Jim Devitt's Blog, page 10

The Card - video book trailer

Here's a little something I've messed around with. Let me know what you think ... consider it a work in progress!

Progress Report

An update for those who care. 

I was really trying to get a new book out by Christmas this year, but, Alas, it will not happen (as if you didn't figure that one out already.)

I finished the yet-to-be-named Christmas story on the 5th. With much thought and trepidation, I decided that I could not get it properly edited and revised in time to release for the holidays. 

It was a tough decision because I am really excited about this story now that it is completed. With cover art, editing, revising and distribution all left up to the self-published author, time was on my side to polish it up before the holidays.

So, on the back burner it goes, until this summer. Then, I'll look at it with a fresh eye and get it out to the editors, clean it up and release it toward the end of October.

Now, my focus shifts back to the Van Stone sequel. You can follow my progress on the progress bar on this page. I have an end of March deadline for publication, so its just around the corner. Thanks for being so patient!

New Book Release

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. With a move to a new house and the holidays, time gets away. So you better look out now!

During this time, I also collaborated on a new book that was released on Black Friday ... 

The Indies Unlimited: Tutorials and Tools for Prospering in a Digital World, Volume I

Here's the book description from Amazon:
 
Whether you are an author wanting to expand your book’s market or an entrepreneur selling candy-coated knitting baskets, you will benefit from an enhanced social media presence.

In Tutorials and Tools for Prospering in a Digital World Volume I you’ll find 62 step-by-step tutorials and tips/tools for everything from establishing a presence on multiple social media platforms to tools for optimizing your web presence to bonus tips tailored specifically for authors.

The award-winning and best-selling multi-national staff of Indies Unlimited brings you the ultimate guide for slapping social media into submission.

Knowledge is power. Fish is brain food. If you don’t have fish, you should at least have the Indies Unlimited Tutorials and Tools for Prospering in a Digital World Volume I. It smells way better than fish, and doesn’t require refrigeration. How can you go wrong?


 So, if you know anyone who is trying to make it in the digital world, whether it be self-publishing or any internet based program, this would make a great Christmas present. 

You can find it on Amazon right here.

Books & Books Event in Coral Gables

Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL

A big thank you to everyone who turned out for The Card event and signing at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida. The event was a huge success.







The turnout and response was more than I could ever have hoped for! The line was staggering (at least for me!)






Books & Books is one of the largest and certainly the most famous independent books store in the country with locations in Coral Gables, Bal Harbour, South Beach, Miami International Airport, Museum of Art - Ft. Lauderdale, Westhampton Beach, NY and Grand Cayman. 

Now you can find The Card stocked at Books & Books!
Autographing stock for the store!














My son, Gavin, looks at Daddy's novel in the bookstore windowThe first time I've ever seen The Card in the window of a bookstore!


If you think I'm a little excited ... you're right. Thanks again to all who attended and picked up a copy of The Card!

What to Make of Author Rankings on Amazon

As if we didn’t have enough things to make us crazy, Amazon has come up with a new one—Amazon Author Rank. This is different from the “sales” rank for individual books on individual platforms. The new ranking compiles all your books sold on Amazon—Kindle, hardcopy and multiple titles combined.  You can access this new ranking on your Author Central Page. A new tab, “Rank” appears right next to the old “Sales Info” tab. Click on that and you’ll see how you rank from Amazon’s perspective. As with anything Amazon, it changes hourly and with sweeping changes. 
For the public, you can now see the top 100 Authors on Amazon and the selected genres. So, if you’re not in the top 100, better head over to your Author Central Page to see where you land. 
The email from Amazon that I received on Wednesday started out like this …
Dear Jim Devitt ,Today we have added a new feature, Amazon Author Rank,
the definitive list of best-selling authors on Amazon.com. This list makes it easy for readers to discover the best-selling authors on Amazon.com overall and within a selection of major genres …
Then it went on to inform me that my rank in the TEENS category was #4269. I looked today (at the time of writing this post) and my rank in the TEENS category moved up to #1828 so I guess a bunch of teen writers stopped selling books so that my ranking could improve. 
So, as with anything in the book selling world, this is just one more time waster to worry about—UNLESS, you are in the top 100 and the public actually see’s your name. Category rankings are much more powerful and visible; I’ve previously written how to improve that here. 
My advice? Don’t go too crazy worrying about this. It can get depressing. This is in Beta testing currently, and if Amazon decides to add it to the sales page, it may give readers another option to analyze before buying. But, for now, you are the only one that can see your numbers so I suppose that there is not much effect. 
Now run along and look up your author rank so that you can get depressed with the other 499,900 authors that are not in the top 100 on Amazon. 

A version of this post originally appeared in Indies Unlimited on Saturday October 13th

Happy Birthday Indies Unlimited

Happy Birthday to Indies Unlimited! 
We are celebrating our 1st birthday today. A big thank you to Stephen Hise, it was your brainchild that led to what today is one of the best sites for Indie Authors and Readers.
I was lucky enough to be invited on board in February, just a couple of months after its inception. It was a daunting task, contributing on a weekly basis, you know, like with deadlines and everything, but I have survived thus far.
What is Indies Unlimited you ask?
Only the finest collection of authors that help other authors. The writing is superb and the tutorials are priceless. Each author brings their talent, knowledge and experience and shares their secrets to what have made them successful.
 I've been touched on more than one occasion by the responses that I've received from our readers.
A while back one reader left this comment following one of my posts, " ... I've spent a lot of time on IU laughing or getting new ideas or learning new skills but this is the first time I've actually had a lump in my throat while reading an article."
I've gotten more out of Indies Unlimited than what I have contributed, but I'll keep trying every week. If you haven't checked them out yet, go there now, you won't be disappointed.
www.indiesunlimited.com

Jim Devitt is the author of the Kindle #1 Bestselling novel, The Card, and a weekly contributing author for Indies Unlimited.

Being Accountable

Thanks to my fellow writer friend, Brian Beam, I got the idea to add progress bars to my site. Now, the world will know if I'm working on my two books or not.



It will also help motivate me a little bit, because I'll have to stare at them every time I view the site. No excuses now. Get writing, Jimmy!



  Jim Devitt is a #1 Kindle Bestselling author and a weekly contributor to Indies Unlimited

Getting Started in this Business

This past Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of attending a book signing by one of my favorite authors, Randy Wayne White. Known for his “Doc Ford” novels (over twenty and counting), he has been writing for over thirty years.
What made this event possible is an Independent bookstore, Books and Books , just two or so blocks from a Barnes and Noble. Randy started his talk by remembering the beginning of his career. He had just published his first novel and the publisher had set up a book signing at a bookstore in Ft. Myers, FL. The bookstore had stocked SIX books for the signing.

Meanwhile, Randy stood around listening to crickets. No one showed up. He even went outside and tried to round up people to come in. He didn’t sell a single book that day. That gives me a little hope! My first book signing for The Card, I sold a grand total of ONE book!
Later that month, Randy was on South Beach (Florida), only it wasn’t called South Beach back in the ‘70’s, and he was trying to figure out what to do. He wandered by a new bookstore, you guessed it, Books and Books, which had just opened. The owner, Mitchell Kaplan, grabbed Randy and set up a book signing, and the rest is history.
That New York Times Bestselling author has been going back to Books and Books for over thirty years. The story is inspiring to me on a couple of levels.
First, it starts out rough for just about everyone. There’s no magic bullet, whether you are self-published or have a big publishing house behind you. You still have to go out there and promote your book.
Randy also talked about his newest book. It introduces a new main character. After thirty years with the same cast of characters, he has started a new series. In his words, “It was the easiest book I’ve ever written.”
Isn’t it great that we are in an industry that thirty years from now, you’ll be just as stoked as you are today and the writing comes easier and easier. Imagine, slaving for the “Man” for thirty years in the same job—the same thing day in and day out. Telling you when you can take vacation. Telling you when you can go to lunch. Even telling you when you can take a break!
No way, man. We get to write. We can write whatever we want to write about and even change gears years down the road.
I walked away last night wanting to go home and write all night. I couldn’t sleep. I can’t wait until the day comes that I get to write, period. I know the day will come. I’ve got thirty years ahead of me, don’t you?
 Jim Devitt first posted this story on Indies Unlimited early this month

Neil Armstrong a true American Hero

For those who know me, the space program has always been a big part of my life. Today, Neil Armstrong has died. I have been surprised at how that has affected me.

You can say what you want about NASA, but that organization has done more for this country than most governmental organizations.


As a child, I watched Neil step on the moon, the first heavenly body that Americans had ever touched. To this day, that memory has stuck with me. As you can probably tell, writing this is difficult. We have lost, not only an American Hero, but a World Hero.

I want to reprint a portion of what the Armstrong family said in their statement ...


“The next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”


Tonight has been an emotional night for me, and I am reposting a previous post as I witnessed the final Space Shuttle launch.

Enjoy ... or reflect ...
Apollo Son reflects on the end of the Shuttle Program Growing up as the son of an engineer working on the Saturn V, I came to love the space program and everything that it represented. The risk, exploration, innovation and country pride during the early days of the Apollo program is unmatched in our history.

On Friday, July 8th, I took my family up to the Cape for the final shuttle launch. Regardless of only a 30% chance of a launch, we arrived to crawling traffic and cars parking wherever there was a sliver of land to view the launch.

This brought me back to the days of the Apollo missions. The throngs of launch watchers took to the shores of the rivers, lagoons, and the beaches. Sometimes we would arrive hours before the launch and spend what seemed like all day and sometimes into the night. Back in the early days, the launch windows were not of the ten-minute variety that we see today.

The sense of pride and accomplishment that made the Apollo program special infiltrated all who watched in awe at the spectacle. Thousands would gather with their picnics, battery powered televisions and radios. All around, the echoing of the launch sequence reverberated from the tinny sounds of transistor radios at each outpost. A chorus of voices joined the countdown adding to the excitement of the moment. At liftoff, the crackling of the five engines producing 7,650,000 pounds-force shattered the calm. The massive percussion assaulted our senses and the crowd would cheer the Saturn V as it climbed higher into the sky. 

Waiting for the final Atlantis launch, the crowd reminded me of the early days. It was good to see. I had witnessed other shuttle launches and the crowds were not impressive. People had grown complacent with the Shuttle program. Faceless astronauts, not the rock star explorers of the early years, piloted the Shuttle. The country had become an “event” crowd and the routine shuttle launches were not an event. Sure, they came back, after a tragedy. That always made the next launch an event.

I’d like to say that the Apollo program was not subjected to the same apathy, but that is not the case. In the waning years, the fervor of launches and the routine of going to the moon brought smaller and smaller crowds to the beaches. The Apollo program ended due to budget cuts and the lack of support to keep sending Americans to the moon. 


As we waited for the final firing of the main engines, the feeling of nostalgia and pride rippled through those that had gathered on the shores. However, it was eerily different. In this modern day of iPhones and technology, there were no radio’s belting out the launch sequence. Many people looked around wondering what was happening, was it going to go off on time. Thousands of launch fans stared at their web accessed phones, trying to get an update. There was an almost church-like hush amongst the crowd.


Suddenly and quietly, the liftoff occurred. The flash of the solid rocket boosters lit up the sky and the Atlantis climbed quietly into the sky. With the wind at our backs, it was as if a silent rocket had just shot toward space. The crowd started to point at the fireball climbing higher. The cheers and applause escalated and a chill went down my spine. Although much quieter, this Apollo Son felt the excitement and pride of the old days.

The man standing next to me looked up and shouted, “Godspeed.” The term used back in the early days of manned space flight, a Middle English expression, a wish for success and fortune for one setting out on a voyage, adventure, or travels. The Atlantis disappeared behind the clouds for a brief moment. As it broke out into the blue, the sounds of the its thrust finally reached the ground around us and provided a brief feeling of the power involved in sending humans to space.


Forty some years ago, I was a wide-eyed kid, watching us send astronauts to space with awe. It is my hope that my three-year old son will have a glimmer of memory about this historic launch. He knows his grandfather helped build the Saturn V and he loves everything “space.” He gets excited when he sees the moon and I can’t help but think that he might one day be able to venture back there. 

There is no question that the Shuttle fleet is old and very costly. I don’t disagree with the ending of the program. It just hurts that as resourceful and innovative we are as Americans, that we don’t have an alternative in place.

Life sends you down roads that you never thought would happen. I’m a author now. Writing stories about a teenager named Van Stone. He doesn’t have any magical powers or isn’t a vampire. He’s a real kid that uses science and determination to solve mysteries. Since I build his world, maybe one day he’ll get into space. The only problem is, we no longer have a manned space program. 

Let’s hope I don’t have to build an imaginary world for him to accomplish that task.

Letter from a Librarian ...

Charles Reed Bishop Learning CenterWow, I just received an email from a librarian at the Charles Reed Bishop Learning Center at the Kamehameha Schools in Hawai`i. I was so thrilled about the email, that I have to share it here.
Aloha Mr. Devitt ,
I am the middle school librarian at a private school for Hawaiian children on the island of Hawai`i.  I first purchased your book The Card at the recommendation of one of our students who told me it was a great book.  It has been constantly checked out by boys who love baseball.  In fact, I haven’t had a chance to read it myself!  Today, one of our students, who had been placed in remedial reading class, came up to me with your book in hand and asked me if I had the next book in the series!   I told him that if there is another in the series, I would get it for him right away.  Unfortunately, I was not able to find any information about any other book in the Van Stone series.  Therefore, I’m writing to you directly to get an answer so I can let him know.  Hope your answer will be, “It’ll be out next month!”
Sincerely,
Crystella KaukaLibrarianCharles Reed Bishop Learning CenterKamehameha Schools Hawai`i16-714 Volcano RoadKea`au, HI 96749
Thanks a ton to Crystella and her students for making my day!