Time’s Warriors, the next book in the Time’s Edge series, will be available in the Spring of 2014. The cover art is by Ali Ries. Check out Ali’s work on her website: http://casperium.deviantart.com/
Michael Blayne thought his worries were over. He had resigned from the Galactic Armed Forces, fulfilled the prophecy of the Golden Dragon, and unraveled the secret of the Origin Stone. Now all he wanted was to live quietly with his wife, Kate Weston, in the newly-freed complex called Cilcourt.
Then a messenger appeared at his door.
Within hours, Michael was an outlaw and on the run from the Ratherian army, the Tavon Knights, and agents of the mysterious realm known as Time’s Edge. He quickly learned there was no place in the galaxy where they could not find him and knew from experience that when you cannot run or hide you only have one choice left…
Fight.
Time’s Rebels, the fourth book in the Time’s Edge scifi/fantasy series is now available!
A very interesting post from journalist David Bauer. He has been reading books all his life, but after only two years of reading on an ipad, he is no longer comfortable reading a book the old-fashioned way.
I find it increasingly uncomfortable to move my eyes from the top of a page to the bottom as I read along. I prefer to keep my focus at roughly the same spot and to move the text rather my eyes.
Read his entire blog here: The Day I Forgot How to Use a Book
Oh, the time suck of promoting a book. Facebook. Pinterest. Twitter. Amazon. Etc., etc. etc… Everyone knows the players.
The amount of information on the Internet is infinite. The craving for new information is insatiable. The chances of readers finding a particular author’s information is infinitesimal. (Like all those “I” words?)
Trying to keep up with the changes in Amazon’s algorithms, the constantly shifting rules of all the social media platforms, the newest must-be-there-or-be-square sites is overwhelming. (Bet you thought we were going to say impossible.) All the social media management sites on the Internet do not seem to reduce the time drain of maintaining a social media presence.
The sad truth is we now spend more time promoting than writing.
We’ve read many articles on how to reduce the amount of time spent on social media. We’ve tried management tools such as hootsuite and pingraphy. And they help. A little. However, there is no getting around the fact that even management sites require data input. An entire day can be spent setting up one month’s worth of scheduled tweets, posts and blogs, and no management software can take the place of the genuine interaction that is necessary when responding to comments and messages. Also, different platforms require different input. It would be counter-productive to simply post identical information across all sites. We have followed authors who do that and the constant repetition made us decide to unfollow pretty quickly.
The really worrisome thing is that we have a sneaking feeling that all this time is wasted time. We have not seen a significant correlation between all our social media efforts and sales. Repins, retweets, and shares by the dozens do not seem to turn followers into readers. There are so many authors out there doing the same thing that our additions to the clamor seem like peeing in the ocean. Who is going to notice?
We could have blogged about “How to Successfully Promote Your Book in 10 Easy Steps”. A quick Google search would have provided us with plenty of material. But like the self-help books that try to show the path to enlightenment or the you-can-be-a-millionaire-too titles, the method that works for one person does not work for everyone, or even most folks. After all, how many blogs do we all need saying: Have a Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter/Tumblr page? Post regularly! Interact! Connect! Use a call for action! Be visual! We all know how the game is played by now.
We’re going to keep plugging away at it. We are also going to try to write more and promote less. Just as soon as we get this blog posted.
We’re both sitting here at our computers staring, not at the screens, but out the window. Blizzard Nemo is approaching and we are waiting for the first snowflakes to begin falling.
Ironically, we have just started a new book (Time’s Warriors, #5 in the Time’s Edge science fiction series) which opens with a big snow storm. Our hero is standing up to his knees in snow trying to prevent two other characters from killing each other. (It’s been a long, dark winter on the planet where they are.)
We are experiencing a strange sense of deja vu. Why do we have the feeling this is going to be us in a few hours?
J.M. Dattilo 