Rhett Bigler's Blog, page 5

Book Sale!!

Murder &  Mochas will be on sale March 1st-3rd!

Why you wonder am I putting it on sale?? Well, I know a number of people who have said that they’ve “been meaning to get a copy,” but haven’t quite gotten around to it. Now I’m not going to name any names (Patti), but it seems to me that this would be an excellent time to pick up a copy. So if you’ve been meaning to get a copy (Dan) or it’s been sitting on your TBR shelf on Goodreads (Debbie), Mar 1st-3rd is the time for you to buy.

You don’t have to read it right away, but you can save yourself a few bucks.

The ebook will go on sale at 8 am on the 1st for $1.99. Then it will go to $2.99 on the 2nd and $3.99 on the 3rd. Regular price resumes on the 4th. I’ve got less flexibility with the paper version, so I’ll have it discounted ~25% for the three days of the sale.

If you’ve read it and liked it, help me spread the word.

 

Murder & Mochas at Kitty O’Sheas

My friend in the Isle of Jersey managed to wrestle her copy of Murder & Mochas away from her husband long enough to take it to her favorite Irish Pub. Although there is an Irish Pub in the book, as far as I know, this is the first time the book has been in an Irish Pub.

Murder & Mochas perusing the selection.

After selecting some cider, they sat down to watch some women’s rugby. France v. Italy in Six Nations competition. Italy put up a strong initial showing, before France just over powered them to win 29-0.

Murder & Mochas enjoys its first women’s rugby match and first cider.

All in all, it was a fun weekend for the book. I wonder where it will turn up next??

 

What Do You Do When Someone from the UK

Tweets you a picture of your book, while he’s wearing the jersey for his favorite football team?

Leicester City Football Jersey

Why you ask him to take the book to the game, naturally.

My book entering its first ever football match.

As the players came onto the pitch, they were greeted by 25,000 screaming fans and 1 book.

Moments later, the book got dropped in the seat ;-)

For those of you wondering, Watford (the away team) took a lead, against the flow of play, deep into stoppage time. In the 94th minute, yes you read that right (94th), Danny Drinkwater scored on a volley from twenty yards out to tie the match and keep Leicester City’s 11 game unbeaten streak alive. I wish I could have seen it.

Not surprisingly, the book’s host nearly lost his voice.

Thanks Tim for taking my book along and for sending me the pictures. I’m glad you didn’t need to read it during the match!

Friday Night Out

Here’s a quick “behind the scenes” look into the exciting and glamorous life of a writer! It’s a short video, but provocative and highly instructive.

P.S. Yes, the caffeine has kicked in!

Progress Toward Goals – January

I can’t believe I’m a month into the first quarter already. As a nice little butt kick for the start of the year, I laid out some goals. So here’s how I’m doing:

Finish 2nd Draft of BC2.  First draft is done and read. I am three chapters into doing the line edits. My goal is to finish the line edits this weekend and start on the plot. You can follow BC2′s progress here.
Write 1st Draft of BC3. Still feels tough, especially since I don’t even start drafting for another month. But interestingly, I had a chat with a friend this week and I fleshed out a little more of the idea. You can follow BC3′s progress here.
Address Heel Issue.  The task of setting follow-up doctors’ appointments has been on the To-Do list for two weeks. No check mark yet.
Restart Exercise Routine. Goose egg.

1st Picture in Great Britain

I got a lovely thank you tweet today from the island of Jersey. When I asked Beth for a picture of the book, she had to wrestle it away from her husband who had absconded with what he termed “my kind of book.” She did get it back long enough to send this “upskirt shot.” Lovely!

1st Tweeted Picture from Great Britain

Now one of the really fun things here is how she came to be a winner. I started following her during the course of my twitter experiment and she saw me tweeting about trying to get to a 1,000 entries in my Goodreads Book Giveaway (eventually I hit 1495). She entered, then, lo and behold, she won!

Her favorite (

Shortly after this picture, her husband, wrestled the book back for continued reading; however, she has promised to take the book to the pub next weekend and send me the first shot of my novel on its pub tour (I’m hoping for a shot with her rugby team as well)!

3.5 People Are Reading My Book

So this morning I popped onto Goodreads (I don’t remember why now). When I log in it shows me some basic stats on my book in the upper right-hand corner. This morning I noticed the number of people who had “Added” Murder & Mochas had gone down a couple, so I clicked the link to see if that was accurate. Technically it was –a couple of people had moved my book to the “Currently Reading” shelf!

Okay, I know it was only two people and way more than two people have my book (I mean like literally way more than double that), BUT to suddenly see (split infinitives be damned!) evidence of real, live, human beings, complete strangers, actually “READING” my book. Well that’s just a thrill! (– insert fireworks here–)

There are lots of reasons whyI am doing this, but #1 is simply to be read. I want people to read and enjoy my books. And there are some reading it Right Now (well maybe not right now, but at least earlier today or yesterday). I’ve had a little bit of a buzz all day because of it. I keep wondering what they think of it, what part they’re on, if they’re enjoying it, how they might react to that, if they’ll write a review, send me an e-mail, or tweet . . . etc, etc.

Okay, for those of you who have stuck with this post up to this point and are still wondering about the fuzzy math, it’s simple. I checked again right before writing this post (just to make sure someone is still reading my book) and it shows “Currently Reading 4,” but when I click on details it shows me three people. So I split the difference, 3.5. Maybe someone is only half reading it, or half paying attention, or it could just be bad code on the web site. Either way, the number is larger than 0 and that has me happy!

1st Giveaway Book Arrives

Well, I sat down to write a post about how the first draft of BC2 was better than I thought it would be.

Then I got this tweet:

The first tweet with a picture of one of the Murder & Mochas giveaway books.

I had planned to write a post on Monday or Tuesday “wondering” when the books would arrive and when I would get my first picture — best laid plans!

It’s like Christmas all over again for me!

As I said before, I really enjoyed packaging the books up and sending them out. But to see one in someone’s hands, that is just too cool. There’s a lot of joy for me knowing that with a lot of hard work I created that book and there it is in someone’s hands and they are about to read it. For me as a writer, it’s about having people read my work and their experience of it. I do hope she enjoys it.

I would love to get more pictures, tweet @rhettbigler as the books arrive!

P.S. I’ll circle back in the next day or two (tomorrow is unlikely as I’ve got my son’s birthday party followed by a SuperBowl party) to give you an update on BC2.

Books Are in the Mail

If you won my Goodreads Giveaway, your book is on its way!!

I am so excited to report that I got all 30 books out yesterday. If you’re in the states, the Post Office said you should get your book this coming Monday or Tuesday! If you’re in Canada, Great Britain, or Australia, well, unfortunately, the U.S. Postal system made no commitments on when you’ll receive your books. BUT they are on the way.

Now for a little review (I’ll do more of an analysis later), I really enjoyed the process and I know that I will do a giveaway with Book 2. First, it was just really cool watching the number of entrants run quickly into the hundreds and then nearly double in the last week. I was astounded to get 1495 people entering my contest! I mean, really? Debut novel of Joe Nobody nets 1495 people saying “sign me up” like wow! I also ended up on more than 600 TBR lists. Very exciting.

The other fun thing was actually packaging up the books. Don’t get me wrong, it was work. It involved several trips to stores, a mistaken Amazon purchase, and a whole lot of typing, cutting, taping, etc. But the whole time I kept seeing these names and trying to imagine the people who were going to get my book, wondering who they were, what their town is like, and how they would react. As I was putting the bubble wrap on and slipping the books into the envelopes I kept how it might feel to receive a signed book that you won! It took me hours to package them all up, but I smiled the whole time. I really felt like I was wrapping Christmas presents for kids I haven’t met, like a Secret Santa.

I’ve never won a book, but I a sure that if I did I would be totally excited, even if I didn’t read it.

I know not all of the winners will like my book and they probably won’t all read it. That’s fine, it doesn’t change that it was fun to do and I’m sure they’ll have enjoy receiving the book. I’m also sure that some of the winners will like it and that’s really fun for both of us.

So if you’re a winner, be on the look out for your book. Tweet @rhettbigler a picture of your book when you get it and if you like it, share a favorite quote from it on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. and please write a review for Goodreads and Amazon.

Goodreads Giveaway Book Signing Video

Not surprisingly, I entertained myself for the book signing. But I did have a lot of fun. If you’re one of the winners, you can hit the playback and see your book get signed.

I will be getting the books out this week. The next challenge is getting the right sized envelopes (the first batch I ordered were actually too small). I’ll keep you posted on that.

I am particularly curious on how long it will take the books to make it to their destinations, so drop me a note or tweet and let me know when you get your book and if it arrived in decent shape. BONUS POINTS if you tweet @rhettbigler a picture of your book!!