Jason Zandri's Blog: The GUNDERSTONE GOODREADS Review, page 14
November 14, 2015
Book Review: “Another Sunset” by Jason Zandri
Originally posted on Kim's Author Support Blog:
About The Author
Jason has been working in the information technology field in one form or the other since 1996. He is currently employed full time at Bloomberg LP as a Systems Engineer in the R&D group. Jason lives in Wallingford Connecticut, with his wife Renata. He is the father to four children, three boys and 1 girl – 11 years (Andrew), 9 years (Angela), 7 years (Adam) and 6 years old (Alex).
You can keep up with Jason on Facebook via his author page at https://www.facebook.com/jzandri
You can FOLLOW Jason on Twitter via https://twitter.com/gunderstone
You can ADD Jason to your circles on Google+ via https://plus.google.com/+JasonZandri/
You can read Jason’s current updates and writing activity on his writer’s blog – THE GUNDERSTONE REVIEW at https://gunderstone.wordpress.com/
About The Book
Another Sunset – Sunset Series, #2
David Stephenson is a kind drifter who comes to settle in the small Texas town…
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Kindle Unlimited: Global Fund Stability and Marketplace Changes
Originally posted on chrismcmullen:
Image from ShutterStock.
KINDLE UNLIMITED UPDATE
Amazon announced that the KDP Select global fund for November, 2015 will be at least $12M.
It has consistently been $11M or more since May, 2015.
So this shows some nice stability.
Under the original Kindle Unlimited scheme, critics used to comment on how Amazon would low-ball the KDP Select global fund, promising around $3M at the beginning of the month, and then providing a much larger fund after the month’s end. Some tried to argue that Amazon was taking a loss because they raised the fund much higher than their initial projection.
When the new Kindle Unlimited unrolled this summer, critics revised their argument, saying that just because Amazon is offering $11M or more up front doesn’t mean they will continue to do this. Maybe it would drop down much lower later on, or maybe after a brief welcoming period, they would revert…
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November 13, 2015
Cover Reveal: Time for the Lost by Chess Desalls
Originally posted on I’m thrilled to introduce YA author, Chess Desalls with the cover reveal for Time for the Lost, the third book in her time-travel series.
Calla’s disappearance leads her family and friends to suspect that sheís lost. In a desperate attempt to find her, Valcas seeks help from a man he betrayed. A new search begins, one that sounds promising, even if it forces Valcas to confront his past.
The travel team reunites for a mission they never saw coming: a journey to a world caught between life and death, and hidden within the deepest recesses of time. Ivory rediscovers a friend and Ray learns the meaning behind his tattoo. But the connections they make between travelers and the lost may twist the core of the Time and Space Travel Agency inside out.
Time for the Lost is the third installment in The Call to Search Everywhen serial series.
Catch up with…
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Kindle Unlimited KENP Read for September, 2015
Originally posted on chrismcmullen:
Image from ShutterStock.
KINDLE UNLIMITED PAGES READ FOR SEPTEMBER, 2015
Good news, I think:
Kindle Unlimited paid $0.00507 per KENP read for September, 2015.
That’s just over half a penny per page.
Why is this good news?
Because in August, 2015, Kindle Unlimited paid $0.00514 per normalized page read.
We now have two consecutive months with only a very slight change in the Amazon payment for pages read.
Recall that the payment for July was somewhat higher: $0.00580.
When July’s $0.00580 dropped to August’s $0.00514, I was concerned with this 11% drop.
I was worried about stability.
But with September’s $0.00507 roughly matching August’s $0.00514, I see prospects for stability.
It’s still early. We only have three months of data for the new Kindle Unlimited payout.
But we do have a year of data for the previous Kindle Unlimited payout, along with a few years of payouts for Amazon Prime…
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Promoting Your Books on Amazon by @JoRobinson176
Originally posted on Lit World Interviews:
I’ve only just discovered, too late, that when you run a Kindle Countdown deal it either happens at Amazon.com or Amazon.UK, and not all regions at the same time. So while this time I’ve managed to put different books on Countdowns for the different regions, I’ll know better for next time.
The thing to do if you want your deal to be available to both regions is to set up two separate promotions for the same book on the same dates – one for UK and another for the USA. It’s a bit trickier setting a low price for the other regions, so you’d probably be better off doing an extra promotion where you manually set prices to ninety nine cents for your promotional period. The only problem with that is that you won’t get the additional visibility of having your Countdown books listed on Amazon’s deals page. People do…
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One year anniversary of my first fictional release – “Another Sunset” (November 28, 2014)
Over the US Thanksgiving Holiday, my first fictional release – “Another Sunset” will celebrate one year in release – November 28, 2014.
I am really excited at this milestone for a few reasons.
First, I never thought I’d get here. If you tried to suggest to me in the spring of 2014 that I would be a published author before the end of the year, I would have lightly laughed at the notion. I would have been wrong in laughing because that is exactly what happened.
I had the idea for “Another Sunset” in my head for over fifteen years when suddenly one summer, the summer of 2014, I simply decided “it’s time to write this”.
Since then I simply kept going and I am now four novels in release, one novella (“Before Another Sunset”) and one new title on the way for November. I am aiming for November 27th with “As Life Goes: The End of the Innocence” (The As Life Goes Series Book 2).
Second, for every one person that has put me down or tried to make me feel small at my success (inadvertently or intentionally) I have meet five more that helped me, gave me guidance, offered me their thoughts, lent me their expertise, or just let me whine and complain (to get it out of my system).
The gang over at Rave Reviews Book Club have gone a LONG way in getting me started “right”. Everything I learned there I might have learned over a few years time anyway, but the membership there allowed me an immense and immediate ramp up into the writing side of the literary world. Beyond that, I met a pretty diverse group of uber supportive people.
I have also met numerous more, very supportive people, across many Facebook groups that I am involved in. While there are many that are effectively “marketing only” (very little other interaction) there are a few that are of the discussion and support type. My favorite go to group (to which only half of my titles actually apply) is the Clean Indie Reads group.
I guess as an additional point, it really is nice to see people buying your work. Am I selling tens of thousands of copies? Nope. I have to check my numbers again to see if I hit one thousand yet; I know I am really close. (Sales – if I coun’t books given away at events / contests / for reviews, etc. then I am 1,400+) If I can make one thousand sales before November 27th I’ll be happy I hit a stretch goal of mine.
With nearly 200 unique reviews at Amazon, GoodReads, B&N, and across various author / reader blogs, as far as I am concerned, I am a huge success.
Thank you for being a part of it and celebrating it with me.
Before Another Sunset (The Sunset Series Book 1)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00T11GKYE/
Another Sunset (The Sunset Series Book 2)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QD2FQU8/
I Hero: The Beginning (The I, Hero Series Book 1)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Y3LA41M/
I Hero: Nathan Returns (The I, Hero Series Book 2)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B011AOPE64/
As Life Goes: Elementary (The As Life Goes Series Book 1)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZXVB7SK/
As Life Goes: The End of the Innocence (The As Life Goes Series Book 2)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017TBSD42/
Taking a Bite Out of Amazon
Originally posted on The Bad Luck Detective:
Amazon removed thousands of books from their site yesterday.
Books were removed because of three keywords located in the title’s information page in the keywords section: Free, Bestseller and Kindle. It didn’t matter if your book was free, an Amazon bestseller, or a Kindle eBook; Amazon pulled the plug.
Approximately two weeks ago, authors received notices from Amazon giving them five days to comply with Amazon’s Terms of Service (TOS). If you’ve ever looked at Amazon’s TOS you might understand why the biggest problem was identifying words that Amazon now claims are a no no. Many authors missed “Kindle” in the long boring diatribe known as TOS and suffered the consequences. Yesterday, November 4th, also known as National Stress Awareness Day was Amazon’s We Removed Your Book Day.
Maybe it’s only me who sees the humor in all the stress this entailed.
Authors suffered overwhelmingly and relived the tragedy online in many…
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November 12, 2015
#NaNoWriMo, “I, Hero: Phases”, and just how long is a novel anyway
National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo) is the Internet-based creative writing project that takes place during the month of November. As it is now November 12, 2015, we are a bit past the one third mark.
As you might be aware, the major purpose of NaNoWriMo is to challenge all of the participants to write their (minimum) 50,000 words before the deadline at 11:59PM on November 30.
My first book, “Another Sunset”, was completely finished and through the editing process before NaNoWriMo kicked off in 2014 so I skipped last year’s effort. The novel, at 99,000 or so words, was some heavy lifting for me over the 45 days that I wrote it. Knowing what I put together for that book made me feel comfortable in taking on the 2015 NaNoWriMo challenge with “I, Hero: Phases”.
I admit that writing in the late fall when school for my four kids is in session has made things more difficult for me and only over the past two days have I been able to clip the average mark and get on track to completing things on schedule.
There’s been some discussion around, “how many words is a novel” and so I use this as a reference for myself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count
Novel over 40,000 words
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story under 7,500 words
So – how is your NaNoWriMo effort going?
Oh God….. now I’m discouraged….
Originally posted on Kawanee's Korner:
https://grubstreet.org/grub-daily/how-to-be-a-successful-novelist-in-38-easy-steps/
How to be a Successful Novelist in 38 Easy Steps
By Katrin Schumann
At a party recently, a friend’s eyes glazed over as I began explaining how novelists get from idea to published book. I quickly realized that not only was this conversation exceedingly boring to her, but that most people have no idea just how convoluted and long the road to publishing can be, especially if you go the traditional route. She seemed to think there were three easy steps: 1) idea for book => 2) write book => 3) find publishing house. Hey presto.
How many steps are there, really? I counted at least 38:
Have an idea for a novel. Think you are brilliant, insightful, unique.
Consider characters and plot. Decide you are plodding, dumb and unoriginal.
Begin writing. Anything goes! Get it down! Do writing exercises, talk with writer friends, read illuminating novels. Get into…
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