The Wednesday Report - The 1st Month (For Those Interested)

So, wow... It's been 1 month already and she's 2 likes from 100. That's nice, right? Yes! In fact... it's pretty sweet.

But that aside... I'm making this post to document a little bit of what this first month has brought... performance-wise over all. 

The down and dirty number:

Review copies sent: 30

Copies Sold:

41 Amazon Kindle

7 Borrowed (on Kindle/KU)

11 Print

That means there are 89 copies of Wednesday floating around now, out in the world...

7 reviews on Amazon.com with an average of 4.9 of 5 stars.

17 ratings/10 reviews on Goodreads with an average of 4.71 of 5 stars.

What are those readers/reviews saying?


"I guarantee once you pick it up you won't want to put it down."

"Grabs you right away and doesn't let go til the last page."

"I couldn't put it down."

"The story moves at a fast pace and feels quite intimate and intense."

Author Jean Booth posted this on my Facebook wall. Floored me... then made me laugh my butt off.

#4
Seriously... #4. Can you believe that?

(My Shameless Plug For The 99 Cent Weekend Sale)

There were certainly some bumps in the road... and finding a path to the readers for this book has been less than simple... but I believe that even after editing... the story that needed to told was told... and she's out there now and going. I didn't have the science fiction / horror / paranormal genre communities behind this one... and outside of those genres, my comfort zone, I really was behind the eight-ball trying to get Wednesday recognized... but she's growing in spite of that...

I can do nothing but thank all of you who have read... who have shared, liked, supported, read, reviewed, rated, and sent photos with the book! Seriously! All over the US... and the world... thank you all so very much!

Head over here: https://www.facebook.com/WednesdayNovel and show her some love... if you have a minute! 

You can scroll down and check out some of those awesome reader pics here:

I really do have the very best readers. No lie!

You can write a book, but can’t write a tweet or post? What are you telling readers?

You have imagination but lack personality?

You're an introvert?

Perhaps...

Rachel Thompson happens to be one of my personal heroes. She's an amazing writer, making her a standout author, and she happens to be a tremendously wonderful person to boot. I couldn't possibly tell you all the nice things I have to say about her in this post alone... it would be extremely long, and at the end you'd think I was little more than a squealing fan boy. Which I must admit, I am. However, dear Rachel posted this to a social media account and for a moment when I read it... it stung.

I am all too familiar with the "Buy this!", "Click here", and "Give your Time/Attention/Money" posts that fill up my newsfeeds. I don't like them. I often simply ignore them, and in some cases I even block them. However, it leaves me (and I don't think I'm alone here) in an awkward spot. I write. I have books I'd like to tell people about. I absolutely suck at social media. So... yeah.

Here's how it works for me:

This is MS Word. 

It is a blank document. I see it as a challenge. I see this blank page and I can't wait to fill it, and countless others after it, with the stories... the words and the voices that are in me clawing to get out. What does that make me? A writer? An Author? Crazy?

I tend to think, from time to time, that I am all of those (and a few more I won't list).

I've told stories in person and on paper since I was a very small child. I have an over active imagination... or, you know, demons possessing my brain... whatever... I have these huge (sometimes) sweeping story arcs, and deep and twisted characters, as well as messages and emotions that I feel I absolutely must share.

I don't really have a lot of say in the matter. I could choose to not write (or type) them... but then I'm sure I would go quite mad.

With that said, it should be obvious that I am a creature of words... of language... of communication. Right? Well... only in the right circumstance. When is a blank text box with a blinking cursor scary?

This is Twitter.

It is a blank document. It can only contain 140 characters. I see it as I once saw the school yard bully when I was five years old. It is intimidating. The limited words I put here directly engage other people. What If I type the wrong thing? What if there's a typo? What if I sound stupid?

This isn't a story I'm telling... it's a conversation I'm starting. A conversation with people I may know, I may not know well, or I may not know at all.

I was never the guy at the party to randomly chat people up (unless I was several rum and cokes in) and this is even bigger... it's global.The anxiety it creates is enormous. But guess what? If I don't participate in it... then I have no hope of building a readership. I have no hope of getting my stories, the ones I so much love to tell, out to anyone. We live in a world now that requires such networking to be successful. So... I bite my lip... I type... and I hit the "Tweet" button, or the "Post" button on Facebook, or the "Publish" button on my blog.

It scares the ever-living hell out of me. But I do it. Because I must. Perhaps there will come a day when social media will be a joy... but I haven't the foggiest notion of when or how that will come to be. (I'll gladly welcome your thoughts on the matter though.)

The point of this post, though, now that I've come to it, is this:

If you have a book... or books... or a film... or a business, or art, or photography, or anything else in the world that you create and want to share with the world. Just do it.

Seriously.

Just put it out there however you can.

Even something as simple as this:

Bite your lip and power through. If I can do it then anyone, and I do mean anyone, can do it. It may not be easy, but you can... and you must. You owe it to your creations... you owe it to the world that will admire or enjoy them.

It doesn't matter what your art... your creation... your something to share actually is... you may not feel good sharing it... it may be difficult... it may even make you feel sick to your stomach or make your skin crawl (it has for me a few times)... but you still have to. (Maybe just not every ten minutes or with the "Buy this!", "Click here", and "Give your Time/Attention/Money" stuff involved.)

How else will the world find out? How will they know what you have to share... unless you share it?

That's my .02 on the matter. Your Mileage may vary.

-Dennis

Five Authors You May Not Already Be Reading... But Should Be.

I've done this once before, almost two years ago, and it was well received. So well received, in fact, that it's been the most viewed post on my blog. I figured it was about time that I do it again -- a bit of an update, if you will. 

It bears repeating, I feel, that I've always been an avid reader. Thanks to my mother's efforts I was reading daily more than a year before beginning school. It's been a part, and a vitally important one, for as long as I have memory. Books... Stories... these have always been my favorite things. Fictional worlds and characters were my escape as a child and remain so to this day. My love of reading lead directly to my love of storytelling and thus my own writing, but I still can't get away from reading the work, the art, the worlds created by others.

I have friends, kids, and a lot of demands on my time. I find that as I get older there seem to be more and more of those demands, in fact. None-the-less, I cannot stop reading. I love it, and I'd like to believe it loves me.

How my TBR pile feels...

My lack of time, though, has proven to have a very real consequence on the reading that I'd like to do. I get... no, I stay behind. I know I'm not the only one with a "to be read" pile of books that just seems to get more and more daunting. As much as I hate it, I've been forced to become even more selective than ever before when picking my next new read. It's a sad, but unfortunately true, state of affairs.

This "picky reading" I've been forced into has had an unexpected side effect. I now feel some strange sense of duty to others, who might well be in a similar position, to share the brightest of lights that I come across in my reading. I've done that before... so, I'm doing it again. Since it was five that I recommended last time I decided to do five again (even if there were a few others I felt I really should talk about as well).

So to be clear... I have listed below, in no particular order, five authors who I feel are more than worth your time. I highly recommend all five of them. I've listed them with links to their websites, facebook pages, goodreads, twitter, amazon pages, etc. 

I really hope that you enjoy their work. I know I have.

-Dennis

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Rachel Thompson

Rachel Thompson is the amazing author of the award-winning Broken Pieces, as emotional work of art, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed. Rachel is published and represented by Booktrope. She owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says…), 12Most.com, bitrebels.com, BookPromotion.com, and Self-Publishers Monthly. Rachel is the creator and founder of #MondayBlogs and #SexAbuseChat and an advocate for sexual abuse survivors. She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. She lives in California with her family.

The best place to start with Rachel Thompson's work, in my opinion, would be with Broken Pieces. (Cover shown on right)



Rachel Thompson on Goodreads
Rachel Thompson on Amazon
Rachel Thompson on Facebook
Rachel Thompson on Twitter
Rachel Thompson's Website


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Allie Burke

An American novelist from Burbank, California, Allie Burke writes books she can't find in the bookstore. Having been recognized as writing a "kickass book that defies the genre it's in", Allie writes with a prose that has been labeled poetic and ethereal.

Her life is a beautiful disaster, flowered with the harrowing existence of inherited eccentricity, a murderous family history, a faithful literature addiction, and the intricate darkness of true love. These are the enchanting experiences that inspire Allie's fairytales.

From some coffee shop in Los Angeles, she is working on her next novel.

A good place to start with Allie Burke's books, in my opinion, would be with Paper Souls - her powerful look at life, and at schizophrenia. (Cover shown on right)



Allie Burke on Goodreads

Allie Burke on Amazon
Allie Burke on Facebook
Allie Burke on Twitter
Allie Burke's Website


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Nicholas Denmon

Nicholas Denmon studied English at the University of Florida. He started story telling from the moment he could talk and has spent a lifetime perfecting the art.

His life has been varied, giving him no shortage of material. Some of his unique experiences include growing up with a schizophrenic mother, having six brothers and sisters (of which he is the middle-younger child), a perfectionist father, an evil step-mother, a college life to rival Tucker Max, and working for politicians on the Presidential as well as local stage. He has been, at times, a devout Catholic, a closet atheist, and an honorary member of the Jewish tribe.

Nick's joy of art knows little in the way of limitations, as he loves unique paintings, music, acting, film, and of course writing.

A good place to start with Nicholas Denmon's books, in my opinion, would be with For Nothing (An Upstate New York Mafia Tale #1). (Cover shown on right)


Nicholas Denmon on Goodreads
Nicholas Denmon on Amazon
Nicholas Denmon on Facebook
Nicholas Denmon on Twitter
Nicholas Denmon's Website




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David Dalglish

David Dalglish was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, then moved to the small town of Purdy, Missouri when he was about four years old. Purdy’s claim to fame is a Supreme Court fight over whether or not the school could forbid dancing. The anti-dancers won.

He was a bookworm growing up. Solid A’s, was reading Crichton and Clancy by the fourth grade. Thankfully he had a very supportive family, ones who nurtured and cherished his intellect.

David graduated from Missouri Southern State University in 2006 with a degree in Mathematics. When trying to be productive, and stave off returning to working fast food, he writes and self-publishes various fantasy novels, of which he's sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

He also has a lovely wife and two beautiful daughters, with all three being far better than he deserves.

A good place to start with David Dalglish's books, in my opinion, would be with A Dance of Cloaks (Shadowdance 1). (Cover shown on right)



David Dalglish on Goodreads
David Dalglish on Amazon
David Dalglish on Facebook
David Dalglish on Twitter
David Dalglish's Website



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S.K. Whiteside

S.K. Whiteside is a Mythic Fiction writer of Contemporary Urban & Historical Fantasy. As a full time Mental Health Therapist, she started writing in Academia but decided writing about things on the "other side of the veil" was not only profitable but a lot more interesting. Her earlier works are Paranormal Erotic Romance under a pen name that she continues to explore writing to this day. Living in the Paranormal capital of the world makes it fairly easy for her to come up with characters, many of which are based off of real personas in her life that she can't help but carry over into her writing.

Writer and lover of all things dark and mysterious - most of her stories have a background in Egyptian Mythology with a modern day adaptation and unique twist. Her Charismatic characters and snarky banter often derive from the various personas of those she loves and the voices in her head...

When not writing she spends her time telling everyone else in the world that they are completely bonkers but yet she often channels Napoleon Bonaparte. During her down time she pokes at the massive giant whom holds her captive and runs from two monsters that she swears are out to kill her. Some people call them her husband and children but she knows the truth...

A good place to start with S.K. Whiteside's books, in my opinion, would be with Inheritance (The World of the Guardians Book 1). (Cover shown on right)



S.K. Whiteside on Goodreads
S.K. Whiteside on Amazon
S.K. Whiteside on Facebook
S.K. Whiteside on Twitter
S.K. Whiteside's Website

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Click to read my original post: "Five Up-and-Coming Authors You Might Not Know... But Should".