David P. Forsyth's Blog: The Sovereign Spirit Saga, page 4

ApocaCon at the Long Beach Zombie Walk

Announcing the 1st ApocaCon (Apocalyptic Fiction Convention) at the 5th annual Long Beach Zombie Walk. This will be a great event for zombie fans including live bands, a beer garden, Walk-In Outdoor Movie showing of "Shaun of the Dead", and the ApocaCon pavilion where readers can interact with authors of zombie and apocalyptic fiction. The official announcement was made yesterday at http://zombiewalklb.com/2012/08/apoca... and I am happy to see that they credit ApocaCon as my brainchild.

I hope to see you there. Even if you can't make it, you can still help with a "like" at http://www.facebook.com/ApocaCon and mention the event to your online friends. Interested authors can contact me here or at www.ApocaCon.com

Thanks for your interest and welcome aboard! The more the scarier.

Sovereign Spirit Website

I hope that all of you will visit me at www.davidpforsyth.com and explore my domain. It has a few interactive features that set it apart from the crowd.

The www.sovereignspirit.net page (sound familiar?) is an interactive Role Playing Blog where you can post your post-apocalyptic status and interact with characters in my books. Most importantly, I will be selecting some of the posts from readers to be included in my next book as Billy Allen monitors the internet. I would love to get some cool "in character" posts from my fans!

The new "Toy Box" page is an interactive glossary with pictures and links to some of the vessels, vehicles and weapons described in the books. It is intended as a companion for readers, but should be interesting to those who have read the books already too. Let me know if you pictured them as intended. :) I'll be adding more soon...

The "Rave Reviews" page will also be expanded as time permits. It will probably include some of YOUR review too.:)

The ApocaCon page (www.aopcacon.info) is where I am trying to encourage other authors to join me at an event to promote apocalyptic fiction in Long Beach this October. I'm thinking of making T-shirts with the ApocaCon logo. Anyone interested?

Anyway, I hope that my website offers something for everyone and will become a place where all of us can interact in one way or another.

Thanks again for your interest and please feel free to leave comments here, or at www.davidpforsyth.com, and please LIKE http://www.facebook.com/pages/Voyage-... . You can also Follow me @DavidPForsyth on Twitter. I would love to interact with you at any or all of the above! Bon Voyage!

The Toy Box (Interactive Glossary)

Based on some comments from readers who were not familiar with some of the vessels, aircraft, vehicles, weapons, and locations described in Voyage of the Dead and Flotilla of the Dead I decided to create a page on my website that I call the "Toy Box".

It is an interactive glossary with descriptions, photos and links (mostly to Wikipedia) that is intended to be a companion and guide for readers of my books. I'll be inserting the link in a forward to future editions of the books, but it should also be interesting to those of you who have already read them. And I'd like to see if I described these things well enough in words for you to have pictured them accurately.

Please take a moment to click on http://davidpforsyth.com/toy-box/ and scroll down the page. You can also leave comments on that page and/or on the photos of specific items. Bon Voyage!

Surprise Promo

I returned from a "research" trip to Northern California last night and noticed that sales for Flotilla of the Dead had fallen slightly. Based on past experience, giving away some copies of Voyage of the Dead should help sell the sequel. So, I ran a spur of the moment free promo on 7/15 with no prior planning. The result?
As of midnight:

"Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Science Fiction > Adventure
#7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror"

It's the best ranking Voyage has ever reached, so I am extending the promo thru Monday. Shooting for the Top 100 overall. Wish me luck and spread the word. Thanks to everyone who reads this!

DavidPForsyth.com is Online!

Well, I finally got around to building my own website yesterday. Please visit http://davidpforsyth.com/ and take a quick tour. I still need to add some bells and whistles (including images and links to my books and a blog that will be linked to this one), but I hope you like the concept.

For those who have read my book(s) there is a special page for role playing called SovereignSpirit.net (that domain will forward to http://davidpforsyth.com/sovereignspi... soon too). It's a place where you can write an email to "Billy Allen" who is putting together a list of survivors. Briefly report your name, location and post-apocalyptic situation. Be creative and stay in character.

I will choose some of my favorite (fictional) reports from fans to be included in Deluge of the Dead (with the sender's permission). The first post came from another entertaining author who really got into the spirit! I don't expect most posts to be that long or humorous. But feel free to have fun with it! http://davidpforsyth.com/sovereignspi...

I think I made up a new joke today too.
Q: Why don't zombies take showers?
A: They prefer to soak in Bath Salts.

ApocaCon - Long Beach 10/27/12

So... I discovered that there will be a big Zombie Walk event at the Port of Long Beach in October. It takes place right across the bay from the Queen Mary. A Flotilla Stronghold. There will be 15,000 "zombies" partying at Marina Park (which is described as being overrun in my book). How could I pass that up?

So... I will be there. But I thought it might get a bit lonely, being surrounded by all those zombies and all. Maybe there would be more safety in numbers (ours, not theirs). So I came up with a brilliant idea (if you ask me).

I am now the proud organizer of the first ApocaCon - Apocalyptic Writers' Convention! The organizers of the Long Beach Zombie Walk seem to be as excited as I am. Now all I need to do is get a bunch of other authors of zombie and apocalyptic fiction (books, comics, movies) to join me and promote their work at a giant zombie party... Hmmm...

What have I gotten myself into?!? ;)

Follow me on Twitter!

I never got into Twitter, until now... When Hugh Howey tweeted my last promotion it brought many readers, some of whom left nice reviews and thanked Hugh for introducing them to my work. So I took the plunge myself and you can follow me @davidpforsyth where I tweet not only promotions for my books, but other books that I recommend too.

For example, today I am promoting the FREE giveaways on Amazon of Love has a Taste by John Stephen Walsh and "Story Time" by Linell Jeppsen. I gave both of those books high marks in my reviews and they are free this weekend.

My regular Tweets are full of pithy quotes like:

“Sovereign Spirit, this is the U.S. Coast Guard…Alter course and maintain your distance from U.S. territory.” #zombies http://www.amazon.com/Voyage-Dead-Sov...

Mark Twain:"My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine.[But] everybody drinks water." Not #zombies http://tinyurl.com/7tqdbpv

Etc... So, if you are on Twitter, please follow @davidpforsyth and RT as many of my Tweets as you like. I'm a total newbie on Twitter and looking for as many followers as possible. Thanks for your help and support.

Coast Guard requests copy of Voyage of the Dead!

I was pleasantly surprised and proud to receive an email today from the Combat Systems Maintenance Center aboard the USCGC Stratton (WMSL-752). As most of you know, this is the Coast Guard cutter depicted in my books.

A crewman had downloaded a Kindle copy of Voyage of the Dead and was writing to request a print edition for the ship's library after notifying the rest of the crew that it is available on Kindle. I explained that it is not yet available in print. So I emailed him copies of both Voyage of the Dead and Flotilla of the Dead in mobi and PDF to share with the crew.

After stressing that my books are works of fiction and that none of the characters are intended to represent any real person, living or dead, I thanked them for their interest and more importantly for their service to our nation.

BuyZombie.com Review

News of the Day: BuyZombie.com just posted a book review of "Voyage of the Dead" which says in part:

"Voyage of the Dead Sovereign Spirit Saga: Book 1 of the saga by David Forsyth is very entertaining. The book opens with an outbreak at an airport and then moves to a veritable dream come true scenario. Scott Allen, the primary character and mega millions lottery winner has converted an ocean going car ferry into a luxury expedition mega yacht, Sovereign Spirit.

"What better place to wait out a zombie apocalypse then in a lap of floating comfort?

"The storyline makes more sense than trying to fortify a mall ala the original Dawn of the Dead and the remake. Sure, malls are cool but they’re stationary and have way too many points of entry. A ship, one as fully outfitted as Sovereign Spirit, has got to be the most original concept I’ve read in this genre.

"Forsyth’s writing is crisp and rich in detail. The action scenes are enthralling and heart pounding. His description of events puts you into the scene right along with the characters..."

More critical comments follow, but those are the ones I felt like sharing. :)

Vote for Voyage of the Dead! :)

If you go to the Voyage of the Dead page on GoodReads and scroll down you will see that it is ranked in two lists of Best Zombie Books. So is Flotilla of the Dead. If you could vote for one or both of them on those polls it would be appreciated. Of course if you like one or more of the others on the list better than mine, feel free to rank them higher. You can rank dozens of them if you want to.

The polls are at:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/89... (where Voyage of the Dead is currently ranked #48 and Flotilla is #77 out of 178 zombie books)
and
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/93... (where my books are #137 and #144 out of 394 respectively.)

I don't think the position indicates their quality as much as the number of people who have read them and voted since their release in January and April. It would be great if you can help push them up the charts!