Rhett Bigler's Blog, page 7

First Reviews Are In

And they’re good!

I love how Liz B characterizes Murder & Mochas as a genre mash-up.

I love genre mash-ups, so this was a really fun read. It’s noir mystery meets Southern gothic meets sci-fi, plus a lot of humor. The main character, Kurt West, is a tough but loveable bounty hunter who also happens to be a hired gun for North Carolina’s alien affairs bureau (the only one in the country, because it’s a state issue and none of DC’s damned business!). The only inter-dimensional portal that allows aliens to come to Earth, on diplomatic missions and tourism trips, happens to open into Chapel Hill, NC. A lot of the humor comes from the setting of all this interplanetary intrigue in a small college town in the American South. The locations in the book are all real, too, and it’s clear the author knows the town and its environs really well.

The story takes place over a few days as Kurt has to solve the murder of an alien diplomat before the murderer can escape off the planet, while also trying to catch a human bounty for his full-time boss and dealing with obstructionist alien diplomats and a whole bunch of colorful “ET” characters (lizard aliens who will tell you anything you want to hear for a mocha and an omelet, for example). There’s also a cool Mos Eisley-esque alien bazaar located in a fourth dimension within Chapel Hill that he frequents when he needs to talk to shady types.

Overall, a really good read, and a cool concept for mystery and sci-fi fans.

Kevin Dawson’s first line cracks me up. I wish I had thought of it.

Kurt West is a new type of gritty hero, flawed and not perfect, a regular guy we can all relate to (he doesn’t get the girl). This book is a fresh take on the whole aliens on earth scenario with multiple genres stirred together for added fun. A tight dead line, sarcastic bounty/alien hunter with a soft side , voluptuous aliens, large caliber firearms, alien technology, carcinogen belching V8 engines, omelet eating lizards, an alien bazaar area that’s like the wild west, and beer; what’s not to like?

It’s an awesome read, I couldn’t put it down until I finished. The only downside was not being able to find a book two…

You can Murder & Mochas  ebook on Amazon and the paper version at CreateSpace.

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Murder & Mochas Is Now For Sale

I couldn’t be more excited!!!! 

A Southern noir sci-fi detective story, Murder & Mochas bounces a sarcastic and gritty detective off aliens and life in a small southern town to produce a fun, page-turning mystery.

Click here for the Kindle edition.

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The print version will be available soon.

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Also, check out my author page on Amazon.

I Have Pushed My Baby From the Nest

Time to see how she flies!

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I just finished uploading Murder & Mochas, my debut novel!! It will be on sale tomorrow (well technically later today) on Amazon.

Woot-Woot!

I am happy, excited, tired, scared, but mostly a calm sort of happy. Probably calm just because it is so late.

It’s a little like raising a kid. I did some stuff really well and I made some mistakes. She’s not perfect, but she doesn’t need to be, she’s pretty good as she is and it’s time to see what she can do out there in the big world. I hope she does really well.

I made a strong run at getting the paper and ebook out tonight, but I didn’t quite make it on the paper version. I’ll finish up the formatting on that in the morning. That’s it for me for tonight.

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Book Launch in 2 Days

And I’m Taking Pre-orders of Signed Copies for Christmas.

Pre-orders I’ve had a number of friends and collaborators tell me that they would like to get a signed copy to give as Christmas presents, so I’m working on it. At this point, I’m feeling optimistic that I can pull it off. I’ll now for sure in a few days.

Synopsis  I haven’t changed this in 24 whole hours. So I think I am officially going with what I posted yesterday.

Formatting I’ve started converting my word doc into the proper format for Kindle. I’ll do converting for print once that is done. I keep forgetting to run spell check. Note-to-self: Run spell check before publishing.

Web Presence Survey says, picture #1 on my FB poll was the hands down winner. So my official Author photo (for now) is:

KDP account is all set up and waiting for the final version of Murder & Mochas. I still have to set up author pages here and there and upgrade the blog, etc., but all of that will come after pushing the book out.

Okay, that’s a quick update. I’m feeling a little under the weather, so I’m going to bed early tonight – I’ve got a big push coming this weekend.

Book Launch in 3 Days

And this synopsis is killing me. 3 DAYS and I don’t have one yet, Really?

I did indeed work on it late last night. When I woke up this morning, I felt like it was very close. Then I got thumbs up from a couple of friends. The problem is that last night I posted it in the forum my friend Liz recommended and I got more feedback.

So I tweaked it some more. Then I got a fun new lead in, which I liked so I added it, but felt like I had to change the rest. Then I got feedback that the change was weaker. So I tacked the new lead in onto the old version. But I kept getting feedback on the forum that the middle part was too clunky. So I whacked the middle and then decided to whack the fun new lead in as well. Now I’m mostly tired, confused, and a little stressed about needing to have this final in less than two days.

As I’m writing this post, Liz e-mails me with a “hey what happened to the lead in?” and now I’m thinking, “yeah, I did like that too.” It was fun and hell one of the reason I started, and often stuck with, this project was for fun. So back it goes, at least for now.

Any way, here’s what I’m sitting on tonight, not quite convinced it’s done:

Kurt West always has a hard time getting green alien blood out of his clothes. At least the diplomat’s blood was blue.

Kurt is a bounty hunter living in a small southern town, but when an alien diplomat is murdered on the street, Kurt is contracted to use his knowledge of the alien underground to track down the murderer. Even though   his bail bondsman boss   is   breathing down his neck to bring in a bail jumper   before he loses the business, Kurt must find the killer or risk losing the protection that keeps a dangerous flood of aliens at bay.

A Southern noir sci-fi detective story, Murder & Mochas bounces a sarcastic and gritty detective off aliens and life in a small southern town to produce a fun, page-turning mystery.

Time for bed.

Book Launch in 4 Days

And I thought I had a synopsis.

Synopsis  I did go for the late night last night. I knocked about on Amazon for a bit and was shocked to discover that most of the book descriptions are between 150 and 200 words. Somehow I though they were longer. At first that felt easier to write, less work, but that was all in my imagination. I did eventually get something out, around midnight, and I sent it to some friends. This morning I woke up feeling like I would have my synopsis with just a few tweaks. Then, my good friend Liz gives me a detailed, very detailed, analysis. Let’s just work the phrase square one in, right here. Guess I’m working on my book description tonight, so much for the fantasy of going to bed early.

Formatting I read a little about this today, enough to know that it will be tedious and I’ll be working on it later in the week.

Web Presence I started to set up my KDP account and even uploaded the cover for my novel — that was pretty cool. Also, if a facebook poll to pick my bio picture is progress, I made real progress!

Book Launch in 5 Days

And the edits are done.

I’m somewhat surprised that I got through them. Like I said, a lot of them were word tweaks. But I think the big thing is that I’m being decisive. I found some notes and an e-mail conversation with a reader that had a half-dozen suggestions. Three of them I just no to. The other three were all in the category of clarifying background/worldbuilding. In both cases, I just went right to the first spot in the book that I could do it and concisely cleared things up. No hand-wringing here, I’ve got a deadline to hit and I mean to hit it.

Interestingly, driving to work I thought of a new clue for my main character to find. It was a good one, right on the money in terms of improving the plot. The clue was simple and fit some of the backstory that’s always been in my head. But as I thought it through it would have a ripple effect that would hit a significant number of chapters and I would need to do a close reading of those sections to make sure I wasn’t missing any nuances. So, I said “great idea, but it’s not going in this book.”

Synopsis is the next big piece. I guess I start to tackle that one tomorrow. That’ll be tough since I have to be at work a little on the early side. I may have to do a late night tomorrow. Heck, now that I think about it, I might as well stay up a bit later tonight, although I did stay up pretty late last night. So it looks officially like late night #2.

Formatting is after that. Realistically, I probably won’t get to that until the weekend. But I’m fine with that. I’ve previewed the guidelines and I think it will be easy to figure out . I think the bigger challenge will simply be spending some tedious time on it.

Web Presence is next next. Although I am working on the blog transfer. The bad news is that what I thought would be a “simple” domain transfer is not quite so simple nor lacking in glitches. I can only say that it is still “in progress” and I feel no assurance that it will be successful, just yet. But I’m mostly looking forward to getting all web presence bits done.

All right, I’m off to start figuring out a synopsis.

BTW, if you’ve read any really good ones, especially SciFi Detective or Mystery, let me know (preferably before Saturday evening).