Ebooks to the rescue

One of the great things about the ebook explosion is that it has revived hope for thousands of authors who until recently could not attain much success unless they were able to sign with one of the mega-giant publishing houses. Ebooks have evened the playing field and made it possible for new authors to sell lots of books and make lots of money. One of the main reasons for this is the plethora of ebook venues that are available to publishers and authors. For instance, Forged in Death is listed for sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Alibris, Kobo, Tower Books, Google Books, Net Gally, the iBookstore, Better World Books, WH Smith, Book Byte, Overdrive, Abe Books, Indie Bound, Powell's and Sony Books, to name just some. That's a lot of bookstores, even if they aren't brick and mortar. Imagine the opportunities for someone like me. Catch fire with just one of these venues, and it'll be off to the races on all the rest.

My publisher Bell Bridge Books was one of the first of the mid-sized/smaller houses to catch on to this potential, and now BBB is downright brilliant at these kinds of sales and marketing techniques. Though I'm like many who prefer to hold a real-life book in my hands, pretty much all of us will one day have to succumb to the lure of Nook and Kindle and various other devices.

As they say, the future is now.  

Fun time at DragonCon

I had a wonderful time at DragonCon on Sunday. Met the great staff of Bell Bridge Books (both Debs, Brittany and Pam) and several of BBB's top authors, including Parker Blue, Anthony Francis, John Hartness, Buzz Bernard, Trish Milburn and Kalayna Price. We met first at noon for an editors/writers luncheon at the Ellis Hotel. Had a fun time there. Then we gathered at the Hyatt for a Meet the Writers event, where we all introduced ourselves to a large audience and then answered questions. It concluded with a cocktail party at the Hyatt. All in all, a fabulous day for me. I even brought home this giant poster and a bunch of autographed books. Should last me till the end of the year! Everyone was amazingly nice, humble and friendly. I'm so glad to be with Bell Bridge Books. Things will only get better from here.

See you at DragonCon!

I'll be at DragonCon in Atlanta most of Sunday to attend several events being held by Bell Bridge Books. "Meet the Authors" will be at 2:30 p.m. at Hyatt Regency. If anyone's going to be around, please look me up!

Book 1, Forged in Death, is now available

Book 1 titled Forged in Death is now available in certain venues!!! Kindle and paperback editions are now available on Amazon, and the paperback edition is now available on Bell Bridge Books (the ebook will soon follow). Over the coming month, paperback and/or ebook editions will become available on barnesandnoble.com, kobobooks.com, overdrive.com, the Apple book store, Sony's ebook store and Google's bookstore, among others. Please check MY HOME PAGE and MY FACEBOOK PAGE for further updates.

Here's the cover of Book 1!

Debut Day is getting closer and closer. Here's the final cover of Book 1. I really love it! Posing for it was exhausting, though. Those photo shoots are killers.

Living the dream

Thirty-eight years ago, I began to envision a novel about a wizard who could will himself to die and then return to live engorged with magical powers. His name would be Torg, and the book would be titled Death-Know. A lot of time passed, and I did a lot more envisioning, but very little writing. In fact, I came to believe that Death-Know was just a dream that never would really come true.

However, the dream refused to die.

Nine years ago, I wrote the first word of what turned out to be a 700,000-word, six-book epic fantasy series. After a failed try with one publisher, book 1 of what is now called The Death Wizard Chronicles is just a few weeks from coming out under a new and much better publisher.

We all have dreams, some small, some large. This one has been mine. I'm sure most of you have dreams too, some of which you've achieved, some of which have remained beyond your grasp.

I'm not saying that what I've done is some momentous thing. Dreams don't have to be overly huge. I'm just saying that if you do have a dream that you haven't yet realized for whatever reasons, then ........... go for it.

Tightening the screws

I have received the line-edits for book 1. They're great and annoying at the same time. Great because the book will be vastly improved. Annoying because as a writer all these changes always make you feel kind of stupid. Still, everyone needs an editor, right???

Bring on book 1. It won't be long now.