Eric Kent Edstrom's Blog, page 25

Eric's Songs

If you're looking for my songwriter stuff, I've moved it. At the top of this page are some tabs, one of them says "Eric's Songs." That will take you to my posterous site where you can listen to all my tunes!



Here are some shortcuts to the favorites:



Every Time You Smile



Fall or Fly



I'll Bring the Beer



You'll Get Me

Follow @bigfootgrizz on Twitter

I'm kind of shocked by this, but one of that characters from my book, Undermountain, is now on twitter. The profile pic he's using cracks me up because Grizz is an eight foot tall "bigfoot," not a cute, fuzzy little bear cub.







His tweets are amusing, though. Follow him on twitter @bigfootgrizz.

Experiment to Spend $100 on eBooks on Twitter

Yesterday afternoon (central time) I did an experiment to test my twitter network. I called it My $100 eBook Shopping Spree. Over a seven hour period, I tweeted out this:




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

My $100 eBook shopping spree has begun: I'll buy your YA (adventure, sci-fi, fantasy) ebook today! bit.ly/wMWRQP please RT




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

It's true. I'm spending $100 on YA ebooks today. Will your ebook be one of them? bit.ly/wMWRQP




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

Have you written a YA adventure, sci-fi or fantasy novel? I'll buy a copy: bit.ly/wMWRQP No strings attached.




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

I'm looking to add to my to-read list. Specifically YA adventure, SF or fantasy. I'm spending $100 today. bit.ly/wMWRQP




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

it's amazing that I can't get anyone to pitch me their YA adventure, SF and fantasy ebooks. I'm ready to buy, buy, buy! bit.ly/wMWRQP




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

tap tap tap. is this thing on?




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

I'm shopping for ebooks. YA adventure, sf, fantasy. Tweet me your book! bit.ly/wMWRQP please RT




Eric Edstrom @ekedstrom

My $100 shopping spree has begun. Tweet me a buy link to your YA adventure, sf and fantasy ebook. kindle or nook. bit.ly/wMWRQP







I bought ZERO books. Why? Because I did not get even one response.




All someone had to do was tweet "@ekedstrom BOOK TITLE [book buy link] and [link to my original blog post]."




Why I didn't get a response? Well I can tell you. The URL shortener, bit.ly, keeps track of how many clicks each shortened link gets. The link I included in all my tweets got a grand total of TWO clicks. The blog post itself got nine, so seven were from random surfers.




The second part of the problem might be that I specifically requested YA adventure, sf and fantasy. This was really important because that's roughly where my book fits. I wanted to buy books in my genre, and at the same time pitch my book, get my twitter handle retweeted a bunch and hope to get more followers. So it could be that my followers don't fit my genre.




Lesson: I need to do more work cultivating relationships with authors in my genre.




So here I am putting out to twitter that I'm willing to spend $100 to buy books, and I can't spend even $0.99!




Across all my tweets, I got three retweets, expanding my reach to roughly 1000 additional people. But as any twitter user knows, no one reads every item in their tweetstream. So the true reach might be 10% of that, an extra 100 people. Don't misunderstand. I'm not upset that I didn't get more retweets. After all, most of my followers are polite follow-backers or pot shot networkers like me, they have no reason to RT me. Note: only two of my tweets included "please RT" and it was one of those that got RT'd twice.




The most important lesson I've drawn from this experiment is this: With only 86 followers—and most of them authors seeking to sell their own books—my social network platform basically does not exist.

My $100 YA eBook Shopping Spree [Updated: Spree Over]

UPDATE: Spree is not over. I bought a total of ZERO books.



Welcome! You might have heard that I'm on an ebook shopping spree today. Do you want me to buy your ebook? Just follow the directions below. Trust me, it's very simple and you don't have to buy or sign up for anything.



Today I've set aside a budget of $100 to buy ebooks. Why? I want to support other writers, for one. But the main reason is that I'm an author with an ebook to sell, and I want you to know about it. Please indulge me for a moment, and then we'll get to the part where I buy your ebook!






 
Six teens and a grizzled old guide embark on a ten day expedition into the wilds of the Canadian Rockies. Some came for adventure. Some came to learn. Some came to escape.



For sixteen year old Danny Michaelson the hike is freedom from his troubled home life.



For Breyona Lewis the hike distances her from a terrible memory—of an assault she denies even to herself.



But when Danny and Breyona encounter a creature out of legend—an enormous beast they immediately tag as "bigfoot"—the hike suddenly becomes a race for their lives.



Swept into a secret underground city and told they may never leave, the hikers find themselves in the middle of a war between the bigfeet and their rebellious servant race, the tangoga. In their desperate attempt to escape, Danny and Breyona uncover the terrible plans that both races have for Earth.



To escape, to live, to save the Earth—Danny must fight. Breyona must surrender.



You can find my book on Amazon, Nook or Smashwords.



Consider following me on twitter



If you feel moved to do it, consider adding my book to your goodreads list!



*********



Now, on to the good part. I will buy any YA adventure, science fiction, fantasy ebook priced $4.99 or less from either the Kindle store or the Nook store. This is first come, first bought. (please note: I'll be picky about the genre, so don't tweet me your erotica, literary, adult thrillers, etc.)



1) Tweet (not DM) to me: @ekedstrom your book title and the link to where I can buy it! Also include in your tweet this link: http://bit.ly/wMWRQP (which links back to this web page). That's all there is to it.



2) I'll take each tweet in the order they come in and buy the book. I don't know how fast the budget will go down. I'll update this post when the budget is used up!



When it's all over I'll create a list of the books I bought with the purchase link you gave me!



Let the game begin!

Danny and Breyona Theme Song

I wrote a song that is the perfect theme song for Danny and Breyona from Undermountain. Danny is from Nashville, so naturally this song has a bit of country edge to it. You can download the song here: Every Time You Smile  or stream it here.



I hope you enjoy!



Words and Music by Eric K Edstrom

A Three Way Tie: Author Interview: Eric Edstrom

I was interviewed over on Larissa Hinton's blog: A Three Way Tie: Author Interview: Eric Edstrom: Please check it out! And check out her books while you're at it.

Review: Writing Hit Country Song Lyrics

Writing Hit Country Song Lyrics by Eric Kent Edstrom

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I used to host a podcast called The Hit Hackers. In it, we'd analyze #1 hit songs in many genres. We spent a lot of time deconstructing country hits because that's the market I was writing for at the time. I also did occasional breakdowns of the top-50 country songs on the billboard chart, looking at things like tempo, duration, song structure, theme, number of co-writers, etc. In the process of all this, I wrote a lot of songs, demoed them and pitched them.

This eBooklet contains my learning. It's short and to the point, and it contains everything I'd wish I'd known when I started.



View all my reviews

IAMA Reformed Pantser

My first novel, Undermountain, started as a bit of a panster novel. That is, I wrote it by the seat of my pants. I had a general idea of where I was headed, but not exactly where I was going. World building? I had volumes of that. Story? Well, not so much.



There came a time, somewhere after NaNoWriMo ended, that I had to sit down and figure things out. It required some rewriting and a bunch of outlining. I outlined it several times. Once in Excel (dumb), once in Word (useless), and finally in OmniOutliner (brilliant).



Once I finally got the book written and published, I turned my focus to book #2 in the series. I envisaged the whole story being a trilogy, but I only had the most general idea of how things were going to wrap up. I had all the backstory and the super-high-level plot in mind, but not the nitty gritty of where my characters needed to go and what challenges they were going to face.



I've committed to outlining the next two books all at once. I also think I'm going to write straight through to the end of book three. That way the whole thing will fit together perfectly. At least, that's the plan.



I'm quite confident in where the story is going, and I haven't hit any real roadblocks yet. In fact, I've got some big action planned. I kind of feel bad for my characters.



Kind of.

Review: The Book of Creation

The Book of Creation by Evan Braun

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Take the Da Vinci code and mix it with equal parts Indiana Jones and The Celestine Prophecy and you'll get The Book of Creation (The Watchers Chronicle Book I).

I'm a sucker for books that start firmly rooted in history and then use all the holes in our knowledge to weave together cool tale. That's what this book does. I love the sense of wonder of discovery when Emery Wortlich the archeologist, Sherwood Brighton the math genius and Ira Benyamin the Rabbi work together to piece together an ancient (and I mean ancient!) mystery. Of course, they don't all have the same motivations and that leads to some interesting problems.

I have to say that of all the characters in the book, the one who intrigues me most is the mysterious French billionaire, Raff Lagati.

A very enjoyable read, and it works as a stand alone novel. That said, there are some big questions left unanswered, so I'm looking forward to book II!



View all my reviews

Undermountain Now Available at the Nook Store!

Put my book in your Nook!  Wait, that doesn't sound right.



Anyway, Undermountain is now available at the nook store: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/under...



Buy it, read it, review it, recommend it!