Robert Hobkirk's Blog: Hobkirk Blog, page 4

Free Book - Not

I'm not giving away any copies of Tommy's Exodus as a promotion. A couple reasons why I'm not. For one, I don't know what the percentage is that actually reads a free book and the percentage who just want it because it's free and simply hoard it. Second, a free copy would cost me about ten dollars per copy. I tried the giveaway thing before on GoodReads, costing me $70 for seven books and got only one review out of it. One guy who won a copy wound up selling it for 5 bucks on Amazon, adding insult to injury. For a $100 i can run an ad on Amazon through Kindle, and I'll see how that goes.

Tommy's Exodus

I got my first novel Tommy's Exodus up and running on Goodreads and Amazon. It's in paperback and e-book. It's a page turning romantic adventure.

Description: It should take Tommy only eight hours to get home by Greyhound. But when he listens to a mad man giving a tip on a sure thing, listens to the words of wisdom of a haiku reciting frog, and listens to an eccentric billionaire about a marriage proposal, then the eight hour trip turns into a life changing journey. Some want to know if Tommy is crazy enough to be locked up, but his heart tells him he is just crazy in love. A little juju can protect him from River Ratz, but it’s going to take a miracle to give him back his peace of mind.

Thanks for the nomination

Thanks to all who nominated my new book, Tommy's Exodus, in the Kindle Scout contest. It was generous of you to take the time from your busy day to do me that favor. I sincerely appreciate it. May your good turn come back to you a hundred fold.
Rob

Kindle Scout

I entered my first novel, Tommy's Exodus, a page turning romantic adventure, in the Kindle Scout (Amazon division) contest. It's there until March 1, 2016. If I get enough nominations and Kindle Scout thinks it's marketable, they promote it on Amazon. It's a great opportunity to get some legitimate promotion. According to them if you nominate it, then you get a free Kindle edition if I get the promotion deal. So there's a possibility that you could win a Kindle version of it. Here's the url to Kindle Scout where you can click on the "nominate" button:

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/GQFB...

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to do me this favor. I appreciate it.
Rob

When Pigs Fly

Throughout John Steinbeck's life he would inscribe his letters with his personal "Pigasus" logo - a pig with wings with the Lattin motto meaning "To the stars on the wings of a pig." The logo was to symbolize himself "a lumbering soul but trying to fly."

I got this little tidbit from the bio page in Of Mice and Men.

On the back of the book is a photo of Steinbeck smoking a cigarette. He smoked a lot and died of consumptive heart failure in 1968. Sometimes humbler achievements, like quit smoking, can be more important than waiting for pigs to fly.

MS Replace

Working with "Replace" in MS Word I found out one has to be careful. I wanted to replace "aint" with "ain't." When I did that the word "paint" was replaced with "pain't," which was a big whoops.

Epigraph

When working with MS Word in order to build a Table of Contents, you need to use styles and use
"header." In order to use header, you need to label what you want in the Table of Contents, such as, Chapter One, etc. For Tommy's Exodus I wanted to put in a quote from a third source, which you see all the time in novels, but I didn't know what the word was for this quote. I needed the word so I could use "header." I found out the word is "epigraph." Hence, in Tommy's Exodus' Table of Contents, you will find "Epigraph."

Happy New Year

Woke up this New Year morning without a hangover, hope you did too. I heard someone say that the way you spend New Year's Day is the way the year will go. Sounds like wishful thinking for wanting control, but sometimes stuff just happens. Looking back, last year was a good year, good health for everyone I know, no deaths, no divorces. Just happy!

We celebrated New Year's Eve with dinner at the Happy Garden and Marc Maron Season 3 on Netflix. Maron is angrier and funnier, didnn't think that was possible. The last episode was great, but painful to watch.

Rob the Mob

Watched a movie the other day that I enjoyed, Rob the Mob, on Netflix. It's got a little of everything: romance, action, comedy. I really enjoyed the woman character, I think her name was Rosie, portrayed by Nina Arianda. It was based upon a true story of a modern day Bonnie and Clyde robbing mafia guys in their social clubs. You might enjoy it 2.

New novel - Tommy in the Wilderness

I hadn't been writing in a long time, about three months. In that time I was editing my first novel, Tommy's Exodus. Also I was letting the creative field go fallow after cranking out 2 poetry books, 1 short story book, 1 90,000 word novel - all within 12 months. Also, I had been catching up on my reading. But now it feels like it's time to get back in the field and plant some imagination and see what comes up in a few months. I'm calling the new book Tommy in the Wilderness. It's a continuation of Tommy's Exodus, which will come out early next year. I probably won't post anymore about the new book until I begin editing out the glitches in a few months. I don't like talking about it when I'm working on it.