I’ve participated in “Book Quote Wednesday” on Twitter for the past several weeks. Though the activity was created as a promotional tool, my experience shows it to be ineffective in that regard. I haven’t seen any effect on sales. Nevertheless, it’s kind of fun.

The idea is that a group of writers are given the same, simple word. They find an example of the use of that word somewhere in their work, and post the snippet on Twitter.

I’ve collected all my quotes from one novel — Hepen the Watcher — book 2 of my under-read and overlooked fantasy duology, Stories of the Puzzle Lands. The two books in this set are totally unlike anything else I’ve written. They’re straight up fantasies with magic — sardonic, violent, and darkly humorous. Sword-and-sorcery maybe. Of the first book in the duology, Fantasy Review Barn said:

“…It is the amount of heart this book has that really sells it for me. It is a book that falls into the gritty fantasy label for sure, but with a certain amount of sweetness. I will be reading the second of the duo in the near future, and have no problems recommending this one.”

So, back to Book Quote Wednesday. Each participating writer is asked to include the hashtag #bookqw in their tweet, so readers can check out other participating writers. Since I couldn’t fit a decent-sized quote within Twitter’s character limit, I started by posting simple screenshots of text.

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Thank you to everyone who entered to win a set of The Red trilogy audio CDs!

As you may recall, I was giving away one set of audio CDs to a current subscriber to my newsletter, and one set to a new subscriber, who signed up during the contest period.

Twenty-five current subscribers let me know they wanted to participate, and the twelve new subscribers who signed up during this period were automatically entered.

Today I determined the winners. The process I used was to first assign numbers to entries, following the order I received them. Then I sent my son to Random.org and had him generate two random numbers, one for each group.

Josh was the winner for new subscribers, and Barry won among those who are already subscribed. Congratulations to both, and your CDs are on the way.

Just a quick note for those who buy ebooks from Kobo:

Kobo says they’re offering customers in Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand a discount of 50% off indie titles, through June 27. This should include all my older ebooks, listed below:

Science Fiction Novels
Tech-Heaven
The Bohr Maker
Deception Well
Vast
Limit of Vision
Memory

Short Fiction Collections
Goddesses & Other Stories
Two Stories: “Nahiku West” and “Nightside On Callisto”

Fantasy Novels
The Dread Hammer
Hepen the Watcher

Middle Grade/Young Adult
Skye Object 3270a (set in the Nanotech story world)

Click here to find my titles in the US store. Otherwise, search by my name or the title of the book.

Be aware that Kobo ebooks are in EPUB format, and require an EPUB e-reader. The books cannot be read on your Kindle.

Earlier this week I was very surprised to receive in the mail a box with CDs of the audio edition of The Red trilogy, as narrated by Kevin T. Collins. Audiobooks of the trilogy have been available as downloads at Audible, but there was no CD edition and I wasn’t really expecting one. I’d been told it might happen, but don’t hold out hope. So it happened! Cool! And now that I’ve received my author copies, I want to do a giveaway of two sets.

If you’re a current subscriber to my newsletter, then check your email (and your spam folder) because you’ve just received an announcement about the giveaway. If you’re interested in participating, reply to that email telling me you want to be entered in the giveaway, and I’ll add your name to the list. One current subscriber will be randomly chosen from those who respond, to win a set of audiobook CDs.

If you’re not a current subscriber, sign up! The second set of CDs will go to a randomly chosen new subscriber. To sign up for my newsletter, fill out that little form in the right-hand column of this blog. You’ll get a verification email from Mail Chimp, which you will need to respond to before you’re actually signed up.

I’ll leave the contest open for entries until the end of June.

If you’re worried that I’ll fill up your inbox with weekly spam, DON’T WORRY. The contest announcement is the first newsletter I’ve sent since Going Dark came out last November. The newsletter is my way of letting you know when I have new stories or novels out, when I’m doing special promotions like this one, or when I have some kind of big news. Five or six newsletters a year would be a lot of newsletters for me. And if you decide you don’t want to read anymore of my work, you can always unsubscribe. 🙂 😀

So sign up!

This Saturday!

Waaaay back in early May, io9.com put up a post restarting their online book club, and their book of choice was The Red. There hasn’t been any promotion or reminders on it since then, but the promised Q&A session is going to take place on Saturday, putting it a couple of weeks behind the original schedule.

I think the Q&A is going to work something like a Reddit AMA. A post will go up at io9.com, probably around noon EDT. In theory, people who have read the book will pop in to post questions, and I’ll stop by a little bit later to try to answer them.

The problem with this set up of course is that it’s very hit-or-miss about who happens to notice the Q&A, and of those, who’s actually read the book. It’s also on a Saturday when, weirdly enough, a lot of people are not online.

So it’s basically fallen to me to generate my own audience (and that never goes well!). So if you’ve read The Red, if you’re up for an online Q&A/discussion, if you’ve got the time, please come on over to io9.com this Saturday! I’d love to have your company there.

I’ll post a link here on the blog when I have one.

Update: Follow this link to io9.com!

If you’ve enjoyed The Red, The Trials, Going Dark, or any book by any author — do consider leaving a customer review at Amazon or at the Barnes & Noble website. Those reviews really do contribute to the success of a book, and successful books keep authors in business. Some readers write intricate reviews, but others just leave a quick comment and that’s fine. That’s all it takes. THANK YOU!

Update 4/30/2016: I’ve moved my newsletter list to Mail Chimp and have updated the forms. So please…sign up!

A Grumbly Post

For no reason that I can parse, my newsletter signup forms have started getting several spam signups a day, far exceeding the legitimate signups. This is perplexing for a couple of reasons. First, the form is double opt-in. You receive an email which then requires you to click a link. Have spammers now automated this process? Second…what is the point? Why are spammers asking ME to email THEM with my newsletter? I don’t understand.

Newsletters are considered the best promotion, because those who sign up tend to be the most enthusiastic about a writer’s work, and most likely to be interested in new work. So I am discouraged.

That said, I’m not planning to send many newsletters in 2016. I’ve never sent more than a few a year, but this year I don’t have any plans (so far) for new publications. So instead of dealing with my spam problem, I’m going to put the newsletter on hiatus. I’ll probably send one more newsletter to announce this, and then I’ll wait until I have a new publication or some other worthy news.

Until then — or until I find the time and motivation to try a new email-list provider — I’ve removed the signup forms from my blog, which is the source of the problem. I’ll leave the forms up at my website, at least until the spammers discover those.

So if you’d like to sign up to receive my newsletter, go here. (top left of the page)

If you’d like to view my past newsletters, go here.)

Just a quick note to say that ebook seller Kobo is presently holding a very short term sale on most or all indie titles in their store. The sale is happening in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and it includes most of my older titles.

Be aware that Kobo ebooks are in EPUB format, and require an EPUB e-reader. The books cannot be read on your Kindle.

To get the sale price, use the promo code JAN1650 — and you can use it an unlimited number of times. Sale ends on Sunday, January 31st (I don’t know what time zone.)

Find my ebooks here, but many other titles are also available.

Just a few odds and ends…

* For those who write, Baen Books is holding a short story contest. They’re looking for near-future, humans-in-space themes. Find the details here. Deadline is February 1!

* The New Yorker takes a look at STX Entertainment in their article “The Mogul of the Middle.” It’s a long read, but a fascinating look at how thumbs-up/down decisions get made in the movie business.

* A photo essay on “The Internet” by Peter Garritano, with some background explanation over at The Atlantic.

* It was a nice end-of-the-year for The Red Trilogy. io9.com included it on their list The Very Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Books Of 2015. Bookworm Blues included The Red on her “The Epic Best Books of 2015 List.” Rob Bedford, who reviews for SFF World, put The Red at the top of his “Favorite 2015 Science Fiction Novels.” And Annalee Newitz included the trilogy in her Ars Technica list “All the science fiction books you’ll want to binge read over the holidays.” 🙂

* It’s been many years since I’ve read Dan Simmons Hyperion. I’m revisiting it now in audiobook format, and so far this edition is EXCELLENT. I’ll probably have more to say on it when I’m done, but at this point I’m hugely impressed both by Dan’s story and the production.

For those of you who like to nominate for the annual science fiction and fantasy awards, including the Nebula and Hugo awards, here’s a roundup of my 2015 award-eligible work.

In the short story category…

“The Way Home” is a military fantasy story that reads like science fiction. It belongs to the subgenre known as “portal stories” in which ordinary people pass through some sort of portal to an extraordinary world. Bluntly, I think this is one of the best short stories I’ve ever written. I like its structure, its characterization, and its compactness — it contains an action story with multiple characters in only 6,300 words. Since I tend to write long, I take the latter as a personal victory. All that said, the story has garnered very little interest. So judge for yourself! “The Way Home” was reprinted at Lightspeed Magazine where it’s available to read free online.

In the novel category…

The Trials
book 2
The Red Trilogy

Going Dark
book 3
The Red Trilogy

The books in The Red Trilogy are fast-paced, near-future, high-tech science fiction thrillers. The Trials continues the story begun in the Nebula and Campbell-nominated The Red, and Going Dark completes that story.

A short history for those of you new to The Red Trilogy: The Red was originally self-published in 2013. It was republished by Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press this past June, with The Trials following in August, and Going Dark released in November.

Edit: this sale price is no longer available. As of this writing, the ebook of The Trials (and also of The Red) is on sale at most ebook vendors for $1.99, so if you’re interested, this is a great time to pick them up.

Edit: For the month of February 2016, the Saga Press ebook editions of all volumes in The Red Trilogy are priced at $2.99 each.

SFWA members: ebook and PDF editions of all three volumes of The Red Trilogy are available for download in the SFWA Forum. Once you’re logged in, you can find them by following this link.

That’s it! Thanks for stopping by.