Free Book Promo #I'velosttrackofallofthem!

It's real simple, peeps: Airel is free today. Aaaaaaand tomorrow. So tell your friends. This is the big one. That is all.

Tyrants

Megalomaniacs are all the same. They all share certain vanities.

Hitler, for instance, never considered any views but his own. Everyone else’s opinion and analysis was invalid. Unfathomably and against all evidence, he regarded his Fascist ally Mussolini as a staunch and resolute warrior. But the Italian Duce proved to be a slimy opportunist, moving in on the French only after the Nazis had defeated them, attempting to grab a slice of the pie for Italy. And Hitler, among his many other faults, did not understand why Britain and America would never buy his lies and sue for peace with him, not ever, no matter what, no matter the cost, and no matter who tried to convince him otherwise. As a result, when the Third Reich was utterly annihilated by the Allies, the Fuhrer probably also failed to see clearly how ironic it was that his Nietzschean political philosophy (the survival of the fittest) if it were true, singled out Germany as utterly unfit in the end. How bitter a pill, to have wagered so much on a base lie, and to lose all in the end. How sad it must have been to have believed it and found it, finally at the depths, to be false.

It’s interesting, too, how the power-mad man lies in turn, and so smoothly. This interest becomes dark and perverse when one thinks about how those lies are taken at face value by so many. The Germans were no doubt shocked, for instance, when Goebbels’ propaganda machine was disrobed by the cold truth of British bombs falling over Berlin—over Berlin!—impossible!—in 1941. When this was going on, and Nazi diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia were beginning to sour as well, Hitler still insisted that he had only to tighten the noose around the pesky Brits; they were finished, that they only had to acknowledge the fact. Molotov, the Soviet ambassador to the Third Reich and in conference with the Fuhrer, was purported to have rejoined Hitler in this moment, “Then why do we sit in this bomb shelter, and whose bombs are these which shake the very ground?”

Dictators and tyrants are always ridiculously out of touch with reality. This is how we know them, and—one would hope to high heaven—root them out and defang them. This is how we might remove them from power. Hindsight is always quite bitter. I’m sure there were many Germans who wished in 1943 and 1944, when their cities were being firebombed by Allied sorties, that they would have resisted the Nazi warlord. After all, Hitler was just a man. Demoniacal yes, but still just a man. A man who should have and could have been resisted, had anyone had half a spine.

It is the same with murderous pirate plunderers like Obama, theocrats like Ahmadinejad. They speak words skillfully wrought by handlers, maybe even by themselves, with sweet tasting lies interwoven throughout. Obama talks about “fairness” for the middle class. Anyone with any sense knows that he is driving a wedge between the producers and those on the dole in this country, attempting to provoke anger, stoking hatred, cultivating division. He’s not bringing unity. Leftists like Obama always do the opposite of what they say they’re doing. He speaks of “reproductive rights” for women (a tortured and doltish line of newspeak logic to be sure), all while endorsing the killing of newborns. On this position he has never even attempted to double back. As for Ahmadinejad, he protests, a little too much to be really believable, that he seeks nuclear power only for peaceful purposes. Never mind that in the theocracy of which he is one of the horns of power women are debased, swept aside, muzzled, relegated to subhuman status. There is nothing to see here. “Peace, peace,” the warlord hisses like a prostitute, bloodlust trickling from the corner of his mouth as he plots and schemes. With guarantees and promises from men like this, one cannot help but be mindful of Chamberlain shaking hands with Hitler at Munich, smiling broadly at the Nazi warlord as the doom of Czechoslovakia was arbitrarily sealed, and by well-meaning backstabbing traitorous appeasers with no understanding of consequence.

After so many of Obama’s promises, for instance, to balance the budget (when none has yet been produced for three years), to provide “choice” in healthcare coverage (while actually destroying both choice and healthcare in America), to strengthen our position in the world (while playing the sniveling role of a coward and bowing to evil men across the globe), and to bring us “hope and change” (if that’s what we’re supposed to call the second Great Depression), why would anyone believe a single word he speaks? Still, fools persist in their folly, and propagandists use the tools that come scurrying to the sound of their music.

The same kinds of tools and fools reside at the top of the political world order right now; they staff the IMF, the UN, the IAEA, they trade and barter in the lobbies of Washington D.C., and they rub elbows with bigger and more selfish idiots like Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Vladimir Putin, that other totally discredited jackass global warmist from the University of East Anglia, and Jimmy Carter—and the scent of inevitable doom is becoming overpowering. These are the precise political conditions that led, if one studies history, to the worst cataclysms in the history of the world, those two Great Wars of the Twentieth Century. We’re told Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon. Really? When so very like Adolf Hitler in his published manifesto Mein Kampf, Ahmadinejad has already told us in his own words that his chief desire is to wipe Israel off the map, that he believes the Nazi-induced Jewish holocaust is a hoax, and also that, oh yeah, he only wants nuclear power for peaceful purposes? If you wish to believe that, go right ahead, fool. Our enemies have told us what they plan to do because they cannot help but megalomaniacally brag and boast; it’s who they are. But I am on my knees calling upon my God to intervene because He is all I have left. I’m surrounded by the naïve, the foolish, the simpleton, the party line voter, those do not know history, and my government no longer even cares to represent me; only to bribe me with backward redistributionist Keynesian centrally planned stupidity.

But really now, what do we have to fear from madmen? You may justifiably ask this question. I will entertain it: not much. Most of the damage a madman can do is limited to himself—that is, until he achieves real power, and that’s the wrinkle. It was the same with Hitler in the bierhall putsch of 1923 (his attempted violent overthrow of the Weimar republican government), which was an embarrassment even to his enemies for how badly it came off. But madmen too can learn from mistakes, provided their drive for power is strong enough. Hitler was not to be feared until he had weaseled his way into the Wilhelmstrasse and the Chancellery. Then he was fearsome for his people to behold, then a nightmare for the entire globe to look upon, as evidenced by history. I wonder at the madness of Ahmadinejad as well, at least right now. Would he really go so far as to undermine the very lifeblood of his power—vast amounts of first world wealth pumped into Iranian treasuries in trade for OPEC oil—by threatening nuclear war in the Middle East? Surely he doesn’t think he could bring the West to her knees with the one facecard (oil) he now holds—and surely he doesn’t think he will be allowed to acquire another (nuclear capability)—unless the keeper of the flame of liberty is herself snuffed by evil men on the inside like Obama. But that’s the thing about madmen. They’re absolutely insane. And they will do anything to quench their lusts.

These three men have other commonalities frightful to behold. They are always on the offensive in some way. Hitler was quick to strike first. That was one promise he continually made that could be counted on. So too Ahmadinejad wishes to provoke, to instigate, and he proves as much with his hateful mouth. Obama is not to be left out either, going on the offensive in ivory tower fashion, waging a carefully calculated war of executive order and caustic rhetoric on states’ rights, the US Constitution and most of its amendments, traditional American values and faith, our right to keep and bear arms, even on our children, both born and unborn. It was clear who he was and who he would be when he declared shortly after inauguration, “America is not a Christian nation.” I shudder even now. That is who he was, who he is, who he will remain to be. There is no hope for unrepentant men! What, you thought otherwise? This he does and more, all in the name of fairness too, in the name of equality, the dead-horse liberal punching bag of good intentions mixed in a witches’ brew with guilt aplenty. Not Obama’s, naturally—ours. Of course. This barnacle upon the hull of the ship of state will whine at us that he needs yet one more term to battle in the abatement of some trumped up crisis, you watch. But scrape him off, America, and discard him. It has been and will be a continuous crisis, one created by the very people who protest, again a little too loudly that no, they are the ones who are trying with all their might to lead us out of it, to peace. “Peace, peace,” the totalitarian whispers. And history replays itself, tiringly, yet again. Need I remind you that Congress has yet to pass a budget in three years? It’s telling, I say. I reached my fill of it years ago, and I have no more tolerance for totalitarian intolerance disguised, perversely, as tolerance, and loudly self-trumpeted, purportedly beneficent and allegedly magnanimous at that. Test the fruit of this man and tell me the label thereon affixed does match.

Authoritarians are all the same. Their traits are to be studied and identified so that these monsters can be exposed and rooted out. They cannot be changed. They can rarely even be stopped. Look at history. The two World Wars of the Twentieth Century, especially the first one, then known as The Great War for its utterly unprecedented scale and barbarity, were preventable. If not for the great weakness human civilization has had at times to place its most stupefyingly evil simpletons at the switchboard of society, the world might indeed be a better place. If only We the People would but realize our power. Wake up. Think. Reason. Wage war not against your brother who lives and works and dreams under the same storied colors. Wake up from your slumber, America, as your fathers did on December 7^th, 1941, to defend liberty. Wake up as you did in 1776. Awaken in the realm of thought, of the mind, to wage war where it really counts. Awaken to wrestle and contend with the evil now surrounding. Charge unafraid at the darkness with the light of righteousness in hand. Resolve to change the heart, the mind, and pray for the God of the universe to intervene for us. America, realize the enormity of your mistake in placing a megalomaniacal tyrant like Obama into office and turn from this wickedness. There’s no talking sense to utter fools like Obama, Hitler, and Ahmadinejad. Their lot is hopeless, evil, unrepentant. All that remains, having won the battle for reason, is to remove them before it’s too late. Rise up, America.

Rise. Up.

Social Media is Overhyped

Ever get the feeling you're being super dumb?  

Yeah, I said it. And I’ll raise the ante a little more: I don’t think indie authors really need social media. It’s not a career essential, in other words. This isn’t just my opinion, either. I have actual evidence to support my conclusions.

The funny thing about being an author these days, indie or not, is that technology is pretty much the master of your fate. There’s no getting around it. And tech is really fickle—almost anything can and will happen. To demonstrate this, let’s get round to the evidence.

Full disclosure: I have grown to despise social media. So temper my remarks with that. I’ve lately been heard saying, “If I could cut social media out of my life, I would. I’m only on it because of my writing.” I think there are more productive ways to spend about an hour a day, broken up into four segments of fifteen minutes each. You can trim your nose hairs, for instance. You can unload the dishwasher. Or load it. OR YOU COULD FREAKIN WRITE, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Anyway enough with the disclosures.

Here’s fact #1. Over the weekend, I managed to move about 5,500 copies of The Marsburg Diary, and on Monday, I managed to move about 2,000 copies of K [phantasmagoria]. Both of these were free promotions designed to get my work in front of more people, not to make me fast money. But if I added up all my followers from all the social media sites on which I’m active, and if all those followers downloaded a copy of my book, that number would not approach the number of books people downloaded for free. So that’s food for thought.

Here’s fact #2. I’ve noticed that social media is like direct mail (only worse): you’re lucky to get about 1% or 2% positive response. The math is real easy for me on Google+, where I have right around 2000 people in my circles. When I post up something about one of my books, my blog, or even news about my weekend promo book going totally viral, out of those 2000 people I will get 1 or 2 “+1’s” (the same as a Facebook “like”). So if you’re really paying attention to these numbers, social media is a lot like direct mail, only it’s one tenth as effective (not 2% but one tenth of 2%). I know, I know, there’s no way to quantify who clicked on the link and downloaded the book. But if you think all those downloads came from my social media contacts you’re crazy.

Here’s fact #3. When I woke up on Saturday morning, the first day of the Marsburg promo, global downloads of my title had already started going viral. Downloads in the first few hours of the promotion already exceeded or at least tied other promotions I did with other books on previous days, and those numbers for those books were the culmination of two days and lots of time spent on social media. The numbers for Marsburg mushroomed and went ballistic in a matter of a few hours, not two days. About two hours after that, Marsburg was already approaching 1,000 downloads. It wasn’t even noon on day one yet, and I still hadn't done anything on social media yet.

Here’s fact #4. In the days before my promo blitz began, I went through Amazon’s pages and did some tagging. If you've done this, you know how powerful it is. Aaron Patterson is the guy who taught me on this score. I’ll just say it like this: One of the inspirations for The Marsburg Diary is Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I love literary fiction, I love the Victorian era, and I love that Stoker wrote his novel entirely out of the diary entries of his characters. It’s genius. I wasn’t able to pull that off, but there’s enough of a similarity from Marsburg to his work that I tagged Marsburg with Dracula and Dracula with Marsburg. It makes sense, it’s one of those things that made the book go viral, and by the way…if you want to sell books in the UK, Germany, and so on, you’ve got to do your tagging on those sites as well. Just Google “Amazon UK” or "Amazon Germany" for example.

Here’s fact #5. I sent out an email to some author friends of mine in preparation for this weekend promo blast. I included the link to the book, gave them the dates, and asked them kindly to help me blast it on social media over the weekend. In exchange, I proposed in the email, they could please let me know how I could reciprocate for them. I thought it was a perfectly reasonable proposition, being a little ignorant about author promotions still. Now, let me be very clear here: I do not harbor feelings of resentment. I’m not whining about anything. I think most interpersonal drama is just root selfishness anyway. But it’s telling that none of my author friends did what I asked them to do. Well, one of them did…kinda. But I’m suspicious that they’ve already figured out what I’m blogging about here, and that’s this: you can’t sell books via social media. At least not your own. The fact is, I was conducting an experiment on the overall worth of my time spent on social media, and it failed spectacularly this weekend. Winner? Time spent on Amazon. Big time.

Here’s fact #6. Most of my social media “friends” are—guess what—friggin authors, like me. That means that 99% of them are broke like me, and they aren’t even remotely interested in buying or even reading my books because they’re too busy trying to sell their books to me. But I’m too busy trying to get them to buy my books. Talk about bad business practices. Authors, especially the indie kind, are too broke and overworked to read other indie authors’ crapola. And you know what, I don’t even read fiction that much. I prefer history and really old dictionaries. So I’m the last guy to whom you want to market indie scifi. Yet how much time to all my author friends (God love 'em) spend marketing their books to guys like me?

Here’s fact #7. Marsburg broke into 2,000 units in the US by 5 PM on day one. At that point it was ranked #2 in short stories and was in the top 100 in free books. That’s for the entire Amazon.com Web site. By the end of the day it had blasted through 3,000 and was #1 in short stories, which is where it would stay for the duration of the weekend. My UK numbers for this title alone very nearly matched what I achieved worldwide for some of my other free titles on those other promos. Think you can use social media to get that kind of exposure? You're crazy.

Here’s fact #8. I saw the ranking for Airel, in which there appears a vignette (at the end) that Marsburg is based on, jump up about 500 spots in the ranking this weekend. I can’t verify 100% that any of it is related to the Marsburg promo, but it’s plausible that some of it is.

Enough of the facts. Time for some analysis. I think there are four things at work here.

Thing #1 is tagging. My sales were dismal until I started tagging smartly. Wanna know more? Talk to Aaron Patterson, the Amazon tagging guru.

Thing #2 is association. I am fortunate to have been able to start my writing career by co-writing with an established bestselling author like Aaron Patterson. I will never deny that co-writing the Airel series with him is equal parts inspiration and strategy, and he knows that full well; occasionally coaching me on essentials. Of course, one has to be a self-starter, one must have talent, the fire in the belly, and on and on. But part of the success for this weekend’s viral blast was that Marsburg is a spinoff from Airel, and all that implies.

Thing #3 is Amazon's KDP Select program; specifically the free promo. Hello, indie authors, are you listening? It may sound counterintuitive, but if you want to sell more than 5 copies a month, you have to give away a whoooooole lotta them first. I'm not bummed that I lost 5500 potential sales this weekend. I'm stoked that 5500 people took a chance on me for free. Do you have any idea what that will do to my career, if only 1% of them write a positive review on that one book, and tell a few friends about it? And here's the other thing: I removed this book from the B&N Nook site just a few days before I enrolled it in KDP select and set it out on promo. Here's something to chew on: you can read a Kindle eBook on every mobile device, whether Apple or Android or Mac or PC or on an actual Kindle, except for the B&N Nook. Seeing as how I only managed to sell 2 copies for Nook through B&N in the course of 4 months, I think I made the right decision to pull it. Nook owners: a brand new Kindle is $79. Make a note of it. I know it sucks that a Betamax machine won't play VHS, but life is like that sometimes. In this case, you may have bought an HDDVD player when the world went BluRay. Don't blame guys like me.

Thing #4, and this is mentioned last because it's most important, is Revelation 3.7. I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up: Jesus Christ is the One who opens and no one shuts. What happened this weekend, and what continued to happen Monday for K [phantasmagoria], is nothing short of a miracle and I’m unafraid to say so. I’ll also say this: I pray all glory to God. Thanks readers and fellow authors. Thanks for going on the journey with me. This is just the beginning.

The Marsburg Diary can be yours for $2.99 by clicking here.
K [phantasmagoria] can be yours for $2.99 by clicking here.
The free book today and tomorrow is Strongbox. You can get it for free by clicking here.

Free Book Promo #4!

Hey there, folks. Turns out giving is better than receiving. Over the weekend I gave away more than 5,000 copies of The Marsburg Diary, based on a vignette that appears in Airel. Do you know what it’s like to have your work appear in front of more than 5,000 people in a single weekend? I’ll tell you what it’s like. IT’S SO FREAKING FLUFFY, that’s what it’s like.

Anyway, in conjunction with my guest post on Shah Wharton’s blog, I’m offering you a second chance on another book, and it’s today only: K [phantasmagoria] is a thriller that pulls no punches and is designed to challenge, frighten, and cause the reader to think. The timid need not apply here.

Again, the synopsis:

How far is too far? If a man is pushed past breaking and all bets are off, what are the rules then? K is a man severely damaged by life, by circumstance, by a past he can’t remember and probably by the meds his government-mandated psychiatrist has him on. He struggles violently, trying to make sense of his bipolar hatred for God, for people, for all the stupid assumptions, for himself. Is he going crazy? He sees the most horrific visions, a phantasmagoria that is slowly wrecking him. Day and night. And it can only be explained by the idea of precognition…until even science fails…and whatever barrier there is between this world and the next is destroyed by the unexplainable. This is a chilling and sinister story packed with lies. Some of them may be true...

And again, K is free today only. This is the last time for a while, so get it while you can, peeps. 

Book Promo #3!

Lately I've been trying to set great wheels in motion. In order to do that one must use leverage. The lever Amazon has given us is the free book promotion. It's what makes eBooks the vastly better part of awesome, because I can afford to give away free downloads of my books in exchange for a little exposure, without having to pay for scads and scads of paper. Mikey likey.

So this weekend, you have the opportunity to download a novella that's equal parts literary fiction and paranormal thriller. Find out the backstory on the backstory. Why was William Marsburg in Germany at the end of Airel? What was the deal with that book of Kreios thing? And how did it end up in Germany? And who the hell is Harv and why does he live on Dr. Pepper and cigarettes? Find a few answers and lots more questions in your free copy of The Marsburg Diary this weekend. Be sure to tell all your friends... this one won't be free for long.

The Author Editor Relationship

Last night I put on a clinic. I always wanted to say that. It has implications of awesomeness that even in my wildest imagination I have trouble living up to. It’s like that scene from The Office where Dwight is telling Jim about his wildest fantasy and Jim’s like, “Let me get this straight: in your wildest dreams, you are in hell, you make $80,000 a year, and you’re the assistant to the devil,” or some such hilarity. I’m just saying, you’d think my wildest dreams would include a base level of competence, y’know?

But I digress. Where was I?

Oh yes. Writers and authors need editors. Cue rimshot.

I was curious to know what kind of responses I would get to a few questions. I like the Socratic method of instruction; more of a guided discussion or round table if you will. So I try to get the audience participating. To that end, I asked the following questions, and got the following responses.

Editors have what function?

“Tough love.” –With which I agree wholeheartedly. So many times an author, especially a greenhorn, rides in on a high horse and needs to be relieved of it if the journey is to continue.

“Edit as a reader.” –This is great. I think a good editor can see the story being told like a movie, just like the reader will. A great editor will catch little inconsistencies and offer suggestions so that the story’s technical bits are never a distraction.

What is the purpose of a book?

“Getting your story out, entertainment.” –Word up. And many other things besides.

“Torturing my middle school students.” –On this, I got nothin. But I think it’s an example of poetic justice for those of us whose ship of youth has sailed.

On this point, I have something to add. A book can be entertainment, art, story, the passing along of knowledge, a record of history, a way to kill time, a way to earn money, part of the social construct, highbrow, lowbrow, offensive, profane, hilarious, funny, wrenchingly sad and tragic, salient, prophetic, idiotic, beautiful, ugly, and the worst of these… average.

Why are you a writer and why are you writing what you’re writing right now?

“Passion for the English language; both writing and reading.” –I can relate. I think all authors should.

“I can’t not be.” –This, I love. In the end doing what we were made to do is an addiction in some ways. We write because we must. Our voice must be heard.

What makes a good book?

While I did not record any answers from the peanut gallery on this question, I came prepared with something to say (you know how I roll): What makes a good book? Is it plot? Character? Lack of errors/perfection? Originality? Commercial success? A dashing cover? Sheer size? The label on the jacket? Whether it goes to print or not?

My answer? Yes.

I hope sincerely that some of these insights helped illuminate what makes editors and authors tick together as a whole. For more on this kind of stuff, just type in “How to be a good writer” in the search bar to the right. And thanks for reading what I write.

Free Book Promo #2!

Howdy there, folks. You should be extremely excited to be reading this, because I am so completely nuts as to give away yet another book. This one is called Amethyst, and it's my personal fave. Yep. I said it. Out of all the stories I've written, this is the one I personally regard as my best. It shows where I'm going as a writer, so if you like it, you'll be wanting to bookmark me everywhere.

Here's the lowdown on Amethyst:


Rosewood, Florida was a peaceful little town just off the Gulf coast until January 1st, 1923. Then Frannie Taylor claimed she'd been attacked, and for six days it became a black and white war zone. Five were murdered in the purge. Sam Cooper was tortured and then shot. For what? Whatever dark motivation that was behind the massacre remains forty years later, and a simple blind man, Mario Laforest, is right in the middle of it. He's a criminal inmate at the Rosewood Sanitarium. But is he really so insane just because he refuses to speak the word "Amethyst?"


This one is free today and tomorrow. Be sure to tell everyone in your circles/your friends list/your twirp followers, etc. They will thank you. You can be sure of it.