Alex sent me the completed work last Friday, but I was in Poland going to a wedding for my wife’s family. Between the wedding, driving back to Germany on Sunday and then heading in for work on Monday morning, I just hadn’t had a chance to check out the audio book.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t had a chance to start listening to the audio book until tonight. Part of that was because I was chatting with Richard who I met off of Goodreads after he read my book. He’s a cool guy. We were talking about writing and stuff and before I knew it half the evening was gone. I don’t get a chance to Geek-out as much as I’d like since I’ve been writing and not Computer Gaming, even though a friend at work did give me a key for WildStar-Online. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, the link is here: http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/  It looks completely cool though.

The other part of the reason was I was preparing for attending “The Super Strength Speed Reading Event” https://www.facebook.com/events/310916962406470 . I just realized it’s going to be Thursday tomorrow and I haven’t decided how I’m going to do my Ebook giveaways. Ack! I’ll have to figure that out tomorrow.  

I just finished chapter five and all that I can say is “WOW!” I’ve never listed to an audio book before, so this was my first time going through the experience. I can only say Alexander Edward Trefethen has an incredible range of voices. If you’re interested about Alex, his web site is here: http://trefethenvoice.com/

I was a little concerned about having a man do the voice. I tend to love female voices, but I figured since Startüm, the main character, is male that a man’s voice would sound better for the book. I wasn’t sure how he was going to manage the children, demon, werewolf and female voices in the story, but I loved Alex’s voice so much during the sample he sent me. I had to go with him.

Alex’s skill is freaking unbelievable! His voice really brings the characters to life. I just got through the entire Werewolf Shadow Fang battle scene and was blown away. That might sound funny, but you have to understand. I have read through Flight, Book One of the Last Paladin Series over thirty times, seriously at least that amount of times. Every time I’m amazed at how the story pulls me in. This time was the most intense yet with Alex’s voice.    

The reason I’ve gone through the book so many times is because of the editing for mistakes and smoothing out the writing. Since I didn’t have $8,000 for a professional editor to go through the manuscript, I’ve had friends help with getting Flight in the best shape I could given the funds I had. Also, the website grammarly.com and of course help from critics who have pointed out the mistakes I’ve missed after publishing. I just look at it as free editing help, since I know the story is good. Maybe for Book Two I will try getting help from Kickstart.

I’m trying to get through the book this week, but there are a lot of chapters to get through. Either way it will be ready for the end of this month.

I’ve been asked if I could give out a free audio book for some of the contest winners. Right now it’s a huge group of 26 mp3’s that are around 2.5 GB’s in size all together. Also I don’t know how licensing works between Alex and I for promoting the book by contests for free audio book giveaways. Once I know I’ll post what I’ve learned and hopefully be able to send the audio book version out to the few people who asked after winning the Goodreads Book Contest Giveaway.

Today I had the pleasure of being interviewed by a DODEA Wiesbaden High School student name Tristan Mann.

He picked up one of my first copies of Flight and has really enjoyed the storyline. Another fellow gamer, we had a great time talking about some of our favorite video games and Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies in-between questions. As soon as he posts the interview I will link to his youtube page, but for now you only have my take on the interview.

Sometimes I get so focused on getting the next story out I forget how cool the storyline is. Talking with Tristan about how I came up with the idea for the series and discussing Books One and Two really got me excited all over again for the story.

I was telling him about how Book Two is going to have Minotaurs, Centaurs and Elves. We had a quick discussion about the Minotaurs, since we both are big time D&D and MMO fans. I explained my concept for the Minotaur Race like this: Picture Minotaur Roman Legions that are armed with runic metal gauntlets that transform into either a fist punch-spike sword that looks like a Gladius or into a large Roman shield. They also have a secondary weapon slung over their back that is a large double-headed battleaxe.

He loved the mental picture I painted for the race and thought it sounded awesome. I told him I was having a lot of fun with the story and that was just one small piece.

One of my fans from Goodreads, Richard Webster, had a great idea about discussing some of the up and coming things from Book Two. I really liked the concept and will try to slipping in some of the main characters bios from Book Two.

Tristan and I also discussed where I got the idea for the Last Paladin Series from. I explained to him that I always wanted to write and I’ve had several persistent dreams. One being about a teenage boy that was hidden on Earth when his people were decimated, the dream is about how he goes back to his own world and confronts the evil there.

Dreams are never one consistent story, but bits and pieces that are formed as I was growing up via Fantasy/Sci-Fi stories and movies that I grew up with. My childhood was quite horrible, so maybe it was my way of looking for a way out of the pain I was borne into.

Whatever it was, the dreams have been with me since my earliest memories.

When I started writing the Book One, I realized there was an entire story with how Startüm is discovered on Earth by his people’s ancient enemy. It was kind of a surprise since I had planned to start out by quickly going to Irlendria, but once I thought about how that story would go it just made sense to write it out. That is how Book One came into being.

Tristan asked me how many Book I’ve planned for the series, which was an easy answer. For now there is four books planned, although from how well the response is I have a great ideal for slightly altering the planned ending of Book four. If I do that I will easily have another three books to add to the series.

I also explained to Tristan that due to the extensive history of Irlendria and the war that has devastated their planet for around 3000 years. I have a lot of options for pre-stories. I already have one planned that would tell the story of how Startüm’s Mother and Father, Novastar Ironwolf and Ilmarinen Ironwolf, met and fell in love. It would go up to the point of where Novastar’s Father, Shadowfang brings Startüm to Earth.

Also I have a Sci-Fi series that has been building in my mind. One of my other long time dreams since I was a child. I’d like to start this once the first series of The Last Paladin is completed before I do any pre-stories.

All in all, I had a great talk with Tristan. He’s a pretty cool guy and we had a great time talking about everything.

This was a recent quandary I faced. Partly this was because I didn’t fully understand how being in Amazon KDP affected how Amazon promoted my book. To be honest, I still do not fully know everything about how the KDP Program affects Amazon Marketing, but I can give you the rundown of my experience and what I have researched for moving forward.  

Initially I had planned to make my book available everywhere, but when Amazon asked if I wanted to put my book in their KDP program, I started reading the fine print and realized that meant I couldn’t sell the digital copy anywhere else for a three month time period, which is how long a subscription to KDP lasts. If Amazon discovers your eBook has been sold somewhere else then you do not receive any money from the KDP program for that time period.

Wow, that really gave me a pause, but at the same time I was very new to self-publishing and I figured. “Eh, what could it hurt? I could give it a try and see what happens.” Its three months.

A lot has happened since that time. Luckily I had some fellow authors, K.B Stevens and TCoulter give me great some advice right around the time my KDP program was ending. I ended up leaving Amazon KDP for now, and I will explain why, although realize that leaving Amazon KDP doesn't mean you're leaving Amazon's Market Place.

Just for those of you new to these concepts, you have different sales listed when you’re in Amazon’s KDP select program: Regular book sales, regular eBook sales, Lending Library loaned eBook sales and eBooks given away for free. Each sales channel's numbers are different.

During the time frame of February to the end of May of having my eBook in Amazon’s KDP select program. I only had maybe thirteen eBooks loaned out of the KDP Lending Library. Now the good thing was that for each eBook loaned from KDP’s Lending Library, I received on average two dollars per eBook. Normally I receive fifty-four cents per eBook that people purchase outside of the program, that’s because I took the lowest Royalty option to keep my price down and I priced my book at a dollar ninety-nine. I made this decision because as a new writer I think that’s only fair for the people taking a chance on reading my eBook for the first time to pay a lower price. Basically that equates to around twenty-five regular eBooks sold during that time, which is not very many eBooks for a three month time period.

Do I regret having my eBook in Amazon’s KDP program then? The answer is no and here’s why.

As soon as I put my eBook into Amazon’s KDP select program I had friends of mine and work colleagues tell me that in their weekly emails from Amazon offering books that they might like to read similar to what they were reading now. My eBook was listed in these emails. Hell, I received the same emails too and so did my wife.

For a new writer this kind of marketing presence is seriously huge!

Now this is the part I do not fully understand and is a quandary, so I can only give you my impressions of what happened from my own experiences and from some of the various reading I’ve done Online. It seems like Amazon doesn’t do this for every new writer in the beginning. If you’re not in Amazon’s KDP select program I do not think that Amazon would just send out your eBook as a possible match to people reading similar stories. I imagine that once you have a few sales that Amazon would start adding your eBook to their advertisement emails, but as a new writer I do not feel like this would happen.

Again, let me reiterate that this is only my half formed opinion of the process, because I do not know for sure how Amazon determines this, and unless you’re speaking to the Amazon person who knows this 100% then I would say that if someone tells you something different that they do not know 100% either. Just keep that in the back of your mind when someone is telling you their thoughts on this process.

Once you do get some sales going then you will start showing up automatically on Amazon’s list “Other people who have read this book also bought these titles …”. Once you’ve managed to do this then your sales will start moving, but you have to reach this point.

Now this post isn’t going into all the different ways to promote your self-published book. I will add in what I know and some of the stuff my friend TCoulter has in general done for her own novel. I will add in one additional note of information I discovered

It seems like the best use of Amazon’s KDP select program is to promote your eBook at a reduced price or even free on Amazon. There is a lot of discussion as to the pros and cons of this, but I will distill everything I’ve read and know down to two methods.

The first method is if you have two or more eBooks out. You can use Amazon’s KDP select program to offer your first ebook for free or at a reduced price to build interest in the new eBook you’re releasing of that same series by marketing through the KDP program. Again this is a powerful tool to build interest in your newest novel of the series on Amazon. From what I’ve read, many authors wouldn’t say you shouldn’t be joining the KDP program if you only have one novel. Again, refer back to my thoughts on Amazon marketing your eBook as a new writer through KDP.

The second method is to offer your new novel for free on KDP to get people to download it. Even though you’re not making money by giving away free downloads, you are getting your eBook out to various peoples libraries, which will give you that placement on Amazon “Other people who bought this book also bought this book …”.

Either way, I wouldn’t get down if your eBook/book doesn’t sell much in the first month. Just go about promoting your book wherever you can. If it still isn’t picking up interest then it could be a number of issues, such as the cover needing to be better art or your excerpt in the back not being written correctly to name two of the most common problems that affect building interest in your book.  

In regards to making the jump from Amazon’s KDP Select Program to Smashwords, I would have to say that I don’t see any losing points to doing this. Really you have everything to gain by doing this, although that doesn't mean at times you won't join one of your eBooks into the KDP program once again from time to time. Read my reasoning below.

Smashwords will get your eBook out to their network of partners, which is unbelievably huge. You also can sell directly on Smashwords’ website too. Not to mention, it makes more sense to send your eBook out to various other books sellers like iBooks and Barnes & Noble through Smashwords instead of Amazon’s, because they take a much smaller cut of the profits. This means your eBook’s overall price will be much more competitively priced in comparison to other eBooks being sold of the same genre by other writers using different channels than you.

I had an amazing author named Massimo Marino direct me to the pros of using Smashwords and I have to say he was 100% correct. Currently they have these sales channels to offer your eBook on: Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon, Apple, Diesel, Page Foundry, Baker & Taylor Blio, Txtr, Library Direct, Baker-Taylor Axis360, OverDrive, Flipkart, Oyster and Scribd. I didn’t mention Sony because currently the Sony eBook distribution is no more.

Not to mention on Smashwords you get a lot more for your eBook, that same fifty-four cents increases to a dollar sixty per sales when the eBook is bought directly from Smashwords’ website. Also, your sales through their partners are higher than going through Amazon’s partner program.

After making it to the #23 spot on Amazon’s Fantasy/Superhero listing as a new writer with my first novel and keeping near that position for half a month. I have to say that although the unexpected accomplishment gave me an incredible rush, the backlash has been quite sobering.

Within the first week of hitting the rank I received several long-winded negative reviews detailing my every mistake, actual and perceived. Not from readers who enjoyed the action packed story I’d written, but from fellow writers who were upset about my accomplishment. Many of the reviews specifically titled for maximum negative impact.

During the first two weeks I hadn’t put the pieces together, but on the third week after receiving more scathing reviews the oddity of the phenomenon hit me and I decided to do some research. Immediately I saw that the person who was so aggressively bashing my book was fellow writer. As I sat there contemplating the review, I decided to search the next several negative reviewers.

In four out of six cases I was easily able to identify the reviewers as fellow writers.

I had read on other writers blogs about groups of published writers ganging up on self-published “indie artists” and accosting them for not having industry-level editing on their manuscripts or having work that was not as “finished” as a published work from a publishing house. It was a concern in the back of my mind initially as I watched reviews coming in, but the reality when it hit was different than what I’d been lead to expect.

In my case, the majority of writers leading the charge were fellow “indie authors”, which was quite surprising to me. Maybe I’m just naïve, but in my mind there are plenty of people out there who are reading novels and enjoying good stories to go around.

Why would some of my fellow “indie writers” waste their time tearing down one of their own, so to speak? It makes about as much sense as a drowning person pulling the person trying to save them under the water with them. The end result is you have two people who have been hurt for no good reason.

I know not every "writer" or "indie writer" is like this. I know of several good authors who are supportive in both success/failure and are always willing to offer a word of advice or support. 

For myself, when I see my fellow writers doing well or the writers I look up to being successful. I try to see how they have crafted their covers, how they have written their stories and how they have touched me with their characters. 

In these ways I learn to perfect my craft, because definitely my own craft needs improving. But then again, there is always room for improvement. Especially when you’re new at writing like I am. Even after finishing my first novel I saw so many areas that could have been made better, but that’s okay. My skills will only get better the more I write.

From looking at other indie authors' books and those of the writers I look up to, I see that these scathing long-winded negative reviews from fellow writers following them too as they vainly try to drag them back down. 

Unfortunately this type of anti-social behavior from fellow artists is not something that will just go away. If anything, I have no doubt it will just happen more the better I write.

My intention for my first novel was to produce an action-packed story that was a fun read, and from most of the reviews being left and how popular my first book has become. I know I have accomplished this first objective. My next goal is to make the overall story even better.

For those of you who are enjoying my writing, I thank you for your support and I’m working diligently to get book two finished and released. Also, I look forward to your comments on Amazon, Goodreads, my blog or in emails.

To the fellow “indie authors” who have left scathing reviews, I thank you for helping me improve my craft even more. The holes you help me fill will only make me a better writer and more successful in the future.