Image
  • Writing
    • Andy Gavin: Author
    • About my Novels & Writing
    • All Writing Posts
    • The Darkening Dream
      • Buy the Book Online
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Untimed
      • Buy Untimed Online
      • Book Trailer
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Scrivener – Writer’s Word Processor
    • iPad for Writers
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Books
    • Book Review Index
    • Favorite Fantasy Novels
    • Andy Gavin: Author
    • The Darkening Dream
      • Buy the Book Online
      • Sample Chapters
      • Short Story: Harvard Divinity
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Untimed
      • About the Book
      • Buy Untimed Online
      • Book Trailer
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Games
    • My Video Game Career
    • Post Archive by Series
    • All Games Posts Inline
    • Making Crash Bandicoot
    • Crash 15th Anniversary Memories
    • World of Warcraft Endgames
    • Getting a Job Designing Video Games
    • Getting a Job Programming Video Games
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Movies
    • Movie Review Index
  • Television
    • TV Review Index
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • A Game of Thrones
  • Food
    • Food Review Index
    • Foodie Club
    • Hedonists
    • LA Sushi Index
    • Chinese Food Index
    • LA Peking Duck Guide
    • Eating Italy
    • Eating France
    • Eating Spain
    • Eating Türkiye
    • Eating Dutch
    • Eating Croatia
    • Eating Vietnam
    • Eating Australia
    • Eating Israel
    • Ultimate Pizza
    • ThanksGavin
    • Margarita Mix
    • Foodie Photography
    • Burgundy Vintage Chart
  • Other
    • All Posts, Magazine Style
    • Archive of all Posts
    • Fiction
    • Technology
    • History
    • Anything Else
  • Gallery
  • Bio
  • About
    • About me
    • About my Writing
    • About my Video Games
    • Ask Me Anything
  • Contact

Archive for Kindle

Untimed Free!

Aug25

The Kindle E-Book versions of Untimed will be FREE Monday, August 25 and Tuesday the 26th! Take the plunge, hey, it won’t cost you a cent.

Free on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book. The trailer can be found here.

About Untimed

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

“A masterful storyteller, Gavin builds a solid plot with believable characters.” — Kirkus
_
“Adventure, chemistry… and roller coaster plot are sure to appeal.” — Publishers Weekly
_
“Like science class in Las Vegas!” — FantasyLiterature.com

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

01-GhostHouse

Related posts:

  1. Untimed on the Cheap
  2. Untimed for Cheap!
  3. Untimed starred in Publishers Weekly!
  4. Untimed – $1.99 this week!
  5. Untimed Book Trailer
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Amazon, Andy Gavin, Kindle, sale, Untimed

The Darkening Dream – Free Today!

Apr02

The title pretty much says it all. The Darkening Dream, my dark fantasy novel, is free on Amazon for the Kindle for just 24 hours — all of April 3, 2012.

Download it here!

This is a special one day only promotion via Kindle KDP Select. Make sure to grab it while you can, tell your friends about it, and promote everywhere. At the end of Wednesday at midnight it will go back to its normal price. If it does well during the promotion Amazon will bump it up in their internal ranking and it should get a lot of regular sales afterward. That’s what happened last time.

A few words about the book:

_
_

As the Nineteenth Century gives way to the Twentieth, modern science and steel girders leave little room for the supernatural. But in dark corners the old forces still gather. God, demon, and sorcerer alike plot to regain what was theirs in Andy Gavin’s chilling debut, The Darkening Dream.

1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand.

With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?

No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

NOTE: Free downloads do not count toward tickets for the Naughty Dark Contest.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream – Free on Kindle
  2. Kindle Select – The Sales
  3. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
  4. 11 reasons you should buy The Darkening Dream
  5. Kindle Select – The Results
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Andy Gavin, Dark fantasy, Darkening Dream, free, Kindle, Promotion, The Darkening Dream

Kindle Select – The Sales

Feb29

On February 7-8 I ran a Kindle Select sale giving away The Darkening Dream free (Kindle version) for 48 hours. Free downloads were fantastic and the book was nailed to number 4 overall in the Kindle store for almost two days (details here).

But what about real sales?

The two hours immediately after the sale ends are really crucial. When my novel when off free, my free ranking had slipped to about #7. For about two hours it was no longer free but was still listed there on the first page of the bestseller list in the free column. During this period, it slid slowly down to #11. Meanwhile, with this high visibility, people were still clicking through in high numbers. Watching the sales figures, I saw approximately 1500 ”buys” during this period. But what I don’t know is how many of them were free and how many paid. Amazon reports both in the same column! Only when the February sales report comes in mid-March will I be sure. However, during the next 24 hours I received about 50 returns which has me suspecting a good number of these were paid — and in some cases unintentional. Amazon does not distinguish between free and paid in a very obvious manner and the one-click button looks virtually identical in both cases.

The day immediately following the sale, downloads slumped, to about thirty. After the rush of “selling” several hundred copies an hour (for free) this was a serious letdown. I panicked, and dropped my price from $4.99 to $2.99. But then, almost exactly 24 hours after going back to being paid, whatever mysterious promotion Amazon does in the wake of a successful free days kicked in.

I sold about 200 copies the next day. And about the same the day after. My paid sales ranking peaked at 398. Then two days of about 70 copies a day, then sales have slowly drifted downward. Still, even three weeks later, they’re better than they were before the free day. In addition, the promotion resulted in reaching thousands of new readers who wouldn’t otherwise have found the book and also generated numerous reviews and small articles. Overall, a definite success, but despite having ranked extremely high during the free period, did not in of itself create a longterm sustaining sales momentum.

Some advice for those planning free days:

1.  Plan on either one or two days but do not commit to both. You may need to gauge the momentum of your sale so that you can exit with the highest possible ranking.

2.  Promote the hell out of your first day. Notify all possible sites that announce free books, particularly pixel of ink. This one seems most effective on downloads. Buy some of these ads if you can.

3. Before running your day, be sure you have the best description and cover possible as well as a decent complement of reviews.

4. Offer sacrifice to Promotius, Roman God of sales and marketing.

Since putting the book on the market two months ago I’ve tried a great number of promotional tactics and this has probably been the most successful, still, I’m searching for a truly great way to get the book in front of more readers. If you have a good product — and reviews seem to back up my assumption that I do — book marketing is all about exposure. There are a tremendous number of books out there, far far more than even the most aggressive reader could actually read, so people are unlikely to just stumble upon your book by accident. Bestsellers aren’t just fun reads — and they generally are — but also benefit massively from the social nature of reading. We don’t want to be left out of the latest cultural phenomenon. They reach that position by luck, marketing, or phenomenon. Or sometimes all three.

Related posts:

  1. Kindle Select – The Results
  2. The Darkening Dream – Free on Kindle
  3. Price is Going Up Soon
  4. Order the Hardcover – sort of
  5. Brace yourself for Hardcover
By: agavin
Comments (12)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, E-book, Kindle, Kindle Select, Ranking, sales, The Darkening Dream

Great Free Fiction

Feb08

Who doesn’t love FREE books? My novel The Darkening Dream is still free on Kindle until midnight. So if you missed it, grab it now! Yesterday it enjoyed massive success reaching rates of over 20 copies downloaded per minute and hitting #4 in all Kindle sales, #2 in Fiction, and #1 in Fantasy!

Then flipping the tables around after so many helped me with the promotion of my own novel here are some other recommended free novels from “friends of the family” (my online family).

 

TWO DAYS ONLY: Wednesday, February 8th and Thursday, February 9th! Come and get ‘em!

 

For those with a love of YA paranormal: Family Magic (The Hayle Coven novels, #1) Sixteen year old Sydlynn Hayle is the daughter of a powerful witch and a demon lord but she just wants to be ordinary. Find it HERE.

 

And for those who like a thrill in their YA fiction: Run (The Hunted, #1) Reid thinks life has gone back to normal when his sister rescues him from the foster system. All that changes when he is kidnapped and dumped in the wilderness, forced to run from those who want to kill him. Find it HERE.

 

Don’t have a Kindle? No problem! Download a FREE app for your computer, iPad, smartphone and more!

 

Family Magic

 

Raising the Demon

“Haralthazar,” my mother glided closer to the statue, “we summon you this third night of Power, nine days and nine nights from Samhain Eve, to tighten our bond with you and your realm.” She knelt at the foot of the altar, the picture of the submissive handmaiden. Could she be any more ridiculous? Seriously. “My love, come and be welcome.”

The blinding flash that leapt from her to the statue continued to pour out of her in a deep blue rush of light. I turned my head slightly to the side, squinting in the glare, grateful for the edge of the cowl and the shadow it made. The whole room started to thrum, the floor vibrating with condensed magic as Mom used the energy we had given her to make the doorway that would let my father through.

Sixteen-year-old Sydlynn Hayle is the daughter of a powerful witch and a demon lord of the seventh plane. The trouble is, she just wants to be ordinary. Syd struggles to survive the minefield of her new high school while being torn between her attraction to football hero Brad Peters and the darkly mysterious Quaid Moromond. When her coven comes under attack, Syd is forced to face the fact only her power can save her family’s magic.

 

What readers are saying about Family Magic:

“This book has everything. Great family drama, hot boys, magic, witches, demons and difficult choices. This is one of my new favorite books of 2011 and I CANNOT WAIT to read the rest of the series.”

“With a fantastic, empathetic heroine, plenty of magic, an intriguing mystery and incorporating themes involving the search of self, familial relationships, duty and free will, Family Magic is an enchanting and enjoyable read.”

“I think Syd is one of my all-time favorite characters. She is funny and snarky but has a fierce love for her family. I am ready to follow Syd’s journey through this series. I was hooked from the first paragraph. I thoroughly enjoyed Family Magic, and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys paranormal novels.”

 

(You can read the full reviews on Amazon.com)

 

Run

 

Kidnapped

 

Alone, Reid gasps in one deep breath, another. It hurts his ribs, his lungs. He manages to roll over on his right side and regrets it. His shoulder screams in protest. Still, he is finally able to wriggle his numb hands loose from what holds him and claws at the cloth around his eyes.

Darkness. But not complete. The moon is up. Trees loom over him, the smell of spruce and fresh air so sharp it almost hurts. He jerks at the plastic ties around his ankles while. his vision swims through a veil of pain-laden tears. He manages somehow to force his screaming hands to work the ties loose and he is free.

Sixteen-year-old Reid thinks life is back to normal. His sister Lucy pulls herself together and cuts him free from a year of foster care. She promises to take care of him, that her new boss and her new life are what they both needed to start again. Until Reid is taken in the middle of the night, dumped in a wild stretch of forest far from home with no idea why he is there. Lost and afraid, he learns to run from the hunters who prowl the darkness, their only pleasure chasing down kids like him. And killing them.

 

What readers are saying about Run:

“The fear, the thrill, the emotion that comes through in the writing is amazing. There is never a dull moment in this story of survival.”

“If you’re a fan of YA books that make your heart pound with the unknown and leave you cringing at places (but in a totally cool kinda way) then Run’s the book for you.”

“Reid is such a great strong character and when the story ends, we are left begging for what is to come in the next of the series. This story was unique and SUPER fast-paced! It was a great festival of suspense.”

 

(You can read the full reviews on Amazon.com)

 

Thank you for taking the time to check them out!
Happy reading!

 

About the Author: Patti Larsen is a middle grade, young adult and adult author with a passion for the paranormal. Her YA thriller series, The Hunted, is available now. The first four books of The Hayle Coven series, Family Magic, Witch Hunt, Demon Child and The Wild are also out now. Her YA paranormal novel, Best Friends Forever, and steampunk series, Blood and Gold, are due early in 2012. She is a full time writer and a part time teacher of her Get Your Book Done program. Patti lives on the East Coast of Canada with her very patient husband and four massive cats.

 

You can find her:

On her website

On Facebook

Her writing blog

On Twitter

On Amazon.com

On Goodreads

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream – Free on Kindle
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Amazon.com, Best Friends Forever, Family Magic, Free Books, Hayle, Hunted, IPad, Kindle, Patti Larsen, Run, Syd, Sydlynn Hayle, Young-adult fiction

The Darkening Dream – Free on Kindle

Feb07

The title pretty much says it all. The Darkening Dream, my dark fantasy novel, is free on Amazon for the Kindle for just 48 hours — all of February 7 and 8, 2012.

Download it here!

This is a special two day only promotion via Kindle KDP Select. Make sure to grab it while you can, tell your friends about it, and promote everywhere. At the end of Wednesday at midnight it will go back to its normal price. If it does well during the promotion Amazon will bump it up in their internal ranking and it should get a lot of regular sales afterward. That’s the theory at least.

A few words about the book:

_
_

As the Nineteenth Century gives way to the Twentieth, modern science and steel girders leave little room for the supernatural. But in dark corners the old forces still gather. God, demon, and sorcerer alike plot to regain what was theirs in Andy Gavin’s chilling debut, The Darkening Dream.

1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand.

With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?

No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

NOTE: Free downloads do not count toward tickets for the Naughty Dark Contest.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
  2. 11 reasons you should buy The Darkening Dream
  3. Order the Hardcover – sort of
  4. Price is Going Up Soon
  5. The Darkening Dream
By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, E-book, Kindle, The Darkening Dream

Order the Hardcover – sort of

Feb05

Amazon has put up the hardcover. More or less. They have a page, and you can order, but they list it as “Temporarily out of stock.” Still, I’m sure if you do order they’ll ship in a couple of days when they finish sorting out their internal business.

They also haven’t totally connected the product to the Kindle and Paperback editions. I find it interesting how their site puts things together piecemeal. The must have various background jobs that massage the data and not all of them run together on the same schedule. I.e. the “book importer” job puts books in but the “book merger” job later connects various editions together.

Related posts:

  1. Hardcover Mechanical
  2. Price is Going Up Soon
  3. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
  4. Hardcover Proof & Paperback Giveaway
  5. The Trade Paperback is Launched!
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, E-book, Hardcover, IBook, Kindle, Paperback, The Darkening Dream

Price is Going Up Soon

Jan29

I want to give you all warning that the price of my novel, The Darkening Dream, is going to rise shortly to $4.99. The hardcover is almost ready and I’m about done with the introductory period. So grab it now!

Find it Here

Given how much money I spent on editing, proofreading, typography, interior illustrations, cover illustration, three cover designs, review copies and the like, $4.99 is still a steal. I’ve never been one for anything but the best and The Darkening Dream is no exception.

Additionally, if you read your e-book’s on anything but the Kindle or Kindle app then grab it now. I’m probably going to take down the Google, iBooks, and Nook versions shortly in order to enter Amazon’s Kindle Select. From what my author indie author friends report this is turning out (for the moment) to be a pretty effective marketing tool.

Or find out more about the book here.

 

 

Related posts:

  1. Hardcover Mechanical
  2. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
  3. All Things Change
  4. 11 reasons you should buy The Darkening Dream
  5. The Final Cover
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, E-book, Google, IBook, Kindle, Nook, The Darkening Dream, Writing and Editing

11 reasons you should buy The Darkening Dream

Dec26

1. It’s a great book.

2. It’s only $2.99 — but the price might go up soon.

3. You loved Crash Bandicoot.

4. You loved Jak & Daxter.

5. I was a great boss, friend, or co-worker.

6. My vampires don’t sparkle.

7. There are several beheadings.

8. Decrepit ancient Egyptian gods are cool.

9. The girl on the cover is really cute.

10. I handed you a glass of $100 wine at some point.

11. The book includes a “cesarian by vampire scene.”

And 4 refutations to your protests:

1. I’m poor – but it’s only $2.99.

2. I don’t have a Kindle – you can read Kindle books on a smartphone, iPad, or the web.

3. I’m too lazy to click twice – bad excuse.

4. I don’t read – do you really want to admit that?

Buy it now!

Then after you do, retweet, share, like, or otherwise spam this post or a link to the book on all of your social media! 🙂

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
  2. The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews
  3. The Darkening Dream
  4. All Things Change
  5. On Writing: Passes and Plots
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, E-book, IPad, Jak & Daxter, Kindle, Naughty Dog, The Darkening Dream

The Darkening Dream for Christmas!

Dec25

As a surprise move, I’m stealth launching The Darkening Dream — right now! — although only the Kindle edition.

If your stocking has been stuffed with a brand new Kindle, or you already have one, or you read on the Kindle app anywhere (iPad, Android, etc.)…

Buy it now!

Stealthy introductory price of $2.99. Which is certainly a bargain given that it took me two busy years to write and a lot of work to produce the layout, cover, etc.

So, you might ask (after you have purchased your copy — hint hint), what is a stealth launch?

Well, firstly, while the book is totally done and the E-Book version is all typeset, I’ve only put up the Kindle version. In the next week or so I’ll try and get all the other E-Book variants up (B&N, iTunes, etc.). Also, I’m still finishing up the paper editions. These will look great but they take a bit longer because I have to wait for physical proofs (5 days), make changes, then wait again, etc.

But also, I’m bucking the marketing machine that over the last thirty years has moved more and more to “big launch and then go away” mentality. Pretty much all big products: movies, albums, books etc. are marketed this way now. The marketeers build everything up for a big launch, hope for the best, then turn elsewhere a few scant weeks later. Truth is, this serves the marketeers more than it does the customer. Novels don’t age very fast. I enjoyed The Maltese Falcon as much as any book I read this year and it’s 81 years old. And the potential reader who happens to stumble upon my book doesn’t really care if it was published today — or last year. And it will take me time to collect reviews, get the other editions out, build up more web linkages etc. Later, when I have more of that in place I’ll begin the bigger marketing push.

So try it out and see what you think. Afterward, please review the book on Amazon. Reviews matter!

If you’re still not convinced:

Find out more about the book here
or read the sample chapters
or even check out a bit about the characters.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews
  2. All Things Change
  3. The Darkening Dream
  4. Christmas is for Dim Sum
  5. The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing
By: agavin
Comments (8)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Android, Andy Gavin, Christmas, E-book, IPad, Kindle, The Darkening Dream

All Things Change

Oct05

So I’m about halfway through my last polish pass on my third major draft of Untimed. [Update 7:44pm, finished the polish] This is one of the umpteen revision passes. Only another day or two to go before I send it off again and get down to waiting for feedback (hands down my least favorite part of writing).

The book totally kicks ass BTW — biased opinion but true.

Anyway, this has me planning to spend my “downtime” (waiting) doing some really serious research on self-publishing my first novel, The Darkening Dream, and seeing if I can get it out there before the holiday season.

I’ve been following self-publishing blogs like A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing and Dean Wesley Smith for around a year. These guys — rhetoric aside — have made sense for some time but the arguments for traditional publishing grow lamer and lamer. Check out something like this, which lays it out there — albeit with a lot of flavor. Publishing is in the throws of the cataclysmic “doing digital” change that has or is shaking up all the media businesses. For example, in music the conversion from media (vinyl, cassette, CD) to MP3 during which the labels/studios stuck their head in the sand and found themselves nearly destroyed.

The fact is, the change is coming no matter what any big old-school companies want or try to do. Readers are well on their way to embracing ebooks, the rise of the tablet (aka iPad), and dropping smartphone and reader prices (order your Kindle Fire here! 250,000 preorders in 5 days!), has etched the writing on the wall (in blood). In a few short years print will make up 20 or less percent of the market. Paper books (and I say this as someone who has a two story library with over 15,000 of them!) aren’t going to vanish instantly, but they won’t be majorly relevant for novel sales.

So this basically guarantees completely and without any doubt that print revenues will crater, leaving publishers unable to support their big overheads. Borders (and nearly every independent) going bankrupt will just hasten this. Barnes and Noble is next. They tried with the Nook, but Amazon is going to crush them (again, Kindle fire, not to mention $79 regular Kindle). And publishers, being large old-school companies that employ LOTS of people under the old model are showing lots of signs of panic, but pretty much not a glimmer of adapting to the changing business.

But they won’t have one soon. Because without control of the gates to bookstores, they don’t control anything.

Right now they still make the better product. But as an author they:

1. tie up rights

2. take way too much money (15% vs 70% doing it yourself)

3. take way too long (15 months instead of like 1-2 to market!)

4. charge too much for ebooks

5. don’t actually do any marketing

6. often have really stupid ideas about “marketability” (like “sex doesn’t sell” or “vampires are over” *)

Eventually new meaner leaner packaging companies will make the murky ground of processing books a bit easier, but in the meantime. Time to get researching.

If anyone knows a kick ass indie book marketer, I’m looking to hire one (that’s the only part I can’t really do myself).

For more posts on writing, click here.

* From above: The Vampire Dairies and True Blood both prove both statements simultaneously asinine. And while TDD does have a vampire, he does not ever sparkle in daylight (900 years and he hasn’t seen a glimpse of it) and he is not in the least sexy. He is, however, frightfully smart, cautious, and happy to decorate your house with the entrails of your closest family members.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Books, Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Andy Gavin, Arts, E-book, IPad, Kindle, Kindle Fire, Nook, Publishing, Self-publishing, The Darkening Dream, Untimed, Writing, Writing & Editing
Watch the Trailer or

Buy it Online!

Buy it Online!

96 of 100 tickets!

Find Andy at:

Follow Me on Pinterest

Subscribe by email:

More posts on:



Complete Archives

Categories

  • Contests (7)
  • Fiction (404)
    • Books (113)
    • Movies (77)
    • Television (123)
    • Writing (115)
      • Darkening Dream (62)
      • Untimed (37)
  • Food (1,765)
  • Games (101)
  • History (13)
  • Technology (21)
  • Uncategorized (16)

Recent Posts

  • Happy Hibi
  • Eating Naples – Palazzo Petrucci
  • Eating San Foca – Aura
  • Eating Otranto – ArborVitae
  • Eating Lecce – Gimmi
  • Eating Lecce – Varius
  • Eating Lecce – Duo
  • Eating Lecce – Doppiozero
  • Eating Torre Canne – Autentico
  • Eating Torre Canne – Beach

Favorite Posts

  • I, Author
  • My Novels
  • The Darkening Dream
  • Sample Chapters
  • Untimed
  • Making Crash Bandicoot
  • My Gaming Career
  • Getting a job designing video games
  • Getting a job programming video games
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • A Game of Thrones
  • 27 Courses of Truffles
  • Ultimate Pizza
  • Eating Italy
  • LA Sushi
  • Foodie Club

Archives

  • May 2025 (4)
  • April 2025 (4)
  • February 2025 (5)
  • January 2025 (3)
  • December 2024 (13)
  • November 2024 (14)
  • October 2024 (14)
  • September 2024 (15)
  • August 2024 (13)
  • July 2024 (15)
  • June 2024 (14)
  • May 2024 (15)
  • April 2024 (13)
  • March 2024 (9)
  • February 2024 (7)
  • January 2024 (9)
  • December 2023 (8)
  • November 2023 (14)
  • October 2023 (13)
  • September 2023 (9)
  • August 2023 (15)
  • July 2023 (13)
  • June 2023 (14)
  • May 2023 (15)
  • April 2023 (14)
  • March 2023 (12)
  • February 2023 (11)
  • January 2023 (14)
  • December 2022 (11)
  • November 2022 (13)
  • October 2022 (14)
  • September 2022 (14)
  • August 2022 (12)
  • July 2022 (9)
  • June 2022 (6)
  • May 2022 (8)
  • April 2022 (5)
  • March 2022 (4)
  • February 2022 (2)
  • January 2022 (8)
  • December 2021 (6)
  • November 2021 (6)
  • October 2021 (8)
  • September 2021 (4)
  • August 2021 (5)
  • July 2021 (2)
  • June 2021 (3)
  • January 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (11)
  • March 2020 (15)
  • February 2020 (13)
  • January 2020 (14)
  • December 2019 (13)
  • November 2019 (12)
  • October 2019 (14)
  • September 2019 (14)
  • August 2019 (13)
  • July 2019 (13)
  • June 2019 (14)
  • May 2019 (13)
  • April 2019 (10)
  • March 2019 (10)
  • February 2019 (11)
  • January 2019 (13)
  • December 2018 (14)
  • November 2018 (11)
  • October 2018 (15)
  • September 2018 (15)
  • August 2018 (15)
  • July 2018 (11)
  • June 2018 (14)
  • May 2018 (13)
  • April 2018 (13)
  • March 2018 (17)
  • February 2018 (12)
  • January 2018 (15)
  • December 2017 (15)
  • November 2017 (13)
  • October 2017 (16)
  • September 2017 (16)
  • August 2017 (16)
  • July 2017 (11)
  • June 2017 (13)
  • May 2017 (6)
  • March 2017 (3)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (7)
  • December 2016 (14)
  • November 2016 (11)
  • October 2016 (11)
  • September 2016 (12)
  • August 2016 (15)
  • July 2016 (13)
  • June 2016 (13)
  • May 2016 (13)
  • April 2016 (12)
  • March 2016 (13)
  • February 2016 (12)
  • January 2016 (13)
  • December 2015 (14)
  • November 2015 (14)
  • October 2015 (13)
  • September 2015 (13)
  • August 2015 (18)
  • July 2015 (16)
  • June 2015 (13)
  • May 2015 (13)
  • April 2015 (14)
  • March 2015 (15)
  • February 2015 (13)
  • January 2015 (13)
  • December 2014 (14)
  • November 2014 (13)
  • October 2014 (13)
  • September 2014 (12)
  • August 2014 (15)
  • July 2014 (13)
  • June 2014 (13)
  • May 2014 (14)
  • April 2014 (14)
  • March 2014 (10)
  • February 2014 (11)
  • January 2014 (13)
  • December 2013 (14)
  • November 2013 (13)
  • October 2013 (14)
  • September 2013 (12)
  • August 2013 (14)
  • July 2013 (10)
  • June 2013 (14)
  • May 2013 (14)
  • April 2013 (14)
  • March 2013 (15)
  • February 2013 (14)
  • January 2013 (13)
  • December 2012 (14)
  • November 2012 (16)
  • October 2012 (13)
  • September 2012 (14)
  • August 2012 (16)
  • July 2012 (12)
  • June 2012 (16)
  • May 2012 (21)
  • April 2012 (18)
  • March 2012 (20)
  • February 2012 (23)
  • January 2012 (31)
  • December 2011 (35)
  • November 2011 (33)
  • October 2011 (32)
  • September 2011 (29)
  • August 2011 (35)
  • July 2011 (33)
  • June 2011 (25)
  • May 2011 (31)
  • April 2011 (30)
  • March 2011 (34)
  • February 2011 (31)
  • January 2011 (33)
  • December 2010 (33)
  • November 2010 (39)
  • October 2010 (26)
All Things Andy Gavin
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Programmed by Andy Gavin