Author, Editor, Publisher, Coach
Merry Christmas, everyone! I sure hope you have a safe and special holiday season.
In that spirit, I’m offering a Special $2.00 OFF Promotion on my new psychological thriller, Forgive Me, Alex, through the first of the year. Just pop into Smashwords (all eBook formats) and use Coupon Code: BC83B.
While you’re there, be sure to grab my short story, Paradox, which is always FREE. Thank you!
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Well, D.T. Conklin and I (mostly Dan) have been working on a new website for Evolved Publishing, this one menu-driven and more dynamic. We like it, and we think you will too. Check it out.
We haven’t got all the bells and whistles 100% yet, particularly for blog subscriptions and the like. We’ll have that all addressed before the new year, at which point we’ll actually start blogging there as a group.
Evolved Publishing moves onward and upward, and the happy days continue.
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Evolved Publishing has put out an anthology resulting from its first-ever Short Story Contest. This collection consists of 10 great stories from 10 talented authors, ranging from fantasy and science fiction, to thrillers, to action/adventure, to mainstream literary.
This collection offers something for everyone, and I, with the help of co-editor D.T. Conklin, have edited the stories, polishing them to a fine sheen.
I absolutely love some of these stories. Come check ’em out.
Available as an eBook at: Amazon
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If you’d like to be able to read eBooks, such as my debut psychological thriller, Forgive Me, Alex, (wink, wink), but you don’t have an eReader device like a Kindle, Nook or iPad, you can use FREE software to read the eBook right on your PC.
You have three easy choices:
1. If you think a Kindle may be in your future, start out by downloading the appropriate Free Kindle Reading App from Amazon. It’s free and safe, and works great (I use Kindle for PC all the time).
2. Amazon has also made it possible to read your eBooks anywhere there’s an internet connection, using their Kindle Cloud Reader. I just set it up for myself. Nice.
3. If you think a Nook or an iPad (or iPhone) may be in your future, start out by downloading Adobe Digital Editions, which uses the more commonly accepted EPUB formatting for eBooks.
I’ve used all 3 methods above, and they all work great. Just choose the one that’s right for you, and then download your eBooks from Amazon
And good reading!
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That’s right: ***FREE***
Pick up Paradox – A Short Story, available FREE in all eBook formats at Smashwords and BookieJar.
It won’t be free at Amazon until they catch it with their eBots, and who knows how long that will take. In the meantime, if you absolutely, positively must buy it at Amazon, it’s priced at the minimum $0.99.
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Well, next week is going to be exciting for me, and for several of my colleagues at Evolved Publishing. Let’s start with the BIG DAY.
December 20, 2011
Cover by Josh Evans
Oh yeah! My novel, Forgive Me, Alex, will be available as an eBook (sorry, but print version won’t be available for a couple months). I’ve been delaying this to focus on other Evolved Publishing business these past few months, but I’m pleased to finally—Finally!—release this book. The good news about the delay is that I’ve done some additional polishing, aided by the keen eye and strange mind of D.T. Conklin, and the story is stronger and more compelling than ever. I think you’ll agree. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed.)
Cover by Josh Evans
Also available on the 20th will be a book I had the pleasure of editing, Kimberly Kinrade’s lower-grade chapter book, Lexie World. This is the first installment in Kimberly’s The Three Lost Kids Trilogy. The book includes several great full color pictures from our artist fantastique, Josh Evans. The two of them have combined to create a series that will not only charm and thrill kids, but provide important lessons, as well.
Cover by Sarah Shaw
A third book from Evolved Publishing will hit the eShelves that day—Evolution: Vol. 1. This is a collection of short stories resulting from our first Short Story Contest. It includes 7 terrific stories from 7 excellent authors who participated in the contest. It also includes 3 short stories from the EP stable—me, D.T. Conklin and Ruby Standing Deer. This anthology results from the first of our semi-annual Short Story Contests. Our next one opens up for submissions in mid-February, and we’ll release Evolution: Vol. 2 in June 2012.
Christmas and New Year’s Day
Cover by Michael Baca
By Christmas day, we’ll be releasing Circles, by Ruby Standing Deer. Once again, it has been my pleasure to edit this piece. Ruby’s historical fiction novel, set some 500 years ago, features a Native American tribe enjoying the pleasures of a simple life, yet struggling to survive upheaval. This charming cast of characters will capture your heart, with their extraordinary family bonds and easy sense of humor.
Cover by Josh Evans
Some time between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the second installment in Kimberly Kinrade’s The Three Lost Kids Trilogy will be out—Bella World. Once again, she has teamed up with artist Josh Evans to create a spectacular lower-grade adventure.
Cover by Josh Evans
Hot on the heels of that will be Maddie World, the third installment in the trilogy….
Cover by Josh Evans
…followed quickly by the omnibus edition that combines all three books in a single Three Lost Kids edition.
And so, as you can see, it’s gonna be a fun holiday season! I’ll be back on the release dates with all the appropriate links for purchase. Please enjoy!
And please, have a safe and prosperous holiday season. Merry Christmas!
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“…whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous [book thieves], or to take arms against a sea of [pirates] and by opposing, end them.”
Okay, so now that I’ve butchered Shakespeare’s Hamlet, let me ask the simpler question: Why wouldn’t you, as someone who publishes eBooks, use Digital Rights Management (DRM)?
Now, I ask that question with the assumption that you’ll be making your eBook available most everywhere eBooks are sold—not just Amazon (MOBI), but Smashwords and BookieJar (EPUB, PDF, etc.), and all the distribution channels they provide (B&N, Apple, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, etc.).
As long as buyers, your customers, can go somewhere to purchase whatever electronic format they want, why wouldn’t you use DRM where you can to protect against piracy?
I’m trying to figure out the downside of doing so, as I’ve seen some discussions suggesting DRM is a bad idea. Why? What am I missing?
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Today is Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day nationally. How many of you knew that?
This is a fantastic idea. Kids need to read more, to know the wonder and majesty of the written word, to let their imaginations carry them to worlds created wholly on the page.
Yet with the advent of the eBook, and the slow (or maybe not-so-slow) dwindling of print books, might this laudable event be in jeopardy? The Borders bookstore chain is already gone. Barnes & Noble is cutting back on shelf space, rather drastically in some cases. Mom-and-Pop bookshops are struggling to keep their heads above water—those that haven’t already vanished.
Fewer people are buying print books at all, and those who are do so more often online, or through discounters like Wal-Mart and Target. So where are parents going to take their children in the future?
Perhaps it’s time we started a new tradition: a monthly Read with Your Child day. We could use the third Saturday of each month, for example, and dedicate two hours per month to actually sit down and read with our kids, to talk about books, about their favorite stories and characters—and why they made their choices.
I remain more convinced than ever that kids must read more, particularly in a world dominated by television and computer games. Use eReaders. Go ahead! I mean, let’s face it: eReaders are right up your kid’s alley. Just read with them. Please! It does for their brain development what TV and computer games cannot.
And then maybe—just maybe—we’ll stop hearing twenty-somethings toss out sentences like this real-life gem: “It’s like… so… I don’t know, kinda like… well, you know what I mean?”
My response: “Well, no, I don’t know what you mean. Perhaps if you spoke English.”
Her response: “OMG! Like… whatever!”
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I’m catching up now from the time I took off for the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a slog, but I’m getting there.
One of the things I did was update this website, along with various social media sites where I play, with some new pictures. They show the newer, older me. Yikes! That’s okay.
My little sister, Dawn Lane Vornholt (aka Laney Bird), took the pictures while I was visiting her and Rich, her husband, in Georgia over the Thanksgiving holiday. She’s accustomed to taking pictures of beautiful things—mostly birds. I hope her camera survived the shock.
I hadn’t seen little sis in over three years, not counting our Skype conversations, so it was great to catch up. I also got to visit with Rich, a fun guy with a great sense of humor, and even his three daughters (from previous marriage), Hayley, Anna and Piper—good peeps, one and all. Rich and Dawn were exceedingly generous, and I had a great time.
I managed to meet up with my business partner, D.T. Conklin, while I was in Georgia. As fate would have it, he lives a little over an hour from my sister. We hammered out some business, enjoyed some good food and drink, and I met his lovely wife, Kesh. Don’t know what she sees in him, but… no accounting for taste. (Just kidding!)
I used to fly routinely on business and pleasure, jumping on planes dozens of times per year. The past few years, however, flying has been a rarity. Thank God! Man, I hate cattle cars… I mean airports. And I hate being a giant on those itty-bitty planes.
I mean… I must be a giant, since my right shoulder hung out in the aisle even as my left shoulder cozied-up with the person seated to my left. I wish they built planes for giants like me—you know, people who weigh more than 100 pounds. A few people on the plane were twice my size—well, twice my weight—and man, did I feel sorry for the people sitting next to them! No offense, big people, but that can’t be comfortable on a mini-plane. And I must have been on a mini-plane.
It’s also not a fun thing to land in a mini-plane when the wind is gusting to 60 MPH.
If I’m lucky, I won’t have to get on a plane for a while. I figure it will be at east a year, as plans now stand. Maybe by then, they’ll have built planes large enough to seat adults comfortably.
One can dream.
So now it’s back to the grind, to a workload that borders on insane. I swear, I’m busier than a one-winged bee at a honeycomb convention. Oh well, I guess that’s why I get the big bucks. Oh wait! Ahhhh… never mind.
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[If you haven’t read Tony’s three previous posts, you can check them out here: first visit, second visit, third visit.]
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Lane Diamond has asked me to stop in and talk once more about my dilemma: Mitchell Norton—murderer, destroyer of dreams, the monster who keeps me up nights. Damn you, Diamond! I’m trying to forget about this stuff, but you just won’t let me. Why won’t you let me forget?
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June 7, 1995:
I hadn’t expected to see her—not now, not here. Special Agent Linda Monroe of the FBI decided to pop into Algonquin on the very day authorities released Mitchell Norton from prison. Not a coincidence.
She knows me too well.
We enjoyed a short reunion yesterday at Murphy’s Irish Pub, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Now we’re having breakfast, struggling to carry on a conversation, to engage in a little small talk, when we both know the unspoken reason she’s here.
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I occasionally drop my eyes lower and linger for a few seconds. I know I shouldn’t stare but….
Why isn’t she wearing a bra, damn it? Look at— Uh-oh!
She catches me staring. I have no idea the proper reaction here, but I’m sure my rooster-in-the-henhouse grin is not it. She doesn’t appear upset, at any rate. In fact, I’d swear she’s rather pleased, if not at my staring, then at least at the “gotcha” moment, which she has the good graces not to mention.
Her smile fades and she glances around the dining room at nothing.
Keep your eyes up, Tony. Eyes up!
She takes a deep breath and exhales a heavy sigh, and returns her gaze to me. “It would be an awful shame if I had to put you in custody, if I had to be part of an investigation that lands you in jail.”
I’ve been preparing for this. “The real shame will be when you have to notify the next of kin that Mitchell Norton has killed again.”
She comes up short, and pauses to sip her coffee while she considers a response. I have difficulty reading her expression—sad resignation, perhaps.
She strains through a low voice, “It’s not that simple.”
“No?”
“No. There are times when I wish it were, believe me, but the laws serve many purposes, and we mustn’t condone or encourage vigilantes.”
“Vigilantes?”
She rolls her eyes and looks at me as though…. Yeah, she knows.
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Well, shit! What should I expect? Sure, I saved her ass from Ronald Allen Stegman, serial killer, in California three years ago. She owes me, or at least thinks she does. But she’s a special agent with the FBI! How much can I expect her to put at risk for me?
I must get to Norton. I must! The challenge lies in doing so while navigating around Linda.
This could get complicated.
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Link to 1st 5 Chapters of: Forgive Me, Alex
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