Rob Blackwell's Blog, page 7

A Soul to Steal is now on Nook, Kobo at NO COST

So I recognize I haven't been keeping up with this blog, and for that I apologize.

Truthfully, I've been hard at work on the sequel to A Soul to Steal, which is coming out.... soon. Very soon, I hope. There are revisions to be completed, copyediting to be done, but we're almost there. A few folks have read it and so far, the response has been tremendous. I'm very excited.

To celebrate it's pending arrival, I've expanded A Soul to Steal to Nook and Kobo. That's right, I'm no longer under the exclusivity arrangement with Amazon (Don't worry, Kindle, I will always love you). Furthermore, I've made the book totally FREE for both Nook and Kobo readers. Hopefully, we'll see it on iTunes and Diesel and anywhere else eBooks are sold soon enough.

If you have a Nook, you can download it here: http://bit.ly/AS2SNFree
If you have a Kobo, you can download it here: http://bit.ly/AS2SKobo
If you have anything else, you can download it from Smashwords (for free) here: http://bit.ly/AS2SSW
For those who haven't downloaded it for Kindle yet, it's just 99 cents on Amazon: http://amzn.to/asoul2steal

Happy Reading!

Is My Book A Success Yet?

In terms of book sales, June has been a crappy month. In fact, it’s easily going down as the worst month in A Soul to Steal’s nine month history as a published work, including when I first beta-launched it last September. After a blockbuster February and March, book sales have steadily dropped off, only to collapse completely when Amazon changed its algorithms around May 1. I’m hardly the only one to whom this has happened. Author’s blogs are filled with similar stories. Some wonder openly if this is the end of “indie” authors, whether Amazon—probably unintentionally—has killed us off.I’ve struggled with this question, only to conclude that the answer really doesn’t matter. The real question is this: why did I publish my book in the first place?I did it so I could tell stories to other people. Years ago, I wrote a good book. I consistently believed that if I could put it in people’s hands, they would enjoy it. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Program gave me a chance to test that theory. Sure, I had dreams that it would be a runaway bestseller, storming the charts and allowing me to launch my career as a novelist. But in my heart, I knew that wasn’t likely.So I set a realistic goal for myself: if I sold 1,000 copies, I would consider the book a “success.” I passed that goal in early January, not quite four months after the novel first went on sale. But I wasn’t satisfied.See, I have a problem with the notion of “success.” If A Soul to Steal was selling in the Top 100 Kindle books, I might reasonably conclude it was successful. But barring that, I have no idea what my parameters should be. How many sales are enough? Should the book always sell well, or should it wax and wane? How come I’m not selling like Fifty Shades of Grey? In the past couple months, I have checked the sales figures and despaired. Has this book gone as far as it can? What if this is the end? Does that make the book a failure? A friend of mine asked me recently, “Aren’t you just amazed at how well the book has done? Do you ever sit back and think, ‘Wow! I did it’?”I stared at him like he was an alien. I never once had that thought. Not once. When people congratulate me on how well the book has done, I inwardly assume they are kidding—or worse, they don’t really know what “success” is in this business. After all, no one is buying movie rights. And it’s not like publishers are beating down my door to offer me a six-figure advance.But I think I’m the one who needs to change my definition of success.To help me, I decided to total up some statistics. To date, I’ve sold more than 3,800 copies of the book and had it borrowed around 250 times. During the book’s free days, an additional 35,925 people have downloaded it. All told, A Soul to Steal has been bought, borrowed or downloaded to more than 40,000 Kindles. During its run, it has hit multiple Kindle bestseller lists, including #1 for Ghost-Horror and #4 for Horror. It was the thrill of a lifetime to see my book sitting alongside Stephen King’s latest novel, even if it was only briefly. It has even been in the top 20 for Thriller and Suspense novels. I have sold books in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. I received a note from a gentleman in Romaniawho said he enjoyed the book and wanted me to write a sequel quickly.The novel was well reviewed by the vast majority of book bloggers who read it, won praise from random strangers on its Facebook page, and been featured on USA Today. It has earned an average 4.7 rating on Amazon with 88 reviews—all but three of which were 4 or 5 stars. It even earned a celebrity endorsement from Mark Metcalf, the actor who played The Master on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.Best of all, I’ve had dozens of people I’ve never met not only compliment the book, but ask me when a sequel will be out (It’s coming soon, I swear). For me, that is the best sign of all. Not only did people like the book but, God help me, they want me to write more. If the goal was to pen a runaway best seller, then it’s clear I have not succeeded. On the other hand, if the goal was to find and connect with readers, then I think it’s time to lean back and say, “Wow! I did it.”

P.S. As a final hurrah for hitting 40,000 downloads, A Soul to Steal will be free one last time TODAY (Wednesday, June 27). If you haven’t read it yet, check it out.

The Real Reason I Self-Published: A Horror Story

When I was a kid, I played a strange mental game. Several days before a trip away, I would imagine that a monster was out there in the darkness, stalking me. Each night he would grow closer and closer and closer until finally… he would arrive at my house to find I had left. Howling in frustration, the vile creature would then sniff the air and begin the long journey to wherever I was visiting. But just as he was about to arrive there… surprise! I’d be gone again, usually back home. I’m not sure what started the game or how I could overlook the glaring logical fallacy that was part of it. Why didn’t he just wait in my room until I got back? Was he on a deadline or something?The funny thing is: I barely remembered this game until I started thinking about this column. I couldn’t figure out why it even came up in my memory—and then it all clicked. I get asked a lot why I self-published my novel or whether I’m actively seeking a traditional publisher (I’m not). I can offer you plenty of logical reasons: the indie label has become more acceptable, the agent querying process was taking too long and the economics of delivering a self-published work have dramatically changed with the development of the ebook. All of these are good, true answers.But they aren’t the main one—at least not for me. The truth is I’m running out of time. Writing novels was something I always wanted to do. In many ways, I feel it is the thing I was born to do. Like many other writers, I am sometimes only 50% engaged in actual real life—there are always stories playing out in my head and they can be rather distracting. Yet for something I genuinely enjoy and view as my destiny, I have wasted a tremendous amount of time NOT doing it. We can partly blame the traditional publishing houses for this. I finished the first draft of A Soul to Steal in 2001, and had reworked it substantially by 2004. But when it came time to try to publish it, I realized I was up against a vast black wall that was so dark I couldn’t see through it, and so high and wide that I never saw the end of it. It wasn’t that publishers were rejecting the novel—I never even got to that stage of the process. I couldn’t even get agents to read it. It was so disheartening that when my life got busy—kids, more challenging job—I just directed my focus elsewhere. But it would be a mistake to blame this mostly on the Big Six publishers. I think we all know who the real person to blame is—and I see him in the mirror every day. It’s true I couldn’t see a way to publish A Soul to Steal . I invested a lot of blood, sweat and tears in that book, and it was going nowhere. But rather than persisting in writing, I gave up. Some of my distractions were legitimate, like my family. Some were definitely not, like trying to reach 100% completion in the single-player mode of Red Dead Redemption. Two things woke me up from my stupor. The first was reading about Amanda Hocking’s success in publishing her books on Kindle. The second was watching my dad’s progressive deterioration from Alzheimer’s.I don’t want this to become another post about this, but my dad was diagnosed when he was 63. At the time, he could blog and still carry on a conversation, but writing was difficult. Fast forward six years, and even talking coherently is a challenge for him. It’s been incredibly hard on my mother, my sister and myself, but it has also unfortunately represented something else: my future. My dad’s mother had Alzheimer’s. Of her sisters who lived long enough, they all succumbed to the disease. The odds that I will eventually get Alzheimer’s are extraordinarily high. When I see what my father has become, I weep for him, but I am also terrified for myself. His mother was diagnosed at 74. He was diagnosed at 63. For some reason doctors can’t explain, people are getting the disease younger and younger. So if this is my fate—if I’m even fortunate enough to avoid all the other things before then that could kill me, like cancer or a runaway lumber truck on a highway—it’s possible, even likely, that I will be diagnosed even earlier than my father. Which leaves me wondering: how much time do I have? I’m 37. Can I make it another 26 years until my dad’s age? Or will it be more like 20? 15? 10? So the decision to self-publish was ultimately an easy one. I could sit on the sidelines and wait, hoping that somehow I would break through that huge barrier in front of me and score a traditional book contract. But would that ever happen? And how old would I be if it did?Or I could publish my book, roll the dice that readers would find it and enjoy it, and try to make my dream come true. I looked at the number of years I might have left and decided to focus on doing what I believe I was meant to do. I read somewhere once that there comes a time when you realize the distance between who you are and who you want to be becomes an insurmountable gulf. I wanted to leap that chasm before it became too wide.I decided to self-publish because I understand now that the monster I pretended was hunting me when I was a kid wasn’t made up. It’s real and it has a name. It’s called mortality. And it has teeth.

A Soul to Steal Now Topping the Fantasy Charts: The Benefits of Genre Hopping

I’ve written before about the difficulty of deciding what genre A Soul to Steal belongs in. It’s a mystery that turns into a thriller that then turns into an urban fantasy. Along the way, it contains elements of action adventure and romance to boot.             For the most part, readers have been excited about the blend of genres, although I’ve also made a few angry in the process. Why? Some were excited about the mystery part of the book but didn’t enjoy it when supernatural elements entered into the plot line. This is a legitimate complaint as far as I’m concerned. If you don’t like the supernatural, the book probably isn’t for you.  I thought putting the Headless Horseman on the cover was a sign that paranormal elements were included—and I’ve made sure to mention those parts of the book in the description on Amazon—but clearly some didn’t get the message.             But there are also benefits to genre hopping as well. I originally slotted the novel into Horror/Ghost and Horror/Occult, although I never really felt comfortable about the latter as a category. When I re-launched the book with a new cover in February, I also decided to take it out of Occult and move it to Mystery/Thriller/Suspense. As I detailed here, Amazon doesn’t make it easy to find Horror books in less you specifically go looking for them. Mystery and Thriller, in contrast, is the easiest genre to find.             But after some of the issues raised in reviews, I started to wonder if Suspense was the best space for the book. Yes, it’s a mystery and a thriller, but it’s also what’s defined as “urban fantasy,” mostly because of the paranormal parts of the novel (which become more significant as the book nears its climax).             At this stage, I’m also worrying about the two sequels to A Soul to Steal. The second book in The Sanheim Chronicles is in its draft stage—and it fits much easier into urban fantasy than it does mystery. I think fans of the first book will definitely enjoy it—but I also would like all the novels in the series to be sitting in the same place.             So I decided to try something new during my latest free day promotion on Amazon. I took the novel out of Suspense and moved it to Contemporary Fantasy, hoping to find fans that might not have seen it when it was slotted elsewhere.             I’m happy to say that so far, at least, it’s paying off. Currently, the book is #1 among FREE fantasy books on Amazon. It’s also #1 in Contemporary Fantasy (Amazon’s description for urban fantasy). I admit it is a thrill to see the novel alongside George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.             I don’t know, of course, what the result of this experiment will be. Will readers be angry to find a mystery in their urban fantasy novel? I hope not, but you never really know.  But seeing other books in the category, it’s feeling like A Soul to Steal may finally have found its perfect spot.            Want to find out yourself? The novel is FREE today, May 17, so feel free to download it. If you missed out and are reading this post later, never fear – the novel only costs $2.99, so it’s cheaper than a trip to Starbucks. 

My Novel is Being Featured on USA Today! “An edge-of-your-seat thriller!”

Wanted to share the fantastic news. Over the weekend, USA Today Books featured a terrific review for my novel, A Soul to Steal. Calling it an “edge-of-your-seat thriller,” reviewer Keri English says the novel will keep “you up into the wee hours” and touts its “nice surprise ending.”
“Rob Blackwell introduces the reader to fear in an innovative way: right from the start. A Soul to Steal is simply scary. With the combination of an ancient Celtic myth and the legend of the Headless Horseman, Blackwell's story is a leave-the-light-on kind of page turner….If you like suspenseful thrillers, check out A Soul to Steal.”
Read the rest of the extensive review here: http://usat.ly/KnkqxX
Buy the book here: http://amzn.to/asoul2steal

A Letter to My 16-Year-Old Self -- Advice I Wish I Could Give Myself on Love, Writing, and Growing Up

A college friend of mine, Betsy, asked a few people she knew to write a letter to their 16-year-old selves. Here's what I came up with:


Hey.
I have a few things I need to tell you. Some will be really awesome (your wife is hot) and some will be hard (your dad is going to get Alzheimer’s much sooner than you, he, or anyone, is expecting), but these are things I think you would want to know:
Stop Chasing that GirlYou know who I’m talking about and it’s totally cool. There is absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. You are giving it your best shot, but it isn’t going to work out. Ironically, the strategy you are pursuing is a great one. You are trapped in the “friend” zone. This is a terrible place to be in high school. It is, however, exactly where you want to be later in life. The problem isn’t your approach; it’s just not the right time or person. So don’t be discouraged and don’t worry so much about it.
Buy a Tape RecorderYou don’t know this now, but you are a pretty good reporter. I know, right? You aren’t even interested in journalism and the idea of calling people you don’t know makes you sweat. It’s okay. You are actually surprisingly good at asking the right questions to the right people.By the time you figure this out, though, you will have lost the chance to interview some crucial sources. You need to buy a tape recorder and interview your grandparents extensively on your next visit to them. You want to learn as much as they can tell you about their lives. This is important for learning who they are, but also for understanding more about where you and your parents came from.
Spend More Time With Your ParentsYour dad is going to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in about 15 years. The incredibly intelligent and gregarious guy you see right now? Enjoy him while you can, because he will disappear bit by bit until you have trouble remembering him. I’m sorry, but there isn’t a damn thing you can do about this. What you can do is set aside more time to hang out with him—and your mom. This is going to take a toll on her, too. This is a great time to be around both of them, so please enjoy it.
Stop Listening to AerosmithRight now. Later, you will refuse to throw out the 3-CD box set of “Pandora’s Box” because your dad gave it to you as a surprise gift, NOT because you ever want to listen to it.
Apply Early-Admission to William and MaryI don’t know why you didn’t, but honestly, you never wanted to go anywhere else. Going here is a great choice—might as well lock it in right now.
Dream BiggerYou have a lot of hopes and dreams, but you have a tendency to worry about what’s “realistic.” Please stop. I know people think you want to be an actor—even you may think this—but you don’t. You do, however, want to write, and you’re largely afraid to admit this. You’ve been writing stories since the sixth grade and tucking them away, never showing them to anyone. You spend 50 percent of your time living in your imagination, thinking about novels you never even plan on writing. You have this strange idea that someone will come up to you and offer you a writing contract. I’ve got news for you: you are going to have to do this on your own. Don’t be too worried, though: it’s going to be fine. But you need to stop being intimidated about writing a book. Stephen King started when he was 17 years old. You should get a jump on him. Oh, and don’t worry about getting it published. Technology and a company named after a river in South Americaare going to solve that problem for you. Just focus on writing.
You Already Know Who You AreIf you ignore everything else in this message, I want you to know this: You are just fine as you are. I know you think you’re a nerd. But believe it or not, nerds are cool now. The last Star Trek movie was a huge hit, people love Lord of the Rings and there is a popular TV show about dorks. Weird, I know. It doesn’t matter anyway. You like to pretend that you don’t care what people think of you. It’s time to stop pretending. You will be much happier.
Sincerely,
Your 37-Year-Old Self 
That's my letter. For Betsy's, check out her blog here: http://youaskalotofquestions.com/ What would you write to yourself if you had the chance? 

G is for Genre #AtoZChallenge

This is a guest post on The Masquerade Crew: 


Aside from a book's title and cover, its genre is the most important factor in how it is marketed to and discovered by readers. 

Of course I never considered this when I wrote my novel. When I started A Soul to Steal, I thought I was writing a horror novel. That's about as much thought as I put into it. I never considered that horror meant different things to different people. I was quite comfortable being in the same category as Stephen King, my literary hero, and that's all there was to it. 

This was a mistake, one I didn't realize until I had actually published the book. 

Looking back, I had unnecessarily pigeon-holed my book, sticking it in a category that it belonged in, but also limiting its reach and marketability at the same time. Here's why: 


To read more of this post, please go to the Masquerade Crew here: http://masqueradecrew.blogspot.com/2012/04/g-is-for-genre-atozchallenge.html

Loudoun County and my Southern Identity Crisis

When I heard about the chance to bepart of a "Southern Book Tour," I jumped at the chance. After all, I was raisedin Virginia,my novel is set in the state, and I have always considered myself a Southerner.And yet…The place I write about—Loudoun County, Va.—andI both have a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to being part of theSouth.While outwardly I qualify, I'venever really been sure if I'm part of the club or not. On the one hand, mycredentials are strong. For starters, there's my name: Robert E. Blackwell—orR.E.B. With initials like that, my parents were definitely trying to send asignal. 
To read more, hop on over to the Bound and Determined Book Blog, which is on a Southern Book Tour -- and also enter for your chance to win A Soul to Steal... 
Here's the link:  http://tinyurl.com/7n6xrbg

Dreaming of Death—A Mysterious Building, An Elevator, and a Prophetic Nightmare

Since I published my novel seven months ago, I've had my fair share of questions. Since it's a book with a large paranormal element to it, I'm most often asked if I believe in ghosts or if I've ever had an encounter with one.Although I've interviewed people who have seen ghosts, I can't claim to have ever seen one myself. But I must have some kind of personal paranormal story, right? Something weird? Something that made me suspect that the world isn't exactly as it seems?Like most of us, I have a few. I can tell you about the time I performed a Tarot card reading—and was far more accurate than I wanted to be. Or the time I refused to go into a friend's basement for reasons I couldn't explain, only to find out much later it had been the scene of a grisly murder.But I think I'd rather tell you about one of the times that I dreamed of my own death.I was in the 7th Grade when we visited Blackstone, Va., with my church youth group as part of a large retreat. Though I had often been away from home as part of the Boy Scouts, the trip was exciting for two reasons: 1) there would be indoor plumbing as well as easy access to Mountain Dew, and 2) there would be girls with us.Here's the strange part of the story. From the moment I walked into the place where the retreat was held—and I had never stepped foot in there before—I knew exactly what the layout would be. I knew where the stairs were, the rooms were, what the décor would be like, and basically how to find my way around.It was very odd. When I walked inside, the entire place felt familiar. Like I had not only been there before, but spent significant time exploring every nook and cranny. This wasn't something I kept to myself. As soon as we walked inside, I told my friends I had—somehow—seen this place before. I had a friend walk ahead of me, with me telling him what he would find around every corner (before I could see it). Everything was exactly where I said it would be. It was only then that I remembered the dream. As is often the case with me, I don't remember my dreams in the morning: something has to trigger the recollection for me. When I was younger, this was really easy—I'm sad to say it's much harder now.Walking around the building and giving my friends an advance guided tour triggered the memory of the dream. In the dream, I had been walking around the inside of a strange place. It was big, empty and spooky. I wandered all around until I came to a hallway off to the left. When I turned the corner, I saw a large trash bin on the right side and a white elevator at the end of the hall. I waited there a moment, not sure what to do, but with a growing sense of dread. In the dream, the elevator suddenly "dinged" open and when it did, a gust of wind swept down the hallway. The trash bin immediately was pulled into the elevator, which was now a giant, gaping hole. I grabbed the corner of the wall, but everything else was being pulled into the elevator—the pictures on the walls, the carpeting on the floor, everything. Finally, after holding fast for what felt like several minutes, I couldn't hold on any longer. I was sucked into the elevator too—my last thought before plunging into the darkness was that this would kill me.Back in real life, I stood there on the first floor of the building and recounted the dream to my friends. Some thought I was lying, others thought that perhaps I had visited the building before (I hadn't). But one friend agreed to go exploring with me. I had to know: was the elevator in here? And what would happen if I found it?When we got to the second floor, we crept cautiously through the halls. I knew just where to go, just where the elevator would be. Sure enough, we came to a hallway on the left. We rounded the corner. There on the right side of the hall was the trash bin, just as it had been in my dream. At the end of the hall was the white elevator.The thing that scared me the most wasn't that everything in my dream existed in the real world. What was most frightening to me was that there was no one else in that hallway, but the elevator call button—the one you press to make the elevator come to you—was lit up. Just as I registered what it was, I heard the "ding" and the elevator door slid open.I'm not ashamed to admit it: I ran. I ran like hell, with my friend close behind me. Once safely back to the group, we told them everything. Even though a few made fun of me, I noticed everyone studiously avoided the elevator from that time on, convinced it was a dangerous trap. During that retreat, I never set foot in the elevator—nor, for that matter, got anywhere near the hallway.So what did it all mean? If I had stepped into the elevator, would something have happened? Did I somehow pick up on some terrible history of the place?If this were a novel, I could tell you. I'd tell you the secret hidden past of the elevator and how a boy 20 years earlier had vanished near that very spot. I'd tell you how many kids who come to that place have the same terrible nightmare, and how a few even hear the voice of a young boy calling to them as they walk near the hallway.But truthfully, I don't know the answers. How could I dream of a place where I had never been? And why did I dream about an elevator that, as far as I know, was perfectly normal? Two years later, when my group returned to that retreat, I took a dare and rode the elevator. I'm still here.But I will tell you this. When the door shut on me and I was alone in the elevator, I was never more afraid in my life. And I've honestly never felt the same about any elevator ride since.So that's my real-life paranormal story. What about you? Have any insights into my dream? Have you had any dreams that came true? Leave a comment below!

Top Nine Reasons to Buy A Soul to Steal (Revised and Expanded)

By far the worst part about publishing a book is that,instead of leaning back in a comfy chair with a pipe and watching the salesroll in, you have to really hustle to sell it. Sure, Stephen King doesn't havethis problem, but if you are a new author like me starting out, it's tough tomake an impression.
So, at the risk of being crass, I'd like to take thisopportunity to convince you to take a chance on a newbie author. I think you'lllike my novel, A Soul to Steal. Howcan I say that? Why do I think you would like the book? Let me count the ways:
9. You won't guessthe killerI never set out to write a mystery, instead thinking I waswriting a suspense/thriller. But a key question overhangs the book: who is LordHalloween, the elusive serial killer who targets Leesburg, Virginia?When I wrote the novel, I worried everyone would figure it out. But I've beentold by virtually every person who read the book that they had no idea who itwas (the sole exception is my sister, but of course older sisters knoweverything). Yet I didn't pull a cop-out, either. The novel does not end withme suddenly introducing a random new character who turns out to be the killer("Look Scoob, it's old man Winters who runs the haunted amusement park!").Think of this as a challenge: if you figure out who the murderer is, you willbe in the top echelon of elite readers.
8. The price is rightI understand that people might not want to take a risk witha new author. When you buy a Dean Koontz or Jim Butcher, you know you aregetting quality. But at $2.99, my novel costs about as much as a cup of coffee.And it lasts so much longer! Your coffee is done within 10 minutes. But thisbook, at over 100,000 words, lasts as long as you want it to. Unfortunately,just like coffee, the novel may keep you up at night.
7. Instant indie credIf I become a mega best-selling novelist one day, you cantell all your friends you read my book before I made it big. "I discovered himfirst," you'll say. Then you'll go on to detail all the ways in which I'm nolonger as good as I once was and I've become too commercial. "He sold out,"you'll say, with your friends nodding sagely. "He used to be original, but eversince he wrote A Soul to Steal andZombies, it just feels like his heart isn't in it."
6. It's a fascinatinglook at your local paperOne thing I've been surprised to hear is how much readersenjoy the setting at a local community newspaper in Loudoun County, Va.I've been a journalist my entire professional career, including working atseveral local papers, one in Leesburg. The setting feels authentic because itis. I worked at that paper for three years and learned a lot about being areporter at a small town newspaper. I also came to love Loudoun County.It is a place rich in history and atmosphere and I wanted it to be as much acharacter in the novel as anyone else.
5. It has greatreviewsPlease don't just take my word for it that the novel is anygood. As of this writing, there are 59 great reviews (including 49 5-stars) forthe novel on Amazon. Can 49 5-star reviews be wrong? Actually, don't answerthat. I'm sure 49 people have been collectively wrong about lots of things inthe past. There are probably 49 people who believe the world is flat and thatthe Jersey Shore is quality television. Butstill, in this case, they aren'twrong.
4. It has theHeadless HorsemanSince I was a kid, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow has been oneof my favorite stories. I've always loved the Headless Horseman, one of thescariest figures in American horror. I've built an original novel that uses theHorseman—but doesn't repeat the characters or plot of Washington Irving'sclassic tale. This is not "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Zombies," though nowI would like to officially trade-mark that title for future use. In allseriousness, I've found a unique way to use the Horseman. This isn't ahalf-baked sequel or knock-off.
3. It's surprisinglyfunnyI am not a terribly serious person. So despite the fact thatthe novel involves a serial killer, the Headless Horseman, an ancient Celticmyth and a bunch of innocent people dying, it also has a fair amount of humor.One consistent feedback I've received is that my characters are well-developedand likeable. For example, Janus, who provides much of the comic relief, hasproven to be one of the most popular characters in the book.
2. It's scary, butnot goryThe novel is a mix of mystery, suspense and the paranormal,and technically falls under the Horror category on Amazon. If you like thrillsand chills, the novel has plenty. But it's not a gory book. If you are scaredof words like entrails, spewing and mangled, you're in luck! None of thosewords appear in the novel (although they do appear in this blog post, for whichI now must apologize). I don't like gore. It's not that it bothers me, I justdon't find it interesting and it can ruin a perfectly good scary scene.Accordingly, you won't find gore in ASoul to Steal.
1. The ending is"amazing."I could tell you a lot of thingshere, including that the book is an addictive page-turner or the first in a trilogythat promises to get even better as it goes on. But probably the novel's bestselling point is its ending. When I started writing A Soul to Steal, the ending is what I had in mind. Everythingbuilds to that point. Yes, it's part of a trilogy, but this is a complete book.I'm not trying to hold back for the sequel. This novel is carefully structuredto lead to a satisfying conclusion—one you won't see coming. But don't take myword for it, read the reviews. Vanessa the Jeep Diva wrote: "When everythingcame together and all the pieces finally fell into place I was completely shocked.The ending was fantastic."
So what are you waiting for? A Soul to Steal is a top-ratedmystery/thriller with a supernatural twist. Buy it now and see what all thefuss is about.http://www.amazon.com/A-Soul-To-Steal-ebook/dp/B005JVEXX0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330125591&sr=8-2
If you want to find out moreabout the novel, find me on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/asoultosteal
Find me on Twitter at @hobbinb