Thomas Zman’s “From Whence They Came”, a second installment of a series, is a new take on the alien sci/fi topic. Aliens have lived with us since the beginning of time, deep underground. Lieutenant Steve Coleman, an air force pilot, is abducted and enslaved to learn the ways of the Neuphobes, an advanced alien race.

I was excited to read this book as I love a good alien story. The book started well and I was engaged at the start. As I read further, the author turned the story into more of a philosophical route which the main character battles internal demons and realizes his life of sin. He ultimately turns away from searching for an escape to reconnect with his family to instead form a new family in the alien created world under the surface of the ocean.

I can see the draw this book may have for those with aliens and their connections to God. I, myself, prefer the good old aliens come and demolish everyone or we kick their behinds back to their own planet kind of story – this wasn’t it.

Writing was good and for those that want a very philosophical and religious focus, this is the story for them.

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$5.99

Margret A. Treiber’s Sleepy Time for Captain Eris was an interesting take on superheroes. Set in the future, Captain Eris is the result of genetic modification. Her power is the ability to come back from death and in part of doing so, inherits different abilities to protect her from what killed her in the first place.

Unlike traditional super hero stories, Sleepy Time for Captain Eris is no campy story. There is a good amount of blood, gore, and violence. While others may be offended by this, I think there are necessary components to help tell the story and move it forward. I appreciate the author not detracting from the story she wants to tell for fear of bothering others appetites for watered down material.

Set as first person, much of the story is filled with sassy dialogue and the characters picking on each other. While I found the interactions fun, at times I felt like I wanted more detail in the story. There seems to be a fine line of too much detail or too little. In this story’s case, I felt it bordered on the too little detail category.

All in all, I think this was a fun read and I hope the author continues delving into Captain Eris’ adventures!

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Rating: 4 out of 5
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$5.99

Mark Ferguson’s Terra Incognita is a complex book. There are many complicated ideas that the author put to words. At times, I had to double back and re-read sections – not because it was poorly written, but because the concept was hard to comprehend. The author does a fantastic job with the amount of detail included. Those who are less interested in detail may find the book hard to read, however for people who enjoy the additional level of information in their stories will love the author’s writing style.

There are a lot of alien races, each with their own unique abilities and the author provides a good level of world building to give each race substance. I applaud the author for the amount of thought and planning to bring this story together.

This story is not my personal flavor of reading, however I did find it interesting and could see where this would appeal to heavy science fiction readers who love detail and extensive world building.

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This is my first novel  to convert to an audio book, so it’s been exciting to work through the process.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, to start the process, I worked with ACX.Com, a division of Audible. The hardest part of the entire process has been waiting for material as I was itching to hear the final version.

Check out my book page here for The Choice. I have uploaded a sample of the audio.

For anyone that does not have an audible subscription, you can pick up a free month by signing up using this link.

After working with my producer and my audio files were ready for retail, I set up my novel on Findaway Voices. ACX only distributes to Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. Findaway Voices open the distribution to many other outlets including libraries. After setting up some details around my book, I uploaded my audio files. In about a month, my audio book will be available for purchase almost anywhere.

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I had some hesitation of doing an event like this. First, many libraries already warned of low turn-outs for author events and pushed back on the idea. Second, what would I talk about? I really didn’t want to read from my story as the basis of my event. I decided to talk about the publishing process itself and talk about my story as it fit with the conversation.

Summarizing the publishing process that I endured was easy as I’ve lived it for the last three years for my book. I have plenty of experience with PowerPoint through the work that I do in my career. I looked back at the timeline and added a diagram of the time it took from inception of idea to the release date of my story. I also had summary of queries from logs I kept so I could provide some counts and various statistics of responses I received.

Practicing my presentation a few times, I had it down pretty well. I didn’t want to spend too long talking as I wanted to sell some books too! I made sure to stop by the library and review where I’d be speaking beforehand so I’d be comfortable with my surroundings. I also took note of what supplies I’d need, such as a folding table. Ahead of my event, I had ordered a poster size version of my cover art from Vistaprint as well as some bookmarks. Finally, I made sure to bring one-dollar bills, change, and a card reader I could plug into my phone so I could accept credit cards. At the end of my talking, I added easily that I have books for sale if anyone has interest as well as a signup sheet for recording e-mail addresses. I was pretty confident I had all I needed; my main concern was the presentation itself and hoping I’d have an audience.

As it turned out, I had some help with wrangling people to come to my signing and I had a nice size audience. The library staff were extremely friendly and the topic of the publishing process was something they were happy to have someone speak about. My major issue turned out to be something I had not considered – isn’t that always the case? People wanted to write checks, and James Alexander is my pen-name. It wasn’t until after someone wrote me a check under my pen-name did I realize I’d have a hard time cashing it so I provided my real name! That will be something I’ll have solved for the next event.

A piece of advice I read about previously and turned out to be the best advice I heard was to make sure someone is available to help by accepting payments. There was a rush at the end of my event where people wanted to talk to me, and others wanted to purchase copies of my story. I had a friend who took over the collection of money and providing books so all I had to do was worry about talking with the audience and signing books.

Key items to bring to bring with you to a book signing:

• A folding table (an extra table is always a good thing to have!)
• Your books
• Pens
• Bookmarks
• Candy to hand out or cookies – everyone loves treats!
• A poster and other marketing items
• Pamphlets
• Book holders
• A friend for helping

I hope this may help anyone thinking of holding a book signing for the first time. Mine turned to be a fun and engaging event that I’d repeat.

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I have never completed an audio book before. I have listened to many and love to listen to a fun book on my drives to work. I’m always impressed at how professional narrators are able to keep listeners engaged and the amount of talent one must have to add another layer of excitement to a novel.

I pondered the idea of an audio book before, but always decided it was too difficult to accomplish. I pictured myself trying to record my own voice – believe me, no one wants that! Luckily, the process has become incredibly easy to understand.

Finding a narrator was a simple process at acx.com, a website operated by Audible. I did not sign up to list my completed work exclusively with Audible, so my audio book will be available at more retailers.

At this time, I’ve heard a twenty minute sample of the book to ensure it was recording as expected. I was blown away by what I heard! I’ve read my story countless times through countless revisions. Hearing the words I’ve read time and time again was a completely new experience – as if my story was new to me. I can’t wait to get the final product which should be ready in mid-October!

Keep watch, I’ll be posting more on this soon!

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Anne King
Reviewer

Review posted on Midwest Book Review

September 2018 Issue

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As a new author, I jumped head first into self-publishing with my first two works. As far as mistakes go, I tend to think that I made every one that seasoned authors warn new authors about, and like many, I didn’t realize how challenging marketing would be.

Here are two versions of my marketing history:

Scenario 1: I wrote a book, posted it to Amazon, and expected my work to speak for itself. After all, I put a ton of effort into writing, and editing. That idea quickly vanished and I found myself searching high and low for ways to market my material.

Scenario 2: I wrote a book, found a publisher, and expected help with events and getting the word out from my new business partner. I had a publisher! Again, the idea quickly vanished and, again, I found myself in a marketing quandary.

So what is a new author to do? There is no silver bullet for this beast. I’ve tried google ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, lots of ads. Whenever I’m tempted to write an ad, I have to put the situation into perspective. How many times have I clicked on an ad and actually bought a product? For me, the answer is: close to never. I don’t believe ads work to sell books. I do believe that ads help build a following.

Strategic Advertising

Instead of targeting an ad to buy a book, I’ve been targeting to build an audience. I primarily use Facebook to build my platform. Periodically, I place $5.00 to $10.00 ads with the goal of gaining followers. The more followers I gain, the more I can reach them with free posts to my Facebook page. Are people more likely to buy from someone they don’t know through a random ad on Google, or are they more apt to buy from an author they have chosen to follow?

Rather than spend money on marketing, I now look for creative ways to reach my targeted audience. At first, I was thinking too big. Ads people can buy are a massive audience, and people seeing the ads are inundated with competing advertisements. I’ve shifted my efforts to reach people closer to home. I’m targeting my effort by honing in on people that are interested in my work, rather than casting a small net in a large ocean, hoping to get a fish or two.

Advertisement Alternatives

I’m looking to libraries, and looking to hold events. I can talk all day about my publishing endeavors, and it’s a chance for me to connect with people while showcasing my work. Instead of spending money on ads, I’m spending on marketing materials such as pens, coasters, and bookmarks, all with images of my book and my website address printed on them. I use these for incentives to help promote my work.

Instead of spending time on advertisements, I now spend my time researching ways to get my book out to bloggers and review sites. The more reviews I can get for my work, the more my writing will be visible to others searching Amazon for their next read.

As an author striving to get my material out to the world, I am faced with countless sites offering services for marketing and promotion. I tend to believe that it’s not the authors making money, but rather the companies and individuals offering services to the authors who hope that by paying another party, their work will get noticed. My advice to other new authors out there: don’t fall into that trap! Find ways to reach your audience that won’t cost a large sum of money. I have yet to read about a pay service that will guarantee sales.

It used to be that publishers took care of marketing, but I believe that to be less so now. More and more, authors need to handle their own marketing, and much of that marketing is about connecting to readers and building a foundation for future works.

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Ed Morawski’s, FLIT, was an enjoyably read. Mr. Morawski’s novel dove into a fictitious world where a technology revolutionizes travel as we know it. This was a technical read more than a character driven novel. While there are many characters that make up the novel, and all are interesting, the focus of the novel is more about the new technology and how it affected the world. It was evident the author spent many hours researching technology and it’s affects on society in order to write the book. I found the technology to be believable as something that could be created in our own future. I enjoyed reading FLIT, and anyone that has interest in technology will find it an interesting read.

View all my reviews

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The first person I’ll start with for this series is, as should be, the main character. JARED STONE is a complicated character to explain. Not because of his personality, but because Jared Stone is two characters in one! 

As my book blurb summarizes, Jared Stone is split between two worlds. Forced to make a decision between right and wrong, Jared’s world is split between good and evil. In one world, Jared is a young man, focused on rebuilding his life. In another world, Jared is known as JROCK, a ruthless gang leader.

 Jared is forced into rehabilitation after regaining consciousness from a coma; a result of the decision he made. He learns how to fight for what he needs in order to lead a normal life. To add to his difficulties, he is bombarded with visions of his alter ego committing atrocities he could never commit.

JROCK is Jared’s alter ego in another universe. Unlike Jared, JROCK is not happy unless he’s causing someone pain or hardship for his own gain. He is motivated by greed, and preys on other people’s kindness; a trait he considers as weakness.

Jared and JROCK find their worlds intersecting and trade places. How does Jared cope in JROCK’s world, and how does JROCK add chaos to Jared’s world? Well, I can’t get into that without writing the book here – grab a copy of the CHOICE this spring and find out!

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The first step to publication as many know is to create a ‘perfected’ query. Writing a query is certainly an art. My query went through many stages of revisions, and I admit, I started querying too early. After many (many = MANY) rejections, I began to re-think my strategy and began to research publishers – a learning step for me as I submitted to some publishers that do not fit with my story. This isn’t a complete misstep for me since material was requested from me over a Twitter contest. I figured that if they wanted to see my story, why not?

I had very good success querying small to mid-size publishers. I even queried editors at major publishing houses to receive personalized messages back thanking me for reaching out. One publisher was not acquiring at the time and was focusing on television only, but liked the idea; another thought my writing was a little too dark for what the publisher’s needs were at the time, but she thought the idea was great. Contrary to what feedback many in the industry give, some editors still like to work with authors and want to see their work.

I had a couple requests for full manuscripts from various publishers. One publisher that requested my full manuscript switched gears, to focus solely on romance going forward. That stung for a bit, but if they didn’t want a great story, their loss! Plus, I had my sights on Double Dragon at that point and really wanted to submit to them. As soon as I was able, I submitted my fully edited work to Double Dragon, and just shy of six weeks later, received my acceptance.

At first I saw the header line in the e-mail and expected a ‘thanks but no thanks’. Instead, what I read made me nearly fall out of my chair.

‘Thank you for your submission, I would like to offer you a contract with Double Dragon Publishing…”

Wow! What a feeling, compared to trudging on through rejections. My story will be available in both electronic and paperback format in early 2018.

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