Among the Shadows is finally on Barnes and Noble. I had mistakenly assumed it was there weeks ago, but due to some glitch or oversight, it was not. Book description still isn’t there (and the wrong publication date is), but this listing joins AtS on Amazon, Kindle and Createspace.
Writing
Awakening
I wrote a few weeks ago on the ease of revising/updating your Kindle book. After uploading a set of minor corrections and changes recently, I was surprised to learn that updates are not automatically pushed out to owners of the ebooks. Every other app or program on devices get auto updates, but Amazon doesn’t send updates unless the author requests them, and if the updates are significant in nature. They say they are working on this – even though it appears it already can be done – and in the process are missing out on an opportunity.
While I still prefer paper books myself, ebooks do allow more of an interactive experience between readers and authors. It’s not just about making fixes, but updating author info, new book releases, etc., not only get to the readers who want to know, but create more sales for Amazon (and, obviously, the author).
This is all an ultimately a minor point for writers, but it came up during what is planned to be the last update to my book. Why the last? Because I have to get going on book 2:
Outsourcing: Marketing Part 2
Aidan J. Reid wrote a few weeks ago about his experiment with “3rd Party” marketing efforts. Marketing is not something many authors like to do — or have time for — but they have to engage in this anyway. As with anything, you can pay someone else to do some of it, and there is a whole cottage industry out there more than happy to help.
In my experiment, I went to Fiverr where anyone can offer on-line services of any type, typically starting at $5. So, of course, I started looking up book promotion offers. Continue reading
Categories: Writing
Tags: audience, connecting, marketing, outsourcing, publishing, self-publishing
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Only $2.99?
Among the Shadows for Kindle now on sale for $2.99!
Among the Shadows is heading out on the show circuit, so I thought I’d throw a little special out there…plus a teaser for Volume 2 is coming soon.
Categories: Books, Fiction, Writing
Tags: Among the Shadows, Darrick Dean, fantasy, Watchers of the Light
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Character Profile: Conrad
Since I could walk, I have moved among the tress of the timeless forests of the Riverlands. Unseen and unnoticed, the arrows of my bow cut through the morning mists, their targets never missed.
In my travels I see what once was. Places and people that have passed from memory. Timeslips. Thin places in the veil. These I can see, but that is not all.
I can see past time. To you it may seem as it has slowed, to me, I am unbound by its confines.
The abominations in the shadows do not know me, but they will soon learn to fear me. I am Conrad Wojtek, a hunter of what lies in the Darkness.
Among the Shadows: Watchers of the Light Book 1
[Photo used under license from Shutterstock.com.]
Categories: Writing
Tags: Among the Shadows, character profile, Conrad, Darrick Dean, fantasy, Watchers of the Light
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The Power of Story
It has almost become a cliché in books and film. A woman that needs rescued or a man fighting for his girl. Even though women are no longer helpless maidens in distress in most tales, there is a fundamental mythos underlying these stories, and the modern iterations. Stasi Eldredge writes in Captivating:
“…every man longs for a Beauty to rescue. He really does. Where would Robin Hood be without Marian, or King Arthur without Guinevere? …There is nothing that inspires a man to courage so much as the woman he loves.”
All true and perhaps that’s why the storyline never gets old. No matter how old-fashioned social “experts” claim it is, this is the story people want to read. And perhaps, as in many stories, it is a reflection of an underlying reality.
The power of Story is that it reminds us, awakens us, to undeniable essences of our humanity.
Don’t Like it? Write it Again…
At this point, I have changed the synopsis for my novel Among the Shadows numerous times. Not to mention that there are different versions on various sites. Nor was I happy with the current one. I didn’t want to give away too much detail, but maybe it didn’t hint at the elements of the story enough: The contemporary time setting, a little more on two of the central characters and time travel (cool, right?). The premise of myth and legend not being so mythical is still there, as it is a core theme. So, at any rate, here is the latest iteration (and probably not the last):
Ethan and Milena Dietrich are two of the rare ones among us, gifted in using their supernatural self — their soul — to reach through the veil. After years of rooting out evil around the world, they attempt to live a normal life, all the while realizing they are meant for more. Their part in the Story is unfinished.
Now, what was locked in shadow stirs, and where darkness has laid dormant, evil awakes.
Once, when the world was new, the Fallen battled the Light for control over humankind. Civilization was left in flames, the Scourges turned back by the Watchers in the last hour. The Darkness, though, was not defeated. Malice not seen since ancient times, far worse than anything on the evening news, is preparing for a new Scourge across the Earth.
They seek lost relics that surge with power. Nightmarish creatures thought only to be myth and legend will leave the shadows once more. The Dark One’s Followers will travel through time and history, obtaining all they need to propel mankind into collapse and ruin.
There is one problem with their plan. Watchers like Ethan and Milena are not afraid to bring the Light to dark places. Nor are they alone.
A war of the worst sort that could end the age of man is about to begin.
Categories: Books, Fiction, Writing
Tags: Among the Shadows, Darrick Dean, fantasy, historical fantasy, Watchers of the Light
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More Choices for Authors
Yesterday I started a series of posts on marketing. I want to expand on two items that you will find discussed in most marketing guides like those I reviewed: Writing more and KDP Select exclusivity. Continue reading
Categories: Writing
Tags: ebooks, Joanna Penn, KDP, KDP Select, Kindle, Kindle Direct Publishing, marketing, Robert Bidinotto
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Get to Work: Marketing Part 1
Regardless of how you publish your book, expect to do one thing when you are not busy writing your next book: Marketing.
There are many authors out there who have shared their marketing stories, and the lessons they have learned, good and bad. Here we will review two of them, but first let’s take a look at a couple maxims to keep in mind. Continue reading
Categories: Writing
Tags: author platform, connecting, indie publishing, J. F. Penn, Joanna Penn, marketing, publishing, self-publishing, Shelley Hitz, social media
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“Unexpected” Stories
Writers often tell of when their stories take on a life of their own. Non-writers might think this sounds mystical or strange, but it happens to nearly every writer. Thriller author J. F. Penn explains:
I don’t have a plot. I do have an opening scene and I’ve had an opening scene in my head for a while…That will then spark the story, but I do know that I will have these various aspects that will go into it…Then what happens is synchronicity. As I said, this is the ‘magic’ aspect that I find happens when I’m researching is that something will come up totally unexpected that makes the story work…And that synchronicity of story emerging from fascination and research still just makes me shiver a little bit, because it happens every time. Stephen King talks about the emergence of the story. That story is a ‘found thing.’ I believe that. I think I go looking for a story in the real world and then I will twist part of the reality into the thing that’s fiction.
Much like sculptors who say they are only revealing what is hidden in the rock, writers uncover stories hidden right in front of us. These are the kind of stories that readers love to get lost in. Even though they realize they are reading fiction — often fantastic at that — those bits grounded in reality blur the lines and draw them in even more.
All because a story revealed itself.
Darrick Dean 