Mark R. Hunter's Blog, page 46

Coming Attractions is e-booking all over the place

As you know, one of the weirdest things about being a writer is seeing your book up for sale.

Or maybe you didn't know that. I didn't know that.

Coming Attractions is my tenth published book, so you'd think I'd get used to it, but it's always ... weird. Promotion is even weirder: As I've said before, my parents taught me better than to run around shouting "look at me, look at me!" So instead I'll say ... hm ...

Look at this, look at this! There, redirection.

Here are the places Coming Attractions is up for sale as of now, that we know of. All e-book, so far; it is up in print on Amazon, but we made a few tweaks and haven't gotten our proof copy back, so we're not publicizing that yet. Still, I did make that offer to show something incredibly embarrassing if we sell our first hundred copies by January 1st, so the least I can do is give you all a chance to embarrass me.

Of course, it's up along with fourteen other entries on our Amazon author page:
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

It's available almost everywhere in the world on Amazon except, oddly enough, most of the Middle East. (Those fifteen entries include the three anthologies I have stories in, plus separate print and e-book entries for Radio Red and Coming Attractions. No, I don't know why.)

Then there's Barnes and Noble, which specializes in books. And coffee, and toys, and games, and novelties, and such. Come to think of it, I bought the Doctor Who soundtrack there.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22M...

That's the link to all our books on B&N, and isn't Christmas shopping season reaching right for us like a pocket picking politician? If you can't click on that link, just type it all in from memory.

Also, here's a Smashwords link to Coming Attractions:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

Smashing. By which you can get it on epub and mobi and pdf, and stuff.

And you can get it on iTunes!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/comi...

Even though it's not a tune. In fact, if you click on my name you can see a bunch of other stuff, also not tunes.

We also have Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/comi...

Which I used to think was the name of that ape who knew sign language.

Some of our books are all over the place, including places I hadn't heard of because I was busy watching cute puppy videos. Although Coming Attractions isn't quite there yet, many of our other books are on Blio:
https://www.blio.com/web1/actions/sea...

The new book should be there any moment. It's already on Scribd:
https://www.scribd.com/book/394467385...

Which seems like it's missing a letter, but who am I to sy?

So there you go: your Christmas shopping list. I'm sure Coming Attractions is or will be on other sites, so if you happen to see it there, let us know. And congrats to Emily for all her setup and distribution work!

You can get a sample of the book on many of those sites.

A book rollout rolls over, ice bucket challenges, and other tales of woe

Coming Attractions has had delays getting up in print and e-platforms other than Kindle, although it's coming soon. There was also a problem with an illness, the details of which I most definitely don't want to share (and I'm getting better).

But it is up on Kindle, and you can read a sample here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...

These things happen. It's my fault for making premature announcements when I knew I was going on vacation--a virtual guarantee of illness or injury, or both. I went so far as to promise to post an embarrassing photo of me if we sold 100 copies in the first couple of weeks.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks.

I know many of you want to see me be embarrassed. So, in the hopes that we'll have everything set up in the next few days, I've extended that promise.

Never mind the question of whether an author should lure in readers by promising to make fun of himself. I spent years making fun of myself in my humor column--why stop now?

So if we sell a hundred copies of Coming Attractions by January 1st, I'll read one of my own poems online (and trust me, I'm bad at it). In addition, I'll share one or more truly embarrassing pictures of myself. We've been going through photos for a book project, and I've found one of me in my prom tux, and another that was even worse.

And if we make a thousand total sales of all our books between now and the end of the year, I'll do something even better. Or worse. I've been told the ice bucket challenge is so last winter, so if any of you have better ideas, I'm open for suggestion. Or I could just do a book giveaway? What do you think?

Coming Attractions on Kindle, and ice on me ... maybe

If you haven't already heard, the Kindle version of Coming Attractions is available for pre-order! You can get all the details here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KM6JWQC?...

Or you could just wait a few days, because it should be live on Black Friday--and available to order without fighting a crowd. Or you could wait a little while longer, when we'll have the print version up and hopefully other e-book versions, too.

If I get, oh, a hundred sales across all platforms by the end of the month, I'll ... I dunno, something. I'm making this up as I go along. Maybe read one of my poems live? Or post my high school graduation photo?

Or would those be less of a reward, and more of a punishment?


Oh, and here's an idea: If I make a thousand total sales of all our books between now and January 1st, I'll do that ice bucket challenge thing everyone used to talk about. Why? Well, because I've never made a thousand sales in a month, and it would be neat.

We're in hardcover, and I'm on Instagram

I have something in common with J.K. Rowling! We used to have a lot in common, in that she was once dirt poor and unknown as an author. Now the only thing we have in common is that there are hardcover versions of our books.

Well, one book, in my case.

I mentioned previously seeing it on Amazon and thinking, “WTH?” (It stands for what the heck, let it go.) The book is Images of America: Albion and Noble County, which I’ve talked about a lot lately, mostly because I want people to read it. A lot of people have, which is very cool, and some might be upset that I didn’t tell them there was a hardcover version available.

But in my defense, I didn’t know there was a hardcover version.

It just showed up on Amazon one day, along with the e-book and paperback versions. Oddly enough, the hardcover isn’t advertised on the website of my publisher, Arcadia Publishing. Being the suspicious sort, I took the easy route and just ordered a copy from Amazon myself. Hey, I support this author.

And sure enough, there it was.

One of our books. In hardcover.

I’m very proud. Unfortunately, the book came out a couple of years ago, and most of the people who might have bought it in hardcover probably have it in paperback. But still. It’s cool. And it makes me wonder, if we did a hardcover edition of our next photo book, how many people might choose that one.

Here's the Instagram post I made about this, because ... I don't know ... somebody might want to see me talk?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqanJrAFjjf/

Still selling the No-Campfire soap

On Sunday the 18th The No-Campfire Girls is going up for the day on The Fussy Librarian, an e-book website that can be found here:

https://www.thefussylibrarian.com/

Like many small businesses (I'm a writer, but let's face it--I'm also a small business), I do more advertising this time of year because people are shopping for the holidays. Also, if you're anything like me, you're looking for something to do that involves not being outside. So, hey--books.

The No-Campfire Girls is listed as YA adventure, although I think it can be a lot of fun for adult readers too. Also, it's got firefighters, so there's that. It's just 99 cents on Kindle and $5 in paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/No-Campfire-Gi...

And of course it's on our website at www.markrhunter.com, just like all of our other books. Unless they're sold out, print copies are at the Noble Art Gallery in downtown Albion. I hope you'll consider supporting local businesses--and local authors--in your shopping this year. Unless you don't live near here, in which case I hope you support another locale's authors.


Fifteen year old Beth Hamlin is horrified to discover her beloved summer camp must go without campfires this year, due to the fire hazard from a drought. But Beth isn't one to just sit (or swim, or boat, or horseback) around. When her new cabinmate, Cassidy, claims a local Cherokee can do a rain dance, she jumps into action.

All they have to do is trick the Camp Director into letting Running Creek do the dance, avoid the local bully and a flying arrow or two, and keep from getting caught plotting with Cassidy’s firefighter father on a forbidden cell phone. With luck southern Indiana will get a nice, soaking rain, and Camp Inipi can have proper campfires again.

But when things go horribly wrong, the whole area is endangered by a double disaster. Now Beth and her unit may be the only people who can save not only their camp, but everyone in it.


*A portion of the proceeds of this book benefits Friends of Latonka, an organization made to save the Girl Scout summer camp at Wappapello, Missouri.

www.markrhunter.com

A picture request for a new fire book

You know what I like? Fire trucks.


I also like history.


I'm also a fan of my home town, Albion.


Now, as a person who's been a volunteer firefighter for some 35 years or so, I can safely say I've been a part of all three of those things. And we've combined them all before, in a book Emily and I did called Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With the Albion Fire Department.


I'm very proud of that book, which was decades in the making. But, although it did have some photos, it didn't have as many as I'd have liked. Now, some time later we did another book about Albion and Noble County, entitled, naturally, Albion and Noble County.


It's part of Arcadia Press' Images of America series, which features images of ... well, you know. Now, that book was a load of hard work, but it was also very cool, because we searched long and hard and world wide for pictures, and got a lot of really cool ones loaned and donated to us. That got me thinking.


And here's where you come in. Yes, I'm pointing at you.


I've been having some family and medical stuff that's kept me from getting very involved with the fire department recently, so I wanted to do something, and here it is: Another book about the Albion Fire Department, but this time all about the pictures. Fires; fire trucks; firefighters; firehouses; fire history; fire dogs; whatever. Not a lot of text, just all the good photos we can get our hands on.


If you have any fire related photos involving Albion in any way, could you please loan them to us long enough for us to make a copy for the book? You'll get credit, naturally, and half the proceeds from sales of the book will go to the Albion Fire Department. I'm not asking the AFD to fund the making of the book as they did with Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights, so the other half of the proceeds will go toward actually designing, producing, advertising, and printing the book.


If it's in any way related to Albion's fire history, even slightly, we're interested; and we're especially interested in former members, since it's awfully hard to fight fires without firefighters. Seeing as how this is going on my blog, I should stress that I mean Albion, Indiana. Although, come to think of it, it would be kind of cool to have a section on Albion firehouses from across the country.


We'll collect all the best and put out a great visual record of Albion's firefighting brothers and sisters. I don't know for sure how long this will take, but I'm shooting for getting it published maybe early next summer. And as always, thanks for your support!


You can contact Emily or me on our website contact form at www.markrhunter.com, our through any of our social media, or--believe it or not--our number's actually in the phone book.

Prediction: Politics Still Stinks

I haven’t written about politics for some time, mostly because of certain keywords that permeate modern discourse: “Hateful”; “vindictive”; “mean”; “hypocritical” … okay, some of them aren't so new. Also, certain trigger words that cause those reactions, such as "politics", and "Have a nice day".

(By the way, "Have a nice day" is going to be my reply to any particularly wrathful comments to this post. It's time to steer away from useless shouting.)

Still, I do have a history of making predictions, so here’s what I think is going to happen over the next few years. Just to be clear, my Presidential prediction success rate is running at about 50%.

The Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives. This one’s crazy easy: The party opposing the sitting President almost always makes gains during off-year elections. The Dems also have their usual advantage of a fawning mainstream media, so I’m pretty confident of this one. We also had more than one “October Surprise”, and all of them screamed “go blue”.

The Republicans will maintain control of the Senate, although just barely. This will result in a scenario in which half of Congress actively does everything in their power to keep President Trump from doing anything, including picking out ties, having brunch, or watching the Superbowl. As far as actual work getting done, things won’t look much different.

Keep in mind that over the last several decades Democrats controlled Congress much more often than Republicans did, which helps explain why they’ve been so irate the last couple of years. I understand: I’d prefer to be in charge, too.

I could be wrong on all of this; conservatives are just as fired up right now as liberals are, but they feel saying so often leads to them being personally attacked, so many are keeping a low profile. On a related note, remember when we could disagree and still be nice to each other? No? Well, I was younger, then.

What I can guarantee is that political ads will continue to be more and more vicious, which is also a pretty easy call. In my area they’ve given up on words like “misleading” and gone straight to calling each other liars. We’re getting closer and closer to political campaigns looking like the Red Wedding in “Game of Thrones”. I predict that by early 2020, ads will start with wishes that opponents campaign in Iowa without their overcoats. They'll end with suggestions that the other guy get tarred (with toxic sludge) and feathered (with arrows).


It’s no great leap to say all this animosity and lack of general niceness is connected. We probably won’t get back to any form of civility until someone from outside the country attacks America again, or a comet takes out New Jersey, and possibly not then.

By the way, I predict the 2020 Presidential campaign will begin December 2nd, 2018. The fact that more and more Americans are becoming infuriated by the extended campaign seasons hasn’t gotten through to politicians any more than anything else has.

In 2020 the Presidential election will be won by Democrat Kamala Harris, after the other Democrats maim each other into bloody pulps in the primaries. She’ll have a majority of a few million and barely squeak by in the electoral college, which supporters will declare a landslide. I don’t know much about Harris, but she’s from California, so she’ll have her home state locked up. Her mother is Indian and her father Jamaican, which means any criticism of her can be stomped down with cries of “racist!” I’ve read up on Harris a little and I’m not overly impressed, but I suspect she really doesn’t give a darn what I think.

President Trump, taking his cue from the Democrats after the 2016 election, will pout.


Other predictions for the next few years:

A terrible storm will cause damage somewhere.

A politician will fall out of grace because of something that ends with “gate”.

Entertainment award shows will continue to ditch celebrating entertainment in favor of being political.

Some cool new technology will sweep the world.

A major business will go bankrupt.

Oh: And the American economy will turn down, headed toward a recession by the end of 2019, and be in full recession sometime in 2020. Our economy goes in cycles, and we’ve been riding a wave for too long—the wave is overdue to crash. I’m just the messenger.

Of course, by the time most of that happens you’ll have forgotten I wrote this, so right or wrong, I’m safe.

Next Writing Project: Begun

Well, I’ve already written 3,500 words on our new book project. And that might be the majority of the writing part, because this book is going to have lots and lots and lots of photos. It’ll be akin to our Images of America: Albion and Noble County book in its picture-ness, I hope.

Oh, boy …

I’d better start working on captions. And maybe I should have warned Emily about doing the layout?

Price reduction on my book, and hardcover ... or so I hear

It's been kind of a rough year, and especially a rough last month or so. But as an author I have to get back on the horse, because gift giving season is coming (I don't use an actual holiday name until November), and it turns out promotion is part of an author's job.

It's helpful for that effort that Arcadia Publishing has our Images Of America book priced at $21.22 for print, a drop from the original price. It's one of three history-related books Emily and I put together ... together. Or will that be four by this time next year? Stay tuned ... news to come.

https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Pro...

You can get it on all those various electronic formats too, of course--even the Nook. Anybody still have a Nook?

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/albi...



Personally, for a photo-heavy book like this, I think it's better in paperback. But then there's the surprise I got when I checked our Amazon page. Take a look, and see if you can figure out what shocked me:

https://www.amazon.com/Albion-Noble-C...

See that there, in the middle? They have it listed at $28.99, with a price drop to $20.78. Why $20.78? Why not $20.80, or $20.99? I don't know, but it still seems like a pretty good buy for a hardcover version. The only copies of the book I have are paperback.

That's because I didn't know there was a hardcover version.

If any of you happen to have ordered the hardcover, please let me know if this is a real thing or not; I've never had one of my books turned into the version that can be used in home defense. I realize that if you don't have a connection to Noble County you probably don't have any version, and in that case check out the Arcadia Publishing website: If you live in America, they're likely to have a book out covering something in your general area.

(And, as usual, check out all our books at http://markrhunter.com/ ...)

Reviewing The Walking Doctor: A Tale Of Two Season Openers

Sunday was the season 9 opener for The Walking Dead, and the--what--season 48?--opener for Doctor Who, the British SF series originally designed for children that went into development the year I was born. It was also my only night off that week, so even though my wife doesn't like watching more than an hour and a half or so of TV a night, we managed to catch both of them close to the hour of their premiers.


They'd make for a great crossover, since the Doctor often seems to spend most of his time running from things that want to eat him, anyway.


Many think The Walking Dead has stumbled the last few seasons, and despite the fun presence of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, the show's best villain yet, they're not wrong. (Your opinion may vary--The Governor was pretty cool, in a bad way.) It's hard to keep a show fresh for going on ten years, even killing off several major characters every year.


But this time around The Walking Dead does seem to have invigorated itself with season 9, which flashes forward several months from the climactic battle with Negan's Saviors at the end of S8. Negan is imprisoned, the Saviors part of a wider attempt at a community, Maggie's years-long pregnancy is past, and one of the show's most annoying bad guys is no longer hanging around by the end of the episode. There's a new show runner, and we go in with the announcement that Andrew Lincoln's Rick is exiting the show, apparently at the mid-season break.


The perfect time for A New Beginning, which happens to be the title of the episode. It mostly concerns a mission into Washington, D.C., and its aftermath, and we get both hope for the future and hints of conflicts to come.


Lots of people watch The Walking Dead for the zombies, and there are plenty stumbling around. I watch the show for the characters, and in that it remains strong. Whether it can continue to be strong without the strong center of Rick I don't know, but ... so far, so good.







Meanwhile, back in England, a mysterious woman who can't remember her own name falls out of the sky--literally. For the uninitiated, The Doctor (His/her name is not "Doctor Who") is a time and space traveling alien who can cheat death by regenerating into a new body. The thirteenth Doctor is also the first female one, played by Jodie Whittaker as caring, a little frenetic, and slightly daft, about the average for the more recent Doctors.


Instead of getting the time she needs to adjust to her new self, the Doctor is thrown into a mystery involving a mysterious alien device--a lot of alien tech ends up in England--followed by a nasty alien warrior. The Doctor follows his--um, her--usual pattern by collecting together some new companions and throwing them in the deep end.


There's been a lot of discussion about this version of the Doctor, some of it pretty nasty. I'm not a fan of gender swapping established characters, but in this case we already know the Doctor can swap bodies, and being an alien there's no reason why he can't regenerate into a she. My normal new Doctor fears evaporated by the end of the episode: Whittaker does a good job, and as she adjusts to the role might become great at it.


Unfortunately, my concerns about the rest of the show remain. The writers seem determined to avoid any connection to the former Doctor Who universe, having ditched last season's companions and announced there would be no appearance this season by the more popular villains. We didn't even get the iconic opening credits, and the theme music only faded in for a moment when the Doctor first appears. The Doctor's ship, the TARDIS, didn't even show up in the episode.


That seems like a terrible idea, to introduce a brand new doctor and not keep anything to anchor long time fans. What, Bill and/or Nardole couldn't have stuck around for another season? To make matters worse, the new companions seem a bit uninteresting in comparison, and the episode as a whole had little of the comedic flash that often gave relief to darker storylines."It's darker" isn't necessarily a compliment.


In short, the new Doctor is fine; but the new season needs some work.