I am taking part in the Brain To Books Cybercon Science Fiction Blog Hop.
I just reviewed Cyberpunk Tales, a great three-book boxed set of science fiction books. I highly recommend it.
One of the authors, Ashley Hunt, just gave me a wonderful character interview with Vivian Hsu (Red Viper), the kick-ass anti-heroine, which I will be including in the April 1st issue of Firesmith’s Speculative Fiction Newsletter. You can subscribe here. Believe me, you won”t want to miss it.
Also, every month, I will be running a contest in which all subscribers are automatically entered. First prize is an autographed copy of Hell Holes 2: Demons on the Dalton.
Tomorrow evening (Thursday, 8 February 2017) at 6PM CDT (7PM EDT), I am going to be interviewed live on Back Porch Writer Show on Blog Talk Radio. I hope you decide to join us live as I answer questions about “Living the Life of an Indie Author”.
Hell Holes: What Lurks Below today made the Amazon Kindle Best Seller lists for Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction (#11) and Modern & Paranormal Fantasy (#27). Wow.
Downloads of my first book have continued with over 100 occurring in the last three days. Today, I broke the 1,000 total downloads mark between Barnes & Noble, iBooks, InstaFreebie, Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon ebooks), and Smashwords. It is amazing what concentrating heavily on marketing for a couple of months can do. In a few days, I am going to look at my daily statistics and try to figure out which of the many marketing approaches I’ve been using have been the most effective. For example, one of the companies I’ve used for Book Tours seems to be far more effective than another. Similarly, book spotlights on some eNewsletters also seem better than others (probably due to subscription size and genre makeup).
In about a couple of weeks, I am going to be interviewed live on the weekly podcast, Back Porch Writer. There is some confusion as to the exact date and time so I will let you know as soon as I know for sure. The podcast will be broadcast on Blog Talk Radio. This will be my first live interview as an author (I have had several written Q&A interviews), and I hope you tune in and join us for the 15 minute broadcast.
“I couldn’t put this book down! I started it just after breakfast and finished it around eleven that same night! I loved the way Mr. Firesmith combined science and a bit of paranormal to tell his story. James Rollins watch out!”
By Lori Beasley Bradley, Author of The Legend of the Swamp Witch and The Ruby Queen: Book 1 of The Soiled Dove Sagas
I made it! I had really hoped that I would break 500 copies of my book Hell Holes: What Lurks Below before the end of the year, and as of yesterday, it wasn’t looking good. But I just got a lot of downloads from InstaFreebie, and as of now with 13 hours to go, the number stands at 518 copies. Now I’m looking forward to seeing whether priming the pump on book 1 will lead to increased sales of book 2.
I also got another interesting positive Amazon review. For some reason I can’t quite fathom, I have been getting an inordinate number of good reviews from people who don’t ordinarily like the book’s genre (science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, horror), but do like the book.
“Hell Holes: What Lurks Below is not in my favorite genre. It is actually in one of my least liked… I ended up being surprised by a story that held my interest… I enjoyed it much more than I expected to.”
Not that I’m complaining; I’m just surprised and a bit puzzled.
Check out my blog post on being an Indie Author on the Mystical Books Blog.
