Tag Archives: Self-promotion

Guest appearance on The Write Project!

Of all of the things I was doing during my blogging hiatus, one of the most exciting was to appear on Engen Books‘ Podcast, The Write Project. In which I discuss dark childhoods, Stephen King, my writing process, “Shut and get typing”, and much more!

Hosted by Matthew LeDrew, the show appears every Monday on CHMR at 4:30 Newfoundland Time, and is available on most podcast platforms.

Out of sheer vanity, here’s an MP3 of Episode 1 of my interview. I am told that if you place the speaker near a sink drain, my voice will scare away fruit flies and Drain Goblin spore vapours. Probably worth a shot. You never want to see what comes out of those spores. *Shudder.*

(In which I talk far too much…)

Here is the location to find the archive of far more talented writers than myself talking about their amazing projects, like Tasha Madison, Julia Blackmore, Tracey Waddleton, and more.

And here is the link to Engen’s The Write Project youtube channel.

May your earholes rejoice, should that be warranted.

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Visit my Kindle shop to purchase Ebook titles like The Dog, To Drown in Sand, To Drown in Ash, and more!

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What works with Amazon: An evolving education in Indie publishing.

 

So. I conducted an experiment.

“You gotta have free stuff,” they said. “Folks love free stuff.”

My Indie Pubbing guru J.A. Konrath says it, too. More quality, more titles, more free. And Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt describe it thoroughly, using the concept of Funneling.

The Traditional Publishers still gnash their teeth, flap their tiny arms, and growl that not anyone can do this; that they have special services that guarantee quality and success.

They’re right; they do. But I say anyone can make their own success, if you learn the game, and demand quality of yourself.

Juris Lunence took only about four months to finish from initial draft, to polished, packaged, buffed, price on the windshield, and out on the lot. Plus, it was a lot of fun to write. So overall, not a loss of time in any way. It’s a short story prequel to Book 1 of my Trilogy, To Drown in Sand. 

Kobo went live with Juris Lunence first, and that was intentional. We loaded it to Amazon, didn’t announce it, and read the purchased copy while Kobo chewed on the upload. Since Kobo takes considerably more time to publish a title, we used that to proof the digital copy that went live on Amazon that was still priced at Amazon’s somewhat silly $.99 price. We caught our glitches, re-uploaded to Amazon, and the final copy was live before Kobo hit the market. Then we uploaded the corrected version to Kobo. Kobo’s copy of Juris went up for free (because they do that), and we reported Amazon being undersold by Kobo. The $.99 still appeared on the Amazon copy for first three days, but buyers received it free because of price-matching. At the end of the third day, Juris Lunence looked like this:

 

Juris Free

 

Then, the FB group blitz. My poor followers. Their feeds must look like I’m a megalomaniac. Over 40 groups in one night, then roughly 15 more over the next few evenings. They were kind not to appear on my lawn with rage and torches.

I purchased a small bottle of Goldschlager (one of those tiny airplane bottles, I’m not a drinker), my favourite Victory Juice. Parked it next to my laptop on the kitchen table, and waited. I was only going to open it if I hit 10 free downloads.

Then this happened:

photo 1

Those little buggers are hard to open when you’re excited. I had to use my pliers.

3 days later, there wasn’t a bottle big enough to celebrate cracking an Amazon Top Ten list, and the Top 100 in Kindle Books:

photo 2

10 days later, here’s what the 4 months of work did for my Author rankings:

Author Central Stats Sci-Fi and Fantasy Ranking Scince fiction rankings

 

And here’s the total snapshot of Juris Lunence downloads, and what it did for To Drown in Sand (the little red lines at the bottom).

photo 3

 

Did I sell a lot of copies of To Drown in Sand? Not really, at least not yet.

Did I sell more than if I hadn’t written and promoted a free release? Yeh.

Did I climb through the Amazon algorithm and increase my Author ranking? You betcha.

Did I gain new readers, and get over 100,000 new people looking at my title? Yip!

Is Konrath and Truant and Platt right? Absolutely.

The conclusion is pretty much irrefutable, which is rare in this Grand Indie Game.

Free works as long as it’s quality. And anyone can make that happen.

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Of Evolving Covers, Convergence, and How Lucky I Was To Meet Dylan.

Large things start small. Like seeds in the dark. I met Dylan Edwards in Grade Eight. He had hand-drawn comics spilling out of his saxophone case that I handed back to him. Talk about epic moments in time. We were the two biggest nerds consistently from then until we graduated. Nerd legends for our hobbies, interests, and isolation. We were instant brothers, kin in suffering the glacial pressures of growing through adolescence.

We started a comic company in grade nine; and we were the guys play-testing our Zombie Apocalypse role-playing game in study hall during exams. We rolled our eyes and ignored the jibes of the typical detractors through it all, with eyes locked on one another; that precious psychic bond of survival. He went on to become one of the best fathers I’ve ever been privileged to know, and the best friend a man could ever wish for.

He also became an incredible artist. Despite my constant, frantic texts, emails, mistakes, dysfunctional uploads, and endless problems, he remains, as always, stoically patient, and everwise. And waiting for his new cover drafts is better than Christmas. His idea for the cover for my new prequel short story, Juris Lunence, blew me away.

Here’s the first draft:

 

Juris cover 1 draft

 

And the final version:

 

Juris 2nd draft covr

 

Once you’ve read the story, I think you’ll get just how awesome this image really is. At least, it flattens me pretty effectively. Crazy to think how small things like me grabbing a dropped piece of drawing can turn into such things. Reminds me to keep looking for them.

Juris Lunence is available for free on Kobo, and, as soon as enough people tell amazon they are being undersold, free on Kindle as well.

 

~B.

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Just a quick mo’…

Just popping in to provide the means to acquire a professionally edited, reasonably well-written, and ABSOLUTELY FREE  story about a fantastic character.

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/juris-lunence

 

Juris 2nd draft covr

 

There. I’m done. Please return to your awesome day.

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The excitement of release. (Wow…that could sound so wrong).

Well, that was fun. We cringed, we howled. I revised and rewrote, interviewed soldiers and rocket scientists, went back again and again to the keyboard until we all agreed that it was ready.

It’s ready.

It’s done.

The short story prequel to this November’s To Drown in Sand is up and live.

It’s called Upon a Wake of Flame, and it is now up for sale.  The link is here, and on my sidebar.

http://www.amazon.ca/Upon-Flame-Lunen-Regiment-ebook/dp/B00ELP2LOS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376759899&sr=8-1&keywords=upon+a+wake+of+flame

Upon a Wake of Flame was supposed to be a promotional piece that served as a test for the upload and editing process. It evolved into so much more; an invaluable lesson in writing, revision and completion.

And as always, Dylan’s cover and design are incredible.

Upon a Wake of Flame is available on Amazon and Kobo E-Books for $0.99 Canadian. If you enjoy it, please rate it and post a review.

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Hanging out with heavily armoured dudes. Chills; I tell ya!

Catherine Croft and her gang did a wonderful job organizing a great day for the kid-nerds at Mill Village Consolidated School for the May the 4th Be With You event, and I was lucky enough to get to go.

The gang from Maritime Heavy Armour (https://www.facebook.com/MaritimeHeavyArmour?fref=ts) thrilled the kids, and me, by showing up and posturing with us all in an appropriately menacing  way.

We played some tabletop 40K, chatted about figs and gaming, and I got to do a dry run of my book promotion in front of real people. So that was cool.

And my mom bought me fries.

It was the only event of it’s kind permitted by the Lawyers of the Empire (Star Wars, not Warhammer, the Inquisition would never have allowed such a thing) to show a screening of all the Star Wars movies. Catherine even had a large outdoor projector, and showed it as a drive-in feature.

photo (1)

The Vulcan intimidated me most.

photo

One never usually gets this close to a Space Marine. And Deathwatch sightings are especially rare. And one never, never gets to actually HUG a Deathwatch Space Marine. But I did. Turns out I shared an ancient secret Mechanicus armour technique, and he was most grateful. And hugs are nice. He deals with a lot of Grim Darkness, so I thought he could use the bro-love.

And then there was THIS, which the caricature guy did for me, which shall now be framed in my office. Terribly, I never caught his name:

photo (2)

Awesome time had by all!

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Of the Almighty Blurb

After much research and fussing, I took the advice of my graphics designer, the amazingly talented Dylan Edwards. About eight months ago, when we were discussing the blurb for my book, he gave one of his priceless pearls of wisdom to me:

“I don’t think writers should write their own blurbs. They’re too close to their story.”

However, I don’t think he realized what he had said. Because  last week, I took him up on his advice and asked him to write one.

Thankfully, he was able to squeeze time out from his busy work schedule as an animator, film maker, cover designer, all-round creative genius, and father, to put an awesome first draft together.

After some editing (which was hilarious, ME editing HIS work for  a change), we came up with the result below, which thankfully, he thinks will fit on the back cover:

To Drown In Sand – A Novel of the 10th Lunen Regiment
by BC Laybolt

No matter how far you run, your shadow follows.

Centuries ago, they fled the doomed Earth. Their damaged flotilla stumbled on a new star system and colonized the worlds they found there. The ragged remnants of mankind fought the elements and each other to survive. Out of terror and darkness, the Nar Exus Triumvirate was created, enforcing a fragile peace between their planets.

But on the dwarf planet called Shastre, the people’s simple life along the rivers and in the mountains, unconcerned with the politics of the Triumvirate, has backslid into superstition and savagery under the sway of a murderous warlord known only as Ter Ense. The Triumvirate has responded to reports of genocide on Shastre by sending the 10th Lunen Regiment to restore order. But danger dwells deep in the jungles of Shastre. An ancient darkness that predates the flotilla is awake after a long slumber.

To escape his tragic past, a man named Kyris Issep arrives on Shastre as a fresh recruit. He has come to a war zone, seeking peace for his damaged soul. His commanders see him as a weapon they hope to wield against the enemy. His squadmates see him as a bad omen they fear will get them killed. Issep is not sure of the truth himself, only that something in the jungle is calling to him, and he will travel into the heart of darkness to confront it.

Ooh…catchy!

The blurb also fits well into the Wiki for the book.

Another step closer!

© 2013 B.C. Laybolt

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