Contest Winners

About every three to four months I send out a somewhat glib and perhaps funny newsletter about the "goings on" in my career. 

And I always, always have a contest where I give away stuff (because there should be some payoff for reading my newsletter). My latest contest had three giveaways. Here's the first one followed by some of the more creative answers:

1. For everyone. A free signed copy of Empire of Ruins. Just answer the question "What is the airspeed of an African pigeon?" Be creative.

"Hmmm hard to come up with airspeed of African pigeons as you don't specify if the pigeon is actually flying at the time or even if it is in the hold of a 747. I think I'll have to split the difference and say.... the envelope please... the envelope?... give me the damn envelope 156 ppm (pigeons per minute). Fast, I know but that's the best estimation." "Zero…NATO has put up a no-fly zone." "Depends how hard it farts. :)"

2. For teachers only. A Box of Tribes. That's right if you answer this question properly "What is 2 + 2 - 4=" you will receive a class set of TRIBES, my anthropogical study of high school in a novel.

"2+2-4=0" "0 - which happens to be the name of one of the characters in Holes - one of our other favourite books (after all of yours)."

3. For everyone. A free copy of the ebooks Draugr and Dust. Just answer the question, "how much wood does a virtual eChuck chuck?"

"Virtually all of them !!" "A virtual forest is chucked by the eChuck." "The amount of wood a virtual echuck chucks, if a virtual eChuck could chuck wood, would be however much wood a virtual echuck chucks, whenever a virtual echuck would chuck wood." The Winners were: 1. Cameron from Regina 2. Harriet from Winnipeg 3. Elizabeth from Calgary

See the fun we have with my eNewsletter? Feel welcome to join in the winnings and fun by signing up below:

Cheers, Art

The Haunting of Drang Island on iBooks

Please don't let the cover scare you. I apologize if it causes you to recoil in fear. I just want to let you know that the book is now available on iBooks all across the world:
Just click here for the links to download it to your iPod or iPad (and if you have an iPad2 I don't want to hear about how great it is, okay? Some of us are completely happy with our first generation iPads, okay! Hmmph! There's nothing wrong with being old you ageist, iPad1 prejudiced person). Oh, did that I speak that last bit out loud? Art

How to Write, Lose Weight, and make Millions (Update)

Tempo Fitness 611T

Way back a long, long time (and twenty or so pounds) ago I added a treadmill to my desk. In fact the date was Feb. 9th, 2009 if you want to read that original post. Since then I haven't looked back. I do have a newer treadmill (a Tempo Fitness 611T) which I bought for $400.00 from Canadian Tire (it was on sale). I removed the plastic tray and added a wooden desktop (see below). The console detached nicely and could be attached to the top of the desk for easy access to the controls.

As you can also see I bought a wall shelf and that's where my iMac sits (I highly recommend the 27 inch monitor, it's so much better for editing and gaming). I use a wireless mouse and keyboard, very handy. I usually walk about 1.6kph (or 1mph) a very leisurely pace (I did walk faster, but due to an old knee injury this is the only speed I can maintain without extra stress on ligaments and such). I know everyone always wonders about numbers with authors. How many copies did your book sell? How many fan letters do you get? How much do you weigh? Okay, no one has asked how much I weigh (they're so polite). 

But here are the numbers:

Total number of hours walking since Jan 2009: 1320 hours Total distance travelled: 2568.12 KM's (or 1595 miles) Total number of books written: 2 1/4 Average distance traveled (per day): 5.5 km's (3.4 miles) Average calories burned daily: 450

Yes, I do actually have a chart:

When I started I weighed 197 pounds (I feel odd about mentioning my weight, but I'm male so I'm allowed to... funny society we have, eh?). I've reached that goal a few times, but always bounced back up. In fact I have a graph (isn't this exciting?).

 

The graph shows a big loss of weight at the start, then a bounce upwards (which is entirely natural, the body goes into starvation mode after a weight loss and so you don't have to eat as much to gain weight). Generally where the graph is lower it was summertime, so I was more active and it went back up in the winter (the last spike is from a week at an all inclusive resort in Mexico...mmmm). I now think that my "natural" weight is somewhere around 182 pounds. I'm happy with that. I do eat more healthy (I'm a Nutrition Action fan), but I am known to "snack" far too often and I have KFC once a year. The nice thing about the treadmill desk is when I pick up a Coffee Crisp I can ask myself is this chocolate bar worth walking for an hour and a bit? The answer is always yes.

But more importantly, how has this affected my writing? I am much more alert, can write for a longer period of time, and one of the side affects of consistent exercise is that it fights off depression (which is something a good number of we writers seem to struggle with, especially since the invention of Amazon rankings). I don't sit in my office chair unless it's a task that demands I sit. If I'm not walking, I'm standing at my desk. In all I feel that the constant exercise has added to my ability to multi-task and tweet.

It doesn't do much for cardio, so I do use an exercise bike most mornings. And Tai Chi when I remember to.

There you go....the update! All written while I was walking.

Art

 

Dust Breaks into the Amazon Kids top 100!

I don't usually update my blog twice a day, but something extremely interesting happened today on the ebook front. Just after I finished my last blog I noticed that my ebook had sold three copies. I thought great! Social networking actually works! Then at lunch time it had sold 10 copies on Amazon. Considering it had only sold 14 copies all last month, I thought this was a perfect start to the month. Then it jumped to 20 copies, then 30 copies, and 40 copies...

I was shocked. I couldn't figure out why there this sudden climb. So I went to kindleboards (it's a great place for writers with ebooks to chat) and Monique Martin was kind enough to point out that Dust had appeared on Pixel of Ink, a site that features free and bargain books.

So the result, at the time of this posting (5:25 PM April 1st, 2011), is that Dust has sold 56 copies and climbed from #62,700 on the Amazon rankings to #1117 (I can't help it, I really want it to break the #1000 barrier). It is the 80th bestseller in Children's Literature eBooks (near Cassandra Clare and PC Cast) and is #6 in Spine Chilling Horror (below Amanda Hocking and Stephanie Meyer). So, obviously, I have to say thanks for being my fairy godmother Pixel of Ink!

And, it's not an April fool's joke. That's the best part.

Although, I may have worn out my refresh button.

Best, Art

Ebook Experiment update

Well, I've sold 200,000 copies of my ebooks in the last two months. That's a so-so start but I'll have to live with it. Oh, wait, what's that you're saying? It's April 1st? You're right! How about I tell you the real amount. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

So, as many of you know, I've been dabbling in the ebook world. I started on Feb 5th (with the release of DUST) and so far I've converted 4 books to the various formats (if you want to read my previous post on this topic it's here):

Hey, they look kind of nice all lined up like that! I hired two artists to do the covers for the first three books (Derek Mah and Christopher Steininger, respectively)  and I put the cover of SHADES together myself using an image from iStock Photo. I then uploaded the books to Amazon, Smashwords, and iTunes. Each time I released a novel I, of course, tweeted and Facebooked about it (I describe some of my promotions here). 

And here are the results so far (cue the drum roll): 68 copies sold.

Okay, that's not amazing, but I'm pragmatic about these things. Somewhere in the back of my mind I, of course, was hoping to add a few more zeroes to that number, but apparently, like everything to do with writing, you actually have to work at this! My plan from the start was to see this not as a sprint, but as a marathon. After all, these books will be on the shelves forever.

Here's the breakdown:

Amazon US Draugr 13 Dust 7 (2.99) + 12 (.99) = 17 Shades 8 The Haunting of Drang 3 Total: 41

Amazon UK Dust 2 (2.99) + 2 (.99) = 4 Total = 4

Smashwords Draugr 6 Shades 2 Total = 8

iTunes Draugr 6 Dust 6 Shades 3 Total = 15

Grand Total = 68 copies

What the numbers tell me is that, of course, Amazon sells the most. And I am not reaching beyond my base yet (in fact I could probably name at least half the people who purchased the ebooks). I think this "expansion" will come over time as reviews of the books trickle down into the public consciousness and as the books pop up more often as "recommends" on Amazon. I'm really curious what the sales will be like six months from now. I do feel that the children's ebook market is still about two years behind that "grown up" market--just not that many young readers have ereaders yet.

All of the books are priced at $2.99 except for Dust which is .99 cents right now (I've explained my logic behind the lower price here). As you can see (just using the Amazon numbers) Dust has sold 9 copies at $2.99 and 14 copies at .99 cents. So obviously I'd make more money if I flipped it back up to $2.99. But I want to experiment with that price level for another month or so to see if the price point allows the book to get more traction.

Overall, I'm happy with the results. No, I won't be buying a new car. But I do consider this an investment in my future. And these books weren't making me any money before this so it really is a win win win situation.

I'll do another update at the six month mark. If things go well enough, I'll buy each of you a car (no money back guarantee).

 

Art

Worldwide eRelease of The Haunting of Drang Island

Today is the official re-release of my second novel The Haunting of Drang Island. All three books in the Northern Frights series have been out of print for several years now, so I'm glad to see the second book in the series rise like...uh...like a giant serpent out of the water. It's the story of a teen going on a holiday on Drang Island (near Vancouver Island), meeting a girl, and...well...a horrible haunting occurs (really, folks, the details are too scary to give you, but there are ghosts and apparitions and shades and Icelandic swear words---well, they sound like swear words).The cover is done by the amazingly talented Derek Mah. I really love the feel that he's given this series--scary, but somehow a little humorous. The book is intended for grade four and up and is being released in e-format only.

The Haunting of Drang Island came out in 1998 (that year Saving Private Ryan won the Oscar for best picture and the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley cup in case you were wondering). As I did with Draugr, I decided to keep the text as original as possible and only fixed a few grammatical mistakes and misspellings of Icelandic names. Just click on this link if you want to see the web page I've put up about the book.

I've priced The Haunting of Drang Island at $2.99. The last book in the series, The Loki Wolf will roaring to life soon.

Here are the eReader links: Kindle link (US & Canada) Kindle link (UK) All other eReaders.

In the next few weeks the book will also be available at B&N, iBooks, and Kobo. Thanks for being part of the worldwide release!

Art

P.S. Here's what the covers look like side by side. Doubly frightening!