Joseph Rhea's Blog, page 10

Novum-2 2nd draft now complete

I finished my final edit to Novum-2 and the manuscript now clocks in at 30,200 words. I will be sending out to beta readers next.

Novum-2 first draft is finished.

Boom! The first draft of Novum-2 is finished, clocking in at 27,000 words (which happens to be nearly identical to Novum-1.)

I'll probably add another 3,000 words during my rewrites, but then a few hundred will be cut during the lengthy editing process. That's how it works...at least for me. 

In related news, my brother Dave just sent me the final version of the Novum-2 cover, so that's great timing. I won't give a date yet, but expect the book to be out in a couple of months, maybe July (which also, coincidentally, is when Novum-1 was published last year.)

Novum-2 update

After 2 weeks of fighting family colds, I wrote another thousand words tonight bringing my sequel manuscript up to 15,000 words. It was an exciting scene where somebody tells the rogue wave crew that a major event in their history didn't happen! Or is he lying?  Oops, said too much...

Also, Novum received its 25th review yesterday. Another nice one. Thanks to all who have taking the time to write a review on Amazon or goodreads. You people rock!

This is why new authors sometimes give books away

Last week I ran a 5-day giveaway of my scifi story, "Novum" on Amazon, and during that short window, more than 5,000 copies were downloaded. You might ask why I, or any other author, would give away so many free copies of their book. For me, the answer is simple: publicity. Novum is the first book in a series, and I felt giving away copies would help get the word out. A good book, or even a halfway decent book, means very little if no one knows it exists. Also, while 5,000 copies seems like a lot of books to just give away, it is actually a tiny drop in a very large bucket in terms of potential readers.

Now I have to say the biggest surprise to me, and the real "payback" for this effort, is that Novum has received 12 new reviews in the past 11 days, which is more than double what it had before (5 of those reviews came within the last 24 hours, including one as I was writing this!) Even including the few "expected" negative reviews centered on the fact that Novum is short (it is a 26,000-word novella, compared to my first book, Cyberdrome, which is a full 96,000-word novel) the reviews have all been overwhelmingly positive.

During March, I also ran a promotion on Goodreads.com to give away 10 paperback copies of Novum. That promotion generated over 700 people who wanted a copy, so I have to include that number as additional potential future readers.

Lastly I will say that, regarding the length of the book, while my description on Amazon does mention that it is a "novella," I would like address any future complaints about this by dropping the price of Novum from $2.99 down to just $0.99 around the world (at least for a few weeks). Admittedly, some readers will skip right over the book when they see this low price (they think "you get what you pay for") but I hope that it will invite even more readers to give the book a try. Novum-2 should be out sometime this summer, so now might be the best time to get to know the characters in this new series.

Please go to http://JosephRhea.com/Novum to learn more.

Novum on sale for just 99 cents!

After a hugely successful week-long promotion, I've dropped the $2.99 #Kindle edition of Novum down to $0.99 for another week or so.

US link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E0NVLK6
Global links: http://www.josephrhea.com/novum

Both books on sale this week (and one is FREE!)

There's nothing like having a party and forgetting to send out the invitations.

So apparently CYBERDROME is on sale for just 99 cents in the US and UK (down from $5.99) and NOVUM is absolutely #free all over the darn planet (usually $2.99) Please considering passing the word around since I forgot to.
 
Here are the US links:
Cyberdrome: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012Q6G5Y
Novum: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E0NVLK6

Thanks!

New facebook pages for both books

I just created official Facebook pages for both of my books. They are:

Cyberdrome: https://www.facebook.com/cyberdrome.by.joseph.rhea
Novum: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Novum/251756481673793

If you have either of these books 'liked' in your fb page, please update your links to these pages.
Thanks!

Novum-2 up to 15,000 words

Added another 1,600 words to Novum-2 yesterday (it was a snow day in DC) bringing the manuscript up to just under 15,000 words. I'm halfway through the outline, but that doesn't tell me much about the final length. Still guessing at 35-40k though...

Crossed the 10k word barrier on Novum-2 yesterday

Crossed the 10k word barrier on Novum-2 yesterday, and I'm less than 1/4 the way through my outline. This is turning out to be much beefier than Novum was, which is great. If it hits 40k it is technically a novel. And I still have 2 more stories in this particular story arc...

Goodreads March Book Giveaway for Novum

Goodreads is having a month-long contest to give away 10 paperback copies of my new sci-fi book, Novum. The contest runs March 1-31, and you just need to be a Goodreads member to enter. Membership is free and so is the book (if you win.)

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/83331-novum