Kyle Pratt's Blog: Musings & Rantings, page 18
February 17, 2016
Audible Prepper Promo
Audible is having a member’s only sale and featuring my novel Through Many Fires.
From February 17th until Saturday, February 20th at 11:59 PM you can buy two great audiobooks for one credit. This is an Audible.com members only sale, and you must have one credit, or more, available in your account.
The complete list is here and, in addition to Through Many Fires, includes Ashes of the Unspeakable, by my friend Franklin Horton and classics like The Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart. I already have Franklin’s book so I bought, 77 Days in September by Ray Gorham, and The Perseid Collapse by Steven Konkoly.
If you’re an Audible member and interested in post-apocalyptic action-adventure novels this is a great time to buy some books.
February 6, 2016
Jennifer on Character Creation
Unlike many authors, Jennifer is an extrovert.
Author Jennifer Vandenberg works the crowd.
She denies it, but at a recent character creation workshop, I watched her work the room like a professional speaker. She listed fifty traits on the whiteboard. These ranged from age, gender and height to hobbies, hometown and favorite holiday. Then she went around the audience asking them what that attribute should be. After doing that for two characters she guided the group into basic plotting using the man and women they created.
Author Jennifer Vandenberg on character creation
Everyone laughed and learned as we created zany characters and plots in one, very brief, hour.
Besides being an excellent speaker and writer Jennifer Vandenberg describes herself as geology student, National Park ranger, secretary, tax preparer, swim instructor, school aide, library assistant, children's bookseller, merchandise supervisor, property curator, volunteer, farmer, and blogger. That resume sounds like it comes from an extrovert.
No matter what she says she is, I recommend her books and workshops.
February 3, 2016
New Audiobook Release!
The Braving the Storms audiobook is now available.
Narration and production of the audiobook edition of Braving the Storms took less than a month. Even the Audible quality review seemed to go quicker than it had in the past. I certainly expected everything to go smoothly with the talented Kevin Pierce behind the project. This is Kevin’s third production for me and my fifth audiobook overall.
The unabridged audio production of Braving the Storms is eight hours and eleven minutes long. It is currently available through Amazon and Audible and will soon be on iTunes.
You can see all of my audiobooks here, on my website.
February 2, 2016
He also takes pictures
I often know little about the photographers of our cover pictures.
Several times I have lamented about that in this blog. Today is different. The month’s cover is a detail of a larger photograph taken by Sebastien Gabriel. Originally from France, Sebastien joined Google and moved to the United States in 2012. Sebastien describes himself as a senior designer working on Chrome and Chrome OS and, he says, “I also take pictures.” You can read more about how a young man from France came to work for Google, here. You can more of his photographs, along with all of the one I took a detail from, on his Unsplash page.
You can find more about previous cover photos here.
January 29, 2016
Three in the Top Ten
Three of my novels are simultaneous bestsellers
All three of my Strengthen What Remains novels have reached the Amazon War Fiction top ten bestseller list at the same time. Braving the Storms, my latest novel is at number eight. Through Many Fires, the first novel in the series is in the number five position, and A Time to Endure has reached the number one spot.
Currently, we’re promoting A Time to Endure, so I expected it to move up in the ranks and, of course, I hoped that it would reach number one. What I didn’t expect is for people to buy the other two books at the same time, and have all three in the top ten this morning.
Thank you, everyone, who bought the books, reviewed them and helped spread the word. This is a great start to 2016.
January 24, 2016
Local Author Display
I guess it’s only natural for writers to support libraries.
Back in September I blogged about finding my novel, A Time to Endure, at my local Chehalis library. When I visited the library to get a picture for that September blogpost, my friend Amy, who works there, checked the database and discovered other libraries in the system had copies of Through Many Fires. This surprised me since I’ve never made an effort to get my novels in any library. I guess I never thought about my books being there, but I was happy when I found out they were.
Amy and Victoria with the books of Author Kyle Pratt
Several weeks later Amy contacted me and asked if I would donate a copy of each of my novels for a display of local authors at the Chehalis library. Of course, I agreed.
The picture here is from when I delivered the copies of Braving the Storms, Through Many Fires, Titan Encounter and A Time to Endure. I’ll go back, and get a picture of the display, when it is complete.
January 16, 2016
Review Milestones
As 2016 begins two of my books have reached milestones.
If a reader enjoys one of my stories, I certainly encourage them to write a review. As I mention at the end of many of my books, “the more favorable reviews a book has, the better it sells.” In part, this is because when readers peruse books on a site like Amazon they often assume that the first few reviews are from friends and family. While that depends on the author (I don’t solicit reviews from friends or relatives) readers put more trust in the star ranking as the number of reviews increases.
Composite picture of the Through Many Fires page on Amazon.com
Therefore, as an author, I want lots and lots of good reviews and, overtime, I have received them. Two of my novels recently achieved review milestones on Amazon.
Through Many Fires, the first book in the Strengthen What Remains series, reached 200 reviews in September of 2014 and today achieved review number 300, and a 4.4 star ranking.
Composite picture of the A Time to Endure page on Amazon.com
Released just over a year ago, A Time to Endure, book two in the Strengthen What Remains series, now has 60 reviews on Amazon, and a 4.6 star ranking.
Thank you, my readers, for those excellent numbers.
January 12, 2016
A Book for Bill
Nearly ten months ago I sold the first copy of Braving the Storms.
Kyle Pratt and Bill Radtke on March 20, 2015 with a check for the unnamed third book.
That was before the book even had a name. I had gone to deliver copies of Through Many Fires and A Time to Endure to my friend, Bill Radtke. I told him he could have them, but he wanted to buy them. That was back on March 20, 2015. As we talked he asked me about the third book in the series.
I told him most of the book had been plotted and I had written about 15,000 words.
Kyle Pratt and Bill Radtke ten months later with Braving the Storms.
As Bill wrote the check for the first two books he said, “I’m going to add extra for the third book.”
I shook my head. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll make sure you get a copy when it is released.”
He insisted on paying me for the unnamed book right then.
I had the good sense to get a picture of him handing me that check and wrote about it here.
Today, almost ten months later, I’ve completed the 77,000 word, 258 page novel, and delivered his copy of the now named book. Bill, I hope you enjoy your copy of Braving the Storms.
January 9, 2016
Braving the Storms Unboxed
The year 1985 was a memorable time for me.
That year I was stationed in Japan with the U.S. navy and writing short stories that I hoped someday might be printed. That was also the year Back to the Future came out. Along with my family, I saw the movie in a Japanese theater. Kanji scrolled along one side as we watched.
While I enjoyed the whole movie a scene at the end stuck in my memory. In the last minutes of the film Bif rushes into the McFly home with a package and announces, “Mr. McFly, Mr. McFly, this just arrived … I think it's your new book.” They open it and lift out a copy of George McFly’s novel, A Match Made in Space.
As I walked from the theater I recalled that scene, and thought that opening a box and seeing your book for the first time would be a really cool moment. I never forgot that scene, and I think of it again each time a package arrives containing my copies of a new release.
This is the fourth time books have arrived on my doorstep and the moment in Back to the Future flashed through my mind as I opened the box and lifted the first copy of Braving the Storms.
This recent delivery contained twenty copies of that latest novel. I’ll be keeping one or two. The rest I’ll be signing and sending off to editors, bloggers, reviewers and beta-readers or handing to critique group partners.
So, if I said you’ll be getting a copy of my new book—it’s coming soon!
January 3, 2016
Braving the Storms Audiobook
My fifth story will soon be available as an Audiobook.
A few weeks ago on December 18th, the paperback and ebook editions of Braving the Storms, the third book of the Strengthen What Remains series, were released.
Kevin Pierce the voice of Strengthen What Remains.
Even before the December debut, Kevin Pierce, the producer for both Through Many Fires and A Time to Endure, agreed to continue his role as the voice of the series. Kevin is a respected, Audible-approved, producer and narrator of both fiction and non-fiction audiobooks.
Through Many Fires, my first book to be released as an audiobook, came out just over three years ago. Now Braving the Storms will be my fifth. You can listen to samples of all them here.
Yesterday, Kevin sent me the first chapter of the Braving the Storms audiobook for approval. Click on the embedded app to hear that first chapter. We expect the full audiobook to be completed and available on Audible and iTunes by the end of the month. When that happens, I’ll announce it here, on Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter.
