Peter Koevari's Blog, page 2

My Journey – Writing Legends 3, Chapter Previews, Movie Teaser, and Graphic Novel

Greetings to my readers (I know you’re out there, right? Right? – echoes of silence)

You’d have hopefully seen my last blog that talk about an upcoming Hollywood style movie trailer, right? If not, it’s here

Let me give you a bit of an idea of what’s been going on, where things are at, some exciting new developments and things that I’ve learned along the way.

It’s been a bit of a crazy time for me, with many projects on the go at the same time and busy times at work (yes, I work full-time as well as work on my writing projects). I guess you could say that I’m learning to juggle, and although we drop a ball here and there… the idea is to keep going.

Legends of Marithia 3

The book is shaping nicely, and after a complete rewrite it is only down to writing the remaining plotted chapters and finalising the book. I can tell you that there will be an epic plot twist that I expect none of you would have seen coming, but everything from Legends 1-3 will suddenly make a lot more sense. I can’t express just how much everything will have not been as it seems. It sounds cliché, but for those of you who have stuck with the series… it will be far more rewarding. Expect a ton of action, adventure, getting to know your characters on a deeper level, and epic surprises along the way.

There will definitely be a Legends of Marithia 4!

Yes, the series will not end in the trilogy but will continue on. You heard it here first. I estimate that we are a mere number of months away from completion of Legends of Marithia 3. In celebration of this, I have put up a two chapter preview of the third book, so run to it and let me know what you think!

The cover is yet TBD, along with the subtitle of the book, but that will be updated soon.

Legends of Marithia Movie Teaser

Work continues on the teaser, and we are finalising the script. The producer is gathering actors and we have some great musicians working on the score. Filming is TBD, but hopefully should start in September.

 

I have been inspired by a great actor and friend, Barry Duffield, who is busy turning one of his screenplays into a graphic novel, Deadman’s Land. I have many goals and dreams for my novels, and this is one of them. This is pre-concept news, but I am hoping that work on this can begin soon with the right artist. Details are to come soon.

Mind Jacked

Yes, my sci-fi novel has been put on the side for now as I want to focus on completing Legends of Marithia 3, but once that is done… then Mind Jacked will have my full attention. For those of my fans that are waiting for my next big thing, this will definitely be it and you are in for a shock to the system.

Website updates

You will find updates to various areas of the site, including a new Book Artist page (will be continually updated), updates to Marithipedia (more to be updated as Legends 3 nears publishing stages), and a few extra additions on a couple of pages.

Until my next update,

Peter Koevari

Major News: Legends of Marithia movie teaser begins filming soon

Greetings to all Marithia fans!

I haven’t updated the blog in a while, as I have been working crazy hard on Legends of Marithia 3, and building up a path for Legends of Marithia to be made into a feature film or TV Series.

The good news is, that I am working with a Director/Producer from Boston, USA: Farzad Wafapoor.

An initial teaser script has been written, is being finalised, and filming of the Hollywood style movie teaser begins soon. Yes, the teaser is being filmed, and you will see it in the near future.

The steps from there will depend on the direction that things will take, but we will either be raising funds / seeking investors for an indie production, or if we can make the teaser go viral and get the attention of the big studios, then things will swing in a commercial direction.

I look forward to knocking the socks off the big studio’s executives.

The questions you may be asking are: What will be in the teaser?

The teaser script is still being finalised, but it should feature 1-2 of the primary characters: Kassina and Vartan.

It will feature the storyline and scenes from the first book, Prophecies Awakening.

Expect to be a touch shocked, uncomfortable, and maybe even cringe a little. After all, my books are not for the faint hearted, and the teaser will be an attention getter.

Watch this space for more details as they come.

In the meantime, have you read the books yet? Let me know what you think, and what you would like to see in the teaser.

Tuneup Media v2.4 review and comparison with Rinse my Music (EDIT note for v3)

This may seem a bit odd, that I am reviewing music library cleaning software as an author. However, for the many of us who write books, we also like to listen to music. Personally, I write my books on my bus trips to and from work, on an iPad (I know, the horror, right?), but music goes hand in hand to get me in the mood.

I happy to be a music lover with an extensive collection of songs that I have refined over the years.

Without digressing too much, allow me to share the horror story of when I tried a competitor to Tuneup Media, Rinse my music.

Now, I love the idea of set and forget. I’m busy doing many things, so having software that promises to clean up my collection, and I can be busy doing other things, definitely appealed to me. I thought, I will set this thing to a surety level of 80% and hit RINSE.

I have over 7000 songs and expected this to take quite a while. Off it went, and I let it run overnight. I woke up the next morning to see that it was done (Yay! Or so I thought), sync my iPhone, go to work, and enjoy some tunes.

Then I discovered that Rinse My Music had  epic failed in some areas. I can handle that it couldn’t identify my Asian music (I have a large amount of chinese songs), but there was a critical defect in the software that was an atomic bomb to a huge amount of my album art.

What did Rinse my Music do?

It looks up an MP3, fixes the ID3 tags, and then, if it cannot locate the right album art online, it just grabs any random artwork that already exists in your collection and applies it to the MP3. You can imagine, with my epic collection that this was going to mess up a lot of my stuff. I wasn’t wrong. It also had a high rate of mis-identifying popular commercial songs and rewriting them with completely wrong song, album, etc.

But wait, there’s more! There was no undo button for any of the changes.

Rinse my Music did this to me

Are you feeling the horror?

I raised this defect with Rinse My Music about a year ago. They acknowledged it, compensated my purchase, but the damage was done. 1 year later, they have still not fixed the defect. I am not joking.

And you want to speak to the guys who made it? You can only send a ticket through RealNetworks.

After a few more updates that did nothing to fix these issues, and rinsing my music to have it epic fail again, I discovered and installed TuneUpMedia (TUM).

Wow. I will preface this by saying that the software is not perfect, but what is? I was impressed by both the software, and the excellent support and ease of contact. These guys are right up my alley. They are on social media, easy to contact, respond to their customers, and are friendly to speak with.

So, what did this software do? How did it perform?

When you switch to TuneUp Media, or are a first timer, you have to expect a few things.

1)    It will require some attention and instruction from you. This is not a bad thing, as you can have it automatically update songs if you choose to.

2)    You will need to be ready to work on your library a bit at a time (if you’re nuts like me with a massive library)

3)    Your music files will get updated properly, with only a small number of exceptions where things may go wrong.

4)    You will be impressed

I am a quality assurance professional in my day career, and I threw some real hairy stuff at this thing. Running a high end AIO computer, I threw all 7000 songs to “Clean”. Now, let me tell you, the guys at TUM will tell you NOT to do that. But what shocked me the most, was that it actually managed to go through all those songs and identify them, categorise them, and have them ready for cleaning.

I didn’t expect it to get that far. Naturally, if I tried to actually go ahead and clean, it ran out of memory. But I was doing what I shouldn’t have been able to do, so that is entirely a fault of my own. They wrote a solid bit of code to be able to handle an enormous list like that.

When you first install TUM, it will identify songs that it thinks need cleaning. Clean those first.

As my collection was pretty messed up by Rinse my Media, I went with a brutal option. I selected all of my songs in iTunes, clicked Get Info, and ticked the album art with nothing in it, and clicked ok.

This is known as an album art purge. After all of the additional artwork and fixes, I had a heap of hard drive space in use from artwork and wanted to start fresh. Working through the songs in alphabetical order, I threw in 500-1000 at a time.

Tuneup my media will put the songs into lists for you, depending on whether it matches the song, and how sure it is about it being correct. I was pretty confident with what I had seen, so I ticked to update all. One mild annoyance is that songs are flagged in red if you try to update, but the album art is unavailable. I would love to see some smarts in the software for it to have the following logic:

1)    Try to update album art with 500x pixels or above first

2)    Try the next, higher resolution album art. If one does not exist, then flag red.

3)    Repeat steps 1-2

I am not sure where the art is being sourced from, but I can tell you that most of my collection updated beautifully. TUM actually listens to songs, and this is a huge feature, as RMM got so many of my songs wrong. I have a lot of vocal remixes, and these were picked up right. Very impressive work, TUM!

TUM also has great features of Cover Art finder (good for me to clean up some songs that it couldn’t find album art for, or partially downloaded, but that is the exception and not the rule.), deduper, and Tuniverse.

And check it out, it has an UNDO feature if something goes wrong.

I love the fact that TUM loads up next to iTunes, and can be detached/reattached. It does have a few refresh issues when used heavily, but it refreshes fine if you attach or detach it. Hopefully they smoothen that out in updates.

This is nothing compared to the headache of Rinse My Music loading with iTunes, and not letting you maximise iTunes at all. Then you click to remove the toolbar, and it still loads every time. That frustration, my friends, is a whole new league of annoying.

Since I uninstalled RMM, and installed TUM, I have felt so much better opening up my iTunes.

Tuneup in Action!

Tuniverse is interesting, but I don’t use it a lot. Mostly as I listen to most of my music on iOS devices, but it is pretty cool to bring up lyrics to songs and artist info.

TUM made sorting out my music enjoyable again, and I no longer get stressed out when I am flicking through songs on my iPhone or iPad. I use a player called Track8, which is like a Windows 8 interface to a music player, and since TUM cleaned up my songs, it looks really slick.

If you want your tunes to have art, look right, then there is no comparison to TuneUp Media. This software is near perfect, and I rarely ever use software that is. I know the guys will find this review, and when they do, they will already look into the small things I touched on here, because that is just the kind of developers they are.

TuneUpMedia: Your software rocks! And your attitude is winning.

EDIT: This review was written based on v2.4 of TuneUp Media, which I shall now refer to as “The Golden Age”. Since v3 was released, everything has gone downhill. I found TuneUpMedia to be completely unusable. This was literally the biggest shock to me, as I was on the BETA test team and had reported the major issues before it was released. It was so bad, that I had to completely uninstall it, as I have a huge collection of music and it brought itunes to its knees on load. This is a huge shame, as I LOVED v2.4 and still do, but there is no ability to roll back to the previous version. I’ve found myself re-installing Rinse My Music until this is sorted out.

My Score: 4.8/5 – Excellent

Tuneup Media review and comparison with Rinse my Music

This may seem a bit odd, that I am reviewing music library cleaning software as an author. However, for the many of us who write books, we also like to listen to music. Personally, I write my books on my bus trips to and from work, on an iPad (I know, the horror, right?), but music goes hand in hand to get me in the mood.

I happy to be a music lover with an extensive collection of songs that I have refined over the years.

Without digressing too much, allow me to share the horror story of when I tried a competitor to Tuneup Media, Rinse my music.

Now, I love the idea of set and forget. I’m busy doing many things, so having software that promises to clean up my collection, and I can be busy doing other things, definitely appealed to me. I thought, I will set this thing to a surety level of 80% and hit RINSE.

I have over 7000 songs and expected this to take quite a while. Off it went, and I let it run overnight. I woke up the next morning to see that it was done (Yay! Or so I thought), sync my iPhone, go to work, and enjoy some tunes.

Then I discovered that Rinse My Music had  epic failed in some areas. I can handle that it couldn’t identify my Asian music (I have a large amount of chinese songs), but there was a critical defect in the software that was an atomic bomb to a huge amount of my album art.

What did Rinse my Music do?

It looks up an MP3, fixes the ID3 tags, and then, if it cannot locate the right album art online, it just grabs any random artwork that already exists in your collection and applies it to the MP3. You can imagine, with my epic collection that this was going to mess up a lot of my stuff. I wasn’t wrong. It also had a high rate of mis-identifying popular commercial songs and rewriting them with completely wrong song, album, etc.

But wait, there’s more! There was no undo button for any of the changes.

Rinse my Music did this to me

Are you feeling the horror?

I raised this defect with Rinse My Music about a year ago. They acknowledged it, compensated my purchase, but the damage was done. 1 year later, they have still not fixed the defect. I am not joking.

And you want to speak to the guys who made it? You can only send a ticket through RealNetworks.

After a few more updates that did nothing to fix these issues, and rinsing my music to have it epic fail again, I discovered and installed TuneUpMedia (TUM).

Wow. I will preface this by saying that the software is not perfect, but what is? I was impressed by both the software, and the excellent support and ease of contact. These guys are right up my alley. They are on social media, easy to contact, respond to their customers, and are friendly to speak with.

So, what did this software do? How did it perform?

When you switch to TuneUp Media, or are a first timer, you have to expect a few things.

1)    It will require some attention and instruction from you. This is not a bad thing, as you can have it automatically update songs if you choose to.

2)    You will need to be ready to work on your library a bit at a time (if you’re nuts like me with a massive library)

3)    Your music files will get updated properly, with only a small number of exceptions where things may go wrong.

4)    You will be impressed

I am a quality assurance professional in my day career, and I threw some real hairy stuff at this thing. Running a high end AIO computer, I threw all 7000 songs to “Clean”. Now, let me tell you, the guys at TUM will tell you NOT to do that. But what shocked me the most, was that it actually managed to go through all those songs and identify them, categorise them, and have them ready for cleaning.

I didn’t expect it to get that far. Naturally, if I tried to actually go ahead and clean, it ran out of memory. But I was doing what I shouldn’t have been able to do, so that is entirely a fault of my own. They wrote a solid bit of code to be able to handle an enormous list like that.

When you first install TUM, it will identify songs that it thinks need cleaning. Clean those first.

As my collection was pretty messed up by Rinse my Media, I went with a brutal option. I selected all of my songs in iTunes, clicked Get Info, and ticked the album art with nothing in it, and clicked ok.

This is known as an album art purge. After all of the additional artwork and fixes, I had a heap of hard drive space in use from artwork and wanted to start fresh. Working through the songs in alphabetical order, I threw in 500-1000 at a time.

Tuneup my media will put the songs into lists for you, depending on whether it matches the song, and how sure it is about it being correct. I was pretty confident with what I had seen, so I ticked to update all. One mild annoyance is that songs are flagged in red if you try to update, but the album art is unavailable. I would love to see some smarts in the software for it to have the following logic:

1)    Try to update album art with 500x pixels or above first

2)    Try the next, higher resolution album art. If one does not exist, then flag red.

3)    Repeat steps 1-2

I am not sure where the art is being sourced from, but I can tell you that most of my collection updated beautifully. TUM actually listens to songs, and this is a huge feature, as RMM got so many of my songs wrong. I have a lot of vocal remixes, and these were picked up right. Very impressive work, TUM!

TUM also has great features of Cover Art finder (good for me to clean up some songs that it couldn’t find album art for, or partially downloaded, but that is the exception and not the rule.), deduper, and Tuniverse.

And check it out, it has an UNDO feature if something goes wrong.

I love the fact that TUM loads up next to iTunes, and can be detached/reattached. It does have a few refresh issues when used heavily, but it refreshes fine if you attach or detach it. Hopefully they smoothen that out in updates.

This is nothing compared to the headache of Rinse My Music loading with iTunes, and not letting you maximise iTunes at all. Then you click to remove the toolbar, and it still loads every time. That frustration, my friends, is a whole new league of annoying.

Since I uninstalled RMM, and installed TUM, I have felt so much better opening up my iTunes.

Tuneup in Action!

Tuniverse is interesting, but I don’t use it a lot. Mostly as I listen to most of my music on iOS devices, but it is pretty cool to bring up lyrics to songs and artist info.

TUM made sorting out my music enjoyable again, and I no longer get stressed out when I am flicking through songs on my iPhone or iPad. I use a player called Track8, which is like a Windows 8 interface to a music player, and since TUM cleaned up my songs, it looks really slick.

If you want your tunes to have art, look right, then there is no comparison to TuneUp Media. This software is near perfect, and I rarely ever use software that is. I know the guys will find this review, and when they do, they will already look into the small things I touched on here, because that is just the kind of developers they are.

TuneUpMedia: Your software rocks! And your attitude is winning.

My Score: 4.8/5 – Excellent

3 common misconceptions for authors and want-to-be authors

Kristen Lamb, awesome chick extraordinaire, wrote a blog which has inspired me to write this one. If you aren’t following Kristen yet, check her out

When it comes to writing and writers, I think that there are many perceptions in the world that are completely off base. This is both from a non-writer’s perspective, and a writer’s perspective.

I want to shed some light, truth, and tips on 3 of these perceptions. So, let’s get cracking!

#1 : Writing a novel is going to be all fun and easy   Most people never actually finish writing a manuscript, because they realise just how difficult it is to write a novel. It’s not just about typing words, but about telling a story, keeping the reader engaged, and maintaining a level of entertainment. Yes, at times it is fun ^^, but a lot of the time it is like hand crafting the tiles to the Sisteen Chapel.

The important thing is to expect that it will be tough, but never to give up. Having said that, it is not a good idea to want to write a novel when your life is generally already overwhelmed. You will start swimming and quickly sink.

#2 I’ve written a manuscript! I’m done!   I’ve experienced this myself, when I wrote my first manuscript. I had the idea that I could send it to publishers, land a contract, and start earning decent money as a writer. Wrong? Oh yes.   I *DID* manage to land a publisher, but oh my god, did I have a lot to learn, and I am still recouping my own costs in the process. I have written about POD publishers, and you should beware! Be careful what you get into, and as soon as you’re paying out for publisher’s services, it’s a sure sign that something is amiss.   When a manuscript is written, it generally will *not* be publishable. As much as we love our work, it will be full of mistakes and i’m sorry to break this to you, but the work has only just begun. Now, you can totally go ahead and publish, because in this day and age, nothing will actually stop you from doing so. But if you publish something that is a mess, that will be reflected in the reviews you receive.

With each book we write, we improve as authors… so long as we don’t stick our head in the sand and have a complex that we are just perfect the way we are. Nobody is perfect, not Stephen King (although he is pretty darned close LOL), or Tolkien. Be modest, and on a continual quest to learn and improve.

#3 I published my book through Createspace. Wow, I’m a published author!   Not meaning to be negative or to rain on anyone’s parade, but absolutely anyone can jump on createspace/Amazon KDP, upload a manuscript with no quality check or proofreading whatsoever, hit publish and put their work on the Amazon marketplace.

I too often see that happen and then: OMFG Like, I’m a published author, and like, i’m going to be famous. :-/   The train crash called reality is coming, and I don’t think that those “published authors” will see it before it hits. This is the problem with the flood of indie “authors” who publish without taking their craft and work seriously. It also makes it incredibly difficult to find decent work in the haystack of mediocrity.

Not to take away from their achievement, because writing a book *is* hard work, and that alone is a feat worth celebrating, but being a published author is a title which is too easily attained. The real test of our work begins as soon as we start getting reviews. For those authors who are buying reviews or trading for favourable reviews; you are doing yourselves no favours at all, because people will download it and wonder what those reviewers were smoking. Stick with honesty, even if it stings. Pain is your friend, and feedback is something you should crave, not fear.

Now, I am not egotistical, and I don’t think that my books are better than everyone elses, but having the discipline and professionalism to make your book publishable will make a world of a difference. Spend the time to have the book proofread, and I don’t mean by your best friend/mother/sister/brother/uncle.

The bottom line for anyone who wants to write, is writing, or has finished a manuscript is: Expect hard work that never stops, stay honest and true, both with your readers and with yourself.

My Journey – Writing and general musings (9th April)

I have decided that instead of posting blogs about certain topics, I would keep a regular blog about the writing journey. There will be sweat, tears, and hopefully no blood… well at least not outside of my manuscripts’ pages.

I will try to write on a regular basis, and hope that it brings you some shared insight, learning, and maybe even some entertainment.

So, what has been happening lately in my world? If you missed my last update, I mentioned that I was finishing Legends of Marithia 3, and also writing my new scifi book at the same time.

I had some thoughts on how to proceed with my two books, and how I am going with the possibly crazy idea of writing two books at the same time. Legends of Marithia 3 was going very well, but as I realised that it is going to need serious re-work from the ground up to be what I want it to be; I had to take a different tact.

To give you all some insight into what has been happening; I submitted the first 20 pages of Legends 3 to a critic that is incredibly well known in the industry. Kristen Lamb, the legend that she is! If you are a writer not following, reading, or learning from Kristen Lamb, you should be!

The result? I will need to do a lot of work to deliver the best book I can, but the underlaying story and much of my writing is actually quite good. What I am missing in it, are some general themes of feedback that I need to address. And they are some really great areas for me to work on.

Continual improvement is important, and feedback is something that I crave and take seriously when it is received. After all, what is paramount to me as a writer is to deliver the best possible book to you, my readers.   Legends 3 *is* going to be the best book in the series, but I have forgotten something important that I learned from Legends 1, to Legends 2. That is to slow down, write more narrative, and let the reader enjoy the journey from less of a dizzying jump of POV.

This means a few things. I need to rewrite Legends of Marithia from the ground up, I will need to cut down on POV in the books, give readers more insight on the character driven story, and letting the plot and events in the book change the path that they take.   That is a huge task, and one that I could use taking a break from the manuscript and coming back to. I have found that jumping from one world to the other, helped by the fact that they are different genres, is proving exhausting. Do not try this at home   This brings me to my new stand-alone scifi novel, Mind Jacked. I have only just begun this book, and the feedback received on Legends 3 has actually mostly been covered in what I have been writing, with exception to some elements that I can rework to strengthen.

This means that I have learned a lot in my writing journey, but that I was trying to stick within a mould of the previous two novels, and polish off Legends of Marithia in a third book. It look as though I am going to need at least 4 books in the series LOL This means a lot more work for me, but a lot more reading material for my fans.

So, I am in a position of trying to choose one path, or the other. I can write two books at the same time, and not pay both of them my full attention, or write them one at a time and devote my full attention to each.   Do I write and complete Mind Jacked first? Or rework and complete Legends of Marithia first? Both options look good, but being that Mind Jacked will most likely be a singular novel, and will allow me a break from Legends, to come back to it with fresh eyes; it seems the smarter choice.

Once I have Mind Jacked written, polished, sharpened, and ready for publication, then I can focus on a complete rewrite of Legends of Marithia 3.   I have huge self-expectations for Mind Jacked, and it will be a novel that I will also pitch to publishers. So, you can get ready for one hell of a ride in Mind Jacked. Once that is done, then we can both take a new journey into Legends of Marithia 3, and I expect a stronger novel as a result.   So much work needs to be done!

Peter

An update from the world of Peter Koevari

Greetings to all of my readers, friends, and fans.

You have probably been wondering where I have disappeared to, and what has been happening with things such as the next instalment in the Legends of Marithia series. Well, I can tell you that I have been absent, but incredibly busy.

So, you may ask, what have I been so busy with? I’m glad you asked, really!

Although I have not had the time to blog yet, and I really need to make that, I am actually writing two books simultaneously. Legends of Marithia 3 has taken great shape and is sitting at around 45,000 words. Still quite a while to go, but in the midst of writing the third and possibly last instalment in the series, another idea was scratching away at my mind. My latest project was born, and it is a sci-fi novel that will be absolutely amazing. I pledge to live up to that promise.

Writing two books, studying, working full time, and having some downtime is a major challenge, and one that I may just write about for those who are struggling with time management. But then again, don’t we always struggle with that?

Sometime in the near future, a preview of Legends of Marithia 3 will be posted for fans to sink their teeth into. My proofreading team sure has their hands full, as I take turns between writing in the world of Marithia, and a futuristic world.

I have also re-kindled my love for the game of Magic the Gathering, but that is another story, as is my writegoal addiction reward of Real Racing 3.

There will be more blogs, but I focus on my craft first, and it will all be very much worth the wait. Legends 3 will be a firecracker finish to this storyline, and when the new sci-fi book is published, prepare to be blown away.

Blog and talk soon, and you can also find me on facebook and twitter.

Peter Koevari

How I got more than 80 reviews of my indie books

It’s funny how often I find myself looking for answers on the internet and on my social networks that can help my books gain publicity, readers, and hopefully some reviews. This post is going to discuss what I have been through so far, attempted, and worked on to get my books to where they are now.

So, you may be wondering, where are my books now? Depending on what channel you look at will give you a different answer. I can proudly (hand on heart) say that in everything I have done, that I can hold my head high to say that I took no shortcuts and I never asked anyone for anything outside of their honest opinions in their reviews.

As it stands, I have 80+ reviews on Goodreads, and 58 reviews on Amazon.com. Some of them are posted in both, and some are not. Most of them are favourable, many are critical, and I have a few “haters” in the mix as well. However, Legends of Marithia 1 is averaging 4.2 stars on Amazon, and Legends of Marithia 2 is averaging 4.5 stars.

 

So, let’s get cracking into my story:

1) My original book 1, which was published by iUniverse.

This was the hardest road for me to travel, because as gamers would put it nicely, I was a complete noob. Aside from telling people on Facebook, starting up Twitter, and having a successful book launch… it all basically stopped there. My publisher did nothing to promote the book, but were happy to ask me to buy packages to market my book to their readers.

Things I learned:

Just because you have a publisher put out your book, does not mean that they will do anything to market your book. Unless you are a celebrity, already famous, or insanely lucky.
Readers and reviewers are hard to come by, and if you publish your first book with high expectations… then you will likely find yourself falling to your butt on the pavement and wondering what to do next. Don’t despair, because you should never give up
Listen to your readers and reviewers, and if they give you feedback which is constructive or critical and has merit, then take it on board
Keep writing!

2) Writing my second book as an indie release, and re-releasing a new ‘Uncut and Extended Edition’ of Legends 1, again as an indie

I took everything I learned from the publishing process, and applied it to being able to do it myself. After I discovered that my publisher was going to charge me a lot of money to do anything with my first book, even just changing the cover… I realised that I am far better off to just cut out the “middle man”. After all, they were doing nothing that I couldn’t actually do myself. One thing you find though, as soon as you go indie, is that many people will judge you because you are not published by a “real publisher”. I say bollocks to that, and think that these days… you can actually be worse off to go through a publisher, but I digress.

I took on-board everything that I received in my reviews and improved my craft for Legends 2 and Legends 1 uncut. I purchased amazing artwork from Claudia at www.phatpuppyart.com and they grace the covers.

The most important thing you need to learn here is: You need to make your books as marketable and publishable as possible!

If you have an amazing book that has a cover which looks like a 12 year old put it together, or that it was done in paint, then you will have a serious problem. Don’t be fooled by the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover”. Everyone does. What is the first thing that you think of when you see a truly awful cover? For me, it is “If the cover sucks that bad, then the book will be terrible. Move on”

Also, you can’t sell a book just with a great cover alone. I released my books, 6 months apart, and did endless research. In the end, I learned and realised the following:

Make your books high quality with amazing covers, so that they catch the eye and are nice to read
Make sure your books are truly publishable and aren’t just taken from your proofread, a friend’s edit, and then published
Your social media platform and website need to be looked after. You don’t need to blog all the time and tweet fifty times a day, but when you do, make sure that it’s decent
As an author, have you taken the time to make a decent website? bio pages and updated details of your books on Amazon, Shelfari, Goodreads, etc? You better do so!
Do you interact with others? Or do you just post links to try to sell your books? If it’s the latter, do NOT do this… it’s going to shoot massive holes through your feet

3) Marketing without spending a fortune

There is not one single method that works for everyone, and this is going to take hard work. Don’t expect a “click here for 500 purchases” as that is just not going to happen. I will list out what I tried, what the estimated results were, and what worked/works for me:

Amazon Kindle KDP

I took the bait with this program and signed up my books for KDP exclusivity. What this did was a double edged sword, as I alienated anyone who didn’t have a Kindle device or app, but also made a good amount of sales. But what did I have to do to get those sales?

I ran multiple giveaways, and even attracted many free kindle sites to promote them, and paid one time for marketing of my giveaway. Did it pay off? a little, but not much. I gave away thousands of copies of my books and I am yet to see a review come from the KDP giveaways. My feeling is that people either just freeload everything they can, and may never read it, or they just don’t want to review

Facebook and Twitter

I have a Facebook fan page, which I try to update regularly and I have plenty of likes there. I ran giveaways on Facebook, and they helped a little. I think that a fan page is a great idea, but make sure that you keep it up to date and don’t spam your friends. I use Twitter, although I don’t use it quite as much as I used to. Partly this is due to time management, and it is also due to the many contacts that I was close with on Twitter… not really talking much anymore.

Goodreads, where I found the most success

If you are not on goodreads, then you should not consider yourself a modern author. And it’s not just about being “on there”, but you need to make an investment of time and books. I ran multiple giveaways on Goodreads, and not eBooks… but paperbacks. Ah yes, they cost money, and there is no way around that… but this is allowing you to market directly to readers.

But, you may ask… how did I get so many reviews? I suppose that I should answer that, being the subject of this post and all.

The first thing I did was to run giveaways, but then I spent a lot of time going through the entrants of my giveaways and speaking with them. Now, let me make this abundantly clear: Do NOT spam your entrants with “buy my book here”, as it will bite you on the butt faster than you can say OMG

I didn’t take that route, but instead… I went through and not only checked out the entrants, their profiles, and books that they like to read, but I personally sent them a message about the giveaway, their profile, my books, and an offer to give them a copy of my book in exchange for a truly honest review.

Carefully selecting who you wish to contact is also key. There is no point giving a book to someone who never writes reviews, or hates your genre.

There are some rules about this and some common sense, but the biggest one is to be kind, courteous, and respectful to the entrants. After all, you are essentially contacting them “out of the blue”

The response to my messages, being that they are legitimate, genuine, and generous… has been overwhelmingly positive. Now, you will run into the fact that you will get some reviews that you won’t like… but welcome to the real world! If you can only handle fluff being thrown at you, then you have no place in a commercial environment.

Having said that, there will be those that just want to tear you and your work down with no merits. Those are the ones I affectionately call “haters”, and I have no qualms with them, as everyone is entitled to their opinion. Readers see through haters, and so long as it’s a few voices and not the sound of the choir of 90%+ of your readership, then you know that it is what it is.

I gave away a lot of books, and you may think that’s crazy… but not only do you get reviews in return, but you make some friends, and gain exposure. If they like your book, then they will tell many others about it.

It’s that simple, and it works… because it’s real. This is not “selling someone something”, but giving someone something that they wanted in the first place.

Peter

Book Review – Influx, by J C Jones

As a fantasy and sci-fi fan, I was excited to pick up Influx. This is not only because of the content of the book, but that I happen to know the author, and he’s a darn nice guy too! Nevertheless, I read and review every book fairly and honestly and by its merits.

Plot

I will do my best not to make comparisons with invasion films I have seen, but I couldn’t help but think back to certain scenes from movies that unfortunately, made the ending in the book mostly predictable for me. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, as there is an original element in this book and I did find myself wanting to read the sequel… as it is obvious that there should be one! So that means that Jones has certainly done something right with Influx.

One thing that I recognised immediately, is that in some respects, Jones and I share a similar writing style. He broke his book into movie-like scenes, which I enjoyed. To be honest though, I found myself ignoring the chapter locations and time and just reading through the story. It’s great that Jones has focused on creating a timeline, but I didn’t think it was necessary to enjoy the story and follow what was going on, as there were no time shifts, and things flowed nicely.

Influx tells the story of what looks to be an alien invasion originating from the moon, and in some respects, this was done in a way that I hadn’t seen before. Sadly, as someone who is somewhat obsessed with watching alien invasion movies, some of the story felt too familiar. Being fair, Influx was written far before a lot of films which I would compare it to, that I have seen in the past few years. The most notable comparison is Transformers: Dark of the moon, where I got the biggest sense of deja vu. Who knows, maybe the directors got a copy of Influx?

The idea of self replicating machines and an invasion from the moon is evident in the Transformers series of films. They self replicate with the “cube”, are intelligent, learn, and adapt and want to take over earth. It’s a comparison which may irrit JOnes, but as I said… he wrote the book far before the Transformers movies came out.

There were also moments that were very Independence Day, especially with the way that the invasion force was stopped. I did love the way that the last decoded signal was done, but in the scene where Starscream escapes into the stratosphere in Transformers, I did see it coming.

Comparisons aside, this was an enjoyable ride. I did find that it was slow to start, and thought that there were almost too many characters, but once the proverbial hit the fan, I was hooked right in… and I then found myself looking at the remaining pages and wanting to scream “Noooooooo! not much left???”

I do absolutely love that it’s evident that Jones knows his craft, and his research is clear… as is the endless references to coffee. I found myself having cravings from reading the many descriptions of the stuff.

Probably the biggest thing that bugged me (ba-dam-ching), was that there seemed to be no descriptions of people dying from the invasion or aliens themselves, fatalaties, etc. We have an alien invasion, and they get angry… very angry. Later in the book, there is mention of people who had died. There was a good scene depicting the brutality of military. When the aliens were coming into the base, I was gearing up for some blood and guts, but although they got their butt kicked… people were unscathed.

If this is re-written, then there should be expansion in these scenes, and a new cover, as the words Jones used to describe that scene outshine the cover 1000 fold.

This had better be a series out of this! Because there was substantial build-up, a decent amount of action, but then as a reader… I am left wanting.

Characterisation

There are a lot of characters in this book, and that can be okay for a series. Some characters I enjoyed more than others. Angela and Ziggy were my favourites. There were some action scenes where Jones really shined in his writing. Jones definitely can write, and well too! I will get to that.

Some characters were well developed, and others were a touch plastic… but that may be intentional as an opener to a series. I really didn’t feel too close to many of the characters, but Jones managed to get me emotional at a final scene between Michael and Matthew. Good work on jerking a tear out of me! It’s not easy for a book to do that. All of that character building paid off

Willis was a great character too, and kind of reminded me of Bruce Willis (at least that was what I pictured) in action movies. Loved his scenes.

Writing Style

This was one of the cleanest reads and very smooth at that. Jones knows how to write, and writes well.

The only annoyance with style, was that there was no differentiator between narrative and internal thought/dialog. I found myself re-reading many passages to know where the story stopped, and the internal thoughts began, and vice versa. It was small, but annoying.

I know that there are reasons that this book has been “americanised”, but there were times that it irritated me. Most alien invasion movies are set in the states, so that makes sense, but at times… there were moments of overkill.

Jones really shines in his action scenes and technical writing, which showcases his research and experience. There was a lot of care taken in getting the details right, and it is appreciated.

Overall Opinion

Influx was a decent read, and it did hook me in. The build up was nice, and I would definitely recommend this to fans of sci-fi and alien invasion books and movies.

The comparisons with films do not mean something bad, but instead… it shows that he’s nailing something and doing it well. There are some absolute blockbuster alien invasion films, and to be compared to them is actually a compliment. There are no “used” ideas here, just familiarity.

It is not perfect, but what book is? Even Tolkien has flaws and annoyances. And for anyone worried about it feeling “dated”, it didn’t feel that way at all.

Solid debut novel from Jones, and I can’t wait to see what he does with his second. This boy has talent! and this series has huge potential.

When buying software licensing goes wrong, Panda Internet Security 2012 Groupon sale

Today will be a different post, as this is a story worth sharing for anyone who buys software (let’s face it, we all do), looks for good deals online, and then may find themselves unwillingly duped. We all know that you get what you pay for, but what happens when you think you are getting a full license, it is presented as a full license, and you get a cut down one?

Take exhibit A, the groupon deal that I purchased.

Yes, I saw a fantastic deal for a 3 year, full, internet security license for Panda Internet Security… for an amazing saving, up to the value of $165. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Well, I certainly thought so.

So, being in need of a new internet security suite, I went ahead and bought a 3-user license. Note, as you will see on Groupon’s website, that this is for a full license. Payment went through fine, and the deal was “on”, and I then received a license from Panda, which consisted of the following email:

Dear Groupon Customer,

Thank you for purchasing your new Panda Internet Security 2012 software.

1.Please download and install your Panda software via the following link:

Download: Panda Internet Security 2012

2.During the installation you will be prompted to enter an Activation Code, as follows:

XXXXXX-XXXXXXX

Please note: If you have ordered protection for 1, 3 or 5 computers, we have provided individual Activation Codes for each computer. You may use these codes yourself, or you are very welcome to share them with friends and family. Each Activation Code can only be used once.

If you require technical support, please visit http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/support/

Regards,

Panda Security Australia

PANDA SECURITY. The Cloud Security Company.

Try Panda Cloud Office Protection

Now, that all sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I went ahead, installed my software, had issues with annoying bugs in it (that they did resolve with patches for me to download), and I was relatively happy with the knowledge that I had a full 3 year license, and although the 2012 software wasn’t so great, I looked forward to upgrading to the new 2013 version, as for those of us who use internet security suites know… a license generally means free upgrades, and new versions mean better features and usually, a lot of improvements.

So, lo and behold… the brand spanking new and shiny Panda Internet Security 2013 was released, and I went ahead to download… go through the painful process of multiple reinstalls, to then find out that I couldn’t activate it. I took it up with Panda’s forums, to be redirected to their sales team. I was thinking, what? I bought a full license, why on earth am I being made to purchase a new license again?

A few posts later, I found out why, and here it is, posted by Panda themselves:

Our database reveals that your activation code belongs to an OEM version, as the topic mentioned above states ”*NOTE: This information applies only to commercial versions of Panda’s products (boxed or online version).”

As all of the techies out there would know, it is actually not legal to sell OEM software without a hardware or system purchase, but this is also a blatant case of false advertising. I checked with a fine tooth comb, and neither Groupon or the Panda communications i received when i bought the license mention anything about OEM licensing, and the sale clearly states that you receive a full license.

Naturally, I am here to share this information with everyone for many reasons… but there were a huge amount of these licenses sold, and you may have been caught the exact same way and be completely unaware until you go to upgrade. To add insult to injury, I could not find the download for 2012, only 2013 on their website, and Panda keep telling me to go to their sales team.

My take? Advise Groupon of the sale being not as described and request my money back, but because we live in a world of Social Media, I am able to share this story with you all… so that you don’t end up making the same mistake, or if you already have… you can do something about it.

Is it the fault of Groupon? Panda? Or both? This remains to be seen. So, I now use Microsoft Security Essentials until I can sort this out, and have asked for a refund. I will post a comment with an update of what happens as a result of this… but I am sure that all of you can learn a lot out of this. I have had a lot of great purchases from group buying websites, but this goes down as one of the worst. Let’s see if this is resolved with class.

What can we learn from this as writers? Be careful of where we buy tools and software, after all… most of us write on computers, and internet security is always important.

Have you had a similar experience? If so, share it! And if you know of great internet security software and good pricing on the licenses, please comment!