How Much Is Too Much?

You'll want to swing by more often than normal for the next week or two. I'll be announcing a contest in the next day or two and after that there will be cover reveals for the next Alec and Adri book (Forsaken) and the third Guadel Chronicles book (Brittle Bonds).

In the meantime, I have another topic that has been rattling around in my head for a few weeks now. One of the challenges that comes along with social media is exactly how much familiarity a given individual should incorporate into their ‘professional’ persona. I've debated this a little and it seems like it’s probably past time for me to formalize what I've been doing so that you all have an idea of what I’m trying to accomplish.

One possible route would be to do like David A. Wells has done and have no interaction with his fan base (at least not that I can see). He has a webpage and occasionally adds an update post, but I couldn't find anywhere that he had an e-mail address and I haven’t seen him respond to fans on the Amazon forums yet.

Another route would be to just throw everything about me up where you could all see it. Some celebrities seem to get a lot of mileage out of that approach, but I think it requires a personality type that I don’t have. Plus I’d rather you just buy my books because that’s what you like to read, not because I've created some kind of personality cult (even assuming I could pull that off, which is very doubtful).

In between those two extremes is an almost infinite continuum. Obviously I’m not interested in the flamboyant cram-me-and-my-opinions-down-your-throat approach, but I’m also finding that I legitimately enjoy interacting with my readers to the extent that time permits. I like responding to the occasional e-mail and getting your take on a given book. As more and more of you arrive, there may come a time when I have to take a more David A. Wells approach, but for now this is my general plan:

My mailing list e-mails will just be straightforward communications to let you all know that something I've written is now available for purchase, either because it’s a new release or because I've managed to get it out in a new format. I won’t tell you when I found a new series I like, I won’t go on and on about my writing process or anything else that you might not want to hear about, but you’ll always be the first to know when I've got a new book up for you to go take a look at.

My blog will be a bit more familiar and you’ll get a bit more of ‘Dean’ in it. I’ll stay away from religion and politics, but you’ll probably get semi-regular updates about how things are going with my latest work in progress; and when I find a new epic fantasy, urban fantasy, or YA paranormal romance series that really blows me away, I’ll probably let you all know. You’ll always find out when something new goes lives, but generally a few days behind the mailing list, mostly because I tend to batch blog information so there isn’t a new post every couple of days.

Twitter will tend to be a bit more random. You’ll get the occasional ‘Holy cow I just added x,xxx words to xyz manuscript type posts and a bit more interaction with some of you readers that choose to drop me a tweet from time to time.

I hope that helps a little and gives you all a chance to ‘self-select’ what kind of information you get from me.

If there is something you would like to see added to the blog please let me know in the comments to this post. Some of you have e-mailed asking more about my writing process and I've answered those as one-offs, but if a lot of you are curious about something, I’m happy to try and work in a blog post about it, it just make take a while for me to get to it (Sorry Louise).

I've considered trying to add some forums in here (possibly on a new site entirely), but I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in them, and right now I don’t have time to take on another side project. Let me know what you think :)

--Dean

The Blurb for Trapped

Hello, everyone.  I'm currently tearing my hair out as I try to craft the blurb for Trapped, so I thought it might be fun to see what all of you think.

My four best attempts so far are below-please use the comments section to let me know which is your favorite!

Attempt 1:
Kristin had her future all mapped out.  She just needed to finish off her last two years of high school and then she was almost certain to swap her existence in small-town Idaho for four years at Harvard or Princeton.

Rather than continuing along her carefully planned route, she’s now running for her life from a threat that she couldn’t have even imagined just a few days before. Her pursuer is relentless, and her only hope is the handsome stranger who has managed to keep her alive so far.  Before their flight is over Kristin will find out just how big of a sacrifice is going to be required for them to survive.

Attempt 2:

Ash appeared out of nowhere and saved Kristin from a threat that didn’t belong in her small-town world of classes and test prep.  Their pursuer is a relentless killing machine that Kristin is starting to suspect is unstoppable. Her situation is too bleak to be thinking beyond the next hour, but more and more Kristin finds herself attracted to her mysterious savior.  The more drawn she is to Ash, the more she realizes what each of them is going to have to sacrifice if they are going to have a chance to be together. 

Attempt 3:

Anton is a nearly unstoppable killing machine.  He’s spent the last two hundred years killing whomever he wants, but when he targets Kristin, a small-town teenager, he’s foiled for the first time in decades.

Ash is an exile.  Stronger and faster than any normal human, he’s still forced to keep a low profile to avoid tangling with all of the things out there that are even more dangerous than he is.  He knew Anton was trouble, but he still couldn’t bring himself to let that kind of monster kill her.

Kristin only ever wanted a normal life, college and then a good job in a big city somewhere.  She didn’t count on Ash or the way that she would start to feel about him as they ran for their lives.  They are in too much danger to let emotions get in the way, but neither Ash or Kristin can help the attraction growing between them.

Attempt 4:

Kristin has always been firmly grounded in reality.  Trading in small-town Idaho for an Ivy-League school wasn't going to be an easy proposition and making it happen wasn't going to leave her time for unnecessary things like crushes on boys.

Kristin is about to find out that all of the creatures she thought were nothing more than myth are actually quite real.  One of the worst of them is after her, an unstoppable killing machine that will chase her across a continent.

Kristin is completely out of her depth.  Her one hope is a mysterious guy with dangerous skills and a dark past.  He's the kind of guy that Kristin knows she shouldn't get involved with, but as their attraction grows it becomes apparent that being with him is going to require an even bigger sacrifice than she realized.

The Greater Darkness is Live!

I'm happy to announce that Greater Darkness is now available for purchase!

As I've indicated in past blog posts, I’m releasing this one under a pen name because it’s a bit darker than Broken, Torn or The Guadel Chronicles.  Torn is a bit heavier on the action and lighter on the romance than Broken.  The Greater Darkness is even a bit lighter still on the romance and heavier on the action than Torn.  Because of that I didn't want people to buy it based on my name without first giving them a heads up that it is a bit of a departure from the other stuff I've written.  That being said, while the romance isn't as strong in this book, it sets the stage for not one, but three separate love stories, so for those of you that like romance that is a bit more subtle and which develops slowly, over the course of several books, this could still be right up your alley.

I've actually written three different blurbs for The Greater Darkness, one focusing on the action, and one more focuses on one of the romances that it lays out in this installment.  I wasn't quite happy with either of those options so I've got a third blurb that tries to combine both elements.  Without further delay, here are the setups.

Balanced (Combined) Setup:
Something powerful is stirring in the darkness.  Something so ancient that even creatures who've been alive for hundreds of years have long since discounted this new threat as nothing more than myth.

Geoffrey knows even less than most about this rising menace.  His memories were all violently ripped away from him, leaving nothing of his past but dreams containing haunting glimpses of a beautiful girl.

A chance encounter offers up a possible link to his past, but forces beyond his control are threatening to push him into the middle of a conflict that could sweep away everything, and everyone he’s been fighting so hard to protect.

This time, saving the girl may very well cost Geoffrey his soul.

Action Setup:
Something powerful is stirring in the darkness.  Something so ancient that even creatures who've been alive for hundreds of years have long since discounted this new threat as nothing more than myth.

Normal humans will be caught in the crossfire, but then that's always the way of things.  Geoffrey has no memory of his past life or any idea how to survive in the violent, dangerous world in which he's trapped. Despite his best efforts, he's about to find himself in the middle of a conflict that threatens to sweep away everything, and everyone he's been fighting so hard to protect.

Romance Setup:
Geoffrey’s memories were all violently ripped away from him, but his dreams still contain haunting glimpses of a beautiful girl that he somehow knows was important to him.

Forces beyond his control are quickly arraying against him but he can’t abandon his one possible tie to his past life.  He knew going in that it might cost him his life, but now he’s realizing that his determination to save the tiny flame of goodness she represents, might cost him his soul.

The Greater Darkness is available at the following retailers:
Amazon US ($4.99)
Amazon UK (GBP 3.00)
iTunes ($4.99)
Barnes & Noble ($4.99)
Kobo ($4.99)
Smashwords ($4.99)

My Favorite New Epic Fantasy

Some of you will have read some of my early interviews and blog posts where I talk about how excited I got after reading the first two Twilight books.

I recently found a new epic fantasy series that I really love and I wanted to share it with those of you who have read and loved The Guadel Chronicles.  Partly that is because I think it’s a good match taste wise with the Guadel Chronicles, partly it’s because I've enjoyed the series (so far) a ton, and partly it’s because this is exactly the kind of thing that I appreciate all of you fans and super fans doing for my writing.  I guess this is me trying to pay it forward a little even though by all appearances Mr. Wells is doing quite well and doesn't really need me cheerleading for him. :)

Without further ado, the series is The Sovereign of the Seven Isles and the first book is titled Thinblade.

Here’s the setup from Amazon:
When second son Alexander Valentine loses his brother to an assassin’s arrow, he discovers that his family protects an ancient secret and reluctantly finds himself at the center of the final battle of a war that was supposed to have ended two thousand years ago.

Pursued by the dark minions of an ancient enemy, Alexander flees to the mountain city of Glen Morillian where he discovers that he is the heir to the throne of Ruatha, one of the Seven Isles, but before he can claim the throne he must recover the ancient Thinblade. Seven were forged by the first Sovereign of the Seven Isles and bound to the bloodline of each of the seven Island Kings in exchange for their loyalty to the Old Law. Each sword is as long as a man’s arm, as wide as a man’s thumb and so thin it can’t be seen when viewed from the edge. Thinblade is the story of Alexander’s quest to find the ancient sword, claim the throne of Ruatha and raise an army to stand against the enemy that has awoken to claim dominion over all of the Seven Isles.

My Thoughts:
I’m not sure why I picked Thinblade up.  Frankly I didn’t love the cover and I thought it was probably going to be one of those stories where the ‘magical sword’ was overpowered and ruined the balance of the book.  I couldn't have been more wrong!

David A. Wells knows how to tell a story.  He’s got a tremendous amount of back story behind the novel, but he doesn't just dump it on you all at once.  Nope, instead you get bits and pieces as the story goes on.  It leaves you wanting more, which I think is exactly the way to treat back story.

Wells also knows how to balance a world.  He’s got magic and magical items scattered all over the series, but none of them felt overpowered to me.  Instead I almost felt like a kid at Christmas as I went through the series.  I just couldn't wait to see what neat new toy the main characters unwrapped next.

The characters were very believable and three dimensional too.  It was just a dang good book.

Here are links to the first book at Amazon.  Unfortunately it looks like Mr. Wells has chosen to go exclusive with Amazon.  Hopefully he’ll change his mind sometime in the near future and get his books out to all of the other retailers.  If you click on the below link and buy I’ll make something like $.06, but I’m putting the affiliate code in there more because I’m curious to see how many people go buy off of my recommendation.  Maybe someday I’ll meet Mr. Wells and be able to tell him that I helped grow his reader base by a couple of hundred of the best fans in the world!

--Dean

Buy Thinblade from Amazon ($.99)

Reviews & Ratings

I really appreciate all of you that have taken the time to leave ratings or reviews.  The iTunes users seem to be way in the lead with more than 350 reviews of Broken so far, but Kobo seems to have 200+ with a bunch imported from Goodreads :)

If any of you that are reading this haven’t done a rating or a review of one or two of my books, it would really mean a lot to me if you could take five minutes and do a review/rating or two.  Going into the Christmas season it could make a difference as far as how many readers decide to take a chance on a very unknown author like me as they start filling up their new e-readers, tablets and smartphones.

Here’s links to my author page on some of the retailers where significant numbers of books have sold:

Amazon (US)

iTunes 

Barnes & Noble

Sony

Kobo

Audible

Thanks again everyone.  I know that life can get pretty busy so I really appreciate all of you that have taken, or are taking, time to do this now.

--Dean

October Status Update & Cover Reveals:

Wow, by the time that this goes live another three weeks will have gone by since the last blog post.  I’m putting off my Dropbox/Sugarsynch post because frankly most of you probably couldn’t care less and I haven’t had time to write it. I will eventually put a brief bit up there though because I a few of you might read it and decide it was useful information after all.  If I can save a couple people from a meltdown when their hard drives fail, that’s a worthwhile thing to do.

New Cover:
Since the last time we talked, Katie came up with a new cover for Frozen Prospects.

The original e-book cover we had done isn’t high enough resolution to do a print edition and I wasn’t able to get a response back from the original cover artist, so Katie whipped (because it’s that easy right ;) up another version, which I actually like better.  I think it’s a bit harder and more realistic than the original one and I like the sword better :)  You’re getting the full print, wraparound cover here which reminds me that I need to find a few hours to finish up the work still outstanding for the Frozen Prospects and Thawed Fortunes print editions.  I had to start back over for a few different reasons and they just haven’t been as high of a priority as getting new material written and edited.  I’m still hoping that I can squeeze them in before Christmas, but I expect that you’ll all have your shopping done by the time they finally go live.

Next Book:

The Reflections book that I’ll be releasing under a pen name is back from the editor and I’ve been trying to squeeze it in little by little at the end of the day once I’ve hit my word count goals.  It’s still a little ways off, but it's getting very close!

Lone Wolf:

Lone Wolf has a final name (Trapped) and it’s now off to an editor.  You’ll all be glad to know that despite Katie not being overly enthused about the original concept she’s now read the rough draft and she thinks that it’s a great addition to the universe.  Not only are the characters pretty cool, and the plot sprinkled with plenty of action and romance, I went back and filled in a few more tidbits about the shape shifter lore and legend.  I suspect that there are some of you out there not planning on picking this one up because it’s not directly about Alec and Adri.  All I can say is please at least go download a sample when it goes live.  I think it’s some of my best writing yet and it sets the stage for the next Alec and Adri book in some pretty fundamental ways.  When all was said and done, I went back and added another 10% or so to Trapped.  The scene that I was on the fence about went in and I juiced up a pretty important fight scene.

Broken Audio:
The audio book version of Broken is now live:

Every time I write a bit of dialogue for Dominic I now hear the narrator, Sandy Rustin’s, rendition of Dom's accent!

That’s the last of the audio books that are currently on the to-do list.  I’m sorry for those of you that really love audio books.  They are a huge investment compared to the return so far.  As they continue to sell I’ll happily revisit the decision :).

Pick it up from:
Amazon (US)
Audible
iTunes

Frozen Prospects Push:
 A few weeks ago I contacted a bunch of sites that feature free books.  The hope was that it would bring in some more readers and help make the release of Guadel Chronicles #3 even more of an event.  It’s worked, not as well as I’d hoped, but every little bit helps.  Those of you who haven’t tried The Guadel Chronicles out ought to go download it and see what you think.

The Next Alec and Adri Book:
As of Oct 18th when I’m revising this, I’ve completed just under 94,000 words over the course of 17 working days (20 calender days) and the rough draft is officially done! I have to say that I’m very pleased with how this one came together.  There are a lot of ‘breadcrumbs’ scattered throughout this one as far as important things, people, and events that will be happening later on in the Reflections universe.  I’d like to go on and on right here but I’d better stop.  Let’s just say that I really, really hope that this one blows everyone away.  We’ll see what Katie says, but I think that my writing has noticeably improved with this one and Guadel #3.

As always, thanks for all you each do to help spread the word!

--Dean

New Dark Reflections Short Story "True Believer" is Live!

It's been a hectic three and a half weeks since my last post, so I've got a few things to update everyone on.  First, I've finished the rough draft of the third book in the Guadel Chronicles.  So far it weighs in at a little over 73,000 words.  By comparison Broken was nearly 128,000 words, Torn was about 89,000 words, Frozen Prospects was just under 65,000 and Thawed Fortunes is a tad over 75,000 words.  If you disregard about 5,000 words which I wrote months ago before I got busy with all of the audio book work, I wrote this most recent book over 17 working days across 21 calendar days.

I do outline before I pick up a book, but I never know exactly how all of the pieces are going to play out when I start so it's always a little bit of a leap of faith every time I start a new book.  We'll see what I think when I go back and start through my editing passes on Guadel #3, but so far I'm reasonably happy, with how everything turned out, and I've worked through a couple of points in my head that were outstanding question marks as far as how I was going to go about doing book #4.  For now I've set Guadel #3 aside; I'll need a month or so of space before I can go back and have a hope of being objective when I start editing.

Last week I finished reading through 'Lone Wolf' for the first time since I finished up the rough draft.  It weighs in at a tad over 50,000 words (I think Splintered was about 40,000 words if I remember correctly), so it's a relatively quick read, but I'm likewise happy with how it turned out overall up to this point.  I think I probably will end up adding in at least one more scene before all is said and done.  It would give me a way to demonstrate a little more of my female lead's strength and would mix the settings up a little, but I'll need to think it over a little bit before I open the manuscript back up and start making changes to it.  It always seems like those types of changes are some of the most challenging to write because you have to make sure that as you transition to the new scene that you don't lose anything else that you needed and that you don't duplicate something that you've already got in there.  As you can tell, I'm on the fence a little bit, so in the end I'll probably just wait to see what Katie thinks before I go and make changes.

My 'other' Reflections novel is still out to editing, to be followed by beta readers and then by another round of proofing, but I've pretty much decided to release this one under a pen name.  I'm not going to keep it a secret from you guys here on this blog, but this one is a bit darker than the other stuff that I've done in the Reflections world so far and I don't want it to catch anyone by surprise.  I guess I'd say Reflections so far has been PG-13 lite, while this other book is PG-13 still but on the heavier end of the scale.  I'll keep you all posted as it gets closer to a release date so that you can each decide whether or not you're interested in reading it.  It won't feature Alec or Adri, instead introducing a number of new characters, one of which will make a brief appearance in the next Alec and Adri book (big hint, the character in question is a pretty central individual as far as some of the later novels go, but I'd better not say anything else because I'm not quite sure still how quickly I'll develop this character).

I lost a hard drive in my desktop a few days before I finished up Guadel #3, which was incredibly frustrating in that it means that I'm working on my laptop instead (much, much, slower), but I was able to avoid being forced to entirely stop working because I use  Dropbox  and  SugarSync  to keep my files synched across multiple devices and backed up in 'the cloud'.  Katie always tells me that I have more computer problems than anyone else she knows, which I don't think is entirely fair, but I have to say that this round of problems has, so far, been much less painful than the preceding rounds.  At the risk of veering too far off of topic, some of you may want to check one or both of the two programs above out.  They both provide several gigs of free storage and then as you need more than that you can upgrade to a paid account.  Full disclosure, if you sign up through the links above I'll get some free storage (I don't really need it as things stand right now, but now that I'm writing full time and getting into alternate channels and formats, you never know how fast I'll start filling up my hard drive.)  I'll do another post in a day or two around how I've got my backups setup so those of you that aren't interested can just skip over it.

Did my announcement that True Believer was live in the headline keep you reading until now?  I didn't actually set out to write the post that way, but all of the other things that have been happening just kind of bubbled up to the top of the post.  Without further ado, True Believer is now live.

Here's the Setup:

Thrust into a supernatural world populated by shape shifters, werewolves, and even darker things, Adam no longer knows who he can trust.

Alec Graves saved his life and thereby earned his service, but Adam continues to worry that Alec is no better than the things he claims to be fighting.

Adam’s been assigned his next job.  Alec claims that the target is a ruthless group of vampires, but Adam isn’t so sure such a thing really exists.  He’s either about to gun down a bunch of innocents or walk alone into the home turf of a group of creatures that could easily rip him in half.

Neither option seems particularly smart, but Adam’s not entirely sure Alec’s minions are going to let him pass on this assignment.

True Believer is another Dark Reflections short story and you can currently get it on:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
B&N
Smashwords

Still to come will be Apple, Kobo, Sony and Diesel.  I'm still planning on going direct to Kobo and Apple at some point in the near future, but my understanding is that going direct to Kobo isn't going to work very well for short stories, and I'll need to have an Apple computer to go direct to Apple.  I'm working on that last bit, but it's probably going to take a while before that happens.  I'll definitely be pushing to check that off though before I put up Guadel #3 and the next Alec and Adri story.