Art Edwards's Blog, page 10

New Piece on Writing up at HTMLGIANT!!!

Helloo,

One of my favorite pieces on writing ever just popped up on HTMLGIANT. It's about the futility of a writer trying to get away with hiding behind a narrator. Anyone who enjoyed my pieces on fiction v. memoir a couple of years ago at The Writer will get something out of this.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

New Piece on Learning Novel Writing v. Learning Bass Guitar up at The Weeklings!!!

Best thing about the Internet? You can take a swipe at a Pulitzer Prize winner and who's gonna tell you no?

That's pretty much how it goes down with my recent piece at The Weeklings where I tell my tale of how I learned bass guitar and compare it to the process of learning to write novels. Enjoy!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

The Last Thing I’ll Ask You to Do for Badge

About a year ago, I started letting you know about the Kickstarter campaign for Badge. Since then, the campaign has fulfilled, I’ve published Badge, promoted it online, and have had events in five different cities to support it. All this has gone about as well as I could’ve hoped, and it’s because of you I was able to do it, so thanks again. By the comments I’ve gotten from many of you about Badge, you’re digging the book too.

(Wait, you mean you haven't bought Badge yet? Go here.)

The next phase of promoting Badge focuses on ebook sales. This is the one sect of the publishing industry that’s growing, and also where readers are most likely to give a new fiction writer the time of day. There are a few good entities out there that will help you advertise your ebook, and one of them requires your book to have a certain number of Amazon reviews to qualify.

That’s where you come in. If you’ve read Badge, please take a moment to review it at Amazon. It doesn’t have to be a long review, and you don’t have to be Shakespeare. Just rate Badge, tell what you like about it, what you don’t, and hit return. That’s it. From there, it’s simple to cut and paste your review from Amazon to Badge’s Goodreads page, so you might as well do that too.

If I have any hope of not having to Kickstart Novel Four, it falls largely on my ability to find new readers for Badge now, and that might not happen without your help.

So thanks again. Badge could end today and be a huge success, but with a little help from my friends, it could keep going too.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

New Piece on Writing up at BLEED

So I'm at the AWP Conference this past February, at a panel on digital technology and book promotion, when this woman gets up and starts giving away the farm on how to promote your book online. Facebook, Titter, Scribd, Bitly (Bitly?), she covered everything, and gave step-by-step details on how to make it work for you. I went to ten or so panels during the three-day conference and took nary a note until this one, and I think I wrote every word she said. When she finished, she said her name was Debra Di Blasi, her publishing company was Jaded Ibis Productions, and also, "If you have questions, go ahead and contact me. I'm notorious for giving up too much time to strangers online."

While incorporating one of her marketing techniques, I contacted her, and sure enough she ushered me, the complete stranger, through my issue. You know how you remember folks who help you when they absolutely don't have to? Yeah, me too.

So I sent a piece to Jaded Ibis for publication, to their blog actually, which is called BLEED, and it popped up this morning. This is a short one about how I learned the most important writing lesson of my life while working at an actuarial firm in San Francisco. What's an actuarial firm? Read to find out.

Thanks to Elizabeth Earley for saying yes to this one.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

What I'm working on...

...besides getting ready for my one-day self-publishing seminar at the Attic at the end of this month, where there is still room for you.

-Novel Four, which is about tribute bands;

-A short story about Alex Trebek and Arizona musicians that I think is finally done;

-An essay about my high school friend Randy and I going to see Stevie Ray Vaughan four times;

-An essay about Morrissey and chewing tobacco;

-An essay about why no one wants their novel called a rock novel;

-Ghost Notes the screenplay;

-A short story about Wrigley Field that is not even close;

-Badge review submissions.
 
Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

New Piece on Self-Publishing at Nick Belardes's Site!!!

It's a foregone conclusion you're signing up for my self-publishing seminar at the Attic at the end of this month, but I am also publishing essays on self-publishing like crazy in April. The first popped up today at fab writer Nick Belardes's site, so after you sign up for the class, go here.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

Take my One-Day Self-Publishing Seminar this Month at the Attic!!!

In six hours on a Sunday, I will cram your head full of my decade of self-publishing knowledge, and you'll like it. If you're thinking about self-pubbing in 2014, you don't want to miss this. Space still available. Sign up now at the Attic.

On the Badge front, you'll want to take a look at this exhaustive review by Rob McNelly of all three of my novels. I respond at length at the end. Topics include what's fiction and what's non-, the endings of all three books, and much more. Read it here.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

Badge Kickstarter Complete!!!

After my readings this past week in LA and SF, I've come to the end of Badge's Kickstarter cycle. Badge is published, rewards are sent, events have happened. I published and promoted Badge and didn't go into the poor house to do it. (I did go over budget about $100, but that's not the poor house.)

I could not be more thrilled to have gotten this chance. Thanks for helping me make it a reality, folks.

What's next for Badge? Time for new rock lit readers, and that means searching every nook and cranny to find them. Book deals? Yes. Ebook promotion? Yes. More readings? Yes. Bugging you later? Probably. I'm working on all of it.

But this week I'm going to take a breath and enjoy what we've accomplished together. I hope you're loving Badge, and if you don't have a copy yet, I know where you can get one.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

Badge SF and LA Events This Week!!!

Badge Tour takes me to two California events this week!

My Los Angeles shindig will go down and Stories in Echo Park on Wednesday and will include a brief reading from Badge, along with readings by two other rock-tinged novelists Duke Haney and Rob Roberge. If you followed my blogging about rock novels in 2013, you know how fond I am of both these writers.

My San Francisco soiree happens at Alley Cat Books this Thursday and will also include a brief reading from Badge, along with readings by two cool Bay Area writers Meg Pokrass and Grant Faulkner. So pleased to be heading back to my old stomping grounds and reading with these folks.

Free admission, of course. Q & As to follow. These are my only CA appearances in 2014. Come out and see me!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .

My Phoenix Event this Wednesday Includes Special Refreshments Element!!!

Any Art Edwards book tour would not be complete without a giant dollop of Refreshments nostalgia, and that's just what you'll get if you come to my event this Wednesday, 3/12, at 7:30 PM at Phoenix's FilmBar. You'll of course get a good dose of my latest novel Badge, plus a PowerPoint Presentation to set the scene. But you'll also get a short reading from my work-in-progress, a memoir about--yep--my time in the Refreshments. Its working title is Eighteen Ways to Destroy Your Rock Band: My Life in the Refreshments, and I'll read a bit from an early part of the story when the stars align one night in the Sonoran Desert and three drunk guys from Tempe wander into their destiny.

Refreshments fans, you are not going to want to miss this. The admission is free, and there will be drinks. Who's on board? Say you're coming at the Facebook event page.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge .