My first novel – historical military fiction – made it to the top 10 of 9 of Amazon's bestseller lists. Via my blog I share what I have learned while writing two more.
One of my daughters was given a scholarship to help fund her education in Art (medical illustration) by the art community of Spicewood, Texas. Spicewood is a small town southwest of Austin’s southwestern suburbs, so definitely out in the country. They asked her to join in their 4th of July celebration, so our entire family went. We cheered for the parade and then went to the community grounds where ~300 of us enjoyed hot dogs and cokes and a local band performing old favorites intermixed with short speeches. Near the start, a young woman tried to sing the national anthem. It did not start well.
Six weeks ago I was on the verge of sending my manuscript to my editor, but I had a few interruptions: My older twin daughters (yes, we have two sets of twins) graduated from high school and we had to visit the colleges they are going to for orientations, we moved to a new house (which was a ton of physical work, and I aggravated an old collarbone injury), my boss (and friend) was fired and I’ve taken on a bigger role at work, and my wife and I have both had to travel for various other reasons.
I saw some of this coming, so I decided to take advantage of the pause to have two more beta readers go through the manuscript. Both are accomplished readers with keen and critical eyes, and both are preparing to publish their first novels. I finally had some time today to look at their feedback in detail…
Our first Spartan Sprint! Near Austin, Texas. 4.5 miles, 21 obstacles and lots of mud.
One of my 18-year-olds was the captain of her varsity soccer team and is a regular at the local cross-fit gym. She convinced me to join her on her first Spartan Sprint. At times it felt like an Army obstacle course, which I have not done in more than a few years. My train-up was less than rigorous, but we got it done without any injuries and without too much soreness.
I’ve long enjoyed military science fiction, so I have had The Forever War on my to read list for…well…you know…forever. I’m glad I did. Finally. It is not just damn good, it is good for a reason. Several, in fact.
I am happy to share that since I last made a donation in March, my sales of Youth In Asia about the 173rd Airborne Brigade during the Vietnam War have generated more than $600 of income for me. Not bad for a book priced at just $1.49, and of which I only get 30%. Since I’ve promised to donate half of my earnings, that is $300 more to donate.
Additionally, Crawford Roberts, the accomplished producer of the audiobook version of my novel had offered his services at a discounted rate, and then, after working on the projected, offered to complete it for free. I did not feel right keeping the $200 I had promised him, so I have added it to the $300 I will contribute. That makes $500.
Better yet, my employer again agreed to match my total contribution, so (in part due to Crawford’s and my employer’s generosity) I have just made a $1,000 contribution to the VFW’s National Home for Children.
With your help, I have now donated $1,650 to the VFW, Wounded Warrior, and similar organizations from my book sales to help our veterans
I will also donate a portion of my revenue from Lonely Hunter. Two of my children are chronically ill, so I’m happy to give to organizations doing medical research from which my children and all children will someday benefit.
I took my four teenage daughters to see the sci fi movie “Rogue One” a few days ago. There were some really strange coincidences between the movie and my forthcoming novel, Lonely Hunter. But first, some thoughts on Rogue One.
None of my kids are particularly dialed into Star Wars, but a few have seen a prior movie or two. I’ve seen four of them (swore I’d never go to another one after Clone Wars). Three of my kids enjoy various Sci-Fi-ish flicks from time to time such as Hunger Games, Inception, the Marvel franchise, Transformers, etc. We all thought the trailer looked interesting, so we gave it a shot.
The consensus coming out was that it was underwhelming at best. But what was really weird were the number of coincidences with my own novel.
As I continue to edit my work in progress and think about meeting readers’ expectations, especially when it comes to descriptive writing, I recently came across and interesting review of Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read, “a book that explores how people imagine and remember the things they read.”
I’ve always been loath to write (and dislike reading) detailed descriptions of characters and settings. I’m OK with details that surface as the story progresses when they are relevant, but one of the fastest ways for me to lose interest in a book or story is a front-loaded block of description sentences which have no other purpose, and an abundance of adjectives and adverbs. She was tall and had green eyes. She stepped over the puddles with her long legs while smiling at Bob, showing off her perfect, white teeth… Ugh.
Since I recently released my first audio book, I thought I’d provide a summary of my experience publishing an audiobook via Amazon’s ACX Audible to help anyone headed down the same path. The book has gotten strong reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, but I wanted to make it available so people could hear it as well as read it on their Kindle Fire.
None of us want to fail as writers or have to admit to our families and friends that after all our hours in seclusion banging out our manuscripts they failed to sell even 10 copies. That is the height of embarrassment that none of us want to experience. As an indie publisher, it is critical that we understand what we are getting ourselves into and how to be successful before we start. This is doubly true as I am writing a book, and I hope this second one is even more successful than my first.
I have written about grammarcheckers and style checkers before. I continue to believe they are a powerful tool in a writer’s tool bag. AutoCrit has revised their editing software product and has an active marketing campaign underway. I signed up for their trial membership for $1 for a week. Yesterday I spent about 3 hours working on my upcoming novel with their cloud-based app. In the end, I had two strong opinions about their updated writing software.
