Mamluk – Emergence

It is the middle of 2016, and Team Terran have achieved another milestone. Mamluk is complete!

It was mid 2013 when Mamluk was first conceptualized, and then shelved as my focus shifted back to the Terran Chronicles Universe. This proved to be a great decision, as my brand continues to gain recognition thanks to the yearly release of a new novel in the series. Even though the writing of Mamluk was on hold, I was still able to discuss various elements and features with a handful of close friends, and make notes.

An additional

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Author Feedback and the importance of Reviews

Reviews are an integral, and often important, part of most people's purchasing decisions. In the past, we would ask friends and family for their opinions on various things. These days, with the explosion of the internet phenomenon, we are able to get the thoughts and opinions of more people, sometimes a lot more people.

Massive companies spend vast amounts of time, effort, and energy, in capturing these reviews, so as to inform their customers that not only do they think their products they are selling are

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Demolition Derby Day

Demolition derbies are a blast to watch. Cars of all shapes and sizes race around a confined track, mashing into each other. Each driver attempts to keep their car running, so that they can cross the finish line first. Many cars get swept to one side, and end up stuck in protective mounds of dirt. Yet others find themselves hit so hard, that one part or another fails, rendering their vehicles 'out of the race'.

This year I paid special attention to one particular vehicle. Half Fast Racing's car number seven. Jeff and Austin own,

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Terran Chronicles - Initiation Series

For this month's blog, I shall indulge myself, and talk about the Terran Chronicles Universe.

The fourth book of the Terran Chronicles Universe releases on August 5th. This is a global release, such is the power available at the hands of the meekest of authors. The eBook version of this story will be available on Amazon, iTunes, and Smashwords on this day. Nook, Kobo, and Flipkart, will follow shortly thereafter.

Alliance took more than two years to write, and is my most ambitious effort to date. Many of the questions

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You need the right team behind you.

Product placement is the subtle, or sometimes not so subtle, inclusion of merchandise in a movie, photograph, or even in a book. An early example is in the novel, 'Around the World in Eighty days' where various transport companies made efforts to be mentioned.

Advertisers have constantly sought new and innovative ways to get the goods and services they represent in front of as many people as possible. While radio created some fresh prospects, the advent of television opened up a whole new medium. Advertisements began to

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Are social media friends, friends...  I think so.

Many years ago my wife and I started playing World of Warcraft, a game we played for almost seven years. Over the course of these years we became good friends with a number of other players. We used Ventrilo, a voice chat program, in order to communicate with each other as we played. Roll forward ten years, and even though I have not meet these people face to face, thanks to our many chatting sessions and the phenomenon that Facebook has become, I feel as though I know many of these people extremely

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James Jackon's Experience of Apple Publishing Directly to the iBookstore

Just like many indie authors, I am constrained as to what I can do in terms of self publishing. My home computer I write on is a Windows based system, which means publishing directly to Apple is not possible because the Apple publishing process requires an Apple Computer.  However there are companies that will, for a nominal fee, publish to Apple

Another hurdle for all authors is that most eBook libraries require each book and eBook to have an ISBN (International Standard Book

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Why change a website when it's already working.

Back in Nov 2012, I wrote a short blog called 'Websites. Why have one and who creates it?' It is now time to not only expand on this, but to follow through with what has been happening on the Terran Chronicles Website.

First of all, lets tackle the question of, 'why change a website?' Keeping things fresh is the first answer, but a key here is to do so without alienating the existing audience. People in general like to see new and exciting things, and yet find solace in familiarity. It's a tough

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Free ebooks and your marketing strategy.

This question not only plagues writers, but all artists, especially those who make a living from selling their creations.  When it comes to eBooks, there are quite a few opinions about 'giveaways' or 'free ebooks'. Some folks swear by the philosophy, stating that by giving away a whole pile of eBooks it can increase readership.

For example; Smashwords runs a yearly 'Read an eBook week' promotion in March. I like this quote from the smashwords blog.

"Each year, the event breaks sales, download and traffic

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No quiet time and my thoughts are everywhere.  Where do you start?

As far as writing goes I found myself falling into a pretty basic routine. I would get home from my day job, you know, the one that pays the bills, then cook a little something to eat. After relaxing in front of the TV, where I would usually watch an episode of one sci-fi show or another, and be mentally ready. This has been working for me for over two years now?

Ahh a single man you say, not at all, I am married to a wonderful woman. She normally works evenings, while I work days.

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A suddenly epiphany and I discovered my problem.

Living in northern Michigan affords me a great opportunity to write during the cold snowy months. This last winter I could have written thousands upon thousands of words, but I did not. My word count went from around a thousand per day to mere hundreds. I had expected to convert my summer motor bike riding time into some serious writing time. So what happened?

Have I been experiencing the dreaded writers block? I actually thought about this for quite a while, perhaps too long. I still wake up many

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Exposing your characters to the reader in an eBook Series.

Stories are defined by the characters within their pages. There is often a main character who portrays a hero and conversely a villain or two. Some stories involve groups of characters that have to overcome insurmountable odds to achieve the success of their goal. This goal could simply be to stay alive!

A conundrum for me is the continual development of each character as the storyline progresses. When do I reveal personal details or the background information upon which each one is built?

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Promoting the eBook series rather than the author.

This modern era is both a boon and a curse for writers. We ‘indie authors’ write, edit, publish, and market our own efforts. For better or worse, millions of eBooks are now available to the public. So how do we capture the interest of the discerning readers out there? Indie authors, by definition, do not have access to a pool of professional editors, nor the resources of a major publishing house, thus the question of quality will always hang in the air. Ultimately, the decision of when the work is good

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Writing is a Craft worth exploring - Why not give it a go?

Writing is not as easy as it first appears, books are filled with pages, themselves filled with words. Each of these words can involve a painstaking process of deliberation. Not everyone that plans to write a book or a series of books succeeds. The hidden difficulties are often enough to stop a potential author from completing their task.

The enormous investment of time is something that I am learning to appreciate. To date the Terran Chronicles Universe has taken many thousands of hours, years in

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The Next Big Thing -  The top 10 questions for an Author.

Thank you Scott Robinson for passing on the 'Next Big Thing Blog Hop' to me

Who knows what 'The Next Big Thing' will be? I feel that most writers believe their work could be it!. I know I do, and I do not say that with arrogance but rather with confidence. At the end of the day though, only you, the reader will decide what that will be. Part of this programme is to answer a few questions, to help provide a greater insight into an authors mind. Well what follows is but a glimpse into mine. Please

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It takes more than you think and that's before you start thinking about a website

As for why have a website at all? Well to me, it's important for readers to have somewhere to go where they can glean more information. The website allows me to add elements to the series that are extraneous to any one story. It becomes a collation of data where people can quickly glance at various races and spacecraft that are mentioned throughout the series.

Who creates your website? As a writer who still works full time, I ran into a number of issues when it came down to

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Using social media to expand your contact with like minded people and those interested in your work.

Social media is a very important tool when it comes to promoting your work and the work of others. This not only applies to writers, and artists, but to anyone that is trying to let the world know they exist. This month I am going to touch base on the three most common social media outlets of Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Though there are many more outlets, such as the Amazon author page, for now I will just focus on these three which offer a world of

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Write or Re-write? That is the question?

There are a number of thoughts on this matter. One concept, is that the book should be left alone, as it reflects the skill level at the time of release. Another is that any and all errors should be corrected. Somewhere in between exists reality.

For the Terran Chronicles saga we have expanded the team to include a finishing editor. Thus we have a storyline editor, a group of test readers and now this finishing editor. After I finish writing there are eight people that review my work. For my first book, 'First Contact',

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OK, so you have written a great book, it's available on all the popular platforms... Now what?

Well for starters the work is now just beginning. Did you aim at a cheap $0.99 option to get mass sales, or a high price to maximize profits from each sale? I went for the middle of the road at $3.99, let me explain my reasoning. Firstly, after all expenses this provides about $1.00 in the authors pocket. No! You say. Well, most companies will take thirty percent off the top (or more), then there are taxes to consider. What about hidden costs such as; printing test

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