Times of Trouble is my sixth novel, which will I will upload to Smashwords, B&N, and Createspace sometime in the next few days. It’s a Christian speculative fiction thriller. I’m aiming for the group of Christian readers who read the Left Behind series back in the late 90’s, and I’m hoping they’ll enjoy reading this novel.
What it’s about:
In the near future, the U.S. government has turned into a tyranny as the government agencies known as the EPA and TSA grow with ever more power, taking away the liberty many Americans had known for over two hundred years. They’re joined by a government agency, the Health Administration, which was put together in the mid-2010’s to regulate healthcare.
Told in first person point of view, Brian Atwood, our main character, is a field agent for the FBI in Omaha. His work involves mostly cyber terrorism and actual cases of potential real world terrorism. Eventually, his wife gives birth to their third child, who has Down’s Syndrome, which does not please the Health Administration because there are rules and regulations set-up in cases like these to prevent “genetic freaks” as they like to call them, from sucking up a lot of Health Admin money. Because the Atwoods are born again Christians, they never considered aborting the baby, so now the Health people have to take him away to deal with the problem later.
Meanwhile, the Secret Service decides to recruit Brian to be the personal agent of POTUS due to his great work involving a case that dealt with terrorism that would’ve involved Offutt Air Force Base. Brian’s faith is tested every day as he deals with a man that has no morals from what Brian can see, and is tested even more when his wife finds out that she’s dying from a fast growing form of breast cancer. Trouble in the rest of the world occurs as Iran attempts to nuke Israel, which fails spectacularly, so Israel takes care of the problem. This brings condemnation from everyone, including the US, which takes the side of Iran.
When the re-election of POTUS doesn’t turn out the way he wanted it, he and his people declare the election nullified because of supposed “irregularities” with the ballots. POTUS claims that the new President-elect may take the seat sometime in the middle of next year, if everything looks to be sorted out. POTUS purges his staff of what he considers unloyal people, including Brian. At the same time, he loses his wife, but regains the son he thought he had lost.
Brian moves back to his family home in Nebraska, where we follow what happens as the country slowly falls apart. Events play out as Brian and his family sees the End Times approach.
Now that I’m pretty sure I have all the sales numbers in for all platforms, I’d like to share how many novels I sold or had downloaded last year as an independent author, to give encouragement to those that aren’t sure they can do it. I’ve been doing this for about 4 years, 1 1/2 of which I’ve actually put any effort at trying to promote my novels, since I’ve written three in that time span. Last year, I sold or had D/L’s of 24,151, in 2010 – 520, 2009 – 68, and in 2008 – 37. Here are the numbers for 2011 for each book and where, from first book or short story published in order to latest:
Virtualbookworm.com (original publisher of Don’t Mess With Earth paperback) Don’t Mess With Earth – 7
So, with a lot of hard work and determination, this is what I sold. I know, not the #’s of some of the bigger names in indie publishing, but I feel like I’m accomplishing something.
I’m currently working on the last couple of chapters of my new speculative fiction novel, which I call New Frontier. I’m expecting to be done sometime between the end of December to the end of January, barring unforseen circumstances of course.
The story originally started off with a prologue with the whole speech given by President Kennedy at Rice University in 1962 about all of our technological advances and how we’ve managed to come so far in such a short amount of time. I decided to cut that down, to the one paragraph everyone remembers him saying, which is:
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency…”
I’m not going to reveal any spoilers from this particular sub-plot, because I plan on having a 2nd book in this to make a series to explain why what happens in the prologue happens the way it does.
After this, I begin with a what-if Ronald Reagan became President in 1976 instead of 1980? Well, he has the US continue with the Moon landings and eventually building a Base on the moon, and even declaring that we’ll have people on Mars before 1989.
The Soviets decide to one-up the Americans, and decide to build a starship that would leave the solar system. Their attitude is basically, why do we need to piddle around the Sol System when there’s other solar systems out there to be conquered. The 2nd book will explore what happens to the Soviet ship, which, of course, will be after the Americans eventually send their own ship in the 2nd novel.
There is a storyline that follows the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis, but this time it ends in a completely different fashion. I have Osama bin Laden as a young apprentice to Khomeini, and he goes off on his own to form Al Qaeda (this is alternate history after all). In his first foray into terrorism, he makes a big statement that affects American politics in a big way. The US hunts him down and captures him (I was actually writing that when Osama was killed by the Seals, which de-railed my writing of this novel for a couple of weeks). He is taken care of in a way most ancient by people he hates.
In the meantime, we now have a base on the moon, a space station in orbit, and I re-write what happens with the Teacher in Space program by having Christa McAuliffe travel to the Moon to teach from there for a week. This time, the Challenger doesn’t blow up due to engineers discovering a problem, even though she’s not on that shuttle, and she gets to the Moon.
The US announces the team that will travel to Mars to establish a base there, and the Soviets use this opportunity to ask that two of their cosmonauts could go. The new POTUS tells the Soviet Premier no, as long as Eastern Europe was under the boot of communism. Weeks later, the Berlin Wall falls as does the Iron Curtain, and the US and USSR agree to let two cosmonauts go to Mars.
Terrorism raises its ugly head once again when the space station is attacked by remnants of Al Qaeda, and it also occurs to the Mars mission….
Near the end of the novel, colonists land on Mars, including Christa McAuliffe and her family. It’s the beginning of human colonization of the rest of the solar system.
At the end, the US and Russia announce a joint mission to explore the rest of the galaxy, and part of the mission is to find the missing Soviet starship, which will lead us back to what’s happening in the prologue when part of their mission goes awry.
When I started self-publishing in 2008, I didn’t really have any kind of goals on how big of a number I wanted to reach. When I hit 100 sold by the end of 2009 without any promoting except for Facebook, I thought that was cool. When I managed to get a little over 500 sold last year, I thought that was awesome. Well, as of September 2011, I have now reached 2000 sold for the year so far, and I’m only 200 away from reaching 3000 sales. Earlier in the year, around March, for some inexplicable reason to me, my sales took off on both Amazon and B&N at 400 combined a month mostly for one title, but, just as inexplicably, two months later, I went back to selling maybe 30 a month. I can’t explain that, but, boy, do I wish I knew how I manage to attract that many readers. Well, anyway, here’s the totals as of right now, from 2008 until now, on each platform for each book. My paperback sales are listed under the publisher I used. Links to each novel are located at each novel’s page at the top of this blog or at http://cliffball.webs.com.
Amazon Kindle, combo of US & UK
Out of Time – 317
Don’t Mess With Earth – 703
The Usurper – 294
Shattered Earth – 260
Voyager and the Aliens short story – 1 (uploaded this week)
Barnes & Noble Nook
Out of Time – 53
Don’t Mess With Earth – 163
The Usurper – 49
Shattered Earth – 33
Kobo
Out of Time – 32
Don’t Mess With Earth – 5
The Usurper – 3
Shattered Earth – 5
Apple
Out of Time – 53
Don’t Mess With Earth – 19
The Usurper – 2
Shattered Earth – 62
Sony Reader
Out of Time – 4
Don’t Mess With Earth – 3
The Usurper – 0
Shattered Earth – 2
Smashwords
Out of Time – 32
Don’t Mess With Earth – 97
The Usurper – 160
Shattered Earth – 173 Voyager and the Aliens – 98
iUniverse, the original publisher of Out of Time
Out of Time paperback or e-book – 55
Virtualbookworm.com, publisher of Don’t Mess With Earth
Don’t Mess With Earth paperback – 62
Createspace
Out of Time – 7
The Usurper – 24
Shattered Earth – 20
and when I used Lulu.com for a couple of months:
Out of Time – 3
The Usurper – 1
To re-cap the grand totals:
Out of Time: 551
Don’t Mess With Earth – 1056
The Usurper – 532
Shattered Earth – 558
Voyager and the Aliens – 99
Until September 19th, all four of my novels in e-book format are on sale for $.99 each.
THE USURPER: a political thriller
Gary Jackson is raised to hate. Hate the United States, its people, and everything they have ever stood for. His mission is to destroy the country from within, allying himself with the worst of America’s enemies, and one very powerful and malevolent billionaire, to accomplish the deed. Once elected to the highest position in the land, Gary puts his lifelong goals to work, and puts the USA onto the path of ultimate destruction. He stops at nothing to rid the USA of his political and spiritual enemies, until a small group decide they’ve had enough, and they want to stop him. Will they succeed or will the United States be relegated to the dustbin of history?
Advanced humans, called Terrans, leave Earth when its threatened by a massive meteor. The remaining humans on Earth fall back into primitiveness. The advanced humans, and a group of aliens, the Ragnor, involve Earth in an interstellar war. Thousands of years later, the humans of Earth decide to do something about this. Interstellar politics will never be the same again once Earth is done with their revenge.
These Terrans involve themselves throughout human history. Some play as King Arthur and Merlin. Another is a scientist, whose name is Galileo, and he gets into all sorts of trouble for challenging official orthodoxy about the sun, the Earth, and which one is revolving around the other. Then, we have Amelia Earhart, who has a very valid reason for disappearing. When an alien spaceship gets shot down over Roswell in 1947, President Truman orders the creation of Area 51, Project Blue Book and Sign, and has the United States embark on a plan that will culminate 60 years in the future. Nothing will ever be the same again when the United States gets involved in interstellar politics. But, the whole plan backfires when Earth ends up the worse for wear over it. Other species find out what Earth did, since no one else was bold enough to even try, so they want to help bring down the Ragnor once and for all. The new President of the United States imagines a galactic federation or a republic, but, none of the other species wants anything to do with it. Once they destroy the Ragnor’s technology, they leave the Ragnor to ponder why all the other species hated them enough to attack them. Will the galaxy remain at peace?
Dr. John Hawking, a clone of famous 20th/21st century scientist Stephen Hawking, discovers time is actually fluid; past, present, and future all exist at the same time. What he doesn’t know, is if the current timeline can change when something is changed in the past. The US government wants him to find out. The theme being to make right what once went wrong. The time travelers meet all sorts of 20th century icons, from the Titanic to Anne Frank to Roswell to the Apollo 13. However, someone is trying to stop them, and the future may never be the same again.
This is the first Cliff Ball book I’ve read…and I’d have to say that if he writes another political thriller … I’m in! “The Usurper” is a fast-paced fictional story that has non-fictional elements in it of events that really happened. Cliff makes you think ‘could this really happen?’ He makes it all seem possible…which is a scary thought! This book had lots of twists and turns that kept the reader on the edge of her seat throughout the book. I gave this book to my dad to read since he likes the same kind of books that I do. I’m sure he’ll have a good review as well. Thank you Cliff for writing this book!
I agree with the other reviewer’s statement that it is Clancy like. The characters don’t have as much depth as Clancy’s, but Clancy has developed his over many books. This book was very similar to current events, with a frightening back story created. This back story was, unfortunately, plausible – at least in the goal if not the execution. It builds off of the fears of the cold war and moves into the role and power of government in our lives, as well as the battle of capitalism vs. socialism. This was filled with lots of symbolism and relations to actual current events. In summary, a very good read and I look forward to reading more by this author.
Plus, a review for Shattered Earth from a reader on Goodreads who won a copy of the paperback:
Just finished this book. It was not at all what I thought it would be. The story line was was so imaginatively written, very interesting. I haven’t read a sci-fi, fantasy book written in such a way to be so interesting. I really liked it. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but it is obvious that a lot of thought went into the writing of this book. The story line and the history aspect of the story kept me involved in the story from the beginning and had some really fun and interesting twists. I really enjoyed this book and hope to read more from Mr. Ball.
For Sample Sunday, this is an excerpt from Shattered Earth, one of my science fiction novels. Once you read the excerpt, buy links are at the end, or click on the picture to take you to Smashwords for all e-book formats.
Chapter Five
Around this period, two very rich Terran adventurers had decided to hitch a ride to Mars, after bribing a starship captain. The two wanted to see what it was like on Earth, after hearing news reports about how utterly barbaric and primitive the planet was. They were visiting Britannia just as the Roman legions were recalled to defend the city of Rome. After seeing what was going on with the local Brit tribes, the two decided that it might be fun to organize them, so that the tribes could defend themselves against the Vikings, Normans, and others who had conducted raids on the island. The two named their kingdom Camelot, led by the Terran whose name was Arthur, and his cohort, who was named Merlin. Merlin was considered an eccentric inventor; other Terrans thought he was more than a little insane, while the primitive humans around him thought that Merlin was a great and mighty powerful magician. After all, he looked the part. Merlin had long, straight hair, a long white beard, and wore very colorful robes. Arthur was tall, lean, but muscular, dark hair, and looked like a mighty warrior might look.
Merlin cooked up a scheme to get these primitive humans to accept Arthur as their leader, so he told Arthur of an idea he had, “I have a brainstorm, Arthur; tell me if you like it. These Brits have a legend about a sword in a stone and if a man of great virtue pulls it out of the stone, he will become the undisputed leader of the people. I propose to use our advanced technology to convince these people to believe you’re destined to be the king. What do you think?”
“Sounds like a good plan, Merlin. How do you plan on making it work?”
“I think I’ll build a sword with computer components that will recognize only your handprint. I will then stick the sword in what will appear to be a stone, except this stone will keep the sword in place with an elaborate computer aided locking system. Once you take hold of the sword, the system will recognize your handprint, then it will unlock, and the sword will be yours. You’ll have the masses begging you to be the leader,”
“Sounds like a very good idea, Merlin. Nothing like a little technology turned into sorcery to make one a good leader. Get to work.” ordered Arthur, who was looking forward to this new scheme of Merlin’s.
A few weeks later, Merlin, with the help of an experimental Terran transportation device, suddenly, and without any warning at all, appeared in the town square with the sword in his hand, and a very convincing looking stone placed next to him. He called for the townsfolk to gather, and then, he said, “Good citizens of Camelot. I have created a test for those who wish to lead us. This sword, I will put in the stone, and it can only be pulled out by a virtuous, and good man,”
Merlin then slid the shiny, intimidating looking, sword into the stone, “The challenge has been laid, all men throughout Camelot are welcome to try to pull out the sword, which I have named Excalibur.” with that, Merlin vanished into thin air the same way he had appeared.
Merlin and Arthur watched for little over a month, as man after man attempted to pull Excalibur from the stone. Everyone had a different way of trying to pull the sword out of the stone, which served only to amuse the two Terrans, and tick off the human men who tried to pull out Excalibur. As Merlin expected, not a single man could pull the sword from the stone, so Merlin again reappeared in a flash of light, and said, “Is there no one here who is virtuous enough to take the sword? Who among you is left that is willing to try?”
Having not convinced the people up to this point that he would make a good leader, Arthur boldly, and with tremendous confidence, walked into the town square to pull the sword from the stone. Everyone was whispering, and a few were taking bets seeing if Arthur could pull Excalibur from the stone. Arthur confidently walked up to the stone, put his hands on the swords’ hilt, which activated the computer lock system, and he slowly pulled Excalibur from the stone. The people were shocked at first, but, then began cheering. Arthur wielded Excalibur for a few minutes, going through swinging, hacking, and thrusting motions with the sword, and then motioned for the townsfolk to calm down. Then he spoke, “People of Camelot. I have pulled Excalibur from the stone, so I am now your leader. What say you?”
The people chanted, “Arthur” and “Long live the King.” Arthur was now the undisputed leader of Camelot. Merlin spoke again, “A king needs knights that he can lead into glorious battle against the forces of evil. Who here among you is willing to be a Knight of the Round Table?”
Arthur had not heard this scheme from Merlin, but thought this Knights of the Round Table thing might be a really good idea. According to Merlin, the knights in good standing would gather around a round table, so that there would be no man who thought they were better than the others. Many men came forward to join the ranks of the knights, more than Merlin had expected. So Merlin did something unusual in the eyes of these humans in this time period, he interviewed each applicant, and tested their sword fighting skills. After doing the interviews, Merlin also worked on Excalibur to make it appear more magical to these primitive humans, and when he was done, he showed Arthur the sword, “I did some more work to Excalibur. Press the green button on the hilt, and see what happens,”
Arthur took hold of the sword, and pressed the small green button on the hilt. The sword lit up in an almost blinding, white glow, so Arthur asked, “What is this, some sort of glow saber kind of thing?”
“I would have to say yes, and no, Arthur. It’s supposed to strike fear in the hearts and minds of your enemies. I’ll later add a sound effect to increase the fierceness of the sword. Anyway, I thought it was a cool idea.”
“You do realize you ripped-off a wretchedly bad movie idea from a hundred years ago, don’t you? Next thing you’ll tell me, you’re some sort of ascended being with powers you’re not supposed to use. Come back to reality, Merlin, this is not science fiction.”
“Oh, I know that, but the townsfolk already think I have great powers, so acting like I have telekinesis, or the ability to appear, and disappear at will, isn’t going to do any harm. They won’t know about that movie, who is ever going to see it on Earth? I know what I’m doing, believe it or not. The next thing on your agenda though, is to meet your Knights of the Round Table.”
Arthur was introduced to his new knights the next day; his impression of them was that they all seemed like good, honorable men, and fierce warriors. Merlin was right about the more powerful looking Excalibur scaring enemies. In battle, some retreated rather than fight Arthur. The knights, and Arthur, fought Vikings and Danes; Arthur himself killed a lot of the invaders, increasing his legendary status among Saxons living near, and in Camelot. Merlin set up great adventures for the knights and Arthur to go on, giving the knights legendary status for themselves too. Sir Lancelot was considered the best of the Knights of the Round Table, and he always had the ear of Arthur whenever he had some pithy thought about another great adventure they should all go on, or how Camelot should be run.
Several years later, some strangers appeared in Camelot, who turned out to be a Terran military contingent. They were looking for Arthur and Merlin; when they were found in the castle, the Terran commander said, “Arthur and Merlin, you are hereby arrested for crimes against humanity. You are herby ordered to come back with us to Terra, to explain what you have done. Now, come with us.”
“Crimes against humanity? Seriously? What crimes have we done, exactly?” asked Merlin.
“Take a look around you. Setting up your own little kingdom, and using technology in battles against the Vikings, which we heard about because the rumors made it to Rome, which, naturally, ended up being heard by a scientist there. He contacted the Mars Outpost, and that’s why we’re here, because Terra’s government is not pleased. Now, come with us.”
“Wait! Can I address my subjects, and the Knights of the Round Table, one last time?” asked Arthur.
The commander sighed, and said, “Very well.”
Arthur called together Camelot, and everyone gathered together, to listen to what Arthur had to say, “People of Camelot, and Knights of the Round Table, hear me this day. These men are from my home country, and they are seeking the Holy Grail. They wish for me to go on a long journey with them to search for it, which will take many, many years. So, for my last official duty as king, I place Sir Lancelot as the new king of Camelot; follow him as you have followed me. Fare thee well Camelot, I wish all of you good and long lives.”
Arthur and Merlin left Camelot with the Terrans. They boarded a shuttle that was hidden a few miles away, which took them to a ship in orbit, and the ship headed for Terra. Once on Terra, the two men were brought before the Oversight for Earth Committee, who seemed like a bunch of stuffy old fools to Arthur and Merlin. The chairman of the committee, Senator Tyranous, began to talk the second both men sat down, “Arthur Pendragon, and Merlin Ambrosius, you have both been called here to explain yourselves, and why you decided to interfere in human affairs. Now, what say you?”
Merlin and Arthur looked at each other, Merlin shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant kind of way, so Arthur said, “We didn’t see any harm in doing what we did. We didn’t give them any of our technology, and they’re still just as primitive as before we arrived.”
“While you may not think you did harm, you gave some ideas to some of those Brits, what were they called? The Knights of the Round Table? Those Knights could get it into their heads that they could invade Europe, on some misplaced idea of a grand adventure, and then plunge the whole continent into another series of wars. Also, we’ve had to go in, and clean up the technology you left when you were arrested. Do you realize that because of your so-called adventure, we’ve had problems with others who want to do the same thing?”
“Well, that really isn’t our problem, Senator.” Merlin sarcastically said.
“Oh, you don’t think so, huh? It has been decided, until further notice, that only our official representatives will be on Earth. All tourism to Earth is now hereby forbidden for the foreseeable future. Merlin Ambrosius, and Arthur Pendragon, you two are now hereby subject to house arrest. This means that you’ll never be able to leave Terra, and you will be watched for the rest of your natural lives, no matter how long that takes. This Committee will now recess for twenty minutes.”
Both men were escorted to their individual homes, injected in their arms with a tracking chip so that they would be tracked anywhere on the planet, and told that if they ever leave Terra, the punishment would be severe, especially if they tried to return to Earth.
I am featured on the Excuse Me Miss website, and it has a scene from the novel, The Usurper. I have a bunch of scenes I could’ve used, but I went with this one:
Scene: The one aircraft that everyone was searching for was still in the air, and flying over Pennsylvania. Some of the passengers called their relatives from the jetliner, while the hijackers were still trying to turn Flight 93 around, so that the hijackers could fly into either the Capital, or the White House, the passengers on board were doing their best to take back the airplane with the help of the remaining flight crew. One of the men managed to get through to his wife in New Jersey, and said to her, “Hey, Diane, this is Jeff. Our plane has been hijacked; do you know what’s going on?”
“Thank God you’re all right. We had two terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and one on the Pentagon. There are reports that your plane is missing. What’s happening up there?”
“Some Arabic men killed the pilot and co-pilot, and then took over flying the plane. Those of us on board have decided to rush them, and try to wrestle control of the aircraft back from them. Can you call the City, or the State, to tell them what we’re doing and they can inform the Feds. Hopefully, the Air Force won’t shoot us down if they’re looking for us.”
“Ok, I can do that. I’ll pray for you. I love you. Good luck, Jeff.”
“Love you too.”
Jeff hung up his cell phone, and saw that the other men on board the plane were ready to take on the terrorists. They snuck up on the three that were guarding some of the passengers, smashed them on the head hard enough for the terrorists to pass out, and the three flight attendants helped to tie up, and gag the terrorists. Jeff and the others stormed the cabin. They began beating on the terrorists, pulling them out of their seats, while one of the Americans sat down in the pilot’s seat, and started flying the jet. Once they got the terrorists tied up, and gagged, Jeff sat in the co-pilot’s seat, and said to the new pilot while shaking his hand, “I’m glad that’s over with. My name is Jeff Harper by the way.”
“Nice to meet you too, Jeff. I’m Frank Childress, retired Air Force fighter jock. I have never actually flown a commercial airliner before, but, I’m certainly going to try. I turned the transponder back on, and Jeff, do you think you can work the radio?”
Jeff put on the earphones, and heard one of the control towers at one of the airports trying to contact them. He keyed the mike, and said, “This is United Flight 93. We have a situation here, over,”
“Flight 93? It’s good to hear your voice. This is Pittsburgh International Airport; I believe you’re just east of us. Is this the Captain?”
“No, this is Jeff Harper, I’m a passenger, and Frank Childress is currently flying the plane, but, he isn’t the pilot. We had some terrorists try to hijack this aircraft, but, we overpowered them, and now we’re in control. We’d like some instructions.”
“We were afraid that you guys had crashed. Have you heard about the terrorist attacks in New York and in Washington?”
“Yes, we have. Most of us called our loved ones before we took control of the airplane, and they told us. Are there any other hijacked airplanes out there we should know about?” asked Jeff.
“That’s a negative, Flight 93, all commercial aircraft in US airspace has been grounded. There are Air Force jets that are looking for you, and we’ll inform them that you’ve been found. We can guide you in for a landing here, there isn’t any airborne traffic now, so you’ll be able to land immediately. In ten minutes, you should be safely on the ground. We’ll have the FBI, Police, and whatever else we need, get here as fast as they can. Let me talk to Mr. Childress, so we can guide him in.”
My novel, The Usurper, was mentioned, along with quite a few other Indie authors, on mega Indie author J.A. Konrath’s blog, here: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/11/with-little-help.html Check out all the novels listed. All these authors would like to have more people read their novels, including myself.
I am very appreciative of the fact that Indie authors generally help each other out, and try to get each other recognized. From sharing posts about someone’s work on Facebook or Twitter, to learning from other, more successful indie authors on message boards or through books they have published about how to be a successful independent author. Being an Indie author is challenging, but rewarding, and through all the hard work you do through promotion, you can see it pay off through all the sales you may get. Being an indie also has the benefit of doing things your way, and you have nobody telling you what to do or how to write your stories.
Traditional publishers, like the old media, may hate having things get out of their control, but, with the internet, everything is now in the people’s hands. A person can publish on Kindle, Nook, or Smashwords fairly easily, and the paperback copy of the novel can be released a week later on Amazon if you publish it on Createspace. No more waiting around for months and months after you query a traditional publisher, and then getting rejected. Welcome to the 21st century where you can bypass the old media completely.
As of 10/23/2010, all three of my novels are featured on the Bargain eBooks website. Please check it out!
On Sunday and Monday, the 24th and 25th, The Usurper will be the Kindleboards Book of the Day. Here is the thread for the novel. Please check that out. Thanks!
on Amazon
You must be logged in to post a comment.