This is an almost-last-minute post to say that I will be at the Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, well, THIS WEEKEND. Or more accurately, mostly on Friday and Saturday.

On Friday evening there will be a “mass signing” involving lots of writers, including me. I hope someone will bring a book or two for me to sign. Yes? Maybe?

I’m also doing a Saturday panel on the topic How might science change science fiction? That question seems almost deceptively easy, doesn’t it? The panel is at 3pm, so if you’re attending, please consider stopping in.

The awards banquet is Saturday evening. While The Red: First Light has been nominated for a Nebula award, I have no expectation of winning. (So the pressure is off!) I do have great hopes of having a good time though, at my first-ever Nebula Weekend.

Book View Café is having a year-end 50%-off sale on over 100 ebooks by authors such as Chaz Brenchley, Laura Anne Gilman, Katharine Kerr, Vonda McIntyre, and me!

Among my books, both The Dread Hammer and The Bohr Maker are on sale. If you’ve read one, now’s your chance to try the other. If you’ve tried both, please refer a friend. You won’t see the discount price on the book listing, but it will be automatically applied when you add the book to your shopping cart.

Again, here’s the link that will let you browse all books on-sale.

ON THE OTHER HAND, if you’re a regular Kobo Books customer, The Bohr Maker is also on sale there at 50% off with coupon code 50COUPON. You won’t see the sale price until you enter the coupon code, so don’t click “Buy Now.” Use the drop-down arrow to select “add to cart” instead.

And if you enjoy any of my books, please consider jumping the vendor boundary and reviewing them at Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble. Thanks to those who already have.

And thanks to all of you for stopping by and for putting up with me. BEST WISHES TO ALL FOR 2014!

Here’s the annual list of all my 2013 award-eligible work in one easy-to-read location…

Note to SFWA members: reading copies of both the novel and the stories are available in the forum, in epub and mobi formats.

Novel:
The Red: First Light — published in print and ebook editions by my own imprint Mythic Island Press LLC and reviewed by Russell Letson (Locus), Paul Kincaid (Through the dark labyrinth), and Stefan Raets (Tor.com), who called it “…an amazing novel.”

Short Story:
“Through Your Eyes” — Asimov’s, April/May 2013 issue

“Out In The Dark” — Analog, June 2013 issue

“Halfway Home” — Nightmare Magazine, September 2013 issue. Read it online.

The sale is done now. Thanks so much to all who participated and who helped to spread the word. If you enjoyed MEMORY and would like to see a sequel please let me know. And do sign up for my newsletter (“New Book Alerts” at the top of the right hand column)–it goes out only a few times a year.

“[A] kick ass big idea, hard SF novel…Yes, I’m raving. But I seriously love this book.” —Tobias Buckell

Many of my readers consider Memory to be their favorite among my novels, and I would love to write a sequel, but I’m going to need the support of a lot of readers to do it. This will probably mean doing a Kickstarter to make sure the interest is there. In the meantime, I’d like to persuade more of you to read Memory, so for a limited time I’m offering it for only $3. Thanks for considering it!

The reduced price is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK, so if you’re a regular Amazon customer (and you don’t live in a country where Amazon tacks on extra fees) please purchase there. This will help the novel’s rank and give it more visibility to other customers. The reduced price is also available at my Mythic Island Press webstore, to buyers worldwide.

If you’re a regular customer of Kobo Books, here’s the link to their website

With luck the lower price will also become available at Barnes & Noble, but they tend to be slower about updating their listings, so no guarantees.

For news of upcoming books (and possible Kickstarters!) PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY VERY OCCASIONAL NEWSLETTER.

And if you read Memory and enjoy it, please consider reviewing it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or otherwise spreading the word — because word of mouth is the best way to sell books, and I need all the help I can get! 😉

Ads from the ongoing
Clarkesworld campaign.
(size reduced)

I’ve run three online ad campaigns to try to get the word out on my newest novel, The Red: First Light, published last March. For those new to me or my website, the novel is a very near-future, high-tech, military science fiction thriller — and it’s indie-published, so I’m on my own for publicity.

I had a couple of good publicity opportunities when TRFL was released. This helped sales in the first six weeks, although the novel never got anywhere near qualifying as an “indie success story.” So, having no luck getting the book reviewed***, I decided to experiment with online ads.

(***Update: The Red: First Light has since been reviewed at both Tor.com and Locus Online.)

I’m going to guess that most of you reading this never click on online ads. I’ve clicked on a few, but it’s rare. So why would I even consider spending meaningful amounts of money on web ads? I had a few reasons:

1. I HAD TO DO SOMETHING –this was a big reason. “Something is better than nothing” & “Try stuff” — Right? Yes, it costs money. On the other hand I’ve already made a huge investment just in the time devoted to writing the book. What’s a few hundred dollars more?

2. I’m not entirely unknown in the field. In the mid-nineties through the early 2000s I had six hard science fiction novels published by Bantam and Tor. I have a couple of awards. I’ve had short fiction published recently in Asimov’s, Analog, Lightspeed, and Nightmare. My thought was that I might be able to capture the gaze of readers who’d enjoyed my books during my “first career” and were interested in what I was doing now, along with those who’d read some of my recent short fiction, and might be curious about what else I’m up to. This was the factor that really convinced me to try it.

3. I had some awesome blurbs from name writers that might help sell the book — but the value of those blurbs was limited if the only people who saw them were those who visited my website. So the possibility of putting those blurbs in front of a new audience was the third main factor in my decision to try advertising. (more…)

A few times a year I send out an email newsletter, usually to announce new publications, but occasionally with other news. If you haven’t already signed up to receive my newsletter, I encourage you to do so. It’s a great way to stay in touch, and it’s simple to do. I just need your email address and a name. You’ll have to click a link on a confirmation email, and then you’re in.

The next newsletter will go out in a couple of days, so please consider it.

Sign up using the “New Book Alert” form in the righthand column of this blog, or click here for a sign-up form, along with samples of past newsletters.

THANKS!

Back on August 1 I posted that Locus, “The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field,” had reviewed The Red: First Light.

That review can now be read online. Check it out, and let me know what you think!

(Update: August 28, 2013 — the review is now available online.)

When I decided to indie publish The Red: First Light — the first adult science fiction novel I’d released in ten years — I knew I could handle the production, including professional editing, copyediting, cover development, ebook creation, and print book creation. I also knew that the online distribution was easily within my reach.

The remaining questions were:

• Could I get the book into bookstores?
So far as I know, the answer to this remains “no.”

• Could I do the publicity?
Among other things, this blog post talks about what I’ve managed. Has it been enough? Nope.

• Could I get the book reviewed?
Despite wonderful reader reviews posted at Amazon and other venues, to my knowledge The Red: First Light has not been reviewed at any standard book review site or publication — until today. The August issue of Locus is just out and contains a full review of The Red: First Light by long-time reviewer Russell Letson.

Locus is “The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field.” It’s a trade publication covering science fiction and fantasy since 1968 and available in print and digital editions.

And what did Russell Letson have to say about The Red: First Light? Here are a few pull quotes:

…the novel’s vision of the military – or at least of the soldier and his or her most immediate context of competence, loyalty, dedication, and courage – is anything but disrespectful or dismissive. The setting in which these virtues are employed, tested, and sometimes betrayed, however, is something else again.

…a series of operations, described in enough detail to satisfy any mil-SF enthusiast, and with a sour enough attitude towards official and actual power structures to keep old lefties from feeling too guilty about enjoying the action.

…the same post-Vietnam sense of discontinuity that separates The Forever War from Starship Troopers, updated for the post-9/11 world.

The August 2013 issue of Locus contains reviews of many other books, along with an interview of Kim Stanley Robinson. Find it here.

And if you’ve read and enjoyed The Red: First Light, please consider reviewing it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your own blog. Getting the word out is the most challenging part of publishing — whether indie or traditional. Thanks!

Shop for the Ebook
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Mythic Island Press LLC
Barnes & Noble (USA)

Shop for the Print Book
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Mysterious Galaxy
Barnes & Noble (USA)

Cover art for “Through Your Eyes” by
Dallas Nagata White (click image to view large version)

Update: July 19, 2013
This promotion has ended, but the ebook is presently available for purchase at Mythic Island Press LLC for $1.25.

My short story “Through Your Eyes” was published in Asimov’s Science Fiction‘s April/May 2013 issue. It’s never been generally available — until now.

“Through Your Eyes” is a prequel story to my newest novel, The Red: First Light. Right now, I’m offering an ebook copy to everyone who subscribes to my newsletter.***

To get your copy, just fill in your email address and a name in the “New Book Alerts” form at the top of the righthand column, or if you’re using a feed that doesn’t show the column you can go here to fill in the form.

After you submit the form, you’ll get an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Once you do that, you’ll get a thank-you email that includes the web address where you can download both EPUB and MOBI (Kindle) versions of the “Through Your Eyes” ebook, which also includes an excerpt from The Red: First Light Note that it usually takes ten or fifteen minutes for this email to arrive.

My newsletter doesn’t go out very often. Generally I send it when I have new publications to announce, so you won’t be spammed. I hope you’ll sign up. It’s the best way I’ve found to stay in touch with readers.

*** The download is also available to current subscribers. An email has been sent explaining how to get it. If you’re a subscriber and didn’t get the email, please check your spam folder.

I’ve been running some online advertising for The Red: First Light. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried this, and for this book I think it’s been a worthwhile exercise. If you noticed the ad, PLEASE let me know in the comments, and if you remember where you saw it, I’d like to know that too. I’m really curious, about it because I know that we (me) tend to use the “mental ad block” so that we just don’t see what’s there.

Anyway, I was talking to my daughter, Dallas Nagata White, a few days ago. She looked at the ad, clicked on it, and was not remotely impressed with my landing page, which was just the page on my website that talks about the book. She felt the page didn’t convey anything about the feeling, the flavor of the book. I think my response was something along the line of, “Yep, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t really have time to do anything.”

Then out-of-the-blue last night Dallas called me up and said she’d created a digital painting to be the background of a new landing page. Given that I have only a few days left on my current ad run, and that I wanted to see if a new landing page had any effect on sales, I put aside what I was working on and dove into designing the page layout. It went up at midnight. Take a look at it here. It’s more spectacular anyway!

Like nearly everyone else, I have no idea what it takes to sell books — but I’m willing to try new things.

Please let me know if you’ve noticed the ad!