Dan Walsh's Blog, page 23

My Newest Novel Available Now

My newest novel, Unintended Consequences (Book 3 in the Jack Turner Suspense series) is up on Amazon TODAY and available NOW for PRE-ORDER. If you get it before it releases on May 15th it’s only $2.99 (25% off). After May 15th, it will be $3.99. It should be available in print on the 15th also.

Here’s the little Back Cover blurb:

Jack and Rachel leave Culpepper for their long-awaited honeymoon trip, a driving tour through New England. On day three, they stop at a little bayside town in Cape Cod to visit Jack’s grandmother. After he gets called away to handle an emergency, Rachel stays and listens as Jack’s grandmother shares a remarkable story about how she and Jack’s grandfather met in the early days of World War 2. It’s a story filled with danger, decades-old family secrets, daring rescues and romance. Jack is named after his grandfather, and this story set the course and direction for Jack’s life to the present day. After hearing it, Rachel is amazed that anyone survived.

CLICK HERE to check it out (or order) on Amazon.

And please, forward this info to any of your friends who you think are fans of suspense novels. Thanks!

All 4 of my Newest Books are now Audi Books

I wanted to let you know in case you, or any of your friends, love to have your books read to you (vs read them yourself)…all 4 of my newest novels are now availabe as audio books. Tantor Media, the company who produced them let us pick out the narrators (a different one for the Dog novels and the suspense series).

The narrators did a fabulous job. They use different voices for each character. Kinda reminds me of an old-time radio show.

To order them, just go to their Amazon links and click on the Audio box to the right of the cover. Or you can look them up on Tantor.com. Just type my name in the searc

h box and it will take you to a page where you can see all 4. I think they’re actually less expensive on Tantor’s site.

Breaking News – Cover Reveal for Book 3

My friends and fans would know, this year my plan is to write Book 3 for The Jack Turner Suspense series and my inspirational Forever Home series (Finley and Riley). Right now, I’m about 3 weeks away from finishing Book 3 in the suspense series, but I’ve been waylaid by a lengthy bout with bronchitis. That’s pushed the release date out a little, but I’m still planning on releasing the book in mid-May, Lord willing.

Some of you know, due to some nerve damage in my hands and forearms, I’ve had to write my last 5-6 books with a voice-recognition program and headset. It works great and hasn’t slowed me down a bit. That is…when I have a voice. Which hasn’t been the case these past few weeks.

The upside is, now that I’m feeling a little better (though my voice is still a mess), I’ve used

the time off to work on the new book cover for Book 3. So TODAY, is the big unveil for the book’s cover, title and back cover blurb.

Book 3 will be called Unintended Consequences. Here’s the cover and the back cover blurb:

Jack and Rachel leave Culpepper for their long-awaited honeymoon trip, a driving tour through New England. On day three, they stop at a little bayside town in Cape Cod to visit Jack’s grandmother. After he gets called away to handle an emergency, Rachel stays and listens as Jack’s grandmother shares a remarkable story about how she and Jack’s grandfather met in the early days of World War 2. It’s a story filled with danger, decades-old family secrets, daring rescues and romance. Jack is named after his grandfather, and this story set the course and direction for Jack’s life to the present day. After hearing it, Rachel is amazed that anyone survived.

I can’t wait to finish it (Cindi is totally loving this story). I figure I have about 18 chapters left and hope to start writing again by tomorrow or Friday. Once the book is finished, edited and ready for pre-order, I’ll get the word out again. If you want to be sure to get the word, just sign up for my newsletter in the left sidebar, or on my homepage.

Remembering Dresden Free thru Sunday

Wanted to make you aware, my bestselling suspense novel, Remembering Dresden, is FREE TODAY thru this Sunday on Kindle. If you have already gotten a copy, could you help spread the word to a friend?

Maybe you’re a fan of my inspirational novels (like Rescuing Finley). If so, this could be a totally risk-free chance to check out one of my suspense novels (who knows, maybe you’ll really like it).

If you’d like to get a copy,

CLICK HERE

(Then Click on the Amazon button)

In any case, thanks so much for helping me spread the word. Now I’ve got to get back to work writing Book 3 in the Jack Turner Suspense series. It will be called Unintended Consequences. It’s about 2/3 of the way finished. Hope to release it sometime in May.

Rescuing Finley – Now an Audiobook!

My bestselling novel, Rescuing Finley, RELEASES TODAY as an audio book! Yay! It came out great, read by award-winning narrator Hillary Huber. Tantor Media, one of the largest creators of Audiobooks out there, contacted me last October with an offer to produce the book. We negotiated a deal that resulted in this beautiful audio edition coming out today.

That deal will see the release of Finley’s sequel, Finding Riley, next month (it’s in production now). Then in May and June, Tantor will release the 2 Jack Turner Suspense novels (When Night Comes and Remembering Dresden).

Rescuing Finley – audio - is available on Amazon and at Tantor Media’s website (they actually offer it for the cheapest price). Here’s a a screen shot from Amazon and a pic of me holding one of my copies. Cindi and I are going to listen to the rest of it on a road trip we’ll take in a few weeks, when I teach at the Blue Lake Writer’s Retreat in Alabama.

If you’ve already read Rescuing Finley in print or ebook, could you HELP ME SPREAD THE WORD about the audio edition? Maybe to your friends who prefer audio books (people with vision problems, truckers, RV folks, sales people who are on the road a lot)? Thanks!

Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/2mG6B3s

Tantor Media link: https://tantor.com/rescuing-finley-dan-walsh.html

Rescuing Finley Reaches New Milestone

The last few weeks have been pretty exciting for me. Some of you know my “author story.” At the end of 2014, after being a traditionally published author with 12 novels released the old-fashioned way, I made the decision to leave my comfort zone and start publishing my books as an indie.

The Big Picture reason was, I could see the entire publishing world was in the middle of a major shakeup, created by the advent of Amazon, Kindle and other ebook devices. I watched a massive shift occur, as more and more readers stopped buying their books from retail bookstores and started buying them online.

The Little Picture reason I became an indie was because of the book I’m featuring in today’s post, Rescuing Finley. I had just finished writing my last contracted book with my publisher. It was time to turn in a new book proposal for my next series of books. I had come up with a 3-book series idea, similar in genre to all my other books with them. Each of the new books would have many of the similar features that had made my other novels successful (and award-winning). But these books would all feature a Shelter Dog as a main character. I loved the stories and was certain my publisher would too.

They didn’t. In fact, they rejected it saying they didn’t like the stories that much and didn’t think they’d sell well. “What else have you got?” they asked.

My answer? I’m not going to send you anything else. I believe in these stories and think people will love them, at least as much as they’ve enjoyed my other books. So I politely informed them I’d be writing these books on my own, and we parted ways.

So you can imagine how exciting it is to be writing this blog post today. What’s the Big News? Well, this past week Rescuing Finley SURPASSED ALL my traditionally published novels in terms of the total number of Amazon reviews and the average review rating. And it’s reached this milestone at a breakneck pace – it’s only been out 14 months.

As of today, Rescuing Finley has received 571 Amazon reviews, averaging 4.8 Stars (86% are 5-Star reviews). Many of my traditionally published novels have surpassed the 400-review mark, and some have even reached the 500-review milestone. But these books have all been out for several years. Here are some examples:

The Unfinished Gift – 444 Reviews (4.6 Star Avg) – Released 2009
The Deepest Waters – 412 Reviews (4.7 Star Avg) – Released 2011
Remembering Christmas – 533 Reviews (4.6 Star Avg) – 2011
The Discovery – 521 Reviews (4.7 Star Avg) – Released 2012
The Reunion – 515 Reviews (4.8 Star Avg) – Released 2012
The Dance – 453 Reviews (4.7 Star Avg) – Released 2013

I love these traditionally published books and loved writing them. But it’s pretty satisfying to see books that were rejected by publishers actually surpassing these novels in such a short time. My first indie novel, When Night Comes (and first suspense novel…again, a rejected book by my publisher) is right up there with these novels after only being out 2 years. It has 440 Reviews (4.4 Star Avg).

The sales of Rescuing Finley have also been amazing. Reader response has been off the charts. Three weeks ago, I did a 5-day Free promo of the book. Over 41,000 readers downloaded it. Since then, it has sold 1,409 copies (almost 500/week…on Amazon alone). The 2nd book in the series, Finding Riley, has gotten quite a bump since then, too. It was only released last October (3 months ago), and it’s already up to 124 Amazon reviews (Avg 4.8 Stars).

So…this indie experiment appears to be working. Both my inspirational books (Forever Home series) and my suspense books (Jack Turner Suspense series) are humming along with 2 books each. I’ve just passed the halfway mark for Book 3 in the Jack Turner series (hope to have it released in May, no title yet), and will immediately begin Book 3 in the Forever Home series (Saving Parker). Hope to have that one ready by October. My goal would be to have at least 4 books in each series.

If you want to read any of these reviews or get any of these books, they’re only $3.99 on Kindle (less than a Starbucks latte), and all are available in print. Click on any of the titles in the post above to go to its Amazon page.

Remembering Dresden – RT Reviews Award Finalist

We’re still celebrating some Exciting News at our house, came out Yesterday. Remembering Dresden–which received an RT Reviews Magazine Top Pick! review when it came out last Spring–was nominated for their Reviewer’s Choice Best Books Award 2016 in the Inspirational Thriller/Suspense category.

 

It’s been receiving great reviews all along from readers on Amazon, but this is especially satisfying since it’s NOT in the genre I’m generally known for (Nicholas Sparks-type books). This is in the Suspense/Thriller genre. I’ve always wanted to write these kinds of books, too, but wasn’t “allowed” when I was under contract with traditional publishers. Their reason was, this wasn’t my brand. They said readers wouldn’t want to read books written by me in a totally different genre.

Happily, there were wrong. This is actually Book 2 in the Jack Turner Suspense series (all the books in the series can also be read as stand-alones). Right now, I’m writing Book 3 in the series (about 1/3 of the way through). Hope to release it in April/May. I’m also continuing to write in my main genre, and will get to work on Book 3 of the Forever Home series next (Rescuing Finley, Finding Riley).

If you haven’t gotten a copy of Remembering Dresden yet, you can pick one up at this link (and find out why). It’s only $3.99 and FREE on Kindle Unlimited. If you HAVE read it, please share this with a friend who loves to read fiction. http://amzn.to/1RO7WvN

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to take a moment to wish all of you, and those you love, a Merry Christmas. Cindi and I just celebrated our 40th anniversary in October, so we took a trip to the Disney area in November (had to wait a month due to the arrival of our new grandson). Here’s a pic she took of me at Port Orleans resort. We visited there because it was the setting for part of my new Christmas Novel, Finding Riley.

If you ever have a chance to visit the Disney World area during the Christmas season, take it! No one does Christmas up like Disney. This past Monday we went back and just walked around 3 of the Disney resorts, to take in all the beautiful decorations and special Christmas music (and buy a few Christmas presents). We didn’t even go into one of the theme parks (and we have FL resident season passes).

As you can see from the pic, it’s been pretty warm here in Florida so far this winter. It’s only gotten cold enough to put on a light jacket 2-3 times (for about 1 day each). We’d both like it if it got a little chillier, at least for Christmas.

We are looking forward to spending Christmas with our family. Thankfully, both our kids, their spouses and 3 grandkids live nearby, as well as my wife’s parents. Cindi always makes lasagna Christmas Day (she’s an amazing cook, can’t wait).

Hope you all have a nice Christmas. Below are a few special deals and tidbits I wanted to share with you.

Dan

Remembering Christmas – 99 Cents 

It’s only 99 Cents TODAY ONLY (in Kindle or Nook). A deal offered by my publisher. This was my 2nd Christmas novel and my first national bestseller. It’s received over 500 Amazon reviews (averaged 4.6 Stars). Was also named a finalist for Inspirational Novel of the Year.

Click Here to check it out.

Remembering Dresden – FREE

Book 2 in the Jack Turner Series (can easily be read as a stand-alone) will be TOTALLY FREE on Kindle for 5 DAYS, starting TOMORROW (Sunday) through this Thursday (Kindle Only).

Since it’s release last May, it has been doing very well. It’s already received 207 Amazon reviews (avg 4.7 Stars). I’m actually working on Book 3 of this series now and hope to have it released by April 1st. If you haven’t picked up your copy, now is a great time. If you have gotten it, feel free to pass on this news to a friend.

Click Here to check it out.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Holiday Updates and New Pinterest Page

As an author of 5 Christmas Novels, I’m aware some people start reading Christmas books as early as September and October. But for me, I can’t really get into the Holiday/Christmas spirit until Thanksgiving. The good news is…THANKSGIVING is almost here!

Speaking of Christmas novels, my newest one (and Book 2 in the Forever Home Series), Finding Riley, is out and doing very well. In 6 weeks, it’s already received 48 Amazon reviews, averaging 4.7 Stars. I’m not sure how many of you knew it was a Christmas novel. Since it’s also the sequel to Rescuing Finley, that’s how I promoted it when it first came out Oct 1st (and since I wasn’t ready for Christmas then).

Here are a few comments from the Amazon reviews:

“I think I liked this book even better than the first one in the series, Rescuing Finley.” — Margarent N

“Finding Riley is one Christmas story I couldn’t put down. Read it in a day, cover to cover.” — Cass Wessel

Click Here to get your Copy (only $3.99 on Kindle, FREE on Kindle Unlimited). If you’d like to give one as a gift, they’re also available in print.

New Pinterest Page for Finding Riley 

Some of you might know, my wife and I made a research trip last April to explore a number of locations for settings and scenes as I prepared to write Finding Riley. Last week, we took another trip to go back and collect a number of pics of places that actually made it into the book. As well as a few more pics of “Riley” himself.

We gathered some of them together for a new page on Pinterest, devoted to Finding Riley. I’m sure those of you who bought the book will enjoy it. If you haven’t got a copy yet, you can see some of the places and scenes included in the book.

Click Here to check out the new Finding Riley Pinterest Page.

Ending on a Personal Note

Just had to share this pic. Two months ago, our 3rd grandchild was born. His name is Lucas Mosier. My daughter’s been taking lots of pics of him, but this week he started to smile. I love baby pics, but I especially love it when they start to smile back.

Looking forward to seeing this smiling face at our Thanksgiving table this Thursday.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We’ve been told, it might even be chilly enough here in Florida to wear a light jacket at night.

– Dan

Rescuing Finley FREE till Saturday

If you’ve already read Rescuing Finley, could you FORWARD the LINK to this POST to a friend (and help me spread the word)?

To help promote my NEW Christmas novel, Finding Riley, I’m offering Rescuing Finley, ABSOLUTELY FREE (for the 1st Time). In the back of the book, I’ve provided a sneak peek (the first 2 chapters) to Finding Riley. The sale starts TODAY and runs thru SATURDAY.

Rescuing Finley has been a great success, allowing me to continue the series with Book 2 (Finding Riley). Book 3 (Saving Parker) has already been roughed out. I’ll start writing it this Spring (hope to release it by the end of the Summer). Right now, I’m researching Book 3 in the Jack Turner suspense series, hope to have it ready to release by the end of March.

All the books in BOTH SERIES are FREE on KINDLE UNLIMITED.

CLICK HERE to check out this special deal.

Besides Forwarding this post to your Dog-loving (or Christmas book-loving) friends, could you post about it on Facebook or Twitter (if you use these social media giants)? Feel free to use any of the words, links or graphics in this blog post to make it easier. Or you can copy & paste this link, which will take them to an online replica of this blog post: http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=8...

Thanks so much. I hope you and your Family have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday a few weeks from now!

A Tribute to My Wife on Our 40th Anniversary

Our Wedding Day, Oct 16, 1976

Tomorrow, (Sunday, October 16th) is our 40th Anniversary (click on the pics to see them a little bigger).

I just got back from the store. Picked out a nice card and a pot of living flowers for Cindi (not cut roses; she wants to start gardening again). We’ll be going out to a fancy restaurant tomorrow evening. In a few weeks, we’ll be taking a 5-night, 6-day anniversary trip. I decided to write this for 2 reasons:  1) She deserves much more than all these things and 2) There wasn’t near enough room on the card to say what I want to say.

I remember being pretty nervous on this day 40 years ago. I was a fairly immature 19 year-old guy (just opened my first personal checking account a few months earlier…hadn’t even written a check yet). Had never paid a bill with my name on it. Had never lived away from home. Didn’t own a car. Everything I owned fit in 1 suitcase. And here I was, about to walk down the aisle to get married in front of several hundred family members, friends and strangers (I didn’t know half the people I shook hands with in that reception line).

But you know one thing I wasn’t nervous about? Not even for an instant? The young lady I was about to marry. When I met Cindi 18 months earlier, I was totally smitten. The more I got to know her, the more convinced I became she was the one for me. The only one for me. It took 5 excruciatingly long months before she returned my affections. The day that she did—the very day—I asked her to marry me. I was an idiot. I could have blown the whole thing.

Our 10th Year, 1986

She didn’t say yes right then. But she didn’t say no, either. The following morning, she said she knew that she loved me the moment she saw me and she wanted to be my wife. I could see in her eyes that she had changed. I can still remember the way she looked at me in that moment. I’m an author now, known for writing bestselling romantic novels. But I can’t find adequate words to describe how wonderful it felt to see her looking at me that way. Knowing that we were now in love.

I have been love with this woman ever since.

Our 25th Anniversary Trip

I have done countless interviews in the last several years about the level of romance in my novels. I guess it’s just not a normal thing for male authors to do this. One of the questions I’m often asked is, “Why do you write like this? What makes you so different?”

My answer is simple. It’s Cindi.

I am among, I suspect, a fairly small group of men who can genuinely say I have met and married the one true love of my life, the only woman I have ever loved, or will ever love for the balance of my days. Without her, I doubt I’d have ever written my first novel. And if I had, there wouldn’t have been any romance in it (nor in any of my other books).

Cindi and I now

Because of Cindi, who she is, how she makes me feel every day, the way she treats me with so much love and kindness, I find it quite easy to make romance a normal, and sometimes  central, part of my novels.

These past 40 years—especially all the chapters and scenes with her in them—have been the best times of my life. Nothing I own, nothing I’ve ever done, no achievements or special awards I’ve received will ever come close to the value of just having Cindi’s love and friendship.

The Bible says, “A man who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord” (Prov 18:22). I’ll say. In my experience, this verse almost seems like an understatement.

Happy Anniversary, my love. You are simply the best.