The book is done and ready for the world, so I decided to move it up. I decided to bump the launch forward by a month in preparation for the Amazon storyteller UK contest. It will only be eligible if published in August and I figured this would be an excellent way of getting it a little extra push and incentive.
Read MorePrime Day is here in July and I’m going to have a lot of free stuff for everyone to grab up!
Read MoreThis is the month I'm finally wrapping up CRISPR and getting it to my editor.
Read MoreRunning a giveaway and launching a bunch of new echo skills this month! I'll also be doing an exclusive giveaway for my mailing list, so keep your eyes open for that if you are on the list! That will happen closer to the middle of the month, but this one runs all month long!
Read MoreHard to believe it is April already. Time keeps grinding inexorably forward, and it's not willing to wait for anyone. I'm working on a bunch of different projects this month, and it'll be hard to tell exactly which projects will get released or updated anytime soon.
The first major news, in case anyone hasn't heard, is that Kindle Scout is shutting down.
We got the email early in April, and it was an immediate shutdown without a lot of knowledge or consideration. There are a ton of campaigns still running and there was no warning that it was coming. Sure, the program has been faltering a little bit, but it's been a great way for indie authors to get exposure in the Amazon ecosystem.
I am going to miss having it as a tool for authors, and I spent a lot of time and energy working on my kindle scout guide and blog posts. I've already been working to remove those posts and redirect my energies, but it still sucks that the program had to end so abruptly.
In other news, I'm working on my newest Alexa skill: Word Hacks. It's massive, and ties into a lot of different APIs to find and deliver information. I tried to imagine it as an assistant that could do anything from translate to track progress on writing to get definitions. It's a huge and overwhelming task, and I'm pleased to say that I'm basically done with it. I have a few last pieces to wire up and test out, but then I'm going to unleash it into the world in the next couple of weeks.
Keep your eyes peeled for that, because I would love for anyone who has an Alexa enabled device to help me find bugs and problems that I can fix before May. That will be the big month for the application in getting it into the big life hacks competition that is coming up.
Apart from that, I'm planning on running some more free promotions during this month and May and getting ready for the launch of Crispr.
Into March and time to move forward for another month!
I'm releasing my newest Alexa Skill today, and it's the one I'm most excited about. It took a lot more time and effort than anything I've done before, and I'm happy with how it has turned out.
Read MoreCRISPR: A Technothriller was successful on Kickstarter! It managed to raise the money for marketing and editing and will make my job considerably easier with bringing this book to life! Now I just need to finalize it and finish the edits and I'll be sending out those advance copies!
Read MoreHere is my book signing schedule for 2018, including all of the different places I will be at and which books I'll be bringing to each signing.
Read MoreMy biggest update is that my newest book project is starting to come together. I'm planning to announce it sometime in early January, and I'm really excited about how it is all coming together.
Read MoreIt feels like the year only just began and it's already time to buy Christmas presents and start preparing for 2018. I won't be sad to see 2017 go, but it just feels like time really flew by. I launched a couple of new books this year (Raven's Rise, Indie Author Tools, The Everett Exorcism, and The Vatican Children) and I already have a January release lined up for pre-order. Next year I'm going to try a few new things out, but unfortunately I also had some problems to deal with late this year.
Read MoreNovember is coming to a close and it is hard to believe that it is already Thanksgiving. This year really flew by and it feels like everything happened so fast. It's been a wild year, and I've released several new books, including a new series that just came out.
The biggest problem I ran into this year was Pronoun shutting down, something which put a huge damper on all of my plans. I was building up my career to have my books released wide and free myself from Amazon, but this seriously messed all of that up.
The biggest reason was because it meant all of those listings I used to launch my book were useless. Apple Books, Google, and Barnes & Noble don't merge books together, which means that once I lost all of my reviews and traction on those websites it would have been difficult to try and regain it. I could have put the books back out through the platforms or on Draft2Digital, but it simply wasn't worth trying to salvage all of it right now.
Eventually, I would like to offer the books are more locations, but Amazon Kindle Unlimited requires exclusivity, and the the only alternative would be to release on all networks simultaneously. Passing up on Amazon's network to go wide was a huge gamble I took when releasing The Everett Exorcism, and it ended up backfiring to such a huge extreme that I don't think I'm going to be willing to risk going wide again for a while.
I'm sorry for everyone who loves reading on other platforms than Amazon, but considering Barnes & Noble is selling Nook and combined all other networks only make up about 25-30% of the entire market, being in Kindle Unlimited is just a much better way to gain some visibility. If only the other networks would actually offer something to make their services worthwhile, but considering how badly MacMillan just damaged indie authors I only see Amazon's strength growing.
Anyway, right now it's time to just relax, spend some time with family, and enjoy the end of the year.
I'm working on three more books right now with three different strategies: first, I have to finish The Bishop's Legacy and end out the World of Shadows series. It's been fun writing and launching these books, but I'll be glad to be able to turn away from paranormal horror and get a break from it for a while (especially with the Pronoun fiasco and how much that screwed up my launch).
Second, I'll be working on the space opera horror book I've been planning for a long time. This book is going to be run differently through a new Instafreebie beta program, so publishing it is going to be something completely new and different for me. I'm excited to try out something new and it could lead to a new publishing model for me.
Third, I'm planning to write another book to submit to Kindle Scout about modern genetic engineering. I've got some ideas for it, and it would serve as a follow-up to UAV with maybe some of those characters crossing over into it. It's meant to be a fast-paced and fun mystery/thriller, but I'm not completely sure when I'll be able to work on it.
Along with that, I want to finish another Graveyard of Empires novel plus write some more short stories to submit to magazines. So, big plans for 2018 with launching new books and trying new things.
Anyway, on to the sales:
Pretty much everything is going to be free on Cyber Monday. Some books are going to be on sale the entire weekend, and others (like Everett and Vatican Children) are only going to be on sale for that one day.
Check them out while they are discounted and before they go back up to full price! The free period is meant to sort of play catchup for everything I lost from Pronoun!
Pronoun just announced yesterday evening that they are shutting down their services permanently in a couple of months, and I wanted to let everyone know how this is going to affect distribution of my books.
Read MoreIt's been a pretty huge couple of months for me with the launch of two books at the same time! Both of them were in the same series, and I wanted to make sure that everyone knew I was committed to releasing this series as soon as possible.
Read MoreMy journey with writing started an early age. In middle school, when we were given creative writing topics, I would end up with stories that were so long the teacher wouldn't even bother to read them. He would just give me an 'A' and move on to the next student.
Read MoreForging legends one universe at a time
“He couldn’t remember when he fell in love with the pain...”
“Don’t thank me yet. They won’t stop hunting you. Ever.”
“We both know how this will end. If you come out now, I’ll do it quick. If you make me come and find you, though …”
“My name is Darius Gray. And today, our world is free.”
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