Artist Philippe McNally posted this photo showing some of the preliminary work preceding the final design for the cover of The Last Good Man. I repost it here with permission. (click the image to see a larger version)
Philippe was a pleasure to work with. Here’s a post on the cover design process.
Contact him if you’re looking for book-cover art.
Just a couple of reminders…
LAST DAY:
Only 9 hours left before the SFWA Storybundle is gone! Includes my novel TECH-HEAVEN along with work by Nancy Jane Moore, Paul Levinson, Robert J. Sawyer, and more.
Goodreads Giveaway:
This one is still ongoing. If you haven’t already, enter to win a signed copy of my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man!
Giveaway ends June 04, 2017.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
More soon!
I needed InDesign to layout the print edition of The Last Good Man, so I’m renting the use of it on a month-to-month basis. And since I’m paying for it anyway I decided to go ahead and create a print edition of my recent short story collection Light and Shadow.
So if you prefer print to ebook, go get it!
It’s a slim volume, just 156 pages, but I like to think it’s a solid group of stories. Find all the details here on my website.
A Goodreads Giveaway begins today. Enter to win a print edition of The Last Good Man. Open to readers in the US, CA, GB, and AU.
Giveaway ends June 04, 2017.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
The first official review (that I’m aware of) of The Last Good Man is out, and it’s a good one!
Publishers Weekly is an industry magazine that reviews massive numbers of books. According to PW, “A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality.”
Of course any author would be thrilled about that, and I was very pleased to see that The Last Good Man had earned a star.
The reviewer describes it as “…a thrilling novel that lays bare the imminent future of warfare.”
Update: Now available for pre-order at iBooks and Kobo.
The release date for The Last Good Man is June 20, but preorder links are going up — so far only for the ebook and only at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but expect to see it at Kobo and iBooks before long.
There will also be a print edition. I’m hoping that will be available to order through bookstores within a week. I’ll post more information here when I have it, and I’ll also update links on my website.
By preordering, you’ll get your copy of The Last Good Man automatically — so there’s no way you’ll forget — and that’s good for you AND me.
Pre-order the ebook at:
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
iBooks/Apple
Amazon – USA
Amazon – UK
Amazon – AUS
Amazon – CA
(Also available at other Amazon stores.)
It’s starting to feel like all I’ve done this year is promotion.
You’ve seen a lot of promotion here on the blog. There’s been more behind the scenes. Partly this is because I’ve got a new novel coming out in June, and if I don’t promote it, no one will. But it’s also because I feel like I’ve reached a do-or-die point in my career.
I returned to writing at the end of 2010/early 2011. My plan was to reissue my backlist and start producing new work. I gave myself two years to make something happen. After two years I thought I detected signs of progress and I extended my deadline to five years. Then six. Now I’m on year seven, but sales on most of my books are still bumping along the bottom of the graph. I’m not exaggerating this. It’s a good month for Limit of Vision if I sell five copies.
I’ve tried to follow the standard advice — “The best promotion you can do is to write the next book” — and yes, I’ve had brief spurts of success, but never sustained success. I think it’s partly because I don’t write fast enough — successful indie writers are able to write and publish several novels a year — and also because I don’t write in the popular subgenres. A look at Amazon shows that classic sci-fi space adventure and sci-fi romance are both HUGELY popular, but my interests are elsewhere.
I do think there are more readers out there who would enjoy my work if they knew about it — so I’m trying to connect with them.
I know all the promotion has to be annoying to my long-time readers and for that I apologize. But I’d like to make this work. I’d like to keep writing. And realistically, I need more readers for that. I need to see decent sales on my forthcoming novel — or what is the point?
So I hope you’ll put up with me through these promotional ventures.
If you’d like to help out, consider posting reviews of the books you’ve enjoyed at Amazon or Goodreads or both. Or suggest them to friends. Many of you already do this. Thank you! Word-of-mouth really does matter.
These days, a lot of writers are trying out Patreon and some are having success with it. I’d really prefer that you just buy my books if you haven’t done so already. That’s the heart of it. And thank you for sticking with me.
“The pursuit of perfection is a cover for massive insecurities.”
I jotted this down in my journal this morning after loading my latest round of corrections into both the print and ebook editions of The Last Good Man. There were three corrections.
One was a spelling issue: “Acknowledgement” vs “Acknowledgment.” Both are acceptable, though supposedly the second is more commonly used in America. I’d used both versions, which is not acceptable, so I settled on the more-popular-in-America spelling.
Throughout the manuscript I’ve set text messages and emails in an alternate font. The second correction was to remove the use of that alternate font in one instance where it didn’t belong.
In the third correction I’d mistakenly typed “NGC” when I meant “NGO” (nongovernmental organization) so I fixed that. This one bugs me, though, because I failed to catch the mistake in all my read-throughs, none of my beta readers noticed, and neither did my line editor or copyeditor. Oops! Ron gets credit for discovering it.
“What’s an NGC?” he asked while reading through what I thought would be the final print version.
NGC?
In my mind I scrambled for an answer. NGC, NGC…that’s from astronomy. New General Catalog. Wait. THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT!
I took a look at the passage and finally worked it out. Oh.
I know I get way too worked up over these tiny issues. Refer back to the first line of this post.
On a more positive note, I’ve gotten some really kind blurbs in support of The Last Good Man, so all is not lost, even if the odd spelling error still awaits discovery.
I’m very grateful to Greg Bear for recently taking the time to read the book. He says: “The Last Good Man pulls us into next month’s headlines with a conviction and energy that makes for an extraordinary tale.”
Steven Gould and Vonda N. McIntyre have also provided advance praise which you can read here. I’m especially grateful for this support, given that I’m putting this novel out on my own.
Preorders Coming Soon
I’m hoping to be able to set up preorders in the next couple of weeks, but bear with me — I’ve never done preorders before and I’m sure there will be snags. The publication date remains June 20.
“…there is nothing for me to do as we circle the world except to admire the overwhelming beauty of this place that we have threatened and corrupted with our wars and our poisons. Lotus passes from daylight into a night lit by electric lights that outline the continents and surround the oceans, and in time it is day again, and we are bathed in the bright-blue reflected glow of the Pacific, and I can’t stop looking at it all, taking it all in. Astronomers speak of finding Earthlike worlds around other stars, but they are speaking in hyperbole, in meaningless generalities. There is only one Earthlike world. There will only ever be one and it is fragile, and if it takes the cold manipulations of a fathomless AI to bring balance and to protect this precious place from the madness of those who would set it on fire, so be it. I, for one, am proud to serve as a soldier in that war.”
–excerpt from The Trials, Book 2 of the Red trilogy
CLICK TO SEE A LARGER VERSION OF THIS IMAGE
Image courtesy of NASA.
Image caption: “NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a unique view of Earth from the spacecraft’s vantage point in orbit around the moon.”
Follow this link for more information on this image.
