Robert L. Slater's Blog, page 18

New Books I’d Nominate for Awards & IndiesFirst

As I came to the realization that my debut novel is coming up for its first awards season, I thought about what I’ve read in the last year and what books I think are deserving of awards. I’ve read many great books this year and have even more to read thanks to a number of conventions. ALA was the clear winner I took 10 copies of my book to give away and brought back 36 new books. Well, actually mailed them from the handy-dandy temporary post-office at ALA. Of the four books, two came from tha...

Updates, Requests, and Beta Reads

UPDATES: Almost mid-November. Writing-wise, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. I’ll start with the Bad, which isn’t really very bad.

Bad news?

NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] counts are down. Not likely to hit 50,000 words in November.
All Is Silencewas requested for consideration by the Phillip K. Dick award administrator, Gordon Van Gelder. Alas, since I released a hardcover version, it does not qualify. Sigh. Nice to be asked.
No review from Publishers Weekly. Bummer.
Pubslush...

ALL NANO’s EVE

Happy Howl-a-ween to those of you who celebrate such things. I’ll post costume pics later.

Two years ago on this night I embarked on a fantastic journey. I planned to write 60,000 words of a novel, tentatively title Zombie Zoo, during the month of November and “WIN” NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month]. It was my third attempt at a decent novel and I had this killer idea. What if an at-risk teen girl, one who might have said, “I hope you all die,” to her family, where to be one of the few...

Please Pubslush with me…

Pubslushing… A kick-start for Writers!

About six months ago I entered a random drawing from the Kobo Writing Life blog for a Pubslush Writing crowd-funding support Giveaway. As with so many other times that I’ve tossed a hat in the ring, I won one of the second prizes–Bronze level support for a Pubslush Campaign.

I had not seriously considered doing any sort of crowd-funding kick-start or other funding model. But then I got to thinking… What if I ran it like a pre-sale? Folks could buy existing...

Why do I WattPad?

Have to shout out to my editor/writing friend/marketing maven,Amanda June Hagarty! She convinced me to give Wattpad a try. Check out her Middle-grade Speculative story, Little Lacey, she’s got 34 chapters ready to read.

As of this evening, All Is Silence had 32,222 reads, ranked #2 behind Scot Westerfeld’s Uglies in SF/Teen category, #50 in SF, #583 in Teen, Averaging 9%+ read-through rate from the first part of the story to the second. I also have 2 verified sales due to WattPad and probably a...

Teaching Creative Writing to Teens.

This advice goes to 11!

I love to work with students on their writing. Poetry, fiction, screenplays, essays… I love their ideas, their growth over time, but not so much their ability to self-reflect. But I was a young writer once, too. Nothing is ever as brilliant as the thing you just finished five minutes ago. This is a rule.

What do I teach them in room #11?

#1. You can’t fix a blank page.Get words on paper [even if it's virtual paper now.].

#2. Write everyday. When you miss a day, start over....

One Tin Soldier pre-order and other updates…

I’ve released another short story, One Tin Soldier on Amazon as a pre-release. I’m experimenting with the marketing tools available to KDP select so I can decide what to use for my next novel. Here’s the cover art for One Tin Soldier.I created the art work with Canva for $1 and many hours of work and feedback from friends, family and fans. I highly recommend trying it out if you are planning on releasing any e-books.

It’s my second self-made cover. I also designed the cover for my first short...

The Doldrums, Rising Tide and Banned Books

The last month has been a hard one in terms of writing. Though I wrote 55,000 words this summer, probably more than I have ever written, it was not the 75,000 and the finished rough drafts of a novel and a novella. Instead, I have unfinished drafts of two novels and a novella. I also hit some walls in terms of writing everyday, one of the biggest was my day job as a teacher coming back into 45+ hours a week focus.

My sales also fell, despite being involved in two sales for e-books. My book is...

Call for Beta, Gamma, and Delta readers.

My Deserted Lands novella, Toils and Snares–a parallelequel to All Is Silence,is now in rough draft completed form.

Now I need Alpha, Beta, and Gamma readers for Toils and Snares

Beta readers – reading the messy first draft for the story arc. Does it work?
Gamma Readers – What can be cut? Tightened? Note typos?
Delta Readers – Line/copy editing: reading for typos, grammar issues for final draft.

If you would like to read it before anyone else, please send me an e-mail noting which of the above typ...

BACK TO SCHOOL SALE – Outward Bound Collection is FREEEE!!!!

BACK TO SCHOOL SALE – Outward Bound Collection is FREEEE!!!!

For the next 4 dayson Amazon’s Kindle store.

Please, download, tell your friends. I’d love to rank high on the free chart for a day!The links are below. Thanks for all the support.

United.States.INdiaU.K.DEnmarkFRanceESpanaITaliaJaPanBRasilCAnada

MeXicoAUstralia.