Box 'o' books launch: The HOT BOX launch tour

Sizzling Thriller Hot Box Release:

8 SIZZLING THRILLERS FROM 8 BEST-SELLING AUTHORS

Get yours today

• Amazon
• Smashwords (99c)
• Goodreads

What's in the Hot Box:

Steven Bannister – Fade to Black

John Paul Davis – The Cortes Enigma 

C R Hiatt – Sanctioned Kill 

David Leadbeater – The Razor’s Edge 

Andy Lucas – Race Amazon 

Karen Perkins – Dead Reckoning 

C K Raggio – Heron Park 

Mike Wells – Wild Child

Steven Bannister—Fade to Black—Allie St Clair is young and brilliant and today she’s been promoted to Detective Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard. But the time for celebration is short. Something is wrong in rain-swept London. Very wrong.

#NewRelease

John Paul Davis—The Cortes Enigma—1581: It appeared in the west as the sun was setting, a distant silhouette like a fire on the water. Twelve hours later it appeared again, this time much closer to the mainland . . . Who was on board or where they came from remained a mystery . . . No trace of the vessel was ever found . . .

#NewRelease

C R Hiatt – Sanctioned Kill - Destined for Danger. Sanctioned to Kill.  Hot on the trail of an international weapons ring, covert agent Kyra Ray finds herself caught in the cross-hairs of a ruthless arms dealer in the perilous mountains of war-torn Afghanistan. Closing in, the mission takes an unexpected and near-deadly turn in the high-stakes drama of New York City, where Kyra is mysteriously spared by an assassin sent to kill her. Retrained as an assassin and given strict orders to take him down, Kyra becomes trapped in a game of cat-and-mouse that will put her life on the line and her directive to the test—her sanction to kill.

David Leadbeater—The Razor’s Edge—Trent, Silk and Radford are the Razor’s Edge and the best spy team in the business – until the government they toiled, served and bled for, disavowed them.

Andy Lucas—Race Amazon—James Pace, ex-RAF helicopter pilot and amateur cameraman, is still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life when a child’s bullet nearly kills him.

Karen Perkins—Dead Reckoning—A historical adventure of piracy, love and revenge in the Caribbean in the seventeenth century.

C K Raggio—Heron Park—A small Long Island town erupts in a panic when a woman and her dog are found savagely murdered on a popular hiking trail.

Mike Wells—Wild Child—A fast, suspenseful thriller with an ending that you’ll never see coming.

Why I'm not publishing books on paper

A guest reblog from bestselling thriller author Mike Wells

I had to make sure my readers had the benefit of Mike Wells' excellent essay on digital publishing.

    

At present, I only publish my work in digital format—ebooks and audiobooks. Since many of you are also authors or seriously thinking of writing a book, I thought I would explain my reasoning on this, as it might be helpful to you in making your own decisions.

The main reason that I'm a digital-only author is that if I publish my books on paper, I can't get them onto the shelves of physical bookstores.  It's virtually impossible.  Why?  Because I'm an "indie author," meaning that I self-publish my work outside of the realm of the traditional publishing industry.  Like  it or not, traditional publishing largely controls what's on the shelves of brick-and-mortar bookstores.  (Self-publishing my own work is a personal choice—for more about traditional versus self-publishing, see this post).

Also, I am an internationally-oriented author, and I have a large number of readers all over the world—in Australia, the UK, Europe, South Africa, Malaysia, Russia, India, the Middle East, etc.  This compounds the distirbution problem tenfold. Even the biggest U.S. publishers have trouble getting their titles onto the bookstore shelves in every corner of the globe. 

Thanks to digital retailer/distributors like Smashwords, ebooks provide an instant and elegant solution to the problem.  It's a great feeling to know that any reader, virtually anywhere in the world, has equal access to all my books at the touch of a button.

That said, I admit that it sometimes bothers me that I can't pick up a paper copy of my book and hold it in my hands, and that I can't send readers who want my books in paper format to a physical bookstore.  Some people enjoy collecting paper books and building a home library, and I can certainly appreciate that as well. 

While it's true that I could arrange to publish all of my 20+ titles on paper through a company like Lulu or Createspace, this does not fully solve the problem, neither in the USA or abroad.  Readers will still have to order the books online or through their local bookstores—copies will still not actually be sitting on bookstore shelves. 

My experience is that people who want paper books generally expect to walk into a physical bookstore, find the books they want on the shelves, and then take the books the cash register and pay for them.  Having to order and wait for a paper book is a "speed bump" that greatly lowers interest.  Today, most readers, when given the choice of ordering a physical book and waiting a week or two for it to arrive, or downloading the book instantly, in ebook or audiobook format, choose the latter.  Not all, but most.

Despite how easy companies like Lulu and Createspace make it sound, publishing on paper is still a lot of work and takes significant time.  I only have so many hours in the day.  When I ask readers, "Which would you rather I do—produce more new ebooks and audiobooks or slow down and offer everything I write in both digital and paper format?" the answer is always a resounding "More new books please!"  The vast majority of my readers are willing to read or listen to my books in digital format, even the ones who prefer paper.

Of course, there are some people who refuse to read anything but paper books.  I admire their tenacity, but I have to draw the line somewhere.  I believe that there will always be paper books, but I also believe that the number of people who refuse to read anything except paper books will steadily diminish, so that eventually I will reach 99% of the folks who are interested in my work.

But there is another larger, overarching factor in my decision to stay digital.  I struggled for fifteen years in the paper book industry—burned through four literary agents—and made very little progress.  It was the advent of ebooks and digital publishing that allowed me to take full control of my career and caused my book sales to take off.  While I'm sure it would be a wonderful feeling to hold all my novels in my hands and see them lined up in a neat row along my desk, I'm confident that the feeling I have from making a living as a novelist and being able to write full time is far more satisfying.

Perhaps things will change in the future and I will decide to publish on paper.  For example, maybe someday there will be a printing and binding machine sitting in every physical bookstore that can produce a high-quality paper copy of any ebook in a matter of minutes.  There have been attempts at this, but nothing has caught on big yet.  Or, maybe a traditional publisher will come along and offer to print my books as they are, without insisting on fiddling around with the titles and content, and they won't have a problem with me continuing to publish my ebooks and audiobooks independently.  Who knows? 

Never say never.

In summary, that's the logic behind my decision to keep my books in digital format only for the present, and it may or may not apply to your own situation.

Your comments are welcome. 

This post originally appeared on May 1, on Mike Wells Official Website.

Monday blog for writers: Don't ignore e-books

Image from Jorghex’s collection in Wikimedia Commons,  published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unreported License. - See more at: 

It baffles me that there are still authors, intelligent professionals who want to reach an audience, yet who do not use the most effective and cheapest way of doing that — ebooks.

Last Saturday, I participated in the first Ottawa Book Fest held by the National Capital branch of the Canadian Authors Association. While it wasn’t what I hoped for in terms of selling books or engaging with readers, I did enjoy talking with many other local authors. Two things struck me: the number of authors who don’t bother with e-books, and the number who use expensive “publishing services” companies — vanity publishers.

“You can’t wrap an e-book,” was one typical comment. True, there is something very appealing about the tactile experience of holding a book. That’s one reason I went to the trouble and expense of getting paperbacks of my own titles.

Paper has a number of advantages over e-books. I will take a paperback to the beach or poolside, but I hesitate to bring my iPad there. It’s hard to read my iPad in bright sunlight (although the E-Ink screens of the Kobo, Kindle and others don’t have this problem). If you drop a paperback or get it dirty, it’s no big deal. At worst, you might have to spend ten to fifteen dollars to replace it. Or maybe $50 for a big hardcover. If I were to drop my iPad in the bathtub, that would be a major disaster.

Image courtesy Steve
Taffee's Blogg-Ed Indetermination

And yes, you can wrap up a paperback book and enjoy the recipient opening it.

On the other hand, the e-book’s advantages include:

• they’re lighter, important when travelling
• they should be cheaper — the publisher doesn’t have to pay for paper, ink or shipping
• it’s a lot easier to give copies to people who are not in the same room with you — or the same country.

Let’s look at some facts.

E-books outsell paper books. More than two years ago, Amazon reported that its sales of e-books had surpassed paper books, and while that’s just one (the biggest in the world) outlet, the Association of American Publishers also announced that e-books outsold hardcovers in the adult fiction category as of 2011. E-books are the fastest growing sector of the book market, and even though the AAP reported that growth slowed in 2013, it was still growing and hit $800 million, while sales of paperbacks fell to $898 million.

As Hugh Howey pointed out on his blog (which I referenced in my post in February), the book e-tailers don’t report their sales numbers.  That means those numbers do not include any self-published e-books, which according to Howey’s research, outsell all the e-books from all Big Five publishers combined.

Why limit yourself?

E-book technology sparked an explosion in the number of independent authors self-publishing books. It’s an enabling technology.

And it’s not difficult to use. It helps to know about publishing, but if you can create a word processing file, you can create an e-book. Not necessarily a good e-book, but that’s a different discussion.

That’s why it astounds me to hear writers denigrate the e-book format. For an author to choose not to publish an e-books would be like a travel agent choosing not to book air travel and sell train tickets only. Sure, there’s a market for train travel, and trains can be more romantic and evocative than airplanes, but that choice severely limits the travel agent’s career.

Photo by Alexander Henning
Drachmann (Creative Commons)

Need advice? Ask me

Some writers may feel intimidated by e-books and the need to learn a new format. But as I said, it’s easier to format an e-book. There are plenty of free resources on the net, in the blogosphere, even on Facebook. Mark Coker’s excellent and free Smashwords Style Guide gives you step-by-step instructions, with lots of time-saving tips.

Or ask another author who has gone through the process. Most are happy to share what they’ve learned. For free. Ask me.

If you still feel unsure, or want to get someone to produce your e-book for you, then I’ll certainly charge a lot less than any vanity publisher.

If we work together, we’ll all succeed.

A first novel by a skilled writer: An independent review of The Devil of Light by Gae-Lynn Woods

I began reading Gae-Lynn Woods’ The Devil of Light in January, at about the same time I started watching True Detective on HBO, the gritty series starring Woodie Harrelson and Matthew MacConaughey, and was immediately struck by the similarities between the two stories.

Both stories feature victims of ritual murders, corpses found in bizarre poses and clues pointing to occult behaviours. Both stories also hint at a circle of sexual abusers of children, men who use their powerful positions in their communities to cover up their crime and enforce the secrecy of their cults.

And a further connection between the two: True Detective is set in the Louisiana coastal plain, just across the state border from east Texas, where you could find Arcadia, the setting of The Devil of Light.

This novel bears an uncanny resemblance to Project Truth, a police investigation in Cornwall, Ontario of a suspected ring of child abusers, men, including priests, who traded their child victims among themselves.

I was so struck by all the similarities that I even emailed Gae-Lynn Woods, author of The Devil of Light, to tell her about it. She responded that she had not watched True Detective, nor heard of Project Truth, but she was going to look into both.

But this post is a review of the novel by the independent author from east Texas, so let’s concentrate on that.

The story: A complex series of murders

The Devil of Light begins with a drifter, who adopts only the name Hitch, ritualistically killing an unnamed victim at the behest of an “old man.” Cassandra “Cass” Elliot and her partner, Mitch Stone, are assigned the investigation, which is hampered because the body has no identification. They suspect it’s a missing migrant worker, but before they can make much progress, a local businessman and hobby farmer, Lenny Scarborough, is murdered by his long-abused wife in a spectacular, if very rural way — she drives the spikes of a hay loader through his chest.

In Scarborough’s house, the detectives discover the motive of the murder: photographs of men having sex with young girls and with other men. All the shots are very close-up and show no faces; scars in one picture, though, match the murder victim’s body. It seems Angie, Lenny’s long-abused wife, had discovered the photos while Lenny was working in the cow barn, and that was enough to channel the anger from years of physical abuse into driving the specialized fork-lift truck through her husband.

The photographs lead the police to suspect their idyllic town harbours a ring of pedophiles, and the investigation indeed uncovers it — a ring comprising some of the most powerful and respected men in the community.

This being a crime novel, the bodies begin to pile up, as do layers of secrets and conspiracy.

Where a writer’s skill is critical

Woods is a skilled and talented author. She creates detailed and believable characters, people readers can picture and hear. The main character, Cass Elliot — who insists that the coincidence of her name with that of the late singer from the Mamas and the Papas is really nothing more than a coincidence — has an interesting back-story including rape and a scar around her breast, as well as an older brother serving a long jail sentence for something he may not have done. But Woods knows how to keep the back-story from bogging down her plot, and brings out details when they’re needed, just enough to keep us turning pages (or swiping the e-reader screen) to find out more.

Very few weaknesses

There are a lot of characters in this book, and sometimes it’s hard to keep them all straight — especially the younger minor policemen, most of whom seem to be blond and athletic. This is in opposition to most of the baddies, who in addition to sharing a compulsion to sexually abuse young people, share a propensity to obesity.

The family and social links among the police, suspects, victims and those who discover the bodies also get thicker and more tangled, enriching rather than confusing the story.

The main characters are clearly drawn and consistently presented — except for the main bad guy. The author never names him, and provides only enough detail to make us suspect he could be one of two people in Arcadia.

Overall, an enjoyable and thought-provoking novel

While this novel has an enthralling climax and satisfying conclusion, it did not solve the mystery or end the story. Again showing her writing skills, Gae-Lynn Woods leaves us on the last page of The Devil of Light with a reason — no, a need — to buy the sequel, Avengers of Blood.

Well done, Ms. Woods!

5*

Visit Gae-Lynn Woods' website

Find The Devil of Light on Amazon

Find The Devil of Light on Smashwords

You know what a Peligro is, only you just didn’t know what to call it.

Are you ready for Danger? Today is the launch of Danger Peligros, the new collection of true adventure tales by the No Map Nomads, Autumn Birt and Adam Paul.

Whether by boot, by (motor)bike, by boat, or by whatever it takes, Raven and Weifarer will take you along to experience trips from sublime to nearly disastrous. With serendipity tucked into the saddlebags along with some capricious Peligros, every turn leads to the unexpected.

This book includes the complete story arc to Cruise Ship Mutiny, the Cabot Trail on motorcycle, memories of the first motorbike trip to Canada (in October no less), hikes on tropical islands and much more.

What are Peligros?

They are the best and the worst of your day, travel, life. They are what draws us out from safe and comfy homes - the little itches that make such abodes feel too confining, too much the same. They are the essence of that moment when everything has gone horribly wrong and you are left thankful to be alive with parts that still add up to a functional whole. They are that moment when someone you don’t know lends you an unexpected, warm hand. They are when your luck goes from nonexistent to good, because you wouldn’t need good luck if things hadn’t looked scary for a time, now would you?

You know what a Peligro is, only you just didn’t know what to call it.

Raven and I have been traveling since we met on Martha’s Vineyard oh-so-many years ago now. From those early days barely surviving learning to sail on Vineyard Sound to more recent motorcycle trips through the Canadian Maritimes, we’ve had our share of trouble and of luck. Danger Peligros! collects some of those stories of our misadventures so that when you follow a Peligro out the door, you might be a little better informed!

Get Danger Peligros on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B00AGVD2XU

Get Danger Peligros from Smashwords: www.smashwords.com/books/view/261152

 

A sample Danger Peligro:

Serendipity and the Accordion Music Festival

A free-wheeling motorcycle excursion through Quebec takes a turn for the worse when we end up in the midst of an accordion music festival.

In the brief pause as the musician walks to a different section of the restaurant, Raven’s shoulders loosen. He takes a bite of his dinner and whispers a hopeful “Maybe he is done?” It is not to be. The accordion breathes in with a jolly hum before being launched into a frolicking melody. Soon everyone in the restaurant is clapping and singing along in French.

Everyone except us, that is. My French is workable at the speed of molasses. Raven’s usage relates to food. Exuberant Quebecois songs sung to an accordion are not in our repertoire. “Just try to relax and enjoy it.” After seven years of marriage, I can read the look Raven gives me over his pasta without the need to speak above the accordion’s notes. Clearly I do not understand his view of reality. I know he hates loud noises — unless he is the cause of them. But everyone else is having a good time. The musician is pretty good for playing on an accordion. “Let’s just eat and get out of here.” I sigh and nod. Really, I doubt that will help.

Our tendency to not have a plan while riding our motorcycles had landed us in the thick of it this time. By afternoon when we stopped our meanderings to check the map only one town close to us was listed as having a campground: Montmagny. It was Labor Day weekend, but traffic had been light all along the roads of inner Quebec. Prospects looked good for serendipity to smooth things over once again.

That is until we queued in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way into Montmagny. All of it seemed to be headed toward the only campground. RVs, tents, and campers were stuffed double to a space inside the chain link enclosure. Oddly, at the time we still hadn’t figured out what was going on. Instead, we were enraptured by an historic motorcycle museum’s advertisement we discovered while waiting in line at the campground office.

You don’t need to know much French to figure out when a campground is full. The kid behind the register shook his head. Dismay weighed on my shoulders. Whatever was going on was a big deal and I doubted we would find any campgrounds open for miles. Then the teenage boy looked at us again, a light in his eyes. “Pas électrique? Pas l’eau? ± No electric? No water?”

“Oui, une tente pour un nuit — Yes, one tent for one night.” His smile grew a little larger. “Attend ici — Wait here.” He ran off. It took a few minutes, but our plight was shared. The desire to help was strong and we were shown to a spot outside of the full enclosure. We got a patch of grass next to the closed pool. By the time we were set up and ready to head into town for dinner, there were a few other campers in tents along the pool fence as well.

We followed the foot traffic back into town, finally noticing the signs: World Heritage Accordion Music Festival. I had never given accordion music a thought, but Raven apparently had. His eyes were popping out of his head. We spent quite a bit of time studying menus for cheap fare and checking out exactly how many accordion musicians were located inside the establishment. The Italian restaurant and ice cream stand called Bistro LeFontaine had looked safe. Until five minutes after sitting down the apparently late minstrel arrived.

Now Raven’s jaw is clenched too tight for him to eat. His blue eyes hold a glaze of desperation over the angst. Chance and luck have turned tails up. I don’t see the world from his perspective where loud sounds are jarring and crowds pressing, but I know when he has had enough. Something is going to have to give. And then the musician walks to our section.

He meets Raven’s distressed gaze, sweeps over my defeated shoulders and starts to speak in French. I only catch about half of what he says, but what I understand surprises me to my core. He explains to the crowd that the jubilant notes are not to our fancy and he is going to play a different tune, just for us. He launches into Stray Cat Strut.

I’ve never heard jazz on an accordion, so I have nothing with which to compare that serenade. After remembering to close my jaw, Raven and I share a nervous smile. Then we are laughing, closing our eyes to smooth notes that hum like smoked brandy, even on an accordion. Everyone applauds the rendition, a few giving us smiles and happy nods. We blush and smile back. The musician moves on.

It isn’t really serendipity or fate that guides us on our journey. Deep down, we know we can rely on each other. More than that, when we have taken a wrong turn and fallen short of hopes we have always been gifted with kindness. Strangers have read our plight in the lines of our faces when our words could not be translated. Such experience has removed the fear of the unknown and turned us into seekers of the out of the way path.

Before we leave the restaurant, we buy ice cream cones with sprinkles to accompany us on our music filled walk back to the campground. It is apparently going to be a late night for the festival. But from our corner of the campground by the pool, it is mostly an odd mixture of notes and laughter floating above the St. Lawrence. Our whimsical method of choosing routes has landed us in a myriad of odd places from lunch spots next to closed asylums with torrid histories, a Beetles playing guitar group around a campfire on a pebble beach, and now an accordion music festival. Oddly enough, it’s all been good.

Note from Raven: Yes, it’s true. I would rather eat a fried rat than enjoy accordion music. I have to say, however, the city of Montmagny is absolutely beautiful. The women are just as pretty and the food is magnifique. I would happily return on any of the 51 weeks the music festival is not in town.

Autumn Birt is an independent author with two books currently available on Amazon and plans for many more. She also run the adventure travel blog No Map Nomads, where she is known as Weifarer, and writes for the blog Guild of Dreams.

6-Sentence sample: The lost patrol

This week's six-sentence sample is designed to make you shudder. It comes from Part 2 of The Bones of the Earth. Valgus, the Roman Legate posted to the edge of haunted Dacia, tells the main character, Javor and his mentor, Photius, how he got that wound that would not heal.

He begins with a little background about a lost patrol in the mountains.

“Then, high in the foothills of the Montes Serrorum, they came upon something, I know not what, that destroyed them utterly. Ten heavily-armed cataphracti! One man came limping back to tell us the news. All he could tell me was that the patrol had been wiped out by a group of something. But he couldn’t say what it was before he died in my arms.” Valgus closed his eyes and shuddered.

Want to read more? Get The Bones of the Earth from Amazon,  Smashwords, or on iBooks (search for Scott Bury).

And for more great six-sentence reads, check out Six Sentence Sunday.