When I went to the dentist on Thursday, he told me that he bought (and enjoyed) all of my fantasy novels. That's one of the side benefits of being a heavy Coca-Cola drinker who has seen the same dentist at least twice a year for twenty years. I think of it as a kickback.

I haven't sold a lot of books yet. To date, I've made about $70 in sales against ... well, you don't want to know how many hours I spent writing or dollars I've spent advertising. I won't say those details aren't important, but they aren't why I wrote the books.

One of the things I've discovered since releasing the books to the wild is that I'm always embarrassed when someone tells me s/he's read one, whether they claim to have enjoyed it or not. I don't think it's because the books are bad — I happen to think they're pretty good — I just don't enjoy the attention. I don't want to do any signings or readings. I'd prefer for the books to speak for themselves.

But if you've read them and want to tell your friends (or Amazon or Twitter or Facebook or your dental patients) how much you liked them, I'm not going to stand in your way.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: a quest before dying books prince thorgils war the wizards of ranaloy walter work

If you're a Kindle reader looking for a way to kill some time this Thanksgiving, I've got a present for you.

Until November 26, you can download digital copies of my second and third books for free from Amazon.com.

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Black Friday, everybody.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: a quest before dying books holidays prince thorgils war thanksgiving the wizards of ranaloy walter work

Book Three of the Central Kingdoms Chronicles, A Quest Before Dying, is now available both as a $2.99 Kindle eBook on Amazon.com and as a $12.00 paperback from CreateSpace.com.

Book One, The Wizards of Ranaloy, and Book Two, Prince Thorgils' War, are already available in both formats via Amazon.com and CreateSpace.com. You can find links and preview chapters at CentralKingdomsChronicles.com.

Thank you to all who have supported this project.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: a quest before dying books prince thorgils war the wizards of ranaloy walter work

My third book is currently out for galley printing. It will be on the market by the first week in November (target release date is Halloween). It's time to start thinking about marketing.

What's the best method? Keyword targeted Internet advertising is always available (Google Ads, Facebook Ads) for CentralKingdomsChronicles.com, but that costs money. I read a lot about networking (establishing a Twitter presence, participating in like-minded communities), but that's never made much of an impact for Boosterrific.com. I'm sure that I should pursue multiple paths, I'm just not sure which are worthwhile.

Obviously, since I wrote a fantasy genre story, it's fantasy genre readers I need to reach. Perhaps I could advertise at local comic book shops. I also plan to give away the Kindle edition of all three books for free over the Thanksgiving/Black Friday holiday. (Readers are more important than profits. Can't have one without the other!)

For the record, I knew going in that book marketing is very, very difficult. So many book, so few readers. For every author I read who has been even moderately successful, the trick seems to have been time: Grind out story after story, book after book until someone takes notice. I'll soon have three. I guess I should get to work on four. Maybe before I get to one hundred, I'll finally make my first buck.

(For the record, as I type this, the first two books have generated exactly $54.41 since release, $49.63 in paperback and $4.78 for Kindle. [Oh, plus Ken bought me a Coke. That counts as profit.] The publisher won't cut me a check until I pass the $100 threshold. Perhaps the release of book three will put me over the top.)

If anyone thinks of anything else I might try, please tell me. In the meantime, if you've read and enjoyed my books, please tell your friends!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books friends ken prince thorgils war the wizards of ranaloy walter work

Book Two of the Central Kingdoms Chronicles, Prince Thorgils' War, is now available both as a $2.99 Kindle eBook on Amazon.com and as a $12.00 paperback from CreateSpace.com.

(Book One, The Wizards of Ranaloy, is already available in both formats via Amazon.com and CreateSpace.com.)

Book Three, the final book in the current trilogy, is on pace to be released at the start of November, so read fast!

Comments (1) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books prince thorgils war the wizards of ranaloy walter work

I know you're probably sick of hearing about it but:

The digital copy of my first book is now available as a paperback for $12.00 from CreateSpace.com.

The book will also be available through Amazon.com, but I get $4.27 per book sold on CreateSpace, the printer's website, whereas Amazon pays only $1.87 per copy. (And if you're thinking that $12 is a lot to pay for a paperback book, keeping it at that price is the reason I refused to let CreateSpace offer it to Ingram or barnesandnoble.com stores.Those distribution venues want an even bigger cut of the profits, requiring that the book list at $18 before I got paid.)

Now the next step is marketing. Somehow, I've got to get the book into the hands of people who want to read fantasy novels. That's no small task for someone who doesn't care to spend time around other people.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books the wizards of ranaloy walter work

The digital copy of my first book is now available on Kindle for just 99¢ !

(The paperback copy is still being proofed, but it'll be available sooner rather than later.)

If you've already read it (I know who you are), please consider reviewing it. And don't be honest. Lie and say it's worth 5 stars. In the book business, that's called marketing.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books the wizards of ranaloy walter work

Remember last year when I sent my manuscript away to get rejected? Well, sadly, I never got a rejection letter. I never got anything.

So I'm taking matters into my own hands.

www.centralkingdomschronicles.com

I'm almost ready to release the first book to Kindle. (Paperbacks will be available on Amazon.com soon!) I'll post details when it's ready. Stay tuned.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books the wizards of ranaloy walter work

That there, that's my first book manuscript. I'm submitting it to my first potential publisher this week. By Thanksgiving, I'll have my first rejection letter!

Isn't this exciting?

Comments (6) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books the wizards of ranaloy walter work

Believe it or not, I've written a novel. It's an high-fantasy, epic tale about a small group of adventurers trying to make the world a better place despite some long odds. If you just read that slugline, you probably translated "high-fantasy" to "imaginary" and "epic" into "too long." Both of those substitutions are probably accurate.

Now that I'm onto the proofreading stage, I've been trying to decide what to do with my book and I've discovered something horrifying: it's too long. Most writing guides I've been consulting have been blunt in stating that for me to have a realistic chance to find a publisher, my novel needs to be under 100,000 words. Mine currently has about 170,000. Oops.

The good news is that the story really has two distinct parts. If I stop the word count in between, I get about 110,000 for the first half. That's good. I could even edit that down a little and get it smaller. That's better. Maybe I've got a diamond hiding somewhere inside all those pages.

The real problem becomes what to do about the second half to make it long enough that I end up with two equal parts. Given that my problem so far has been that I'm too wordy, this probably isn't as big a problem as I think it is. I'll just have to add some new misadventures for my characters to bumble through.

I'll let you know when I'm ready to release the book to the public. If you buy a copy, I promise you'll get your money's worth. It's guaranteed to contain a whole bunch of words.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books the wizards of ranaloy walter work