R. Scott Boyer's Blog, page 18

Amazon

I am pleased to announce that Amazon has now picked up my book and made ordering paperback copies available through their site. Here is the link where you can find my book:

Bobby Ether and the Academy (Volume 1): R Scott Boyer: 9781482084825: Amazon.com: Books

Book Release

Bobby Ether And The Academy is now available for purchase through the CreateSpace website.

https://www.createspace.com/4148262

It will also be available in paperback on Amazon in a few days, as well as via Kindle by late next week.

For those of you who enjoy this story, stay tuned for the sequel, Bobby Ether and the Temple of Eternity, which picks up where the Academy left off and explores the myth surrounding the fabled Fountain of Youth.

Also, I’m hard at work researching and sketching the storyline for book #3, tentatively titled Bobby Ether and the Sphinx, which will explore the mysteries surrounding the unique Egyptian structure along with the topics of reincarnation and metahuman ancestry.

Marketing My Book

As my publication date for my first book, Bobby Ether and the Academy, draws ever closer, I’m becoming more and more focused (concerned?) with the need to market it myself. I’ve already been looking at Goodreads.com and smashwords.com to take advantage of their respective services. Now I hear about netgalley.com and the ability to make a book available for free to ‘professional reviewers’ in order to get lots of reviews for your book which, of course, is huge to help sell more books.

Does any author out there have any experience with netgalley.com? I’m also considering signing up with IBPA, which has a deal with Netgalley, which would make it more expensive altogether but also add more value.

The other big question is – start now or wait till the book is actually out? The comments i got before were to start asap (i.e. now), but IBPA wants stuff like a list price and cover art for the book, which isn’t done yet.

Comments/thoughts would be appreciated from anyone whose been through this process, especially about when to start which programs.

Learning to Use Social Media

On Thursday I participated in a one hour webinar on how to use social media to sell more books. The speaker was great and I got a lot of good info, but man is it overwhelming! Right off the bat, he tells everyone that someone writing a book should start marketing/blogging, etc. twelve months before the book is published. Talk about a lot of work for someone who has no idea how to use most social media platforms, let alone how to use widgets, edit permalinks or add a blogroll.

Still, I figure that I gotta give it a shot, since I want my book, Bobby Ether and the Academy, to be popular when it comes out in a few months. Plus, I’m already two thirds of the way through the sequel, which I hope to make available hot on the trail of the original.

I guess it’s time to roll up my sleeves and learn how to use Google+ and start curating interesting topics to build a following. Wish me luck!

PS – If anyone has any suggestions / tips on how to learn this stuff, I’d love to hear from you.

Writing Ideas

To me, great ideas are what make books worth writing. Whether it’s an idea for a great character, an epiphany about an awesome plot twist, or some super fun dialog, dreaming and coming up with ideas are what move my stories forward and make me want to write them.

Some of my absolute favorite ideas to think about are ways to blur the lines between reality and fantasy. In my books, I try to walk the line between what is pure fantasy and what could actually exist. As such, I am constantly trying to think of things my characters can do, feel, or create, which go beyond what normal humans can do, but that don’t trample on all the rules of logic, science, and physics.

Examples I use in my books include intuition/instinct, empathic abilities, telepathy, and telekinesis, to name a few. I’m always looking for creative ways to apply and use these abilities as well as add to the list.

I’d love to hear from other people what kinds of things they think blur the edges between fantasy and reality; things that perhaps a normal person can’t do, but there’s really no real reason why someone couldn’t learn to do it, or develop the ability in the future.

In my books, I call people who can perform these ‘super-human’ feats ‘metahumans’ but, in reality, I think of them more along the lines of enlightened humans. I look to spirituality and what various gurus, yogis, shamans, etc., can accomplish as a blueprint of what we as humans might evolve to all be able to do someday. If you know of something along these lines, please post a comment and share.