCASTER: I've been reading a lot about how stressed food banks are. Times are hard, and charitable giving is down. And since (I hope) donations will be coming in from all over, it didn't seem quite right to roll whatever money is generated toward the food bank where I live, though it certainly could use the help. So I figured that Feeding America, with its national focus, made sense.

One of the things that put this at the top of my mind was seeing a plea from my friend Carol Buchanan on Facebook that people not buy her books as gifts but instead donate to their local food bank. She said she'd eat whether the books are bought or not. Others -- many, many others -- are not so fortunate.

This effort is nothing like the NPR fundraising drive—there’s no dollar amount in mind, no set goal (“I have no expectation here,” Lancaster says. “If it's five bucks, it's five bucks.”), but he does hope to turn this into an annual effort, one that involves more writers contributing to a holiday-themed anthology.

LANCASTER: Say, 15 or 20 holiday-themed stories, from a wide variety of genres, all with the aim of putting some food on the tables of people who badly need it. Wheels are already turning for next year: an anthology, from writers across the traditional and indie spectrums. Zombie Christmas, romance Christmas, bizarro, whatever. I think if I were to get people on board in, say, July, we'd be able to offer all kinds of options: individual stories, the entire collection, e-book, short POD run.

IWS: Do you think you might choose different charities in the future?

LANCASTER: I haven't even thought about that. I'm pretty passionate about food banks. They're chronically understocked, and it's one form of charity that is completely without political overtones.

IWS: Have you ever donated to/worked in/needed a food bank?

LANCASTER: I've pulled a few shifts stacking boxes and such, and I'm a reliable bring-a-canned-good-to-whatever-event guy, but I've never done it on a consistent basis. One of the things I hope to do, beyond the holiday season, is become a lot more involved with that sort of thing on a local level.

IWS: That sounds like a perfect New Year’s resolution. Speaking of the new year—your upcoming novel, The Summer Son, will be released in January. Tell us about it.

LANCASTER: It's a multi-decade father-and-son story. Mitch Quillen and his father, Jim, have been largely estranged for nearly 30 years, and the breach stems from a violent summer when Mitch was 11 years old. In the present day, they've been thrown together again and they try to work through the distance between them. All the while, Mitch is reliving that long-ago summer in the form of a note to his wife, whom he's kept away from that part of his life, in an effort to reconcile his own failing relationship with her. It's a story about the things we experience and how those things shape us -- and how those same things get interpreted in different ways by other people who were there.

IWS: Final question. Fruitcake: yay or nay?

LANCASTER: You know, I'd love to say yay, just to be the contrary bastard I tend to be. But I cannot. Fruitcake is a nay. It's a nay to the 100th power. It's a nay that pushes at the outer edges of the space-time continuum. It's the nay that keeps on giving. Let's face it: Fruitcake sucks.

Neil's note: So, please join in and help feed the hungry this special time of year.

David Foster Wallace on Fiction in the Information Age

2010-12-09T19:49:00.001-05:00

Watch DFW, once our brightest light, doomed by the lack of knowledge of the effects of bad chemicals on our brains.

Here's David Foster Wallace, on the Charlie Rose show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm3yuWEvCgw

And here's his good friend, Jonathan Franzen, on Author Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm3yuWEvCgw

Anyone who is writing nowadays needs to be familiar with these gentlemen and their work, and remember the importance of simple things, like spelling, syntax, and the the mind of the reader. Read, then write, then read some more.

Featured Author: Sean Patrick Reardon

2010-12-07T20:03:00.000-05:00

Sean Patrick Reardon has been the number 1 supporter of this blog, and now, without me doing anything, he has the Number 2 Bestselling Book at Smashwords.com. Every author who has been reviewed here has received a posted comment from Sean, offering encouragement and support. I mean, look at the guy. How can you not like Sean? Now Mindjacker, his first novel, is ready to steamroll its way to Numero Uno. Lets take a look.

"When wealthy Russian mobsters contract L.A psychologist Joel Fischer to develop a device to manipulate minds, the DreemWeever exceeds all expectations. Everything is on track for delivery and a big payday, until two adventurous stoners steal his Dodge Challenger that, unknown to them, contains the DreemWeever in its trunk. Fischer and his crew have two days to get it back or he dies."--From the Smashwords description.

Here's his 10 Questions answered:

10 Questions

1) How long have you been writing?

I got into trying to write with the intention of perhaps getting others to read it in 2005. I have always had a great imagination and sense of adventure. As early as I can remember I loved reading, watching television, and movies. In school I loved anything that required reading or writing, especially creative writing.

2) How are you marketing your books?

I try to take advantage of every opportunity I can find or is offered that will let me talk about the novel and my writing. I am a huge fan of networking through blogs, websites, facebook, and discussion forums. I also love to work with libraries to do author events. I always try to be polite and if someone offers me an opportunity or provides comments, I make it a point to always follow up. I have been putting out some short stories lately that have been very well received and this has been very helpful in terms of showcasing my writing ability and style to readers who might need persuasion to take a look at the novel.

3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.

I realize that not everyone likes every genre, but if crime and thrillers are what you are into, "Mindjacker" should be appealing to this readership base. I tried to write a story that read like a movie, with a soundtrack, and had the style of crime stories by Tarantino or Guy Ritchie. I take the reader on a thrill ride across the country from Los Angeles to New York to Boston and New Hampshire with a tale of gangsters, thievery, technology, and mind manipulation and hope they would like to come along for the ride.

4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?

I did as much as I could and it was by far the most agonizing, tedious process one could experience. I then had pilot readers, who have an eye for grammar and punctuation, give it their best shot. I can only say that I paid my dues writing this novel, but it made writing the next one that much easier.

5) Where are your books available?

Mindjacker" is available in print and ebook at:

Amazon: http://www.blogger.com/goog_1782185007

Barnes and Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Mindjacker/Sean-Patrick-Reardon/e/9781453654750/?itm=2&USRI=mindjacker

The ebook version is also available at:

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17083

Apple iBookstore: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/mindjacker/id380446238?mt=11

6) What have your reviews been like so far?

I have been lucky to have received many positive reviews for not only "Mindjacker" but also for the short stories I have written recently. 2010 has just been a tremendous year for me for so many reasons.

Smashwords: http://www.blogger.com/goog_1782185019

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Mindjacker-Sean-Patrick-Reardon/product-reviews/1453654755/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Barnes & Noble: http://www.blogger.com/goog_1782185024

7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?

My blog http://seanpatrickreardon.blogspot.com/ focuses not only my writing but all sorts of crime writing related news, websites, blogs, and events. I love the blogsphere and have met so many great like minded writers, who all help each other out and share information.

8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?

Sure. I am member of a great Yahoo crime writers group and used to hang around the Absolute Write forums more than I do now. I find the best way to communicate, share and learn is to frequent and participate in blogs with other writers in your genre. For me at least, doing that has been the best move I ever made.

9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?

I am always open to reviewing a fellow Smashwords author, especially if they write in the crime or thriller genres. To date I have enjoyed and reviewed works by SW authors Declan Burke, John McFetridge, and Mark Staniforth.

10) What are you working on now?

I'm working on a standalone crime thriller, which I'm calling "Sissy Murphy". The pitch I have so far is; American writer, pothead, and pacifist Seamus Murphy is befriended by Irish ex-patriot Danny Moore, who uses Seamus' love of Ireland and lack of confidence to transform him into a killer, who will help Danny settle unfinished business.

(Neil's note: at his blog, Sean tells how he has marketed his book to the Number 1 slot! Check it out by clicking the hypertext. And learn from what you read.)

Congratulations, Sean. And thanks for reading SBR.

Big News From Mark Coker, Founder of Smashwords.com

2010-12-01T20:59:00.002-05:00

Go to the Smashwords Channel Manager page and see this terrific news!

https://www.smashwords.com/dashboard/channelManager

Featured Author: Paul Collis

2010-11-29T19:04:00.000-05:00

Paul Collis is a Londoner now living in California. The Wrinkly (This tale of one man’s ridiculous attempt at living in a Florida retirement community – and his unexpected encounters with lust, drugs, cosmetics and an identity crisis –)is his comic novel, written from his own screenplay. He agreed to the 10 Questions, and provides us with 10 terrific answers.

Interview with Paul Collis, author of The Wrinkly.
Neil, thank you for this opportunity to chat about myself. I really appreciate the effort you put into this blog, and the service you provide to Smashwords authors and readers.
1) How long have you been writing?
I spent 30 years writing 30-second TV commercials for ad agencies in London and San Francisco, as an art director and as a copywriter. If we were given 40 seconds we could let the dialogue breathe a little. If we had 60 we’d think we were in Hollywood. A decade ago, when work started to get thin on the ground, I had an idea that I thought would make an amusing movie, so I attempted a script roughly 200 times longer than I was used to. ‘The Wrinkly’ didn’t get picked up, but I liked the process and I wrote another, which became a finalist in the Acclaim TV awards. Then, a few years ago, I read that a major studio was about to move on a project with exactly the same premise as ‘The Wrinkly’, so I decided it was worth rewriting as a novella (it’s 45,000 words). But it was only this year that I chose the tools to publish it myself – Smashwords and Createspace, Amazon’s print-on-demand service.
2) How are you marketing your books?
This is my first attempt, so the answer is – not as well as I should be. I bought the domain name TheWrinkly.com, set up a basic web page and email account, and sent out a press release through a free PR website. I decided not to pay for reviews at Kirkus and similar operations, but I sent a printed proof to Booklist, the librarian review site about six weeks ago. (I’ve had no response so far.) ‘The Wrinkly’ involves a retirement community and golf, so I sent emails to relevant webzines. But I’m not that keen on Facebook; I’m easily distracted, and for me it would be a time-absorbing black hole – regular email’s bad enough. I did set up a page for The Wrinkly on Facebook and conducted an experimental targeted ad campaign. I ended up spending $20 to make one sale. I’m sure it’s better for big-ticket items, a classic Studebaker, something like that. As far as the real, 3D world, a few local bookstores have agreed to carry the paperback. But my main strategy has been to beg my friends to buy it.
3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.
I think quite a few people might empathize with a guy who’s dissatisfied, unfulfilled, who wants to quit the rat race. In Mike Lewis’s case he’s 39 and he works in a youth-centric culture to which he doesn’t really relate. He’s quite good at golf, but doesn’t think that he could make money from it. By chance he discovers a solution – premature retirement in an idyllic senior community. He cons his way in (it is fiction) only to become the center of a farce involving cosmetics, drug running, lust, and manatees. And who doesn’t like manatees? (I’m donating half the proceeds of the paperback to them.) Unfortunately there are no scenes involving graphic violence, deviant sex or drug crazed Nazis, so that’ll reduce its appeal a tad. But for anyone in need of some light entertainment while on jury duty, this might fit the bill.
4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?
I thank the god of cheap laser printers because, for me, reading on a screen is one thing but editing on a screen is another; I like to cross things out in red pen. I imagine I edit the same way as most people – by reading, rewriting, reading again. Scouring for typos, repetition, grammatical errors, for inconsistencies in character and chronology. And looking for sentences that are just plain dumb, because what might seem amusing at 11pm is often not so brilliant at noon the next day. As for help, I have a friend who’s a better writer than me, and I asked her to read it not so much for her literary suggestions, which would only make me more insecure than I am already, but for her ability to root out my most egregious Britishisms.
5) Where are your books available?
The Ebook is at every site/format where Smashwords ebooks can be bought. On the Smashwords site itself, insert the coupon code HR57Y and The Wrinkly will cost $0.99 instead of $1.99. The Paperback is online at your local Amazon, or it can be ordered through your local bookstore.
6) What have your reviews been like so far?
I’ve had none at Smashwords yet, but the few reviews at Amazon are mainly short and friendly, most of them noting its cinematic origins. I mean, they realize it’s meant to be more Caddyshack or Cocoon than The Corrections.
7) What do you deal with at your blog/website? I’m not much for blowing a trumpet, mine or anyone else’s, and TheWrinkly.com is about as basic as a web page can be. Although it does have an email link.
8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?I haven’t really looked, but I’m sure that if I checked out groups covering writers like Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry I’d learn something useful.
9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer? I’m embarrassed to say I’ve read very few so far, so I don’t yet have a favorite. I’ve promised myself, and now you, to make an effort and turn off the radio and keep the newspapers unopened for a week and get down to some reading. So I’ll let you know when I find one.
10) What are you working on now?
A novel about theft and revenge, set in 17^th century London and 21^st century Los Angeles. I’m halfway through it and I’m not speedy, so you’ll have to give me a year or so.

Enjoy The Wrinkly on your new eReader, and recommend to your gifted friends.

Featured Author: David Michael

2010-11-20T09:34:00.000-05:00

Most days, David Michael is a software developer and a writer. Some days, he’s a writer and a software developer. Other days, he’s an amateur photographer. Because, really, who is the same person every day?

David is the designer and developer of The Journal, personal journaling software for Windows. He has also designed and developed video games, and has written two nonfiction books and numerous articles about video game development.

His horror novel, The Summoning Fire, is discussed here:

10 Questions

1) How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing off and on my whole life, starting from about age 10 or 11, when I wrote my first short story (about a lost puppy) and numerous comic books (about superheroic, anthropomorphic animals). The current “on” stretch started back in 2002, with only a few months “off” in 2008 to focus on a software project.

2) How are you marketing your books?

Most of my marketing has been focused on online communities, submitting to book reviewers, and similar. I have a blog, Guns & Magic (www.gunsandmagic.com), where I post free fiction as well as thoughts about writing (mine and others) and news about my various books.

3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.

The Summoning Fire is a fast-paced story of betrayal, revenge, and suicidal tendencies. It’s dark and horrific in a very casual way as the story explores the nightmare society that is Hell on Earth.

And it has a bad-ass woman with a shotgun and a sword, a half-devil crime boss with cannibalistic tendencies, and an amorphous creature summoned from a completely from different Hell that sees in shades of emotion and eats people by absorbing them.

4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?

I edited The Summoning Fire front to back several times (more than 3, fewer than 8). I also had a few “first readers” who gave me feedback and helped me see where the story needed adjusting and/or rearranging.

5) Where are your books available? (Include hyperlinks)

The Summoning Fire is available from Amazon.

Trade paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1453839917

Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044KMPVY

Smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25241

6) What have your reviews been like so far?

The Summoning Fire has been getting good reviews. All of the reviews so far have been 4/5 stars and can be read on the Amazon page:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1453839917

7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?

I talk about my writing (both production and process). I announce when I have new books available. I list the books I read (with a consolidated list at the end of the year). I post short stories. I’ve posted a couple book reviews.

8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?

Yes. And I’m looking for more.

9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?

I’ve not purchased a book via Smashwords yet. Right now only about half the books I read are ebooks I read on my Kindle.

10) What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new horror-humor novel in the vein of “Lovecraft Lite”. I hope to have the first draft done by the end of 2010. Sooner if possible.

Take a look at all of David's books and write your reviews at Smashwords.com.

Featured Author: Tonya Plank

2010-11-15T18:24:00.000-05:00

When I Google Tonya Plank, a ton of good stuff comes up. Like her bio at The Huffington Post:

Tonya Plank worked as a criminal appeals attorney in NYC for many years. A ballroom dancer and a longtime balletomane, she writes the acclaimed dance blog, SWAN LAKE SAMBA GIRL. Her first novel, SWALLOW, a dark comedy about a young Manhattan attorney suffering from Globus Hystericus, won the gold medal for best regional fiction in the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards, the gold medal for women's fiction in the 2010 Living Now Book Awards, and was a finalist in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards. She is currently working on her second novel.

Lawyer, dancer, writer, this lovely lady has a lot going on. It's about time she got featured at SBR, and uplifted this editor's spirit, with her effort and her terrific answers.

10 Questions for Tonya Plank

1) How long have you been writing?

I've been writing since college - since childhood really - but I've been writing fiction seriously for about eight years, when I started my first novel. Swallow. Before that, I wrote several short stories in college but never tried to get them published, and as a lawyer I wrote several law review articles for publication. I wrote Swallow, during nights and weekends, while I was working full-time as a lawyer.

2) How are you marketing your books?

I sought lots of reviews from top Amazon reviewers, book bloggers, and professional reviewers (like ForeWord and Midwest Book Review). I also entered Swallow into several contests for small presses that also accept self-published work - and it actually won a few awards! I did giveaways on Goodreads and Library Thing, and I made a book trailer, loaded it onto YouTube, and promoted it on sites like Blazing Trailers. I also joined the Kindleboards and Mobileread.com and promoted it there a bit. I've also done some advertising and sponsorship activities, mainly on Kindle Nation Daily and Goodreads.

3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.

Swallow is about a young Manhattan attorney, Sophie, who has just graduated from law school, moved to New York, landed her first job and received a marriage proposal from her longtime boyfriend, when she is suddenly stricken with a little-known but actually not uncommon psychosomatic disorder known as Globus Hystericus, or Globus Sensation. With Globus, you feel a large knot, or ball, in your throat and it can make it very difficult to eat, speak, and sometimes even breathe. But it's purely psychological; there's nothing actually there. It wreaks havoc on Sophie's life, causing rapid weight loss, mental and physical fatigue, and making it difficult for her to argue in court on behalf of her clients. So, the novel traces Sophie's journey from figuring out what is causing her problem, to taking steps to get rid of it. I tried to make it somewhat humorous though, so it's not all dark! Bloggers and reviewers have called it entertaining and engaging. Since Sophie is a criminal appeals attorney (as was I for many years), the novel also provides a portrait of the New York criminal justice system, and what it's like to be a public defender, working on behalf of indigent defendants.

Swallow won several awards, as I mentioned above, including gold medals in the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards and the 2010 Living Now Book Awards. It was also a finalist in the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards. It's received many very good reviews, and was recommended on Vanity Fair.com by VF contributing editor, James Wolcott.

Although it's about a specific disorder, I think many people can relate to the anxieties and self-esteem issues Sophie suffers from, and will find the psychological and lawyerly aspects of the novel educational and entertaining.

4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?

Well, with my first book, I had an agent. She wasn't able to find a publisher for me, but was very supportive of my desire to self-publish. The book had gone through several revisions under her. I had also edited heavily based on suggestions teachers and fellow students in my writing workshops had given me (I took about three novel-writing workshops total, where the whole book was critiqued). That was how I edited the first book. With the second, which I am writing now, I will probably seek the advice of my writer friends. I may hire an editor if I feel the need (and have the money).

5) Where are your books available?)

In ebook form, Swallow is available at:

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/12099

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Swallow-ebook/dp/B0032FNZZC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1288719779&sr=8-2

Barnes and Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Swallow/Tonya-Plank/e/2940000906439/?pt=BK&stage=bookproduct&pwb=2

Sony: http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/tonya-plank/swallow/_/R-400000000000000249700

Kobo: http://kobobooks.com/ebook/Swallow/book-g5JxGlKDKEmLmGUgdxq5Sg/page1.html

Diesel: http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi-bin/item/9781452439037/Swallow-eBook.html

And in the iBookstore on the iPad.

6) What have your reviews been like so far?

Most reviews have been very positive; a couple have been critical but the reviewer still seemed engaged with the book and its themes, which is what's important to me. I've received many reviews, mostly from bloggers, and I've listed most of them on my website, here: http://tonyaplank.com/reviews

In particular, here is a full link to one of my favorites, by the Review Broads: http://www.thereviewbroads.com/2010/08/book-reviews-swallow.html

7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?

On my website, I have links to my book, the reviews, the awards I've received and the interviews I've given. But on my blog, which is titled Swan Lake Samba Girl, I mainly write about dance and arts events in New York. I used to be a ballroom dancer (I still sometimes dance, but it's become too expensive to do regularly), and so my blog was originally about my experiences ballroom dancing. It's since expanded to include all forms of dance, and anything else I find interesting - books, art gallery openings, etc. It's actually received some good press - from James Wolcott at Vanity Fair, and it was written about in the Wall Street Journal, and was mentioned on CNN.com.

8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?

Well, my book is really general fiction, or literary fiction. The closest genre it fits into would be legal mysteries, since so much of it is about the practice of law, and there is the mystery of the disorder itself. I have found some discussion groups of that genre, mainly on Amazon and on Mobileread.com.

9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?

I'm currently reading Waiting For Spring, by R.J. Keller, and am really loving it. It's a literary novel that's very realistic, very character-driven, and beautifully written. The author has a way of bringing you into the lives of her characters, making you feel like you're experiencing the action with them. For lighter, reading, I like J.L. Penn who writes sweet, funny chicklit.

10) What are you working on now?

Right now I'm working on a novel about a group of young people who all witness a shooting from various perspectives. It will be a courtroom / urban drama.

Now hear this: her award-winning book is only 99 cents at Smashwords.com. It's Not Yet Rated. Come on, let's help this dynamic writer get her groove on. Download and enjoy a great read, and write a good review and post it, and then go to sleep smiling, knowing you've done your good deed for the day.

John Dufresne in Writer's Digest

2010-11-13T12:49:00.002-05:00

From John Dufresne's blog: http://www.johndufresne.com/blog/

No. 16: The Need to Read“Don’t disregard this rule, but don’t let it limit you, either—because it’s not enough to read what you like to write. A writer has to read everything from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations to the backs of cereal boxes. The writer’s problem, and his opportunity, his obligation, is to know the world. Imaginative writing is a craft that favors the diligent and informed over the inspired and indifferent. You need to know the world, and you also need to develop your craftsmanship. The best teachers of fiction, for example, are the great works of fiction themselves. You may learn more about the structure of a short story by reading Chekhov’s “Heartache” than you could in a semester of Creative Writing 101."
—John Dufresne, “10 Experts Take on the Writer’s Rulebook,” September 2010 (click here to check the rest of the issue out)
http://blog.writersdigest.com/promptly/A+Writer+Has+To+Read+Everything+From+Wittgensteins+Philosophical+Investigations+To+The+Backs+Of+Cereal+Boxes.aspx

2010-11-10T20:01:00.000-05:00

There's a great discussion going on at Jason McIntyre's blog. Indie writers should weigh in.
http://thefarthestreaches.blogspot.com/

Also, several Smashwords authors whose Features are pending got good press at Indie Mega Seller and blogger extraordinaire Joe Konrath at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/11/with-little-help.html
I pity the fool who doesn't read his blog! dead man walking!

If you want to sell books, read Konrath. If you want to talk about what happens when you don't sell, check out Jason. If you want to argue with me, you have to buy the beer.

Featured Author: Mark Staniforth

2010-11-09T18:02:00.000-05:00

http://www.undergroundvoices.com/UVStaniforthMark.htm

http://manybooks.net/titles/staniforthmother10fryupdale.html

Porn stars and serial killers, Nazis and nymphomaniacs, hunchbacks and bare-knuckle boxers: just a few of the disparate cast of characters who call the remote moorland community of Fryupdale their home. These 18 short stories reveal the unflinching truths behind their lonely, sad and sometimes hilarious lives - and why the world beyond village limits will always seem so distant. (Description from manyBooks.net)

Mark Staniforth is making quite a name for himself as a British bad boy writer. He gives his story collection
Fryupdale away free at Smashwords.com, and as long as you understand this is for adults and probably has not one heart wrenching tale in the whole lot, you'll get a charge out of this weird little book.

Here's his Q&A:

10 Questions
1) How long have you been writing?
Since as long as I can remember. I would fill exercise books at primary school. It seemed natural to me that I should pursue a career in journalism. I'm still a journalist, but I regard my fiction writing as something quite different. I've had a number of short stories published in internet magazines including 'Night Train', 'Eclectica' and 'Southpaw', and one of my stories in 'Fryupdale' - 'Eleutherophobia' - was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize.
2) How are you marketing your books?
As a journalist, I have a grasp of what media outlets like out of a press release, and I've had some success placing pieces in local media. I publicise the book via Facebook and Twitter (@markstani), and link every post to the book's own blog - fryupdale.blogspot.com. I had a big spike in interest when I publicised the book on a number of e-book sites: notably manybooks.net and mobileread.com. I've placed it on Goodreads. Apart from that I've experimented a lot with pricing. Initially the book cost $2.99. When I made it free, the number of downloads quadrupled overnight. At this stage of my career, I'd rather have the extra readers than a few extra dollars in my pocket. I guess it's about trying to establish a readership base for (hopefully) bigger things to come.
3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.
It's a collection of tough, gritty, down-to-earth tales from a semi-fictional North Yorkshire village. There's all sorts of folk from the fringes of society: porn stars, aliens, drunks, Nazis: you name it, they're probably in it. It's loosely based on the kind of place I grew up in, so I like to think I've got a good idea about what makes the characters tick. I won't lie - if you're a fan of chick-lit or wizards this stuff might not be for you. You could say it's an antidote to Harry Potter and all the best-seller, TV book-club froth. Hopefully that will count for something in itself.
4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?
I haven't sought out any professional help with this collection, although given my trade I am able to ask favours from a bunch of pretty reliable sources. It's something I'd seriously consider for a novel. Given that a lot of the short stories in this collection have been published (and therefore subbed) elsewhere, it's not something I felt was necessary on this occasion.
5) Where are your books available?
Mainly, of course, Smashwords: http://bit.ly/bnC6MY
It's also available through Manybooks.net at: http://bit.ly/dsn5bY
And a Kindle version is on Amazon priced £2.16: http://amzn.to/coWpmn
6) What have your reviews been like so far?
This is the area in which I'm really struggling. Apart from a few newspaper reviews, which have pretty much copied my press releases, I haven't had any. I'd love for someone to tell me what they think on my Smashwords site or the book's website.
7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?
Fryupdale.blogspot.com is basically a promotional tool for the book: there's a few stories up, as well as links to downloads. My regular blog site, markstaniforth.blogspot.com, includes some of my other stories as well as culture-related articles or pictures I've spotted from elsewhere. And I have a third site, kolakubes.blogspot.com, which promotes the novel I'm working on now.
8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?
I find the mobileread.com forums excellent for broad discussions relating to the e-book revolution. The same can be said for kindleboads.com, nookboards.com and kinfinity.co.uk. Chatting to other e-book authors and readers can really help, in particular when it comes to marketing ideas. And it's always a chance to promote your own book at the same time!
9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?
I would love to. I think there should be more sites like this, or perhaps a section of the Smashwords site dedicated to its authors' blogs. I'm tempted to throw my own website open a little more and review some of the best work from Smashwords. After all, without the promotional backing of a big publishing house, I think it's imperative that independent authors do all they can to help and encourage one another.
10) What are you working on now?

I'm revising a novel called 'Sweet Tooth - The Ballad of Kola Kubes'. It's loosely based on the 'Sweet Tooth' story published in Fryupdale. I like to think it's a cutting satire on today's obsession with celebrity and those who will do anything to get it. Others may see it simply as a silly story about a porn star. Either way, it will hopefully be hitting Smashwords early next year.

Please everyone, download the FREE book and give Mark Staniforth a great review.

Featured Author: David Thyssen

2010-11-06T16:57:00.000-04:00

Here's David Thyssen's bio at Goodreads.com:

"I was born in the Netherlands forty four years ago. Just before the turn of the century, and at the height of a successful career as a television cameraman, I decided to move my family to the Caribbean to pursue my dreams of living a life like Sandy in Flipper. After living on two different islands and a short stay in Florida, I now reside on St. Barths where I parent, surf and write (often while under attack by blood thirsty mosquitos rather than being cheered on by the laughter of jolly dolphins). In addition to three novels, I have written several screenplays."

David is a relative newcomer, but persistent and consistent in his correspondence. His two books are connected, and anybody out surfing the winter swells at St. Barth's must be cool. He puts a lot of info into the Q&A, so I'll let him talk:

10 Questions

1) How long have you been writing?

I knew writing was something I wanted to do before I was ten years old, but I really started writing while in middle school. I wrote short stories, poems and I started a first screenplay that I never finished. But don't forget, when I was young there were no computers. I wrote by hand, and when I was about 12 I found an old typewriter in the trash that I cleaned up and used to write with for the rest of my teen years. In the end, the ink ribbon was so worn, it barely made an impression on paper.

I've taken the time to write more seriously in the last ten years. I started writing a techno thriller that I must have rewritten at least ten times, but it allowed me to learn and improve my craft. A couple of years ago I found some of my old stories and poems back, mostly from my early teens when I was very angry with the world. I was bullied a lot and it reflected in my writing. I decided to take the things I wrote back then, and write a story about a young boy being bullied at school, and having no place at home. I wrote the first few chapters of what would later become PAINTING BY NUMBERS. But while I was writing I created a character who was an online friend to the protagonist, and found that I was pouring another side of me into that character. I decided to pull that character from the novel and give him his own story. This was the start of ALL THAT YOU CAN LEAVE BEHIND. Then I started writing these ideas in a 'reality blog'. I wrote the story of a young boy from California who had moved with his apathetic mother to an island in the Caribbean. I just wrote what he would be doing from day to day, and the things he would be thinking about. I was hoping from some feedback to sharpen the character, but to my great surprise the blog became hugely popular practically overnight, just two weeks after I started it. Then I was faced with the choice to either quit, or just go ahead and write the whole story with the audience I had, and which grew along the way. I ended up writing a complete story with an entry every day for 7 months. The blog got over 350.000 views in that time. Writing the story in front of an audience helped me to shape the story and the characters. I was guided by the comments people left, so I knew when I was taking things too far, or not far enough. Of course, after 7 months, I had a manuscript of over 800 pages, so I had to edit and cut it back to the 300 pages it is now. It was an interesting experience, which I ten tried to repeat with the character of PAINTING BY NUMBERS, but the story was too different, and I ended the blog after a while. But I kept writing the story, and in the next two years I toggled between the two stories, which is why I finished two novels at the same time. But there is a lot of myself in both these novels, but two very opposite sides of myself. In the end, I turned out to be more like the protagonist in ALL THAT YOU CAN LEAVE BEHIND, but I could very easily have become the protagonist of PAINTING BY NUMBERS.

2) How are you marketing your books?

I asked a few bloggers to do reviews, so the first ones are now pouring in. I also created a blog (www.allthaticanleavebehind.blogspot.com) and a Twitter (davidthyssen). I try to participate in forums, and leave comments on other blogs, but it takes so much time, and I also wrote screenplays that I also have to promote. I have tried to increase my internet presence over the last month. I'm trying to get certain keywords to link to my books or my blog through Google. For instance, bullying is a main conduit in PAINTING BY NUMBERS, so I hope people will find the book through that keyword. The one thing about self-publishing is doing all the marketing yourself, and while it can be fun, it is a lot of work that takes up a lot of time in which I could be writing new stories.

3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.

ALL THAT YOU CAN LEAVE BEHIND is a story which has already proven its value when it was a blog. It is an inspiring story of a tormented boy who finds that he carries his own key to happiness inside. It's really a story about the innate human drive for life and love. I received so many comments that people were waiting for the book or the movie. Well, I don't know about a movie, but the book is here, and I hope people will get as inspired by it as they were by the blog.

PAINTING BY NUMBERS is a psychological story which takes the readers deep into the dark mind of a very disturbed teen. It's not just the bullying which drives him to kill his fellow students and teachers, but also his home situation. There are times where you will hate the character, but you will also laugh at times, and feel for him. This story is also written as a blog, and it has a few I.M logs and poems, but mostly the protagonist tells about his life, both at home and in school. It is not a story for the faint of heart. The character has been compared to Holden Caulfield, but he's really much darker. But the book will give you a realistic look into the mind of an emotionally disturbed teen, and will possibly help you understand kids like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, and other high school shooters we have seen over the years. And how many kids are out there right now with these same thoughts? I hope readers will become more aware of the teens in trouble around them, and react before it's too late.

4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?

I edit by writing and rewriting until I get to a point where I barely make any changes or corrections. This is how I always work with everything I write.

5) Where are your books available?

ALL THAT YOU CAN LEAVE BEHIND

SMASHWORDS:

(Click the hypertext to link)

AMAZON:

http://www.amazon.com/All-that-leave-behind-ebook/dp/B0045U9UYI/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

PAINTING BY NUMBERS

SMASHWORDS:

(Click the hypertext to link)

AMAZON:

http://www.amazon.com/Painting-by-numbers-ebook/dp/B0045U9V0G/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

6) What have your reviews been like so far?

The books have only been out for a month, so I'm still waiting for reviews. ALL THAT YOU CAN LEAVE BEHIND has reviewed two very positive reviews:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0045U9UYI

and

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/24508

7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?

www.allthaticanleavebehind.blogspot.com

I only started the blog a few weeks ago. I write about my books, but I'll write about other subjects too. I want to write more about the craft of writing, both novels and screenplays. I will keep readers posted about developments, and post sample chapters. The last two entries are about bullying because it's a subject close to heart.

8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?

Yes, but I wish I had more time for these. If anyone knows a group, or would like to invite me into theirs, please let me know.

9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?

Yes, I have mostly done screenplay reviews recently, but I would like to read more books. When I have time to read more I'll do reviews.

10) What are you working on now?

I'm working on several projects at the same time. I'm spending a lot of time promoting, and have virtually no time to actually write anymore, but I have a few ideas for screenplays and I'm still working on a new novel. I write very fast. Most of the screenplays I wrote in about a week. A novel takes a lot more time, but I have written a few chapters of a new story, and I'm certain that if I could take the time I could finish the first draft in about a month. It's a very different story of what I've done so far. It's very edgy, raw, written from the perspective of a small time criminal. I can't wait to write it!

Featured Author: Joseph Lallo

2010-11-04T09:13:00.000-04:00

I started looking to find out, Who is Joe Lallo? and this is what I found at the website:

"About Joseph Lallo

Editor, Writer, and general Knower-Of-Words, if there is text to be read on BrainLazy, Joseph Lallo probably has his fingerprints on it. As the final third of the ownership and foundation of BrainLazy, Joseph “Jo” Lallo made a name for himself when he lost the “e” from his nickname in an arm wrestling match with a witch doctor. Residing in the arid lowlands of the American Southwest, Joseph Lallo is a small, herbivorous, rabbit-like creature with the horns of an antelope. He sleeps belly up, and his milk can be used for medicinal purposes."

As you can see, this gets your attention. Also, Joseph is a computer engineer. I spent yesterday with a terrific computer engineer, doing a site survey to connect data lines to buildings in one of Florida's major ports. It was one of the best days I've had recently, working with someone who knows what he's doing and does it right and doesn't play my-ego-is-bigger-than-yours games. Looking over Joseph Lallo's information reminded me of my day, and so I'm happy to introduce Joseph, or "Jo" possibly, and his Q&A about his books The Book of Deacon, and Jade:

10 Questions

1) How long have you been writing?

I started writing back in grade school, mostly as a way to get the ideas out of my head so that I could concentrate. My formal education focused on engineering, but all through college and the years that followed I was actively involved in various creative writing projects and websites, most of which have gone the way of the dodo. What would become the first installment of The Book of Deacon is an edited and revised version of a story that was composed mostly during times when I should have been studying or working. All told, I've been letting my mind wander all over the page for around fifteen years.

2) How are you marketing your books?

This is my first significant marketing push. I joined Smashwords primarily as a means to make my books easily available to friends and family, but after involving them in a few site promotions and seeing some success, I decided it might be worth getting the word out to see if I can find an audience. Aside from the occasional plug on my own website, I’m starting to research sites dedicated to eBook review and promotion.

3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.

Fantasy is a popular genre, one prone to familiar themes and sweeping, epic stories. After beginning my own epic with The Book of Deacon, I thought it would be nice to play with the genre a bit. Jade is a short, character driven tale that touches on elements of fairy tales. As the key members of the small cast grow and develop, though, the roles begin to twist in directions you may not expect. The story has threads that lead back into The Book of Deacon, and forward into books I'm still working on. It is a brief glimpse into a larger world, and one that I hope will prove enticing.

4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?

Most of my books begin as ink and paper. (The Book of Deacon was written long hand in, frankly, an embarrassing number of spiral notebooks, for instance.) Once I get the ideas down on paper, I type them up, dropping any passages that seem to drag too long and making sure my continuity is sound. I do this mostly from memory, using the written work as a guideline. In that way, the key events that stick in the mind form the framework of the plot, while the forgettable ones are forgotten. When I find a spot that doesn't quite work, or a scene that needs to be filled in, I make a note with an easy to find search key and move on. Once I reach the end, I make a second pass, hitting all of the search keys to fill in or rework as necessary. At this point, I pass the book on to a small circle of friends for proof reading and suggestions. It is always a good idea to get another set of eyes on your work, so that they can ask the questions you forgot to answer in your story. If no one else can look at a passage, I make sure at least a day has passed before I proof it myself. Any less time than that and I see what I meant to write rather than what I really did. After final look to weed out typos, I run it through the Smashwords Style Guide and publish.

5) Where are your books available? (Include hyperlinks)

Right now The Book of Deacon is available both on Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9354) and Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-of-Deacon-ebook/dp/B0036FTF4S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1288663639&sr=1-1). Readers interested in picking it up can get it for a $0.99 until December 2^nd by entering coupon code XK35G on Smashwords.

Jade, my most recent work, is available exclusively on Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25151). Likewise, this book is available for $0.99 by entering code BH75C on Smashwords.

6) What have your reviews been like so far?

As this represents my first marketing push for any of my books, the only reviews I've had are those available via the Smashwords page. Though several people have purchased my books, as of right now only a friend/fellow blogger has reviewed one. Granted, he may be a bit biased, but you can find his review at the bottom of the page for The Book of Deacon : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9354

7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?

I help run a group blog, www.brainlazy.com, dedicated to technology, entertainment, and humor. Currently we are focused on video game and movie news, and just recently we did some coverage of the New York Comic Con. At irregular intervals you can also find rants written by me on subjects as diverse as the nature of good and evil and the similarities between homeless people and performance artists. I write there under the name Decoychunk.

8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre?

Actually, I have found that some of the most interesting and enlightening discussions on Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and virtually any other genre take place in the pages of tvtropes.org. If you go there, though, be forewarned; you are venturing into a vortex of fascinating lists that will devour a fair portion of your next few weeks. Also, don't be surprised if it turns out every idea you've ever had has been done often enough to have its own catchy nickname.

9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?

Much as I would love to dig through the vast array of excellent artists on Smashwords, I'm still working my way through a backlog of books I'd been meaning to catch up on. With the complete works of Terry Pratchett behind me, I'm now staring into the maw of The Dresden Files, and after that Neil Gaiman. With those as samples of my favored literary fare, perhaps someone could offer up some Smashwords authors of the a similar flavor?

10) What are you working on now?

Right now I am finishing off the second installment of The Book of Deacon, which is in the proof reading stage. I'm also taking a stab at some Sci-Fi at the request of one of my circle of proof readers, but that is still in the early stages.

Please read Joseph's books and post your own reviews at Smashwords.com

Featured Author: J. Alexander Greenwood

2010-11-02T09:19:00.000-04:00

When I first got Alex Greenwood's email, I was, like in the old days, taken aback. There was a short description of the novel Pilate's Cross, like you'd find in a very good query letter. Then a link to access the press release, video trailer and more, and I found myself thinking, Jeez, who is this guy? (You can click on the hypertext to see what I'm talking about)

In other words, this writer is much better prepared for marketing than I am. I can't imagine an agent turning this guy down, but JA Konrath has everybody convinced you make more money with eBooks, which in Joe Konrath's case, seems to be the gospel truth. So, it was with great admiration, I present J. Alexander Greenwood, in his own words, an Indie writer who can show us all a few tricks.

10 Questions

J. Alexander Greenwood

"Pilate's Cross"

www.PilatesCross.com or http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/6806

1) How long have you been writing?

I've been writing since I was twenty. My grandfather Robert E. Trevathan had more than 30 of his book published in his lifetime; he was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame a few years before his death in 2002. He was a huge inspiration, though I didn't get truly disciplined about writing until just before I turned 40 a few years ago.

2) How are you marketing your books?

Word of mouth in the digital age is fantastic. "Pilate's Cross" has had tremendous traffic from Twitter and Facebook by use of special promotions. On Halloween we did a special 13-hour sale and had more than 500 page views of the book's website. Sold a few copies, too. In fact, if you're reading this and buy the book on Smashwords, I'll knock a dollar off the cover price. Just use this code: UR54E (expires December 1, 2010).

I've also appeared on Kansas City's public radio station and been interviewed by a local webzine. I struck a deal with the celebrated digital media design company T2 + Back Alley Films of Kansas City, an Emmy-winning production house, to produce a book trailer that I think is better than most major film trailers. I'm so encouraged by sales and reviews that I'm now going forward with a limited print run of paperbacks.

3) Tell us why readers will like your latest book.

People are suckers for a true story that's stranger than fiction. I give them both--a true story with a fictional twist--one radio interviewer kindly compared the concept to "In Cold Blood."

In 1950 a professor in tiny Peru, Nebraska strode into a college president's office, shot him dead, and then killed himself. Though few remember this event, that dreadful sort of crime resonates with readers.

“Pilate’s Cross" is inspired by the questions this crime created. It has been described as 'The X-Files' meets 'The Prisoner.' It follows newly transplanted college instructor John Pilate, his sarcastic imaginary pal Simon and lovely friend Kate as they investigate the unsolved mystery of a murdered president of Cross College. In too deep to wash his hands of the mystery, he risks his life to get to the truth of what really happened in 1963 and why it's just as deadly more than 40 years later.

4) How do you edit your books? Do you have help?

I did six drafts and a few more polishes of the book and had six dedicated, trusted readers who helped me iron out inconsistencies and errors. Then I hired an editor recommended by Smashwords founder Mark Coker to format it. I hate finding errors in a book, especially my own.

5) Where are your books available? (Include hyperlinks)

The book is available on Smashwords

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/6806

Apple iBooks

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/pilates-cross/id365934163?mt=11

Kobo

http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Pilates-Cross/book-H0q-2iMilUKmSJ3m7tHKPQ/page1.html

BarnesandNoble.com

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Pilates-Cross/J-Alexander-Greenwood/e/2940000792186/?itm=1&USRI=%22Pilate%27s+Cross%22

Sony Reader Store

http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/j-alexander-greenwood/pilates-cross/_/R-400000000000000248790

and Diesel.

http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi-bin/item/9781452300382/Pilate%27s-Cross-eBook.html

6) What have your reviews been like so far? (Include review link)

Reviews have been exceedingly positive and encouraging. I list them all on the book's homepage: http://www.pilatescross.com/ One of my favorite reviews says, "LOVED it! It's the kind of book that makes you wish for a snow day or the case of the sniffles to keep you in bed reading it through!" That's a great compliment--to you wish you were sick so you could stay in bed and read more.

7) What do you deal with at your blog/website?

My readers generally keep asking when the sequel is coming out. I tell them I'll let them know as soon as (main character) John Pilate lets me know.

8) Have you found reader discussion groups for your genre? No, but I'm looking. I am excited that a local book club here in Kansas City has named "Pilate's Cross" their first ebook selection. I may do a reading if they will have me--a novelty for an ebook author!

9) Would you like to review your favorite Smashwords writer?

Cristyn West and Jason McIntyre are doing interesting work. Keep an eye out for a new bodice-ripper by Michelle Ross, too. It's fun pirate-flavored action and erotica.

10) What are you working on now?

I'm working on the follow-up to "Pilate's Cross" called "Pilate's Key," where our hero gets into more trouble away from snowy Cross Township down in the sunny Florida Keys. I'm also very excited about collaborating with my book's cover artist David Terrill on a novella based on a series of his paintings titled "What the Gardener Saw." We're looking at doing a graphic novel of my award-winning short story "Obsidian." You can get the original story and more for free on Smashwords in the volume titled "Pavor Nocturnus." All in all, I'm having a great time and hope new readers will join me.

Featured Author: Mark Goldberg

2010-10-28T11:45:00.000-04:00

(A week off seems like forever. I've been looking for work, something to actually get me a paycheck on a regular basis. You know what I found out? It's actually easier to get a good job in an industry I know and love (computers) than a crappy job in an industry I don't love (retail). And one other thing: I do more writing when I have a job than when I have all day free. For some reason, I feel guilty writing when everyone else in my house is working, and so I spend hours doing pointless chores. Moral of the story is, there's never enough time to do the things we like, so we waste time doing things we don't like, and then wonder where the time went.)

Today, I want to feature Mark Goldberg. Six years ago, I joined John Dufresne's Friday Night Writers, meeting regularly at the Florida International University Biscayne Bay campus. Mark had already been attending for years, and was quick to point out the group's simple rules: Bring at least 20 copies, double-spaced in Times New Roman, and read and comment on everyone's submission, if you want your own to be read. Mark always has a new chapter or two of his current novel ready to go, and no matter whether things are high or low for him personally, he keeps writing and critiquing and bring his warm humor to every meeting. It's been refreshing, for an ego-maniac like myself, to see someone be so consistent and persistent. When I decided to self publish the stories I'd been submitting and placing in online journals, he saved me from a full week of frustration getting the text I wanted on to the artwork I'd chosen, and giving Believable Lies a classy looking cover. He did all this while we sat in Border's bookstore, talking about writing. You'll see his side business advertised here, Mark's Covers, and trust me, if you want inexpensive professional help from someone who is easy to work with, Mark is your man.

Mark's books have always struck me as movies in print. The images are graphic, and lend themselves to visualization. In one novel, a Claudia Schiffer look-alike wanders down Biscayne Boulevard with no memory of how she got there, and is molested by a woman she thought was going to help her. In the book we're discussing today, a six foot young woman trained in martial arts dons leathers and her motorcycle boots to hunt murderous pedophiles, assisted by info from a computer wizard known only as Source. The Jada Agenda offers readers a chance to witness vigilantte justice brought to bear on society's most loathsome criminals. There's a movie here, folks! Get the popcorn going!

Here's our Q&A:

Q&A for Mark Goldberg

Mark, The Jada Agenda deals with a citizen dispensing justice in her own way. Tell us the storyline, and how you developed the lead character.

Aubrey Carlisle is a First Grade teacher. She's also a masked, 6'2", leather-wearing, motorcycle-riding, vengeance-driven killer of pedophiles. She finds them before the cops do. Then she calls and has them clean up after her. She goes into overdrive when her favorite little student, Jada, is kidnapped. All of Miami thinks Aubrey is a man. That's why the papers have mislabeled her Mr. Vengeance. But murder is still murder and the part that bothers Aubrey is that she has no feelings one way or the other about what she is doing. Was it born out of an experience she had in college or something she experienced when she was much younger?

The papers are filled with stories about abused children these days. Especially in south Florida. I believed it was time to have a hero address this problem. I enjoy reading Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. I was surprised to learn that sixty percent of his readership is female. What could be of more interest to the female reader than a Reacher-type female hero?

Is there a sequel to this book?

I’ve just begun working on The Virginia Agenda, which would be the second book in the series, and deals with abused women.

Who do you enjoy reading? Who influences your writing?

I mentioned Lee Child. I also enjoy Robert Mccammon, F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series and Tess Gerritsen’s mysteries.

Tell us about your other Smashwords books.

My own favorite book is Walk Into The Sun, which is a tale of New York City after the default. SatanWorld is the first book in the Tempest Trilogy (it’s a vampire book without the teen angst). GangWay, book two, will be available in about a week, and concerns a gang war instigated by Tempest. Lara’s Special Summer is a tip of my hat to my daughter. Seven-year-old Lara wakes up one summer morning and discovers she has magic powers. She is assisted by her talking dog, Sir Basil Smythe-Woofington. Her only rules; she can’t do anything for personal gain and she can’t tell anyone her secret. LSS brought me my first fan mail, from an eleven-year-old girl who loved the book.

What are you working on right now?

I’m heavily into IceAge. It’s the final book in the Tempest Trilogy. All the Tempest books have historical sections that show the vampire’s evolution. SatanWorld covered the Spanish Inquisition and Columbus’ discovery of the New World. In the present time, Tempest is a televangelist. For GangWay, Tempest dons a priest’s robes and the back story revolves around the Salem Witchcraft Trials. For IceAge, I’ve researched the Mary Celeste, a brigantine that was found floating near the devil’s triangle in the late 1800’s with nobody on board. In the present time, Tempest is now a rabbi, in charge of a Jewish senior citizens’ home. IceAge also brings together all the characters from the previous two books.

You helped me get a great cover for my book. Tell us what you can do for the SBR readers who need covers for their eBooks and PODs.

I use my experience as a graphic designer for the past MANY years and combine it with my innate understanding of what a writer feels. Of course, a writer needs to be able to explain the story and the main character to give me a basis from which to give me a starting point. It’s all spelled out on my web page – www.markscovers.com – along with examples of some of my covers. And everyone should remember that ebooks just get a front cover. But if you’re doing POD, it needs a back cover and a spine, as well.

Is paranormal a good description of SatanWorld?

Actually, I like that better than “horror,” because it involves magic and mysticism, too. Tempest can control the weather and lesser beings and, in GangWay, he also begins his shape shifting. He carries that further in IceAge.

I see you have a children’s book for sale as well. Tell us about that.

Lara’s Special Summer is so special to me that I’ve already mentioned it. I like to tell people that, at $2.99, it’s cheaper than an ice cream cone and will last longer.

Where else are your books available?

All the books are available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and Apple via your iPad and iPhone. Some are up on kobobooks.com, Sony and diesel.com. Four of the books are in paperback (POD) and can be ordered from amazon.com.

Anything you’d like to add for our readers?

How about a thank you gift? If you purchase The Jada Agenda from Smashwords.com, and use the coupon code NH57D, you can get one dollar off the price of the book, from now to November 27, 2010.

(Neil's note: Check out Mark's books and email him at mark@markscovers.com)

Featured Author: Henry Baum

2010-10-21T09:50:00.001-04:00

A lot of people work harder than I do to promote Indie writers. Henry Baum is one of them. In addition to his person blog titled after his latest novel (The American Book of the Dead), Henry also edits SelfPublishing Review, one of my favorite sites, where everyone from Mark Coker to yours truly comment on developments in the self publishing industry. Current topics include, Barnes&Noble's new eBook publishing platform, Pubit!, and Borders' new vanity press.

I asked Henry to take some time and do the SBR Q&A. We talked about writing, de-listing, blogs and marketing.

Henry, I’ ve read somewhere that your books are print published in Europe. How did that
happen? Were you working with an agent at one time?
I lived in Paris for a year and met up with some literary people. In fact, it was the most literary experience of my life, hanging out with old and aspiring beatniks. I got connected to an agent working in Paris who was working with an agent out of London who got the deal with Rebel Inc., an imprint of Canongate. My good friend in Paris is a pretty well-known translator and got the deal to have the book published by Hachette Litteratures. Things have been more seamless and easy in Europe than in the U.S.

Tell us how you became an indie writer.
I've always been indie, as the presses where I've traditionally published have also been independent - like Soft Skull Press in the U.S. I wrote a couple novels in college, had an agent, nothing happened. Wrote my first novel that was eventually published, but said agent hated it. Sent it to Soft Skull Press myself. Wrote a follow-up that took three bitter years, had an agent who had some very dispiriting notes right before it was supposed to go out - He said, "Does she have to join a religious cult?" This is a book about a porn star who joins a religious cult - the cult part is 200 pages of a 300 page book. Wrote another book while my wife was pregnant, this time trying to write something that was more-saleable, as much as I'm capable of doing that. An agent said, "They're not buying books about Hollywood now. A book just sold about the magazine industry, so that's what's hot." Madness. Found another agent, he didn't sell it. Finally, discovered Lulu and wondered why it had taken me so long. With the last book, I didn't bother submitting to agents, as I was tired of the whole process, and I love being in control of my own future.

You founded and edit Self Publishing Review, where many Smashwords authors, as well as
Mark Coker, make regular posts. Is this blog/zine open to everybody?
Most certainly - submissions are welcome to everybody. They all go into a queue, which I then put up on the site. It's been pretty eye-opening about this kind of submission process. People will submit a post with one sentence. Why would you think that should be up on the site, especially when it says posts need to be at least 250 words? It makes you understand at least a little bit why agents are cynical.

The American Book of the Dead. Terrific reviews, good buzz on the Internet. Yet I understand
you actually had a de-listing at Amazon.com just as the book was taking off. What happened?

A confession: I sort of suck at the technical aspect of self-publishing. Writers like Zoe Winters seem to revel in it, but my main advocacy for self-publishing is more philosophical - the idea that all writing can find the light of day. But when it comes to number crunching, I'm as terrible as when it comes to balancing my checkbook. So...I had my book listed to distribute on Smashwords at .99 for Kobo, B&N, etc. What happened is that the Kobo discount put the price below Amazon's own threshold for pricing a book. Instead of Amazon listing the price of my book below the price on Kobo, they chose to remove the buy button entirely. This isn't a great policy, but I should have been better about understanding these pricing discrepancies to begin with.

Your bio says born in New York, raised in Los Angeles. Are your folks in show biz or
something? I spent some time in Venice and Santa Monica long ago (Fred Flintstone was my
roommate) and have always like the atmosphere around UCLA in Westwood. How do you like
living in LA?
My dad's a screenwriter and my mom's a producer. Scratch that, my dad recently dropped out of Hollywood and has devoted his time to playwriting. That may sound sort of glamorous, and it might be compared some other upbringings, but there are thousands of people working in Hollywood, and not all are Angelina Jolie. Actually, my parents' experience in Hollywood (and my brother, who was a screenwriter but dropped out to be a social worker) has contributed to my desire to self-publish. I've seen them come so close to having something be produced but then fall apart due to stupid reasons. It's contributed to my distrust of corporate media. It's also contributed a lot to what I write - as my first two novels are devoted to pretty dark cynicism about Hollywood. So, do I like living in L.A.? Not exactly. But I have a daughter and family's here, so that's the main reason I'm staying.

Tell us about your novels. The combination of humor, satire, thriller and suspense is something
that seems to endear readers and alienate agents. This is what my novels are, and I have
trouble presenting them as this genre or that genre because of the serious message I’ m trying to
laughingly communicate. How do you deal with this as a writer?
I'm sort of perfectly unsuited to publish in the mainstream because a lot of what I write is devoted to pointing out how stupid the mainstream can be. Publishing feeds at the trough of Hollywood, so perhaps they don't want to publish something critical of that beast. But also I've heard that "satire" is a dirty word in publishing, as it's a code word for not classifiable - not comedy, not serious. With my latest book, I went from writing a Hollywood satire to a science fictional satire. I knew I had no hope in the publishing industry - if one book can't be classified, two books that are totally different face a larger uphill battle. I deal with this as a writer by dropping out of the system entirely and hoping that my book reaches people. It'll take a lot longer than if I had a publisher, and indeed may never happen, but I won't have to rely on the industry's acceptance or rejection, but the reader's. Writers write to be read, not to get published.

Are Oscar Caliber Gun and The Golden Calf the same book?Yep. I really liked the title Oscar Caliber Gun - a combination of Oscar Caliber Performance and .38 Caliber Gun, but a lot of people didn't get it. "So your name's Oscar?" someone asked me. I got sick of explaining it in the States and the UK publisher wanted another title. When it was re-released in the U.S. with Another Sky Press, I was happy to keep the title that I wouldn't have to explain.

What writers do you admire, living and dead?

Most of the writers I admire are dead. My influences I guess are pretty standard for a fringe-centered writer: Kerouac, Henry Miller, Hunter Thompson, Bukowski, Philip K. Dick. Writers who aren't afraid to be personal - which is pretty much my problem with a lot of contemporary writing. Writers trying to show how smart they are, which means not always revealing darker parts of themselves. Recently, I've been almost totally obsessed with non-fiction, and Daniel Pinchbeck's a writer I admire. But I admire him more for the brazen quality of his ideas than want to mimic his writing style.

What are you working on now?
The American Book is ongoing. I'm working on Part II now and expect it to be a three part series. I'm posting all of Part II online, and I'm hoping to build some momentum for the time when I'm ready to start work on Part III. That's partly why I'm giving it away for free - to generate interest in the whole project, not just the one book. This whole thing will take many years to complete.

How do you market your work?\
Nothing that off the wall. As my novel is very niche-specific, I tend to hang out on those places that cater to those readers. The niche is conspiracy theory, UFOs, that sort of thing. So I post on sites like RealitySandwich.com, Disinfo.com, and Dailygrail.com. Brings in a lot of traffic to my site, theamericanbookofthedead.com. I've done interviews like this one. But I kind of treat my main site like an ongoing interview. I spend a lot of time working on posts there, and if I can get people interested in reading that site, they'll might be more interested in taking a look at the book. It helps that the novel is sort of an extension of the non-fiction writing I do on the site - if you consider conspiracy theory and UFOs to be non-fiction.

What sites should SBR readers go to learn more about Henry Baum?
Definitely http://theamericanbookofthedead.com. Readers of the Self-Publishing Review may be surprised about just how far out my ideas can be about other topics. I've mentioned in other interviews that I see the UFO issue as similar to self-publishing: the implications of both are so astounding and important that it seems extremely short-sighted to ridicule either. Also check out http://soundcloud.com/theamericanbookofthedead for my songwriting. My other writing goes on http://www.selfpublishingreview.com.

Where do you see the self publishing market heading? Isn’t there a danger of the Big Boys
taking over again?
I don't see how. Once everyone has an iPad and brick and mortar bookstores are not as necessary, the main thing advocating traditional publishing will no longer be true. This will happen - just as mobile phones were once an anomaly, now children have them. Remember when it was annoying when someone would be gabbing on a cell phone in public? Now it's everywhere - not that that's a perfect development, but anyway. The iPad is too great a device for it not to take off. For every iPad that sells, the traditional publishing industry dies a little.

I keep trying all these related sites for indie writers and see zero return. It’s more like the so-
called marketers want to catch the self-pubber in a panic attack, and take what little money
there is. The Kindle people seem much better organized. Am I hallucinating? I don’t mind
hallucinating, as long as it doesn’t cost anything.
Yeah, unless you can really afford it, I don't see much value in paying for marketing. I mean, I'd love to pay $10000 for a publicist, which would probably help, but I don't have that money to spend. I actually spent $70 on an SEO link-building service recently - submitting my site to directories with different keyword phrases. It actually worked, because now my novel comes up in the top results for "UFO fiction," "World War III fiction" and others. That SEO has way more value than paying for an ad on some website.

As for the listing services, I also think there are better ways to spend your money. The Amazon DTP service is free to list and probably more important than all the others. Basically, you should only be paying for these services if you can afford it. They can only help because visibility's important, but can hurt if it's a major percentage of your bank account.

Neil's note: Henry's books are available at Smashwords.com, and at Amazon.com as paperbacks and eBooks. North of Sunset is described: Michael Sennet - movie star - hates his life. The Vanity Plate Killer is enjoying his new life in Los Angeles, targeting people with vanity plates. When Michael Sennet is framed by a paparazzi photographer – license plate PAPRAZI – the movie star finds something he enjoys even more than making movies: killing people

Henry Baum's Smashwords books are Set Your Own Price! so I encourage SBR readers to be generous and actually kick in 3 bucks to enjoy fantastic, entertaining reading from someone who actually tries to help you out.

How to use this site

2010-10-14T12:25:00.000-04:00

If you want to see the author's site or his book(s), you can click on the hyperlinked text, or on the book cover to the right. Let me know if there is a problem.----Neil

for example: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/15385?ref=Neilcrab

Is the hidden hyperlink behind the text On The Gathering Storm

You just click on the title and bam! there you are

#1 Smashwords Best Selling Author Jason McIntyre

2010-10-13T12:22:00.000-04:00

If you've checked out the Bestseller List at Smashwords.com, you've seen On The Gathering Storm by Jason McIntyre there at the top, the bestselling eBook at the site for the Last 90 Days. It is also the Most Downloaded eBook that is not free. To me, this is an incredible accomplishment. I wrote to Jason, and he agreed to share his success story with SBR. Have you read his book? I've seen it compared to Dean Koontz and to John Connolly, authors well known for suspense, using ordinary characters trying to overcome brutal circumstance. In the reviews of Jason's books, what you see repeated over and over is praise for his craftsmanship and sentence structure. He builds a voice the reader wants to listen to, then tells his amazing tales. And his characters, like Hannah Garretty, are people we seem to know.

Watch the video book trailer Jason made, one of the best I've ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYAaRzkjLgM

Q&A with Jason McIntyre:

Jason, your book has been a #1 bestseller at Smashwords for several weeks. How did you build up your readership? To reach Number 1, you must have worked very hard.

For better or worse, I tried a couple of strategies out of the gate that seemed to help me gain some traction. My intent was to have a plan and stick to it, but not so hard that I wouldn’t adjust my approach if a challenge cropped up. A few pieces of my original plan were:

1. I first strove for solid local coverage. My local and regional media, plus many of the people I work with and know in my life, were kind enough to get on board and give early support. Some blogs covered my book and I gave out a boatload of free copies to folks who showed even the slightest inkling of interest in reading my book.

2. I tried to release my stories on Smashwords when new content was staying on SW’s most hit pages the longest. Among the myriad of jobs I’ve held, I'm a web manager so I have a bit of background in this.

3. Surrounding the novel, I created an ecosystem of free stories and a novella which I am happy to let readers enjoy without cost hoping they enjoy them and would perhaps pay a couple bucks for "On The Gathering Storm", my feature-length novel. Also, inside this ecosystem, I tied the cover designs for all the books together with a consistent look and feel -- instantly creating a brand that readers have told me they recognize from website to website. I've been a graphic designer for years and years so this is something I have some knowledge about as well. I tied the look to my website, Twitter page and blogger profile and started hitting everywhere on the web with regulars who didn’t tell me to suck lemons. A few did. Most did not.

4. I gave my novel away for free early -- long enough to get traction and move it up the lists in terms of gross downloads. This also got lots of eyeballs on pages, then bouncing over to my blog and website. A few solid reviews helped immensely.

On The Gathering Storm has enjoyed some great reviews. I see on your website, http://www.thefarthestreaches.com you write about building suspense. Could you share some tips for other Indie writers?

There are so many talented writers out there so for me to play expert here is nothing short of hilarious. I will say that, as a reader, I like to be so engrossed in a scene and the flow of a book that any point askew may threaten to drag me up to the surface of reality. Don’t let a silly type-o slip past you in the editing stages. Don’t give five details when one or two better ones will do. Don’t forget to pay attention to language: how long is your sentence? Should it be shorter and choppier if this is supposed to be a tense moment? Or do I need to lengthen it to slow down my reader’s heartbeat a bit. Just as a comedy can’t have solid laughs for forty-five minutes without some heart attacks in the aisles, a suspenseful narrative needs to take a break from the chills.

How did your background prepare you for writing this novel?

Every character in On The Gathering Storm is based on someone I know or have known and our heroine, Hannah, is a composite of some powerful, yet damaged women. I lived and worked in Victoria, BC and wished to set the novel here for two reasons: One, I was intimately familiar with the pace, way of life and geography of my story so I didn’t have to think about that too much and could concentrate on the guts of the tale. And two, nothing beats the metaphor of an island surrounded by churning waters and roiling cloud banks to conjure up the notion of being alone in a battle against the whole world.

Do you think some genres are better suited for eBooks than others?

Nope! I’m discovering that eBooks have such a ridiculous ease and versatility that I don’t imagine I will ever buy another paperback or hardcover. At least not in this lifetime. I make no promises about any of my future, reincarnated selves.

How will you follow up this novel?

I love and hate this question because I don’t want to come off as mysterious but I also don’t want to give too much away too early. I also want readers who’ve enjoyed my stories to know that I have quite a number of things at various stages of completion.

Next up is THALO BLUE, a suspense/paranormal trilogy that is in the final editing stages. Artwork and proofing is coming along and I hope to release it soon. It has more overt weirdness than On The Gathering Storm and I would liken it mostly to a Dean Koontz book in terms of pacing and style. I’m very pleased with it and excited to share it.

What are your writing habits? How do you get time to work?

I’m both blessed and cursed to have a loving family who all sleep hard and long while I get up and roam the house in the dark to stir my creative milk and hit a few letters on the keyboard. I say cursed because I have a day job which has challenges of its own and I simply do not get enough sleep, nor do I particularly like the taste of coffee. What? A writer who doesn’t drink coffee?

Where are your books available?

E-only at the moment. I just haven’t seen a strong enough demand to warrant a print run. I may consider some kind of print-on-demand option for those hold outs who are ten thousand miles away and want a hard copy. You can find my current catalogue (plus the upcoming trilogy, THALO BLUE, when it arrives) at all the major outlets: Amazon, Apple’s iBookstore, B&N, Sony, Diesel, Kobo...the five and dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

Your website design is terrific. Did you do that?

Am I blushing a little? Kind of you to say. I feel it’s important to have a strong visual identity in all author materials. The big publishers spend loads on great covers and websites for their leading authors. We indie kids should strive for the same end of the swimming pool. It’s much harder for us because good creative is expensive. And it should be if it’s good quality. I find it a shame when a good book has a lousy cover or a captivating author has an ugly website and a cheeseball polaroid glam shot of himself in a Bart Simpson t-shirt. Quite frankly, I feel it makes it less likely that an author’s book will get a fair chance at capturing the reader’s attention.

Indie authorship is so different now. We have to be everything. Not just writers, but graphic designers, marketers, website coders, and shameless self-promoters no matter how distinct the bad taste of tweeting and talking about yourself.

How do your other books relate to On The Gathering Storm? Are they in the same vein?

I get asked a lot about “The Night Walk Men” because, on the surface, it seems so different from the others, a very Neil Gaiman-esque little tale with a holier-than-thou narrator. It’s a novelette billed as a short story and is really the prologue to a longer novel series about these mythic-laden, ages-old figures who walk the earth and dole out their own brand of justice. This series is ongoing and has its foundation in a certain realm of otherworldly-ness but it will be telling stories about people in everyday life, just as Hannah is living what I would call a real life in “On The Gathering Storm”. “Shed” is my novella which is getting stellar feedback from folks who seem to adore the two young boys striving for normalcy in its pages. They come up against evil in two forms: earthly, their evil step-dad, and otherworldly, some middle-of-the-night visitors who give readers the absolute creepie-crawlies.

That’s where my writing seems to dwell: halfway or three-quarters focused on sharing the lives of real people and the rest, in how those real folks come crashing into something unimaginable.

What advice would you give other Smashwords authors?

Don’t wait. I won’t get rich with my books, won’t be able to quit my day job and earn a living at it. But, one day I decided that if even five or ten people that aren’t my parents or siblings --or the fella I run into at the water cooler-- read my books and got something out of them, then they were worth the blood of writing them. I’ve met such kind and generous folks, writers, readers, critics, bloggers, web administrators who have helped and inspired me to keep going. You will too.

Is it cold where you are? I’m in Miami, so we can only tell the season has changed by what sports are on TV. How does your locale influence your writing?

It’s cold in this room. Two A.M. Furnace won’t be switched on until at least November and the eco-friendly monitor doesn’t throw enough heat to catch my bare feet on the hardwood. I will wrap this up shortly before y’all get bored...and before I catch cold.

And, speaking of boredom. I get bored reading an author who only writes about authors. Or a writer who has all of his stories set in the same place. There are some who do this well, but my goal is to have my stories take place in all kinds of locales. I have travelled and lived all over, and am not the sort to take a cruise line or a bus trip when I leave home, so I get to know the local people, hangouts and ways of life. I think so much good literature is about the humanity of all of us and the setting is usually window dressing with little consequence on the meat of it. I have a cracking little novelette in the works that takes place in the dead of winter in a suburb that gets several feet of snow. But “On The Gathering Storm” takes place during an unseasonable heat wave on Vancouver island so, clearly, I’m all over the place in terms of setting.

Whatever the setting or weather, I believe an author needs to take charge of it. I don’t like when reviewers say that the weather or setting in a particular book behaves like another character. Well, no, that’s hyperbole to fill copy. Character is character. But expert setting and environmental detail can definitely add to or subtract from a story. I think my first exposures of this came with King’s Delores Claiborne and Gerald’s Game tandem books. It was genius how he tacked the two books together with a solar eclipse in nineteen-sixty-whatever, despite the fact that the leads were so different and the style of the books was so different.

Anything else to add?

For me, writing is the thing. It’s the main event. Sharing my books with people and learning that they’ve mined something from my strange and often bewildering imagination is at once gratifying and so humbling. I would like to sincerely thank any and all of you who have read my work, whether you paid a couple bucks or took one of the free stories. Please, mi casa es su casa. I would love for you to stop by my website and pull up a chair for a virtual cup of tea. I would thank you in person if I could, and for those of you who have enjoyed my words, I will keep them flowing for as long as I can. All my thanks, Neil, for this opportunity to speak with you and your readers.

Jason also offers his book Road Markers as a free download.

Featured Author: Sandra Edwards

2010-10-11T10:55:00.000-04:00

Today I'm actually backtracking on an earlier post. Sandra Edwards was one of the first Smashwords authors to contact me, but a review helper had declined her work after a reading. But, you know what? There's a lot of really popular writers I don't like at all, and a lot of popular writers I once liked who repeat themselves so often I can't tell if I've read book Z since it sounds so much like book M.

So I decided to take a look. The Google search was not encouraging. A realtor with the same name came up a lot, but I had to dig for our Sandra Edwards. This is fixable. One of the first discussion groups I joined at dtp.amazon.com had a simple wat to get your name out where search engines can find it. Join a lot of discussions at a lot of reader and writer blogs, and always sign off with your full name and author tag. In other words, join a romance book discussion, make a comment, and sign off as Sandra Edwards, Author of Incredible Dreams. Do this at Kindleboards, B&N.com, BookBlogs, etc. until in one week or two, Google finds your name all over the place. Do you guys do this? If not, then featuring Sandra gives us a chance to talk about marketing opportunities, and share what tricks we've picked up.

What I liked a lot was this: when I type Sandra Edwards at Smashwords.com and at Amazon's Kindle Store, a full list of books comes up. At Amazon, Sandra has Secondary Targets with 5 reviews, Crazy for You with 9 reviews, Incredible Dreams both in paperback and Kindle versions, each with 10 reviews, Broken Wings with 4 reviews, and last, The Marriage Bargain with 1 review. This is terrific.

Now at Smashwords, I don't see reviews. This brings up a point of contention I've heard from several Smashwords authors. At Amazon, anyone with an Amazon account can post a review. At Smashwords, only readers who bought the book through Smashwords can post a review. So, if your book is reviewed in the NY Times Sunday Book Review, unless Michiko Kakutani bought the book at Smashwords or has a coupon code, and takes time to do this, the review will have to be posted by other means. But what about eBooks distributed to Apple, B&N.com, Kobo, Diesel, etc. Can those customers post reviews at Smashwords? It seems like they cannot, right now.

Back to Sandra Edwards. The point I'm making is, the lady has done a good job with limited resources of getting sales for her books. She sets a good example for other writers, and yet can still learn and grow with the rest of us as we learn how to succeed at what is actually a difficult but do-able vocation.

Q&A with Sandra Edwards:

Q&A from Smashwords Books Reviewed

Your letter calls one of your books “award winning.” Tell us about any awards or featured events you’ve enjoyed.

I’ve had the good fortune to have won/finaled in numerous RWA (Neil's note: Romance Writers of America is one of the largest writers organizations in the world) sponsored contests with multiple books. INCREDIBLE DREAMS won the 2008 Linda Howard Award of Excellence, the 2009 Gotcha and received nods in several other contests.

How did your background help you to write novels?

I started writing at a very early age (about 13) and was known for making up tall-tales as early as the age 6 or 7. I think most writers are born with an inherent need to tell a story.

Where are your books available?

At Smashwords (it’s outlets) and Amazon.

Do you have author links for readers to learn more about you?

Yes, readers can learn more about me at my website , Goodreads and my Author Page at Amazon.

What genre are you most comfortable with? Do you write romance, or mystery, etc.?

Honestly, I’m most comfortable riding the fence between more than one genre. Oftentimes, my books are described as having a genre identity crisis. I do love hard-talking suspense, time travel, reincarnation, and all with a touch of romance.

How are you marketing your books?

My marketing strategy consists of getting as much online exposure as possible (without depleting my kids’ college funds. lol).

Tell the readers about your different novels, and what they might enjoy.

Crazy For You is a rags to riches tale set against the backdrop of the 80s, movie stars and rock-n-roll. *FYI: this book is a gritty romance that visits some dark and controversial topics. If you prefer a light-hearted romance, this book may not be for you.

Incredible Dreams is the story of a modern-day ghost whisperer who travels through time to save the life of a WWII fighter pilot and ends up jeopardizing her own existence.

Secondary Targets is a hardboiled suspense with a hint of romance ~ What would you do if you woke up one day and found out everything you thought you knew about your father turned out to be a lie?

Broken Wings ~ In this opening book of the Soul Searchers Series a con-artist who's been hired to locate a buried treasure finds more than she bargains for.

Have you always been an Indie writer (self-published) and why?

No, but I prefer being an Indie writer J. I have specific stories inside my head that I’d prefer to write, but they’re too outside the box for traditional publishing. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being an Indie writer, I’m much happier when I let my muse write what she wants.

What future projects do you have in mind?

I’m wrapping up the second book in the Soul Searchers Series. In November, I plan to start working on a sequel to Crazy For You (currently, my most popular book on Kindle).

Do you read a lot? Are there books you would like to see featured?

Yes, I am an avid reader. I recently read a great time travel romance by Monique Martin titled Out of Time.

What would you change, now that you’ve acquired experience in eBook marketing?

I had the good fortune to find a group of seasoned Indie writers who shared their experiences with me, so my marketing strategies worked well right out the gate. The only thing I’d change is I would’ve gone Indie a long time ago!

Are there writers you work with, or readers to help you edit?

Yes, I have a small circle of writers that I work with. They help me stay focused and offer up invaluable assistance when it comes to editing and such.

Anything you’d like to add?

I love hearing from readers! sandra1@sandrawrites.com;

JC Phelps Features My Book Believable Lies

2010-10-10T18:26:00.000-04:00

Check out what a great post JC Phelps has today at her Author Blog:

http://jcphelps.blogspot.com/

Why You're Not Getting Reviewed

2010-10-07T09:21:00.002-04:00

I'm grateful for the many Smashwords authors sending in review requests, but grateful only up to a point. Here's some insight into how I pick and choose, and the guidelines I set for guest reviewers. Understand, the point of doing this blog is to help writers who work hard to produce the best work they can and do their own marketing to establish reputations as seriously committed authors. I am working through quite a pile of requests, and do so gladly. But I don't notify those writers I won't be reviewing, I don't have time.

If I Google your name, and less than half a page comes up with links that are actually about you, that's a bad sign. It means you are not doing your homework. Where's your website? Where's your blog? Where's your books? You need to go read Mark Coker's Marketing Guide and go to SelfPublishingReview.com and come back to me next year.

If you have more than three grammatical errors in the first three pages, that's a bad sign. It means you don't attend a writers group to get feedback from other writers. It means you don't have one friend literate enough to line edit for you. Basically it says to your readers, and reviewers, here's my first draft.

If you use the word 'dastardly' and you're not trying to be funny, that's bad. That means the narrator you are imitating, P.G. Wodehouse or Arthur Conan Doyle or whoever, has too much influence. You need to find your own voice, and use it consistently. In fact, if you have lots of adjectives that are inaccurate and adverbs modifying every bit of trivial action ("He laughed grimly"), I'm not the only one you are turning off.

If your story description has to do with loins or masturbation or spanking, there are plenty of other blogs for this genre. I'm not reviewing stroke books. Lusting for MILFs is what teenagers do on the internet, but it's not what they'll be doing here. Smashwords is overrun with 50-page hot flashes, and they probably all sell better than me. But I'm not interested.

If you have bad reviews somewhere else, like at Amazon.com, I'll find them. I track these things down. Granted, not everybody will give you a good review. And lots of great books, like The Recognitions, got terrible reviews when they first came out. But if the reviewer says (and this is a true story) that you classify your book as a YA genre title but you have fifteen year old characters engaging in frequent graphic casual sex, I'll pass. Not only that, I'll question your motives for doing such a thing.

If your simple love story is 600 pages long, forget it. I'll be posting a list of other book blogs soon, and someone out there is a kindred spirit. But I'm not. A 600 page eBook gives me a headache just thinking about it. If your book involves some obsession of yours that others don't seem to understand, I won't understand it either.

So read this and decide if you are ready or not. There's no shame in stepping back and doing edit work. That's the great thing about eBooks. You can upload your improved text in less than an hour, and tell people you've done so. And the marketing is something you need to do anyway. Not doing it reflects negatively on your commitment. Don't give me that 'I'm a writer, not a salesman' crap. If you choose to bypass traditional publishing, you still need to offer readers the best product you can produce. And when that product is examined, you need to take the feedback and learn from it.

Keep sending the requests. I'll be getting caught up on my email responses, and look forward to working with you.

Featured Author: Susanne O'Leary

2010-10-04T09:14:00.001-04:00

Today Susanne O'Leary is our featured author. Writing from Ireland, Susanne's novels have enjoyed international success in print as well as eBook format. When I asked Susan Wells Bennett to pick a book she'd like to review, Swedish For Beginners was her choice. Being a guest reviewer at SBR, I featured Susan Bennett Saturday, and gave descriptions and links to her novels.

Susanne O'Leary is Swedish by birth and Irish by marriage, lives in Ireland and is the published author of four novels. She has lived in Australia, France, Belgium and Holland and her globetrotting experiences are reflected in all her stories. Her website has her bio and bibliography, and is a great example of using the web to reach readers across the globe.

I emailed her a Q&A, and here's her response:

Q&A for Susanne O'Leary:

You mention your first two books as bestsellers. Tell us about those books, and what the publication process was like for you.
A: My very first novel, Diplomatic Incidents (published by Blackstaff Press in 2001) came about as a kind of satire. I wanted to tell a story, using my own experiences as the wife of a diplomat, turning it into a romantic comedy/ farce. Of course, as some of the characters were based on real people (especially politicians), it created quite a stir in Ireland at the time. The publication process was really interesting, as I learned a lot about how a book is actually finished, from editing, copy editing, proof reading, cover design and blurb. I had no idea that once the author has sold a book to a publisher, he/she has no say in the cover design or publication date. 'Diplomatic Incidents' sold out the first print run very fast and the subsequent mass paperback was reprinted twice. My second novel, 'European Affairs' (now on Amazon Kindle under the title 'Villa Caramel') is set behind the scenes of the European Union in Brussels but most of the action takes place in St Tropez on the French Riviera, where many of the Eurocrats spend their summer holidays.

What is the writing environment like in Ireland now? I read William Trevor and John Banville, but I understand there are Irish writers we've never heard of in the USA.
A: There are many hugely succesful Irish writers, most of them writing chick-lit. But due to the depressed economic climate, publishers have cut down drastically on their lists, so many authors have gone indie and doing very well.

What are you working on now?
A: I am at the moment editing a historical novel, based on the lives of two fascinating women in my family. I have also recently completed a co-written detective story with a script writer who has written many of the episodes of the famous 'Wallander' TV series.

Where are your books available?
A: Mainly on the internet (All Amazon sites among others) in paperback and as e-books on Amazon and Smashwords.

Are your books autobiographical?
A: Not really. Although I use aspect and experiences from my own life, like all authors.

Who do you see as your ideal readers? Do you write genre fiction?
A: I write what I would call womens commercial fiction but now that so many men have read and enjoyed my books, I suppose 'general fiction' would be a better description

Do you have an agent?
A: yes. And he supports all my work even though I have self published one of my books.

Anything else you'd like to say?

A: I might add that 'Swedish for Beginners' has taken off amazingly here in Ireland, with rave reviews in two big national newspapers (The Irish Independent and The Evening Echo), many requests for readings and book talks and sales are great.

Learning The Language of Family
A review by Susan Wells Bennett

I picked up Swedish for Beginners, by Susanne O’Leary, on the recommendation of my grandmother, a devourer of novels who typically finishes five to seven books a week. Her endorsement is a rare thing, so I began reading it immediately.

The adult but recently orphaned main character, Maud, discovers that she is half-Swedish when her stepmother sends her a box of her long-dead mother’s belongings. After her mother’s death in a plane crash, her father, Jack, would never talk to Maud about her. Maud grew up unaware of her heritage or her extended Swedish family.

Upon discovering her Swedish roots, Maud quickly locates a long-lost cousin, packs up her Irish life for the summer, and removes herself to Stockholm. Once there, she begins her journey of self-discovery.
Overall, this novel was very enjoyable, despite a number of typos and formatting issues. The plot was well engineered, though there were a few instances where the timeline was confused (a letter mentioning morning sickness is remembered a few pages before the character has actually read the letter; a man shows up to accompany the main character to a movie despite the fact that he actually hung up before she could issue the invitation).

Beyond that, several of the characters seem to suffer from bi-polar disorder, swinging between moods more rapidly and with less predictability than a rollercoaster. I found myself truly disliking Barbara, Maud’s cousin and supposed friend, though I don’t think that was the author’s intention. And Maud’s romantic interest, Lukas, is a selfish, hateful lout. I was rooting for Maud to dump him.

The truly likeable characters, Maud’s stepmother and her grandmother, received very little attention. However, when the author turned her attention to them, she produced some of the most beautiful scenes in the novel.

I would recommend this novel to most fans of women’s literature. Despite its flaws (or perhaps because of them), it has a lot to say about the true definition of family.#

Neil says: Please take a look at Susanne O'Leary and her novels, and send her a comment or note.

Thanks, Susan Wells Bennett, for the review help. It saved my day. Readers of SBR, take time to thank Susan as well.

NEW!!!Susanne O'Leary sent me this review from Ireland, From The Independent:
(Note: Any SBR author being featured, please send any newspaper reviews of your book(s) so we can get the word out. Our argument is simple: There are good things happening at Smashwords.com, if people know what to look for.)

Independent.ie

A lyrically thrilling trip to Sweden

Swedish for Beginners Susanne O'Leary (Matador, €10.55)

Susanne O'Leary's atmospheric and captivating new novel reminds one a little of Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
It's not just the scenery or the wealthy family with the large summer residence on an island or the mystery to be solved. There is also a disturbing sinister presence which runs though the story. But there the similarity ends. Swedish for Beginners is not nearly as violent as Larsson's novel and O'Leary, author of such acclaimed novels as Diplomatic Incidents and European Affairs, has a more lyrical quality to her writing.
When her father dies, Maud Walsh learns that her late mother, the beautiful Eleonore, was Swedish. She leaves Ireland for ice-bound Sweden at the end of winter, to find her unknown Swedish family and uncover a mysterious past, over the course of a glorious Swedish summer.
Her Swedish grandmother gives her a series of letters written by Eleonore when she was very young and living in Australia with her new husband, Maud's father. Maud gets the letters translated by Anders, a handsome young man who becomes close.
At first, Maud is shocked by the Swedish attitude to sex and nudity but she soon gets in touch with her Swedish side, especially when she meets the handsome but moody actor, Lukas.
Her new-found family try to warn her about Lukas, who seems to have a malevolent streak and as the letters reveal that Lukas was in love with Eleonore in his youth, their relationship becomes uncertain. It is only when she reads her mother's final letter that she discovers the truth about her own identity and Lukas' role in her mother's life.
With Anders waiting in the wings and despite occasional clues in the letters, O'Leary keeps the reader guessing on several strands, until the final denouement.
Swedish by birth and Irish by marriage, O'Leary now lives in Tipperary. She has also lived in Australia, France, Belgium and Holland (her husband was a diplomat) and her travels are reflected in her stories.
Buy 'Swedish for Beginners' from Eason

Susan Wells Bennett Will Review Susanne O'Leary

2010-10-02T10:35:00.001-04:00

Susan Wells Bennett is the author of three novels and reviews Indie books at her website. I am very happy to have her guest review of a novel she picked, from Irish-Swedish author Susanne O'Leary. Swedish For Beginners is Susanne's new novel after Fresh Powder and Finding Margo.

Susan Bennett's work should be noted here. Her three novels are available at Smashwords.com and Amazon.com. Here are descriptions and reviews:

The Thief of Todays and Tomorrows

After a whirlwind wartime romance and marriage, Francis and Katie DeLucia are sure that their future will be perfect. When Francis returns home at the end of WWII though, he encounters a job and housing market crowded with other returning veterans. Desperate to support his growing family, Francis accepts a job from a suspected Mob boss.

"This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, and I found it at Smashwords. I would recommend it to anyone. A really good and easy read..." --Smashwords reader review

Circle City Blues

Mac turned his life upside down for his wife, leaving behind a promising career to pursue her dream of long-haul trucking. When she leaves him for another man, he has to figure out who he is without her. Along the way, he befriends a gay trucking couple, a lot lizard, a science-fiction writer, and a pharmaceutical rep, among others. This novel will have you laughing out loud as Mac moves from one mishap to the next.

"The story is told from the point of view of a young, male truck driver, so I wondered if I (a middle aged woman who's never done anything like drive a truck) would be able to relate to anything about the central character. However Mac is such a likable person, I totally enjoy reading the story of how he finds what he wants from life after his wife leaves him at the very beginning of the story. A quick, charming read." -- Amazon reader review

The Prophet’s Wives

Lazarus Dale can teach you how to reach your full potential through his Learning to Listen Well seminars. You, too, can have a beautiful wife, a successful career, a stylish mansion -- all you have to do is follow his instructions for a perfect life.

"The books characters run the gambit from innocent believers, like Ava and Zoe to the truly dangerous like Richard. All in all, an easy read and entertaining. I would recommend." -- Smashwords reader review

Susanne O'Leary has a terrific bio at her website, which I link here, since I don't have the Q&A done, and the lady certainly seems to have a loyal following. Tomorrow, Susan reviews Susanne.

Deja Vu: The Reviewer Reviewed at Indie Books Blog

2010-09-30T09:52:00.000-04:00

I swear I posted this yesterday. Maybe one of Scott's zombies ate it.

My short story collection Believable Lies is discussed at Indie Books Blog

Take a look:

http://indiebooksblog.blogspot.com/

Did I mention it's available in print, and makes a perfect coaster?

---Neil

Featured Author: Tracy Falbe

2010-09-28T11:53:00.001-04:00

Tracy Falbe not only writes great fantasy books, she embodies the spirit of the indie book entrepreneur. Her four volume series, The Rys Chronicles, is published by Falbe Publishing, under her own brand, Braveluck Books. In addition to being available at Smashwords.com, her books are sold through her fully functional eStore, in any non-DRM format, and at Amazon.com in both print and Kindle versions.
Volume One: Union of Renegades is available at the lowest possible price at both Smashwords.com and Amazon.com, and as a download at ther blog, Her Ladyship's Quest.
The more I read about her books and Indie marketing skills, the more I know SBR readers will appreciate hearing from Tracy about the effort she has put into this project.

Q&A With Tracy Falbe:

Your website Her Ladyship’s Quest looks wonderful. How did you set it all up?

My blog is set up through Blogger.com. Originally it had one of the free blogspot.com domains, but I purchased the dedicated domain of www.herladyshipsquest.com a few months ago through the Blogger system. It was very affordable and lets me still use the Blogger publishing interface. Really anyone can do it.

As for the merchandising page at the blog, I used the same system that I use at my main website. Buy buttons through Paypal.com and automatic downloads through Payloadz.com. These third party vendors let you set up everything with copy and past codes.

The Rys Chronicles are in four volumes, each with its own central thematic structure. Tell us about the original idea and its evolution.

That is a tough question. I began the first novel Union of Renegades in 1997. At the time I wanted to explore with my hero, Dreibrand, the desire to break away from what you are supposed to do. Just stop following the rules and do what you want to please yourself. Refuse to accept the path that is presented to you by others. At the time in my personal life I was quitting a halfway decent job in Nevada because I was sick of it and moving to Northern California where I had no job and did not know anybody. Most people thought I was nuts, but I just checked myself out of the rat race. Fortune favors the bold you know. Of course, in my fiction things are much more interesting than my life. My hero gets to kill people, win vast treasures, be friends with the most powerful being in the world, and found a kingdom.

In my series, I also wanted to create a female fantasy character who was not just some young virginal princess. This is where Miranda came from. She is a woman who suffers the abuse of an exploitative society and snatches at every chance she gets to have power. She possesses no innocence, but, as a mother and a person who has known oppression, she is compassionate.

As my imagination continued to reveal the series, I wanted to write fantasy flavored by my American heritage with westward expansion, people seeking freedom, native civilizations resisting conquerors, slavery, rebellion against tyranny, and founding new societies.

Because I write fantasy I of course needed magic in my series. I did not want to just grab the concept of “elves” out of the toolbox, so I created my own race called the rys. Most of them have only limited common magic. They can cast heat spells and remote view over short distances, but a few rys have astounding powers. They can see across vast distances, read minds, influence thoughts, cast destructive attack spells, heal flesh, create elaborately enchanted physical objects, enslave souls, and more. These are the rys that battle for power, and the human characters basically always need to be allied with a rys champion in order to achieve anything. I construct my stories with a rys-level plot, a human-level plot, and a plot that joins the two levels.

Each novel in the series contains a whole story because I feel a novel should have a story arc with a beginning, middle, and end. And then each novel contributes to the series by assembling a grand epic. I’ve read some series in which each book just builds up to something that then gets punted to the next book. It is important for something to HAPPEN in a novel, so I work to craft a story within each novel. I hesitate to say that each novel is a stand alone novel because each one contributes to the next, but I always resolve some plot lines in each book. I want the reader to feel like he or she is making progress and not always pining for the great big finale.

When I first published the books I often worried that I did not have proper cliffhangers at the end of each one. Maybe this is a mistake, but I’ve had readers write me and say that they just have to find out what happens next even though I don’t leave anyone tied to burning stakes or falling over waterfalls at the end of each novel. I try not to push readers too often with artificial dramatic devices.

Has fantasy always been your genre?

Yes. I have been reading the genre consistently since I was 12 or 13. I read and enjoy other things as well. I am mostly a nonfiction junkie. I’ll devour books on sociology, economics, politics, history, anthropology, hobbies, and just about any subject that catches my eye. I just finished a book about feng shui, so I’m now officially determined to align myself with the forces of my environment.

Tell us about Falbe Publishing.

Falbe Publishing is my actual company. I produce one nonfiction title Get Dicey that is a how to play craps book. I used to work in Las Vegas as a craps dealer so I know the game well. Get Dicey was my first publication that I used to start the company. Then out of Falbe Publishing I created the fantasy imprint Brave Luck Books www.braveluck.com to produce The Rys Chronicles. I also publish several small informational websites that generate revenue from Google ads. I also have a collection of free-to-download public domain classics. These represent old titles that I’ve read and enjoyed.

Do you offer books through Amazon?

Yes. All my titles in trade paperback have been at Amazon for years, and just this summer I added The Rys Chronicles to the Kindle store when the royalty structure became more attractive.

What websites do you enjoy?

I follow the History and Women blog http://www.historyandwomen.com by Mirella Patzer, author of The Pendant, which I am currently reading. At her blog she posts fascinating mini biographies of women throughout history. She really comes up with interesting subjects. I enjoy surfing around YouTube.com, especially to watch music videos. I like Self Publishing Review http://www.selfpublishingreview.com. For a while this year I was addicted to People of Wal-mart http://www.peopleofwalmart.com but it eventually became unbearable. It’s grotesquely funny, but continual daily viewing will make you lose all hope for the future of humanity.

What are you working on now?

Oh, how I have been working! I am writing another four-part epic fantasy series of course. I’m closing in on the completion of the third novel. I’ve been working on the project slowly since about 2004, but I’m finally gaining steam now that I’ve broken the habit of being pregnant and giving birth. It’s really killing me sitting on these novels, but I won’t be publishing until the whole quartet is complete. I go back and forth and fiddle with the characters and societal details as I write the series. I did the same thing with The Rys Chronicles. All four novels were written before I started publishing them.

I don’t have a working title for the new series yet, but it is set in the same world as The Rys Chronicles only it is 2,200 years in the past. So, I’m working on creating two ancient human civilizations, plus the young rys society and the existing tabre society, so it’s been grueling, but I’m pleased with how all the elements are coming together. Of course all these societies have to make war in a colossal and tragic clash of civilizations. I really can’t wait until I have it all written. It will be a relief to get it out of my head.

What inspires you to write?

Although I use the fantasy genre, I gather inspirations from many things in current events. There are so many dramatic and terrible things in the world. A lot of suffering and injustice that I hear about in the news goes into the development of my characters. Of course, it is the fantasy genre so I get to do other things that are fun, like create master assassin warlords and imperial officers and magical beings tormented by the dark temptations of their powers. I must also admit that I am intellectually fascinated by the political role of religion throughout history and how it is used to control whole societies.

Mostly I write because I need it as a therapeutic creative outlet. I can’t imagine not writing novels. I’ve known ever since I was a kid that I wanted to write novels.

Do you have any advice for other Indie authors?

Don’t stop trying. Every sale to every single reader is greatly fulfilling, at least to me. With digital publishing there is really nothing to make you stop pursuing your dream of reaching an audience. The barrier of cost is low, so keep doing it. Use all the distribution channels available to you at Smashwords. Also make sure you have your own website where you market yourself and at this website include a way to sell your work. I’m astonished at how some authors don’t bother selling directly to readers. Many do of course, but I’ve read in forums how writers say it would not be worth the bother. Well, it’s not much bother with Paypal and any download service you want to use. Any sale without giving a cut to a middleman is most excellent. Your website will hardly rival the exposure at big retailers, but I still can’t think of a single reason not to do it. Before there was Smashwords or the Kindle store or anything like that, my website was the only place people bought my ebooks.

Honestly though, I wish I had some miraculous marketing advice, but I don’t really. I plug along just like everyone else.

How did Books Two and Three and Four change your marketing plan?

I always had a series to market. There was never a point at which there was a Book One and nothing else published. Book One and Two were published simultaneously and then I got the last two books out the next year. They had been completely written when I published the first two but still needed some editing. My approach has always been to give away Book One so people will have a chance to get into the series. If they like it, then some buy the rest of the novels.

What's it like to try to get a series of books out?

A huge bunch of work! There's just so much editing and formatting and checking details back and forth between novels. Plus I have to write promotional copy and descriptions and everything. Just deciding on titles for each novel took months. Luckily I happen to be a person who thrives on colossal tasks that take a long time to finish. I must have built cathedrals in a past life. I break everything into small tasks and just chip away at it. From writing the first word to publishing all four parts of The Rys Chronicles was a 10-year process.

Now that you have one series available, do you plan another?

Absolutely. For some reason I am a person who can only dream up stories in multiple volumes.

SBR Now Available for Kindle at Amazon.com

2010-09-27T14:45:00.001-04:00

You can download Smashwords Books Reviewed to your Kindle as a monthly subscription from Amazon.com.

Click here to go to the page. Friends and followers, please go to the page and post some reviews telling people to join us here.

Featured Author: Kristen Tsetsi

2010-09-25T10:03:00.003-04:00

Kristen Tsetsi was one of the first selfpublishing authors I met, and has always done a lot to help other writers find a way to get the word out. She has a MFA from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and is the editor of this year's American Fiction: Vol.11, 2010 available in October from New Rivers Press.
Kristen helped me out with a guest review also, of RJ Keller's Waiting For Spring. Her story collection Carol's Aquarium is discussed below, available as an ebook. Her novel Homefront has found a new publisher, but there are still copies available.

Smashwords Books Reviewed Q&A:
Kristen, tell us about the military connections in your bio, and their influence on your writing.

Well, I grew up in Germany and went to school with Army brats and children of government contractors (GS workers), and so I spent several years going on and off military posts, through military housing areas, and shopping and working at the military shopping center (specifically, bagging groceries at the commissary between the ages of 14 and 17, and selling liquor at the Class Six once I turned 18). I’m also married to someone who is former Army, and who’s currently in the National Guard.

But whatever military connection I have hasn’t had an influence on my writing as much as it’s inspired a couple of short stories (Storyglossia Fiction Prize winner “They Three at Once Were One” and “Suburban Warfare,” included in my collection Carol’s Aquarium) and a novel (Homefront, inspired by my husband’s deployment and the suffocatingly awkward political state of the country at the start of the Iraq war, and what it all looked like from the very raw and revealing point of view of a woman whose lover has just been sent to Iraq - currently available on Kindle, but soon to be removed pending publication with a Connecticut press). What influenced, and continues to influence, my writing are other writers and the stories I think are interesting to tell.

You went indie years ago. What’s that experience been like?

Oh, you know… Good and bad. But mostly good. I’ve enjoyed the control a lot. Before self-publishing, I queried many, many, many agents, and I received enough feedback from a couple of big ones to convince me the book was worth publishing. (Each of them said the book was very good, but that the state of the industry would make it difficult to market. They wanted something more commercial, more of a quick sale.) Later, a very big NYC agent looked at Homefront at the recommendation of one of her clients, and she said if I wanted their representation I’d have to make “significant changes.” They were the kind of changes that would commercialize it and completely mangle the very intentional style, pacing, and voice of the book, and I wasn’t interested. Therein lies the power of self-publishing: if there’s reason to believe the book works as is, there’s no need to turn it into something different in order to get it to readers. There’s great freedom in not being afraid to trust your intuition.

Self-publishing was incredibly educational, and marketing kept me very, very busy. And anxious. And there were thrilling moments and moments I wanted to beat my own head with a bat. But I think I was moderately successful, because I managed to secure some pretty decent interviews, as well as reviews in publications I was afraid were way beyond my reach. I think the most important thing I learned is to reach, anyway.

Tell about the NPR interview. Is it available somewhere?

It is. It’s tricky to get to, because you can’t easily skip ahead from the first topic to the next, but in the NPR interview – about halfway through the podcast - Faith Middleton asks some questions and I answer them. I’ve learned a lot since that day, such as how important it is to steer the interview when you feel the conversation isn’t going in the direction you’d expected (or hoped) it would. Another NPR interview I favor was conducted by Mark Welch in Kentucky, and most exciting (to me) was a TV interview on a Nashville NBC program, “Better Nashville.” An exciting, sweaty, and nerve wracking experience, but people say they can’t tell I’m sweating. Or shaking.

Are your books available in print? Where?

Homefront can still be found in print at Amazon.com until supplies run out (I halted distribution). Carol’s Aquarium is an ebook with someday-plans for print, when I have the time.

The stories in Carol’s Aquarium feature quirky female characters and men trying to understand them. Would that be fair to say? It seems like the difficulty in communication between men and women gives thematic structure to the collection.

Hm. I don’t know that I was too concerned with men trying to understand women in any of the stories outside of the short story “Carol’s Aquarium.” And I don’t think the women are as “quirky” as they are exposed. As in any story with any protagonist, whether male or female, there’s a desire to strip away the layer we show others and really get inside. I like to normalize the things we don’t necessarily like when we see them in others. Maybe “normalize” isn’t the right way to say it… I like to inspire sympathy for characters who, on the surface, would seem to have no redeeming qualities. I also like to explore the “little” fears or flaws we have that are actually pretty overwhelming to the person experiencing them, no matter how inconsequential they seem to others.

Editor's note: There was a Q&A here I took out. Kristen asks for it to be restored. NC

What are you working on now?

Nothing. I imagine I’ll write again when there’s something I feel the need to write. Or when there’s a very, very short fiction contest I want to participate in.

What is Paper Rats?

Fun, that’s what! Paper Rats is the name of the production company created by me and fellow Backword Books author R.J. Keller. Our video series, “Inside the Writers’ Studio,” is a comic relief break for writers. Our characters in the series both empathize with writers and make horrible fun of them – because no one should make fun of writers but other writers. We currently have 5.5 episodes online and are preparing to start filming the next. Keller films in Maine, and I film my scenes in CT, and then Keller brilliantly edits everything together. Writers really should watch the series. Seriously.

Backword Books features other Smashwords authors, right? What is your role there?

Yes, many of us are on Smashwords. My role, and the role of others, is just to sort of hang out and be part of the indie author collective imagined, and then started, by author Henry Baum. The role of Backword Books is primarily to communicate there are quality books released by authors
who haven’t gone the route of traditional publishing, that the book itself is the value, not a publisher’s stamp of approval.

There are websites offering authors exposure, and there are readers groups. Have you had any experience with them?

Not too much, no. I was so busy trying to market myself in other ways that I had little time to make valuable use of such sites or groups. My book is listed in several places meant to promote authors, such as FiledBy and…another one whose name I can’t remember, but I think for those places to work you have to work them. Or maybe they don’t work at all. I still haven’t really figured out what works and what doesn’t, and what “work” even means in this context. What’s “success” for an independent author? I don’t know. It probably depends on who you ask.

What do you look for when you go to the internet each day?

A fight.

No, not really. (But sometimes.) I don’t know. News bites, facebook activity, and scrabble, mostly.

How can people contact you?

By visiting my website – http://www.kristentsetsi.com./ I love my contact form page and wish more people would use it. The picture in the background of a bright orange door to an equally bright blue house was taken in Stonington, CT. It’s a great door.

Saturday's All Right

2010-09-25T07:46:00.000-04:00

You can view my author page at Amazon.com and soon, velly velly soon, I'll have an annoucement about even more exposure for our beloved Smashwords authors. I'm opening a nudist colony

...not really. Look at my photo and you'll see that's the troof. Now get back to work.

Featured Author: AJ Davidson

2010-09-21T15:12:00.002-04:00

I wrote a couple days ago about finding the Smashwords authors who have a distinguished history, established bibliography and the marketing skill to show the rest of us how to do things. AJ Davidson is the Featured Author, and when you look at his profile and his website, you can see why I'm proud to have him here at SBR. Born in Northern Ireland, his books, both fiction and non-fiction, are written in clear concise prose that takes control of the reader from the first page. In the book I read, Churchill's Queen, we get a historical thriller, based on efforts to save the great cruise ship Queen Elizabeth from Nazi attacks. It opens with a scene aboard a U-boat, cruising near British waters, carrying a couple spies to their drop-off point. The action starts immediately, and kept me reading through two nights. I strongly recommend this, to anyone who enjoys Ken Follett, Harlan Coben and Jack Higgins.

We did a long distance Q&A, and you'll enjoy his well-thought out answers:

Questions for AJ Davidson:

You live and work in the UK, and yet write with settings in the US and Europe. Are you that well traveled?

I have done a lot of traveling, and I have also lived in quite a few countries. I have itchy feet and after a year or so in one spot I’m keen to move on. I believe that a man of twenty will be the same man at sixty except for the books he’s read and the people he’s met. Lee Childs and John Connolly are two writers from Europe whose books are set in the US.

For indie authors across the pond, are there different distributors besides Amazon and Smashwords?

Amazon is the big one in Europe, though there are others. Unfortunately, the e-book market is just getting started, but we’re catching up fast. It’s a little known fact that there are more books published each year in the UK than the US.

You have quite a list of books to your credit. Which are still in print, and which are eBook only?

My non-fiction books are all still in print. Kidnapped was a best-seller and has gone through a number of reprints. A Supreme Court judge wrote a two page review of Defamed! which was credited with changing Irish libel law. My fiction titles are e-books, but also available from CreateSpace in paperback.

You mention favorite authors at your great website. Tell us who inspired you to write and publish.

My biggest inspiration came from Roger Nesbitt, a high school teacher who opened my eyes to Dickens and Shakespeare. My agent, Jonathan Williams, was the first to see that I had some potential. He persuaded me to write the non-fiction books; often an easier path to a publishing contract. I admire James M. Cain, James Crumley, and Raymond Chandler. The more recent writers that I follow are Crais, Connolly and Coben.

What are sales like for you? Do you have book revenues coming in from many sources?

After a sluggish start my sales on Smashwords and its distributions channels are really starting to take off. I have immersed myself in marketing over the last six weeks and it’s paying dividends. Unusually, it seems, my sales are balanced fairly equally between Smashwords and Amazon. There does seem to be a preponderance of YA and Fantasy titles on Amazon’s Indie e-book list, probably because the young are faster to embrace new technology. My books probably appeal more to the thirty-plus age bracket.

Tell us about your family life, and how they feel about your writing career.

My wife has always been 100% behind me, encouraging me and at times being the main earner. My son boasts that he has never read a book in his life – though he is the Student Union president at his university so he must have opened one or two. My daughter seems keen to follow in my footsteps.

Some of your thrillers have historical and archaeological settings. What kind of research do you do?

I usually leave the bulk of my research to the end. I find that my plot often goes off at a tangent, so too much preparation was wasted. I have an anthropology and archaeology degree, so I suppose some of it was bound to creep into my writing.

What are you currently working on?

I have a thriller, Decoys, coming out on November 5^th with Aspen Mountain Press, contracted before I made the decision to go Indie. It is based in the seedy world of Miami’s fidelity testing agencies. I’m also putting the finishing touches to Death Sentence, a crime thriller set in Clinton, Louisiana, a location I used in Piwko’s Proof.

Tell us about Churchill’s Queen. I understand it’s based on true events.

When war broke out in Europe, Churchill was the First Lord of the Admiralty. He had the foresight to know that the great liners the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth could move whole armies around the globe in a matter of weeks. But Hitler also realized the liners’ potential. The Queen Mary was safe in New York and out of reach. However the Queen Elizabeth was still in its fitting-out basin in Scotland. The book tells how two Abwehr agents attempt to destroy the world’s largest moving structure. I link their failed sabotage to the liner’s ultimate tragic destruction in Hong Kong harbor decades later. Several US customers have contacted me to say that they purchased the book for their fathers who had gone or come home from war as GIs aboard these magnificent vessels.

How are you reaching readers, both old and new? Your website seems well constructed. Do you join reader forums and writers groups also?

Marketing is still pretty new to me. I don’t think there’s any magic formula, you have to find what works for you and persevere. I try to bring a touch of humor to my blogs and it does seem to help. The big advantage with Smashwords and Amazon is the instant feedback so you don’t have to wait six months to know if a strategy is working. Occasionally I will be talking to a person in a forum and they make the decision to buy one of my books. The sale is credited within minutes. I get a real kick from that. I did join writer groups in the past, but couldn’t stand the BS. I remember one particular evening when I sat through a writer reading her latest epic poem – for eighty minutes – in Gaelic.

What’s it like to have a print bestseller and now go indie? Was it changes in the publishing industry that influenced you or is this something to fit some other goal?

I did a lot of soul-searching before I went Indie, especially as Aspen Mountain Press was interested in contracting more titles. But I like the closer contact with the readers that going Indie gives me – it makes me want to improve my writing. I’m not writing for some faceless customer, my readers are now more like an audience at a live show. I’m now trying to get back the digital rights to my non-fiction books. Technology has made a lot of this possible, and there’s still loads of good stuff to come.

What do you advise new writers, looking to get started?

Don’t ever expect writing to be an easy life. Most writers work long hours and earn relatively little. If you want to write to earn big bucks, forget it. Go train as a doctor or lawyer. Writers write because they have to, they have little say in it. And read, read, read, and then read some more.

Everyone, please check out the videos AJ has posted on Smashwords.com below his books, and use the wattpad.com link to find new readers and writers.

Getting To Know You

2010-09-20T13:33:00.001-04:00

I'm finding out there areauthors at Smashwords who have very good websites, blogs, Facebook pages and Amazon.com Author Central pages. In fact, I'm learning how to do a better job of marketing my books by seeing the work they put into their social networking skills. Mike Jastrzrebski, for example, has spent hours in reader forums, like Kindleboards, not saying "hey please read my book" but offering insight into what makes a good crime story, what it's like to live on the water, and generally getting his name out there as a sensible likable guy. JC Phelps has a blog that features guest reviewers. Scott Nicholson is everywhere, and has become quite well known by doing the work of getting in front of readers every chance he gets. I believe I commented on Eddie Wright's networking in his review. AJ Davidson, our next featured author, also has an international presence via the WorldWide Web.

Do yourself a favor. Google your name, see what comes up. Google your book titles. The search engines are our lifelines right now. Expect to see more features of writers who have done their homework. Anyone thinking this blog will catapult them to fame is guilty of wishful thinking. It hasn't done it for me, and it's my freaking blog. So do what I say. Find out how others are finding you.

We all need a way to sell via Smashwords. It's not easy. Mike has sold over 500 books at Amazon, and less than 5 at Smashwords. We need to come up with a collective marketing scheme that draws readers to Smashwords as an original source. Don't expect someone else to do it. The writers must do it. We need to all learn from the Kindle authors how to use available tools to sell our books.

Send in your ideas. Post comments. I need the answers as bad as you do.

Featured Author: J.C. Phelps

2010-09-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

For years I could not read women writers, and I still can’t write for women readers very well. My literary heroes have always been roughnecks and drunks and men who know the smell of cordite and sweat, and the books have been about wars and gangsters and despair, things women know as male foolishness.

A couple years ago, my friend Neil Plakcy hosted a party at a Polynesian restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale for the release of his second Mahu mystery. When we arrived, I met an energetic little lady with short reddish whitish hair taking photographs of everybody. That lady was Barbara Parker, an attorney turned novelist, author of the highly successful Suspicion of --series, and we talked and she graciously agreed to read a short story of mine, “Murphy Contemplates Celibacy.”(now “Man and Machine” in my collection) Two days later she sent me an email, full of humor and encouragement, and attached the photos she’d taken, a gesture completely unexpected. I bought several of her books, but my narrow-mindedness got the best of me, and the novels sat on my shelf unread.

Within the year, Barbara Parker was dead, killed by a cancer she must have been under treatment for even at that brief encounter at Neil’s book signing. It made me realize what my own prejudice had left out of my reading life for so many years, that women writers are every bit as tough as men, and that there’s real courage behind a lot of their kindness, and determination driving efforts to succeed where so many men simply surrender.

In that light, when J.C. Phelps first contacted me about reviewing her Color Me Grey series, my reaction was, Great, a lot of chick lit to read. Then I opened the email from Barbara, accidentally, and was reminded of a lady who gave me a little of her time when those moments must have been very precious to her. So SBR readers, with great pleasure I introduce a lady who has written three novels with tough little heroine Alexis Stanton, while raising a family, writing a very good blog, and doing her own marketing.

Q&A:

Tell us about your writing ambitions.
When I was young and wondering "What do I want to be when I grow up?" my first thoughts were Veterinarian until I had a few cats die and I realized I didn't want to deal with that day in and day out. Though, thinking back, author has always been in my mind. It just seemed unattainable throughout most of my life. That was until I got a very strong character idea and I knew I had to "be" this person in places other than my mind late at night. Alexis Stanton was born and has since become very much a part of me. Though, Alex does things I would never do, like jump from a perfectly good airplane and get up early to exercise. What's up with that?

How did you come up with Color Me Grey? And why is it Grey, not Gray?
The title is something I struggled with for more than a month. I can't even begin to remember all the titles I, and another friend, thought of. Shades of Grey, the title for my second book in the series, was actually one of my strongest choices at first. However, Color Me Grey was suggested to me by my father and it seemed right. This is the book where she becomes Grey, so...
I struggled with all the names as I began to write. They really do make or break a character. Mr. White was a character of another story inside my head that I have never written down and the rest of the colors just followed. Grey seemed to be the logical choice for Alex because of my plans for her in the future. As for Grey vs. Gray. It's surprising, in a way, that you'd ask that very question since I've never discussed my books with you before this. My father and I had a discussion about gray being the correct spelling of the color as I was writing. He, being a stickler for all things right, was sure I should use the correct spelling. However, I prefer the look of Grey and I think it makes her more of an enigma with the non-traditional spelling. So, no real reason, other than a feeling for the look of the words on the page and the meaning that look could garner.

Your blog features authors and their work. Tell us about that.
Well, I'm an author and I should host a blog - right? So I did just that. http://jcphelps.blogspot.com However, being a VERY opinionated person I found it very hard to write for my blog. The last thing I want to do is alienate any potential readers so I thought it best to keep my trap shut. Of course this proved to be a problem with hosting a blog. I have plenty to say, but I really shouldn't.
After some thought of what to do with this blog of mine I decided to experiment by listing other authors books. We all need help getting the word out about our books with the sea of Indie authors out there now. So, in the interest of helping myself by helping others I started featuring author's books on my blog. I only hope it helps everyone who participates. If nothing else it will give the author one more link on the internet that points to their book. However, I feel it has the potential to become something both author and reader can utilize. With the lower prices Indie authors offer I believe people who have been afraid to try a new genre will do just that and maybe find that book they will fall in love with - maybe several of them.

How do you find time to write?
I think this is the hardest question to answer. I don't find time anywhere. I think the stuff is invisible or something. I have three daughters, ten, two and eight-months old, so time is something I can never find anywhere. I do make time. It's a bit like counterfeiting money. I'm sure it's illegal. But if I need some, I manufacture it late at night or early in the morning.

What has the indie publishing experience been like for you?
I always wonder, "What if I had shopped my books?" But, in the end, I'm glad I didn't. I'm not saying I won't in the future, though. I love having complete control of my books. I don't care for the marketing much, but I'm learning. From what I've read from traditionally published authors, it's much the same thing, as far as the author is concerned. As a trad you might get an advance and some help in the marketing department, but I'm not so sure the loss of cover creativity (my mother is featured on the back of my second novel) and loss of rights - even for a specified period, is worth that advance and help. Yet, if I were approached in the morning I would most definitely give the contract a look.

Where else are your books available?
My books are available through Smashwords, of course. That means they are available at Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Sony and everywhere else Smashwords distributes them. They are also available at Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback (http://www.amazon.com/J.C.-Phelps/e/B003FG7JIW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1)
They are also available at Createspace.com ( https://www.createspace.com/3441053)
I also have created my own publishing business and you can find copies of my books there: www.newpubbinding.net

Do you do POD and Kindle?
Yes, I do both and also print my own. I personally own a Kindle. I received it as a Christmas gift from my father this past Christmas and why I finally went the Kindle route.

What new projects are you working on?
I'm slowly working on book four of The Alexis Stanton Chronicles and I have a few other ideas I have yet to put to paper. My main focus right now is to market the three I've already completed.

Who are your ideal readers, and how do you reach them?
Placing into a specific genre and categorizing my books has always been a problem for me. I think my books will appeal to a large audience but to be more realistic, I think my books have a strong pull for women readers because the main character is a strong young woman. The books are strong in action/adventure but also have a woman's touch. How to reach them is something I'm still learning to do. I have joined many reading groups across the internet but my main selling point is word of mouth.

How do people contact you?
I can be found in several places on the internet.
Blog: http://JCPhelps.blogspot.com
Facebook Author Profile: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100001056462125&ref=ts
Facebook Author Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/JC-Phelps/116756508344894?ref=ts
Email: authorjcphelps@yahoo.com

Featured Author: Eddie Wright

2010-09-13T13:40:00.001-04:00

Eddie Wright was one of the first responders when I put this blog up, and I'm happy to feature him now. Of all the books I've been sent so far, his Broken Bulbs at Smashwords.com stands out---way out. When you read David Foster Wallace writing about experimental fiction in his essays like "E Unibus Pluram," where he talks about Robert Coover and Mark Leyner, you can sense the excitement about finding something new.

Eddie agreed to a quick, get acquainted Q&A:

Your book Broken Bulbs is different than anything I've been sent. How do you see it, genre-wise?

I usually call it science fiction though it doesn't really fit comfortably in any genre. Sometimes I say horror. Sometimes I say experimental. I don't really know where it belongs but that's exactly how I like it. I don't care much for comfortable labels. It is what it is.

Who is your target market?

Creative types, people who dig Philip K. Dick, people who dig love stories, people who dig experimental fiction, people who have ever been addicted to anything, Broken Bulbs isn't for everyone but I think anyone can enjoy it if they gave it a shot.

What else have you written, and where is it available?

I've a few stories set within the Broken Bulbs universe that I've featured on my blog http://bonnieisgood.com. I've been threatening to publish a follow-up to Broken Bulbs for like three years but I still have yet to follow through. Right now I'm gearing up to adapt Broken Bulbs into comic book form and it may end up becoming an ongoing series. I think it'd be great in that format.

Do you publish at Amazon and/or POD?

Broken Bulbs is a POD book and it's available through Amazon both in print and on the Kindle.

Who are some writers you recommend?

I'm part of a very cool collective of indie authors called Backword Books and I highly recommend each of their books. One is different from the next. We're a very diverse group.

Are there any similar books to BB?

Philip K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut are the two famous guys that people usually point to. For indie stuff I'd say K.I. Hope's hector and Ginetta Corelli's The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli would make a killer triple feature with Broken Bulbs.

Why did you go indie?

There are so many options available to a new writer, especially one who writes off-the-wall stuff. Why wait? If you wanna do it, do it. There are no excuses.

What are you working on now?

I'm working on a Broken Bulbs comic book, a follow-up that may or may not be a direct sequel to Broken Bulbs and a young adult horror/scifi/comedy novel about a young blogger.

How do people contact you?

Check out my blog http://bonnieisgood.com/ and contact me there. I'm also on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eddiewright86 and I'm on Facebook, http://facebook.com/eddiewrightisnothing. My email address is brokenbulbs@gmail.com if anyone just wants to say howdy.

Are there other blogs or sites you recommend?

Check out backwordbooks.com and selfpublishingreview.com for lots of advice about doing it indie.

Neil says: Look at Eddie's site at Smashwords.com by clicking Broken Bulbs and you'll see not only excellent reviews but two videos, posted by Eddie. This man has connected his Facebook, Twitter and website, he's done readings and posted the videos, and has a presence at Amazon.com in print and Kindle.
This is a true professional, and indie authors need to pay attention. Look at this Description:

Called "a brilliant and stunningly original work" "Broken Bulbs" tells the story of Frank Fisher and his search for "something." When a mysterious young woman named Bonnie offers assistance by injecting seeds of inspiration directly into his brain, Frank finds himself involved in a twisting mystery full of addiction, desperation, hamsters, a vindictive postal worker, and self-discovery.

At Smashwords.com, the reader can set the price he pays for the book. How can you go wrong with that? What this shows to me is, Eddie Wright did not produce Broken Bulbs for a laugh. This is a serious writer, taking chances and doubling down his bet. I recommend this book and writer strongly.

Heads Up, Smashwords Writers

2010-09-13T09:42:00.001-04:00

Thanks to everyone for the huge response. To help the many authors who responded, I will be featuring an author a day talking about his/her work, the ebook experience, and what readers can expect. I am a slow and stubborn reader, particularly during football season in Miami, and the forty-six books have caused a bit of backlog. Remember, I'm a writer too, and in the middle of a huge project.

In fact, you'll see to the right the cover for The Big Kaboom, now available at Smashwords.com and at Amazon.com. SBR readers can use to Coupon Code under the graphic and get the book for free. It's what I'm calling a pilot, like for a TV show, and it's the opening of my comic thriller Rooster. The Big Kaboom is only 49 pages, but it's a lot of fun. Feel free to download and read and review this reviewer. In essence, I'm doing the same for you. Be sure to put in your signature "Author of _______" since this is a great way to generate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your own work.

Later today, we'll see experimental writer Eddie Wright featured and tomorrow JC Phelps, who has an incredible site of her own. If you emailed me, you will be featured, and your book reviewed, and....

It's too early, but if I can figure out how to do screenshots of this blogsite, we may all get a huge boost in exposure. I'll be back later.

Keep up the good work!

First Guest Reviewer: Kristen Tsetsi

2010-09-08T14:26:00.000-04:00

My first guest reviewer is Kristen Tsetsi, author of Homefront, Carol's Aquarium, How to (Not) Have Children and others, and indie book pioneer from way back. Check out her blogs and website at
http://www.kristentsetsi.com/. She is currently editor of American Fiction Vol. 11, 2010 shipping next month from New Rivers Press.

She reviews RJ Keller's novel, Waiting For Spring , a Smashwords favorite for a couple years now.

I don’t use “white trash” in conversation, don’t generally label people, or groups of people, or see them in such a one-dimensional way, but I have to use “white trash” here because I understand the way it’s used, and what people think it is, and how they look at “those people”… and I appreciate the way R.J. Keller offers a deep exploration of “those people.”

First, here: a “white trash” definition offered at the blog WhiteTrash.net:

“…a racial epithet usually used to describe certain low income persons of European descent, especially those perceived as having crude manners, abnormally low moral standards, and lack of education.”

Well. If I’m not one of “them” now, I sure used to be. When I lived where I lived and did what I did. Or didn’t do.

And I think the characters in R.J. Keller’s Waiting for Spring are people those who use that particular pejorative would call “white trash,” too.

What I love about Waiting for Spring is that Keller’s small-town Maine “white trash”-ians are examined so closely and so honestly that – even if it wasn’t her goal – Keller’s readers get a quick lesson in people-are-people, whether a first-impression glance leaves you thinking they’re “white trash” with dirty jobs or sophisticates who might nibble shiny, little fish eggs in the Hamptons.

I shouldn’t admit, here, that I don’t read much of what would be called “women’s fiction,” because I’m a female fiction writer. What I mean, though, is that I don’t read much fiction written by women that uses, in an obvious way, any of the following as the central conflict:

1. Death

2. Disease (namely cancer)

3. Depression (or other mental maladies)

4. Children/families

5. Abuse (rape, spousal beatings, or the like)

It’s not snobbery; I’m just not drawn to it. It’s possible I got my fill during my Danielle Steel years, or maybe I’ve seen too many movies on a popular cable women’s network that seems to think women are only interested in death, family, children, disease, spousal abuse, and – of course – crazy stalkers, be they men or women. (Why can’t they play more romantic comedies? Or more movies with hot guys in them doing hot guy things? Or even just a straight-up comedy? What, we don’t like funny? The man-channel, at least, offers a variety with its action and comedy mix.)

Keller’s novel isn’t the kind of fiction by women I usually pass by. Instead, it’s the gritty and straighforward and honest fiction I love. The kind of fiction that doesn’t care to pretend politeness out of respect for people’s personal beliefs or subjective morality: it is what it is, whether you like it or not.

Sure…in Waiting for Spring, Keller’s characters have been touched by life’s unpleasantness (drugs, emotional neglect, abuse), but those touches are presented as scenery, the way a dark spot in the forest would look on a drive down a country road. We notice it, it’s there, it affects the larger picture, but we’re not consumed by it. Life is life, and almost everyone, at one point or another, has suffered from something. A life wouldn’t read realistic without giving those sufferings mention and recognizing they add to, and take away from, who a person is.

Keller’s novel is character-driven, and her characters – so real, and revealed to such a degree it’s difficult not to wince at their vulnerability and feel the need to walk away, apologize for prying – create a powerful story of strength and weakness, untidy but pure love, and both the destructive nature and the beauty of human bonds. And they remind us – as we so often need to be reminded – that as unique as we like to fantasize we are, none of us is really so different from the other.

Now Look What We've Done

2010-09-05T17:01:00.000-04:00

Movie Promises Cuban Zombie Revolution: http://cbs4.com/entertainment/zombie.revolution.Cuba.2.1897352.html

Readers of SBR are changing the world. Zombies will be liberating the isle of Cuba from the Communist dictators. Cuba Libres for everybody!!!

Fun With Zombies

2010-09-02T10:21:00.001-04:00

Remember watching Night of the Living Dead, and all those walking corpses, hungry for brains? Zombies, animated corpses, desperate for human flesh, and always outnumbering the living people by huge numbers.
If you think vampires are sexy, well let me tell you folks, zombies are the next big thing. They don't get into complicated relationships. They don't care who is most popular. Zombies have no leaders, total equality, and every one of them gets out of his grave and goes to work without complaining. Zombies are bigger than ever.

And of course, portable zombies are one of the joys of digital culture. Who hasn't wondered, standing in some long bureaucratic line that hardly moves, what would happen if a gang of zombies came in right now?
Would I lose my place in line? Or move up a few spaces, as the family in front of me gets eaten? EBooks and zombies go together like women and cellphones.

To help SBR readers keep up with zombie news, I hooked up with Scott Nicholson, author of MurderMouth and seven other zombie/undead cult classics, and asked some penetrating questions.
Why are zombies so popular?

Whole books have been written about that--the otherness, the maddening crowd, the depersonalization of humans. To me, it's the plodding relentlessness that is fascinating and scary.

If a vampire sucks the neck of a zombie, does he become a zombie? Or does the zombie become a vampire?

Zombies don't have blood to speak of, so I guess the vampire becomes the living dead undead.

I got flashbacks reading Murdermouth, like sitting around stoned and considering the true nature of zombies and all. Is that me or you?

Don't bogart that finger.

What would be your weapon of choice in a zombie uprising?

A hatchet.

You have two contributors in this collection. Tell us about them.

Jonathan Maberry is the zombie godfather and a student of all types of creatures and monsters. Jack Kilborn (JA Konrath) is a digital pioneer and has a unique blend of horror and humor. Good friends and generous supporters.

How can I become a zombie in a comic book?

Simple. Donate $25 through Paypal and we'll draw you a zombie crowd scene. (At Scott's website, The Haunted Computer )

Who did the cover art?

Derlis Santacruz. We are plodding along on the comic, trying to stay alive and eat before we get eaten, and we'll probably bring this one in at 24 or 28 pages. I am working on a revised version of the ebook to include some work from the comic. There's also a script in there if anyone wants to learn one way to write comics. Thanks, Neil.

MurderMouth is available at Smashwords.com for $2.99, and there are links to Scott's other books there as well.

MurderMouth is a short book, which for a reviewer is a godsend. People have actually sent me trilogies to review, which I don't see getting done before I myself become a zombie. But here's the key: There's gold in them thar molars. Jack Kilburn's story starts off, "Finish your brains, Phillip." and takes off from there. This is a pen name for J.A. Konrath, who has been giving free advice on eBook publishing for years, while writing his own bestselling novels. Jonathan Maberry writes for Marvel Comics and has won awards for his own books, like Patient Zero. Check out his terrific website, http://jonathanmaberry.com/ Maberry gives an analysis of what would happen in various types of zombie uprisings (Slow Moving, Plague Origin vs Fast Moving, Radiation Origin) and what the chances of survival might be for the human race. And Murdermouth appears in three different versions, including the final where you learn how a comic book is scripted.
Is it worth 3 bucks? Hell yes. Is it great literature?

Consider this. Samuel Beckett couldn't give away his books for years. His most famous trilogy (mercifully short) Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable are narrated by what may be the same person, or may not. The trilogy ends with the one phrase everyone can associate with Beckett, "you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on," and if that's not straight from the lifeless heart of a zombie, I don't know what is. Samuel Beckett was writing about Zombies, man! Far freakin' out!

And check out Scott Nicholson's Indie Books Blog, Smashwords writers.

The Storm Killer by Mike Jastrzebski

2010-08-29T13:10:00.002-04:00

The Storm Killer Reviewed
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18097

Thriller and Suspense $2.99 79,000 words

For my first review, I chose a book I’d wanted to read since I heard about it at the Mystery Writers of America Sleuthfest this year. The Storm Killer is a book you should get to know if you love Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and those great black and white movies like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. Set in 1935, you get a good shot of noir in chapter one, with the narrator finding out not only that sister is dead, but the crooked detective investigating thinks he might have had something to do with it. Throw in his bootlegger buddy, and a guilty conscience about his brother-in-law’s suicide years earlier, and you’ve got the classic tough-guy crime story. By chapter two, with a funeral in the rain, an ex-flame, and his sister’s shrink hinting at unseen problems, you can almost hear Bogie, or John Garfield, telling you the story as he exhales the smoke of his Lucky Strike, and downs a shot of the hard stuff.

Mike Jastrzebski lives in Florida. His website, http://www.mikejastrzebski.com and a site shared with other nautical authors, http://writeonthewater.com/, feature his input on writing eBooks, marketing, and living to sail. “So you want to quit your job, move onto a boat, and write” is the site’s byline. His second novel, Key Lime Blues, is now available at Smashwords for $2.99, and shows this thriller writer is no one-shot wonder.

I asked Mike some questions:

You use a 1935 setting, and characters like Ernest Hemingway appear. Who is the main character and what happens to him in this setting?

Mike: The main character is Jim Locke, a newspaper reporter whose sister is murdered. When he becomes the prime suspect, Jim begins his own investigation, which tales him from the bawdy barrooms of Manhattan to laid-back Key West.

How long did you work on this novel and what help were you able to get?

Mike: Two years. I did four or five rewrites, and my writers group was extremely helpful. All the members are published writers. They are Christine Kling, Neil Plakcy, Miriam Auerbach, and Sharon Potts.

Your blog and website feature sailing and the sea. Tell us about that.

Mike: My wife and I live on a sailboat which we sailed down the inland river system from Minnesota seven years ago. We’ve lived aboard in Mobile, Alabama and Key West and now in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Next year we plan to take the boat on an extended cruise of the Caribbean.

For someone looking to publish at Smashwords, what would you advise, now that you have two books out?

Mike: Write the best book you can, find some reliable readers to vet the book, and then go through it again and again looking for spelling and grammatical errors. Also, if you want sales, you need to be prepared to market your book. If you just put it out there and do nothing, you can expect nothing.

It seems like Indie authors are able to get by with smaller goals than traditional NYC print authors. A book’s success is not determined by gigantic numbers. What do you think?

Mike: I agree but I think all writers hope to have a bestseller. I want people to read my books---the more who read them, the better I feel about my work.

I don’t use a 5-star system or anything like that. I appreciate books I can read beginning to end and feel good about, and dislike books that make it seem like the writer has wasted my time. I truly enjoyed The Storm Killers, and found myself thinking of it last night as I watched Treasure of Sierra Madre on PBS. There’s something about a gritty black and white crime story, and what can be better than a good eBook for less than three bucks?

I recommend everyone buy The Storm Killers by Mike Jastrzebski and start following the rise of this Smashwords writer. You are welcome to comment. And please, remember to put up your own review on the book’s Smashwords page.

Neil Crabtree

8/29/2010

The Winner

2010-08-29T11:08:00.000-04:00

Kristen Tsetsi was the only one to spot the error in the earlier post, so she wins today's Grand Prize. She will be the first guest reviewer to Smashwords Books Reviewed. Check out her website: http://www.kristentsetsi.com/
and see all the great things this lady has going on.

What Smashwords Authors Need To Do

2010-08-28T14:22:00.002-04:00

To get your Smashwords book reviewed, do this: email me the manuscript as a Word doc or PDF. Include in the body of your email a bio and anything cool about yourself or your work. Tell me the genre, the plot, whether or not it's a series or single, what you want me to be sure to notice, what books you feel are similar, and anything else that will help me convey to our readers what makes your book special. Ordinary reviews don't do this, but I know how hard it is to market your own product. When you take out a full page ad in the Sunday Times Book Review, you'll end up doing the same thing.

Tell me your websites and blogs and provide links. Give me the link to your book and your author profile at Smashwords. If you have multiple books, let me know how they relate to the one we'll review.

Use my email: neilcrab@hotmail.com to send all this. If you have other reviews, send the links to those as well. I don't mean the Amazon links. I mean from other blogs, mags, newspapers, etc. The problem I've seen with some books is they have great reviews that Smashwords doesn't allow because they're not from buyers.
We will work with Smashwords to make sure your review is available. Smashwords is very good about helping its authors, so I see no problem there.

Go over the list: manuscript, bio, website links, Smashwords page links, plot summary, word count, selling price, author's other books, maybe a photo, anything else that will help.

I don't guarantee I'll like your book. But for some genres, I will ask for guest reviewers with more experience. The readers are the best reviewers, the folks that buy the books. Let's work together to get them to share this experience.

And at some point, the reviewed get to be the reviewer, and put me through the process. Telling the truth will make us both laugh.

Get to it.

Smashword Authors

2010-08-27T13:00:00.002-04:00

Every day dozens of new titles appear at Smashwords.com by emerging indie authors as well as established writers looking for a new venue. Mark Coker and his team have created a website that truly revolutionizes publishing, offering a free and easy way to reach readers who need digital books for their Apple, Sony, Barnes&Noble, Droid and other mobile eReaders. Smashwords even allows downloads to PCs in RTF, PDF or Plain Text formats, giving home readers a way to increase font size and accessibility.

I publish at Smashwords and have been very happy with the service and response. What I see a serious need for is this: a blog that reviews Smashwords.com books the way several blogs review Kindle books.
I will offer the author a chance to display the cover art, answer questions about the book, give the link to purchase and the price point. I will provide a brief review of the book itself, which will include genre, target audience, and quality of writing and formatting.

If you have a book published at Smashwords.com and would like it reviewed here, email me at neilcrab@hotmail.com. It will remain private, and will not be open to the public.