Roland Hughes on Downloading #eBooks for #Free and Discoverability - #AmWriting #SelfPub

Despite what you have heard, that question is foremost in the mind of every writer who hasn’t become fabulously wealthy.  I have heard many deny it, yet they go out and promote their books.  You will hear many claim they “need to write and don’t care if anybody buys it.”  Well, the first part was probably true, but if they didn’t care about people buying it they wouldn’t keep putting it up for temporary free download.  Not just a chapter or two mind you, the entire book. The on-line world has put in place systems to feed this need for recognition and/or discovery.

The on-line world has answered with hundreds of places to download books for free.  Even Amazon has various “free download” promotional programs.  Many of the “free” eBook sites allow authors to post just a few chapters so readers can decide if they like the work before purchasing it.  There was a time when that actually worked for all involved.  Most of the services handing out an author’s work for free allow them access to some kind of dashboard or report which shows them the number of downloads to feed the fantasy of having been discovered.  It really is just a fantasy for 99.99%.  True, when eBooks and eReaders were first entering the market such free downloads generated buzz and sold additional units.  Today the only buzz they seem to generate is in the file hoarder community and they are only looking for free stuff.

Currently there are a growing number of people with the addiction.  There has been a slogan attached to drug dealers, at least in the writing world if not real life, “first hit is free.”  Now anyone can upload an unedited work to one or more of these on-line markets and watch the download counter climb.  The rush feeds the fantasy they will be “discovered” and offered a book contract with a rich and famous sized advance.  When the rush wears off they either begin spending their own money promoting or quickly create another work to post for free so they can feel the rush again.

You’ve all seen the news of formerly famous people and their downward spiral out of this world.  Addiction is a brutal thing.  Many of you have heard or seen news reports where some member of law enforcement comes on the screen and states “the new form of drug Y isn’t the same as it was in the 60s and 70s, it is N times deadlier.”  The same has become true of the free book market.  There has been a culture shift on a global scale.  A growing percentage of the world population now believe they should be able to download anything they want without having to pay for it.  The people making the money from this new addiction are the people selling the paraphernalia which would be the devices required to consume and or obtain the free stuff.  Many vendors of such devices pitch the size of the free library you will have access to with their device.

On the other side of that ether from whence the free stuff comes is a writer who is driven to write asking “Do you know me?”

“John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars” is one big interview. It is a transcript of a dialogue between “John Smith” (who, as the title of the book implies is the last known survivor of the Microsoft wars) and the interviewer for a prominent news organization.

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Genre – Dystopian Fiction

Rating – PG

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Website http://johnsmith-book.com/

Practical Advice for Beginning #Fiction Writers from J. D. Ferguson (#Historical #AmReading)

Giving advice has always left me a bit queasy, especially when the advice pertains to something as personal as fiction writing.  After all, who am I to assume that I know any more about what makes a creative mind hum than anyone else?  If fact, I doubt that I do.  But, that being said, I do relate to what budding authors experience when placing their flights-of-fancy on paper.  From that perspective I do have some observations.

I could write about story lines, persistence, consistency, and editing…editing…editing, but most that have worked at words, knows about all that; at least in degrees.  No, if I could offer one piece of sound advice to any author-in-progress, it would be to write logically.  Don’t misunderstand.  I did not say truthfully, or factually, or rationally.  No characters in fact or fiction can maintain those traits through all circumstances.  What I do mean is that when your scenes or dialogues, etc, are looked upon from a truly logical perspective, does the story line follow?

It does not matter in what genre you practice your craft.  The line or logic you follow must be sound.  Don’t just take my word.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four said it best, “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”   Just modify that to end must be the logical result.  For you can never really find the truth of any subject, just your perception of it.  In the words of Clarence Darrow, “Chase after truth like hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails”.

I am not telling you to limit your imagination.  On the contrary, your imagination is what must be exercised to its fullest.  Let’s face it, if authors only wrote what they knew, there would be no works of fiction.  Anything and everything is fair game for the nimble of mind and fluent of words.  J.K. Rowling, that darling of the fantasy genre (may we all be so successful) said, “I mean you could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist”.  And, as I am sure everyone knows, you cannot prove a negative.  So go for it.  Let your mind scramble where it may.  Just be logical with the results.

Fiction is fiction because it is not true.  It is based on truths, those realities with which we all must contend, but is not The Truth.  What it must be is a logical progression of circumstances to a given end.  When trying to envision how your hero or heroine works the wonders of their escape from the fire-breathing dragon remember the words of the great Mark Twain, “Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities.  Truth isn’t.”

Logic rules!

When Justin Thorne, coddled student and heir apparent to Sylvan Springs Plantation, is forced to find his heritage, his manhood, and his destiny, in the space of one brief spring, all hell breaks loose on the banks of the Ohio River. His Virginia of 1836 is a time of transition and enormous growth. Northern industrial might and southern aristocracy, abolitionist movements and slave cultures, collide in turmoil and lay bare the raw needs and desires of those intrepid spirits confronting the frontiers of the antebellum South. Coming of age is an expected result of time and circumstance. It happens to all who live so long, but to each within the dictates of their own lives. The process is on-going and ever dynamic. Every person is a precious product resulting from the effects of nature and nurture. 

One's ancestry, culture, and environment collude in myriad ways to make us; all as different as each life's story, and as singular as snowflakes. This theme is played out over-and-over throughout the world and throughout history, in millions of places like Holderby's Landing; as similar and as different as each human is to the other. Holderby's Landing is a single glimpse in time at the coming of age of a land, a community, and a few determined souls thrown together in love, strife and chance. What they make of the time, the opportunities and themselves is the story told and the living breath of this book.

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Genre – Historical Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Website www.jdferguson.net

#Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Dead & Godless by Donald J. Amodeo #Christian #Fiction @donamodeo

With each passing second, the train’s metallic roar grew louder. Was it possible that it would brake in time? Surely somebody had to have called 911. That is, unless everyone in the crowd was under the assumption that someone else had already called. The Bystander Effect. Corwin had heard of it before, though he never expected to be a living example.

“Give us a hand!” yelled his partner as they neared the ledge.

Summoning the wherewithal to stand, the homeless man between them planted his feet, but his balance failed him. Luckily Mary reached down and grabbed one of his hands. Corwin pushed from behind, and soon others in the crowd were helping to haul him up. The tall businessman vaulted onto the platform.

“Thanks for the help,” Corwin called after him.

“You can pay me back later.”

“Hurry!” urged Mary.

Corwin didn’t dare look towards the train. He boosted the vagabond with one last shove and clasped Mary’s outstretched hand. Safety was only a short climb away. Then a heavy boot struck him square in the chest.

While clambering onto the platform, the drunk’s knee had slipped, his clumsy kick finding its mark at just the wrong moment. Corwin felt Mary’s fingers slip from his grasp. He was falling. A steel rail greeted the back of his skull with a sharp thunk.

Blacking out for an instant, a surge of adrenaline was the only thing that kept him conscious. He vaguely heard Mary screaming over the ringing in his ears.

“Corwin, get up! Corwin!”

As he turned his head, the world blurred into slow motion, yet one thing was crystal clear. In that split second, he saw every dent, every scratch in the paint, every glimmer of light reflected in the glass. The look of horror on the conductor’s face was burned into his mind. Corwin had never seen anything as vividly as he saw the front of that train speeding towards him.

A chill draft pulled at his cashmere coat. He felt his heart beating, the cool touch of the steel tracks, and then Corwin felt nothing at all.

Sparks flew from the rails and the brakes squealed in protest as the J scraped to an emergency stop. Mary collapsed to her knees, her eyes wide with a vacant stare. She couldn’t cry out, couldn’t speak. The breath had been robbed from her lungs. It all seemed so unreal.

“Get yer hands offa me!” slurred the drunk beside her.

With a violent twist, he shook free from the grip of those who had helped to pull him out of harm’s way. The stunned commuters parted before him. Bleary eyed, he glared into the crowd, completely oblivious to what had just taken place. No one spoke a word to explain, not that he would have listened. Only hushed voices and quiet sobs filled the station.

Spitting curses, the man stomped off for the stairs.

“Don’t nobody in this town know how to mind their own damn business?”

When outspoken atheist Corwin Holiday dies an untimely but heroic death, he’s assigned a chain-smoking, alcoholic angel as his defense attorney in the trial to decide the fate of his soul.

Today many cast Christianity aside, not in favor of another faith, but in favor of no faith. We go off to school or out into the world, and we learn that reality is godless and that free thinking means secular thinking. But must faith entail an end to asking questions? Should not the Author of Reason be able to answer the challenge of reason?

Dead & Godless is a smart and suspenseful afterlife adventure that explores the roots of truth, justice and courage. In these pages awaits a quest that spans universes, where the stakes are higher than life and death, and where Christianity’s sharp edges aren’t shied away from, because we’re not called to be nice. We’re called to be heroes.

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Genre - Christian Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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