Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Goodreads Indie List!

Just saw this! Jump got added to the April Indie list on Goodreads! At position 4 at the time of this posting. Either way, just happy that Jump is included -- very cool!


Sunday, April 28, 2013

Jump Promo and Print Version Coming Soon!


So, I spent the weekend preparing for the Kindle free promo, which will run in just a couple of weeks. I’m running ads in websites that offer to broadcast the promo. Very cool, since many are free and others are affordable, but it took all day Saturday filling out the forms everywhere. Anyway, keep checking here and I will nail down those dates for you all to snag the book for free or to tell folks about it. Thanks for spreading the word about Jump so far!

I also spent part of this weekend formatting the print version of Jump that will soon be available on Amazon. I received some proof copies and the cover looks awesome! So cool to see it with a front and back image. But some tweaks remain. I will keep you all posted about when the print version will be available.

More soon and thanks for all the support for Jump When Ready!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

KDP Select or Not?

There comes a point in every indie writer’s life when he or she must face the question: “KDP Select or not?” I’ve been looking into this and there’s an abundance of opinions out there (by that, I mean a ton). There are those who think KDP Select has had its day and is not very effective anymore. There are others who indicate that it’s just fine if you have a series of books (or at least other books published) but not much good for the stand-alone novel. On the other hand, there are writers who still see KDP Select as being a successful promotion strategy (with a little more legwork involved, possibly, than in the past). What’s an indie to do?

Fortunately, I came across a very informative series of blog posts offered by Ryan Casey, a writer whose work I am now looking forward to reading. Here is the link to Ryan’s blog and one of the posts (you can follow his discussion back from there). So, it seems to me that I’ve got to get the word out somehow about JUMP WHEN READY so why not try KDP Select as a way to make that happen? Sure, I’ll be locked in with Amazon for 90 days but I guess that’s about the worst thing that could happen (after all, they've treated me nicely so far).

So, the long and short of this is that JUMP WHEN READY will soon be offered as a free download and added to the Kindle Lending Library. Pretty awesome, yes? So, keep checking back (or, better, follow this blog) and I will let you all know when this promotion happens!

Then again, the novel only costs $2.99 now so why wait?

Friday, April 12, 2013

Jump When Ready is live on Amazon!

Jump When Ready is now available on Amazon! I’m really excited about getting it out there (as you can probably tell by all the exclamation points) and can’t wait to see how people like it. The novel has even gotten a few really nice reviews!
If you’d like to check it out, Jump When Ready can be yours for less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks. And, if you enjoy the novel, you’d be doing me a great favor by offering a rating and review on Amazon.  Click here to take a look!
What will I do for you in return? you may ask. Well, if you do leave a review go ahead and shoot me an email (jumpwhenready AT gmail) and when I publish the novel I’m working on I will send you an eBook copy for free (or PDF copy, if you’d prefer). How does that sound? Granted, it might be a while before I finish it (I tend to do a lot of editing) but I will keep your info, I promise.
Thanks to all of you who have offered encouragement! It has meant a lot and without it I don’t imagine I would have taken this step of going “indie” with Jump.
That said, stay tuned. Soon, I will discuss what I experienced having not one, but two, literary agents before making the decision to go “indie” after all.
Have a great weekend (hope you spend it reading Jump When Ready)!
Cheers,
Dave

Thursday, April 4, 2013

The Death of Publishing

I was reading Annelie Wendeberg's blog (yes, I did use the same template for mine, I admit) for The Devil's Grin and she was nice enough to post this article title the Death of Publishing. I have to say, reading it definitely alleviated any remaining misgivings about going "indie" with Jump When Ready.


Monday, April 1, 2013

It starts like this...


The world around me was dark green and silent except for the sound of my own heart, still beating, but slowly now. I took another breath that wasn’t really a breath, just my lungs trying again. Nothing more than a reflex at this point. The battle was already lost, I felt pretty sure. Still, I hoped because that’s what we do until the very end.

I hoped someone would rescue me, even when I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The rapids must have pulled me too far; otherwise, someone would have gotten to me by now. It seems strange, but in those final moments I still imagined a future. A reflex of the brain, I guess, that refusal to quit, to give up and accept the truth. I thought about starting high school next fall. Not much to look forward to, from what I’d heard, but I’d still been sure it would be better. I thought about my family and the trip we had planned for visiting the Northwest. I’d been looking forward to seeing Seattle and Portland, getting out of the Virginia heat for a few weeks that summer. Part of me hoped we could still make that trip together. I couldn’t help it—I still wanted these things to happen. That was my world, the small one I knew, and I kept hoping to hang onto it.

But even now my heart was slowing more, the time between each beat getting longer. There was a light above me—I could see it through the murky water. Maybe it had been there the whole time and I’d been too scared to notice. Then there were voices, the muffled sound of people calling my name, and I wondered if someone had gotten there in time. I kept staring up at the light, which kept growing brighter.

Then the voices were fading.

I didn’t hear my heart anymore.

There was just the light above me. I swam toward it.

Book Trailer Script


Working on some book trailer script...not sure...

In the afterlife, you will be grouped with others for reasons you can’t know. They might be from entirely different places and times. But you will have something in common.


Very rarely, some will have the ability to make themselves noticed by the living. Very rarely, the living will notice.

But if something bad happens to someone you knew…

If telling someone what you witnessed is that person’s only hope…

There will only be the dead to help you.