Author Interview

Writing is a process.  There's the initial inspiration, the hours spent at a computer (or if you write by hand, hours with a pencil before you even start typing it up), endless editing, formatting, and editing some more.  If you self-publish you don't have to wait for tons of rejection letters, but the one thing that all writers do have to consider, regardless of how they're published, is marketing.

I'm not good at marketing.  I'll be the first to admit it.  I'm not on many social media sites, I'm terrible at updating this blog, and I still have a hard time telling acquaintances that I write at all, much less what I write about.

But in this age of social media, I've been absolutely blessed by word of mouth from readers.  Through Goodreads I've been able to connect with people who love reading, and who are interested in my book.  Lisa T is a book reviewer who was kind enough to invite me to do an interview on her fabulous Attention is Arbitrary blog and help get word out.  You can read the full interview on her blog here.

A huge thanks again to Lisa and to everyone for reading, and if anyone visiting my blog hasn't joined Goodreads yet, I honestly can't recommend it enough.  You can connect with other readers (and writers) and get recommendations based on books you enjoy.

YES!

I am truly proud to be an American today.  What more can I say?  The Supreme Court made the right decision, the JUST decision on DOMA and Prop 8. 

The Fourth of July has never been my favorite holiday.  I hate the summer, and I'm not a fan of fireworks. But next week I'm going to celebrate the fuck out of Independence Day!  Happy Fourth everyone! 

Exclusivity

For those who aren't familiar with it, Amazon.com has a great program called KDP Select, where self-published authors can enroll their work in the Amazon lending library as well as give away copies for 5 days during the 90 day enrollment period.  Sounds great, right?  Yes, and no.  The main problem with KDP Select, is that in order to enroll you have to give exclusive rights to them for your ebook.  You can't sell your ebook anywhere else, and you can't even give it away outside of their site.

Amazon.com has their reasons for demanding exclusivity, and while I don't entirely agree with it, I have been extremely satisfied with them thus far.  That being said, I did not choose to re-enroll when the 90 day period ended.  I gave it a lot of thought, and I want to make it more widely available.  Starting today you can pick up a copy of Chance Assassin at Barnesandnoble.com.  You can also continue to buy it at Amazon.com, and the paperback version is still pending for those readers who prefer an old fashioned physical copy (myself included.)

Thanks again, and happy reading!

Updates

So it's been awhile since I posted here.  I'd say it was one part procrastination, one part being busy working on the sequel to Chance Assassin, and about 6 parts of me being not very interesting.

I get that some people use social media to update the masses on each sneeze (actually, I don't.  I don't understand that at all.  Why do people do that?  Does anyone care?) but that's not me.  I started this wournal (I refuse to call it a blog because blog is a revolting word) to drum up some interest for my book, and as a way to connect with people who are interested in my writing.  I do try to update on a weekly basis, but alas, my hermit life is not very noteworthy.

                  For anyone who's interested, this is what I've been up to:

My tax day giveaway on Amazon.com went extremely well.  I honestly didn't have very high expectations, but even if I had medium expectations, those expectations would've been blown out of the water.  Thank you to everyone who picked up a copy, and to those who did a bit of advertising on my behalf from their websites or from goodreads!

The sequel.  Chance Assassin was my first book, but that's not to say I wasn't working on other things while writing it.  The events of the sequel were already written in the stars so to speak, and I hope to have it out next year.  It takes place a few years later, and ***spoiler alert*** mostly in France.  It's larger in scope than Chance Assassin, and isn't completely in our previous not-so-humble narrator Vincent's point of view.

So there you have it.  Sorry for the delayed post.  I'll try to update more regularly in the future.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes

Taxes.  Everyone pays them.  Well, everyone except for the ridiculously wealthy with their ridiculously well paid accountants.  At any rate, death is definitely certain.


In honor of my book having quite a bit of death (and the ridiculously wealthy...dying) I'm doing a giveaway on Amazon.  From April 12th until April 16th, Chance Assassin will be available as a free download.  Enjoy.  Tell your friends.  And if your friends happen to be ridiculously wealthy, wait until April 17th and tell them then.  Have them buy a few copies. Happy reading!

Coming out...as a writer

I'll start by saying that I'm proud of my book.  I am.  Through all the self doubt and anxiety I have anytime I get a review that's anything less than perfect, I can remind myself that I made something.  I wrote it, and I put it out there for the world to see.  I love my book.  It's the story I wanted to tell, and it's a story I enjoy reading.  Some people loved my book and wouldn't change a thing.  Others disliked certain parts or disliked it altogether.  It's not for everyone. 

That being said, I'm not shouting from the rafters "I wrote a book!"  I'm not even whispering from the rafters.  The day I published I brought in muffins to work to celebrate (the store had no cupcakes. NO CUPCAKES!)  But I didn't actually tell anyone in my department that I was celebrating, much less what I was celebrating. 

And why is that, you ask?  Didn't you just say that you're proud of your book?  Yes, I'm proud of my book.  But writing has always been a very private thing for me, and I've found that many writers feel the same way.  It isn't something I talk about at all.  Of the few people outside of my immediate circle of friends that even know I write, they don't know what I write about. 

I joke that Chance Assassin is a gay hitman love story.  It is, of course, but that's not all it is.  I honestly think I struggled more with writing the blurb than I did with writing the book itself.  How do you sum up years of your work into just a few sentences?  How do you tell an acquaintance, or even a stranger, that for the past how ever many years you've been thinking about nothing but murder, and hotel rooms, and the relationship between two men that you completely made up.  I'm a crazy person!  Buy my book!

I'm rambling, so I'll get to the point.  I've decided to tell people.  Well, one person.  Maybe two.  But I'm going to do it.  I'm going to speak in a normal voice from the rafters "I wrote a book.  It's about two men, well, one man and a boy, who fall in love and go around the country killing people for money"

Misery Loves...Goodreads.com

I have to admit that I'm relatively new to Goodreads.  A friend (thank you, Amanda!) referred me to it about a month before I published my book, and honestly I felt like a kid in a candy store.

You mean I can just click what I like, and the Internet tells me what else I might like?  GENIUS!  Why hadn't I heard of this site before?

Not only is this a great place for readers to learn about new books (and even enter to win some!) but it's an amazing resource for writers to connect with their readers.  As soon as I have a paperback version I'll be adding a few to the giveaway section. 

At any rate, apart from obsessively refreshing for new reviews and updates from readers, I'm honored to say that Chance Assassin has been nominated for a list!  Best M/M Book by a Debut Author of 2013

A huge thanks to the reviewer who nominated me, and to everyone who voted.  If you haven't voted yet, please do!  And I don't just mean for mine.  That list has a ton of recommendations that I'm looking forward to checking out.