Lincoln Cole's Blog, page 4

Short Story - Power at all Costs

A standalone short story full of fast-paced action about a failing power plant.

"Today, we change history."

"A little dramatic, aren't we?" Kate asked.

Aaron Coplin shrugged, running a hand through his curly blonde hair. He was tall with piercing blue eyes and chiseled features, thirty years old and wearing it well. Kate Finzer was diminutive with short wavy hair, black skin, and brown eyes. They had been friends for as long as either of them could remember.

"If this works, we'll reshape the global warming crises. Imagine how much things will change when carbon dioxide isn't increasing the greenhouse effect."

"We're a long way from fixing anything," Kate said. "We don't even know if this will work."

"It'll work," Aaron said. He looked at Kate and smiled. "It has to."

She wished she could share his enthusiasm. He was the lead geologist on the project and had picked the location: sandstone formations to enclose the liquid-gas hybrid CO2. It had taken months of digital scans to verify that this location would work and months further to install all of the turbines which the CO2 would power.

Kate worked with the engineering team to implement the design; they would push supercritical CO2 into the ground. They had run countless simulations, testing the pressure and temperature so that when they turned the system on it would work safely, but there were too many unknowns to be completely safe.

Millions of gallons of supercritical CO2 would be pumped into salt brine. The liquid would expand and drive turbines which would create heat and pressure: eventually it would be converted to energy. It wasn't a difficult process, but each step along the way was critical: a single misstep would spiral out of control.

"There, look," Aaron said, gesturing toward the platform. The mayor of Bedford was gathered with the owners of the power plant atop a small stage. A crowd of a few hundred workers had gathered below, along with Aaron and Kate. "They are about to turn it on."

"You should be up there with them," Kate said.

Aaron hesitated. "No way. We're in this together."

"You're the head geologist. I'm only an engineer."

"You're the best damn engineer out here."

"I wouldn't say that."

"I would," Aaron said. 

Kate shifted awkwardly. She didn't like praise, and she knew there were a lot of talented engineers out in the crowd.  Still, she said, "Thanks."

"No worries," he replied. The crowd started cheering: with how far back in the crowd they were the speaker sounded tinny and inaudible. "Here they go."

There was a shuddering vibration beneath their feet, followed by a loud hum as the ground thrummed to life. Kate felt like she was standing on a paint-can shaker.

"Totally normal," Aaron explained. "That'll go away."

The entire crowd glancing around, shifting curiously and mumbling to each other.

"How long?" Kate asked.

"A few minutes. Give or take."

"Good, because it's making me feel diz—"

There was a resounding boom from the west and the ground shifted violently for several seconds. Kate lost her balance and stumbled, bouncing painfully against the sand. When it stopped there was still a hum, but now it felt like it was off kilter, like the cadence had shifted.

Kate climbed shakily to her feet as other people stood and dusted themselves off. She looked at Aaron, who was leaning over with his arms outstretched, trying to stay up.  

"Was that normal?" she asked.

He looked up at her, ashen faced. She knew immediately that something was very, very wrong.

Suddenly, an alarm started blaring through the area. The crowd panicked and fled from the stage. Kate felt herself pressed against a sea of bodies, dragged with the current. Someone caught her hand, and she was suddenly being pulled the opposite direction. She caught glimpses of Aaron, pushing against the crowd and leading her toward the stage.

"Come on," he shouted over his shoulder.

"Where?" she shouted back. "We need to get out of here!"

He ignored her and kept moving, rushing up the stairs. The stage had already been evacuated and cleared, leaving behind only two people: a man in his sixties with a beer belly and suspenders and a woman wearing a prim white dress with long brunette hair. Kate recognized the man: Fred Dallinger, lead engineer on the project. The woman she didn't know.

"What happened?" Aaron asked. He was still shouting to be heard over the alarm.

"One of the regulators blew," Fred shouted back. "Pressure spiked higher than we anticipated."

"Can we release it?"

"Trying," Fred replied. He gestured at Kate.  "Who's she?"

"A friend," Aaron said.

Fred nodded. He wiped the sleeve of his plaid shirt across his sweaty brow and tapped frantically on a little tablet. The woman watched, pensive and frowning.

"It shouldn't have spiked," she said to no one in particular.

"Well it did," Fred replied.

"With all of my calculations-"

"Ma'am, with all due respect, I don't care," Fred said. He turned to Aaron. "The remote pressure valves aren't opening. I think when the temperature jumped it might have fried the circuits."

"Then we have to turn it off," Aaron said.

"On it," Fred said.

He tapped furiously on the tablet, and gradually the hum under their feet decreased.  But, it didn't stop entirely.

"What's wrong?"

"Valve three," Fred said, frowning. "It isn't shutting off."

"You mean it's still pumping?"

"Yep," Fred said. 

"What does that mean?"

"That means we need to get the hell out of here," Fred explained. "It's going to explode."

"No way," Aaron said. "There has to be another option."

The woman in the white dress turned to Aaron. "He's right," she said. "If we can't regulate the pump or release the pressure, then it's going to be critical in just under ten minutes. This area is hazardous."

"We can't abandon this project," Aaron growled. "If this fails today, it'll set us back dozens of years."

"We can't release it from here," Fred argued. "So we run."

"Is there a manual release?"

"Yes," Fred replied. "But the access shaft is locked while the pump is active. We can't get in."

"Then what if...?"

"No 'if's," Fred said. "There's nothing else we can do. We need to get out of here."

Aaron sighed glanced at Kate. "Fine. We need to go."

Kate ignored him, staring off at the salt fields to the West.

"Kate," he reiterated. "We need to go, now."

"I know another way in," she said. 

Then she turned and sprinted across the desert. She heard the three screaming, telling her that she was running the wrong direction, but she ignored them. It was a little over two hundred meters to the access hatch to Valve Three. 

There was a huge structure of pipes leading to the hatch, but that wasn't where she ran. Instead, she went to an outcropping of rocks thirty meters farther, searching for the hole she'd found several weeks ago.

She heard a radio crackling. "Kate! Kate! Come in, Kate!"

It was Aaron. She'd forgotten she had one clipped on her belt.  She clicked it on, still panting. "Get away from here," she said. "Clear the area."

"What in God's name are you doing?" Aaron asked.

"Remember how you showed me the geological map of the natural tunnels that were here?"

"The ones we collapsed," Aaron agreed.

"We only collapsed ones that connected to your reservoir. Not the other ones.  A tunnel leads directly to Valve Three."

Kate found the hole she was looking for in the sand.

"It's too risky," Aaron said. "You need to get out of there."

"How much time do I have?"

He ignored her. "Even if you were able to get to the Valve, it's going to be too hot by the time you do. You won't be able to survive—"

"Aaron," she said sharply. He shut up. "How much time do I have?"

A momentary silence, then he said, "Seven minutes."

"All right," she said. "Now get out of here, in case this doesn't work."

Then she tossed the radio into the sand. She heard it crackling; she didn't have enough space in the tunnel for it, and she didn't need it anymore. She slipped her belt off, kept only the flashlight and then climbed headfirst into the tunnel.  

It went down at an angle for the first dozen or so feet and then rounded sharply to a drop off. This section opened into the actual tunnel network. She'd gone spelunking with her father when she was young, but it still made her claustrophobic. The ground vibrated beneath her, increasing her feeling of dizziness, but she crawled on.

She'd explored several of these tunnels, though never very deep. The only one she used regularly was the one that connected to the series of manmade tunnels surrounding Valve Three.  It breached just under one of the service walkways surrounding the equipment, and she'd used it to surprise and scare her coworkers on occasion. 

The only hard part was the twenty meter winding passage that connected the two chambers. It was a tight fit even on the best of days, but with the ground shaking it was even more difficult. She slid into the open hole in the cavern floor and started pulling herself arm-over-arm into the tunnel.

It was easy going at first, but suddenly her light stopped in front of her. The vibrations of the ground had knocked a chunk of sandstone loose, and it was blocking most of her passageway. What had previously been an uncomfortable fit was now a tiny hole blocking her way forward.

She cursed, realizing she didn't have enough time to go back. She was trapped, twenty meters under the ground in a tunnel with nowhere to go. Worse, she was only a few dozen feet short of the walkway.

Maybe she could slide through, but she doubted it. Even with her small frame, it would be an impossible fit. 

"Not a lot of alternatives," she muttered to herself, brushing hair out of her face. She slid the flashlight through the opening, rolled onto her side, and started pulling her way through past the rock.

It was painful and uncomfortable, and she was forced to suck in a deep breath each time she tried to move. About halfway she got stuck on her hips. She pulled and felt the rock scraping painfully, but it wouldn't budge. She heard the alarm blaring and felt the heat emanating from the room ahead, but she couldn't move.

Panic set in as she realized she was completely stuck. Trapped, unable to breathe underground. She started gasping, feeling lightheaded. She tried to remember what her father always said when she got scared as a little girl. He always told her: fear can be a powerful tool if you know how to use it.

She bit back the panic and forced herself to relax and focus. She was running out of time. She shifted, rolling her hips, and jerked her way past. She received a nasty scrape on the leg for the effort, but she was free. 

She scrambled the rest of the way forward up to the catwalk and grabbed ahold of the metal to pull herself up. She instantly regretted it as the scalding metal scorched her hand. She let out a sharp cry and yanked herself back. She checked her hand and saw a nasty second degree burn on her palm and fingers.

"Great," she muttered, "just great."

She stripped off her shirt and bunched it up, hoping the material would be enough to protect her from the heat. Enough time or enough heat, she knew, and it would catch fire. Still, she had to try.

She quickly grabbed the metal and pulled herself up, careful not to touch her bare skin against it. The air was sweltering in here and the machine hum sounded immense and overbearing. She felt it beating against her eardrums. It was sauna hot, at least two hundred degrees, probably more.

She stepped onto the metal walkway and could smell the rubber soles of her shoes burning. She wouldn't have a lot of time.  

After only a few steps she realized she wouldn't be able to last long. It already felt like her lungs were burning and her entire body was covered in a sheen of sweat. Her shoes stuck to the floor where she stepped and she went as fast as she could to the controls. There were two valves she was looking for, one to release the pressure and one to stop the flow of the supercritical carbon dioxide into the system.

She found the pressure valve and used her unburnt hand and the shirt to grab hold and turn it. She could feel how hot it was even through the bunched up shirt, and after a few turns she smelled the fabric burning. By the time she was done she could hear the huge sound of steam being released above her. It was venting up into the atmosphere and would keep the system from overloading.

That meant it wouldn't explode, but it would still cook her. She stumbled her way to the other valve, feeling her body giving out from the intense heat. There was a banging sound above her, though she might have been imagining it.

Using the shirt, she started turning the other valve. The humming sound decreased with every turn, but it was hard to get it to move. The shirt got hotter, started burning again, suddenly caught fire. She threw the shirt to the ground, cursing, and looked back at the valve. It was mostly closed, but not completely. Until it was closed, she couldn't open the door and escape.

With a groan of frustration, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then grabbed the valve. She screamed in pain as it torched her skin, but she managed to turn it all the way closed. When she pulled her hand back, she felt the metal cling to her and kept screaming as the pain intensified. 

The ground fell silent, and the only sound was her screaming and the steam being vented overhead. Suddenly, there was another enormous crashing sound and she saw light from above. Aaron jumped into the hole, carrying a fire protective blanket, and he quickly wrapped it around her. He led her to the exit, and she saw Fred standing there. 

The ladder was still hot, but with fresh air things cooled off fairly quickly. They hid under the blanket and gradually he helped her out of the hole. She heard sirens in the distance and figured they were for her.

"That was crazy," Aaron said, wrapping her in a hug as the ambulance loaded her up on a gurney.  They hooked her to an IV and started pumping her full of drugs. She felt better almost immediately. "You shouldn't have risked yourself like that."

She smiled at him, loopy with the pain medication.  "No risk at all when you're the best damn engineer out here."

Website Refresh! Fixing up a new template to hopefully make things even better!

Refreshing the Design

I've updated my website in the last couple of days to hopefully be more user friendly and showcase the books a little bit more. I was getting tired of the old template and wanted to try out something new.

This one has parallax scrolling and ajax loading, two huge features that were important for me, so with luck the experience of using my site will be better than ever!

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Why?

Well, one big thing I'm working on in the second half of 2017 is decoupling my books from Amazon. This has been a big year for the company in depreciating their overall value for authors. It started with dramatic cuts to their associates program and then ran across with the board with problems in the store, declining KU rates, and much more.

Raven's Peak is going to have to stay firmly in Kindle Unlimited because of Kindle Scout, but I'm planning on bringing some of my other works to a wider audience and hopefully expand beyond just Amazon. It's not going to be much of a loss leaving KU with my other titles because they don't get a lot of reads in there anyway.

I'm hoping that I can make this global venture stick, and if nothing else it should be fun at least having a few extra platforms to release content! I'm planning on using a variety of different platforms to get as much reach as possible out of it, so I'll keep you updated with information about how well it is going!

What is next?

So, here's to change! The website is going to continue being updated over the next weeks and months, but hopefully soon there will be a lot more clean content and a lot better experience!

I'm also working my way through the World of Shadows series and hoping to have that out completely on schedule. My goal is to get all three books available as fast as possible so that there isn't a huge gap between books I, II, and III.

Then I'm turning toward my Graveyard of Empires series and trying to get some stuff worked on. I've got some big projects in mind that I want to get done, and it is just time consuming but a lot of fun.

After that it will be back to World on Fire and the next steps for Haatim and Abigail. I'm far from through with their story and can't wait to return to it.

The trick is, finding the time!

Raven's Peak is now Available in Audio Format from Audible, iTunes, and Amazon

It's officially available now, and it is incredibly exciting that Raven's Peak is available for sale in audio format! It was narrated by Stephanie Dillard, and she is the same person who did UAV at the beginning of the year.

Guess what? She's also working on Raven's Fall and Raven's Rise, as well as the prequel to both World on Fire and World of Shadows The Ninth Circle. Everything will be out by the end of the year, along with the entire World of Shadows series (as long as I can get all three books done!).

I'm finishing up The Everett Exorcism and getting it ready for launch, which is super exciting as well! It is slated for release in the middle of October.

If you're interested in getting a free advance copy in exchange for a review, please check out the World of Shadows page and find the signup link!

I'm hoping to wrap up the second book in the series, The Vatican Children, soon and then I'll probably work on getting both up on various platforms for pre order!

That is all of the big news for now. I'll be going on vacation in a couple of weeks (in August) and I can't wait. I need a chance to just lay on the beach and relax!

Book Review: The Last Valentine by Felix Alexander

Today, I will be reviewing The Last Valentine by Felix Alexander, which was an OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day for July 10th!

About the Book

When Olivia Villalobos finds a bloodstained love letter she endeavors to deliver it before Chief Inspector Sedeño finds it in her possession.

A city along the southern coast of Puerto Rico emerges in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Olivia, daughter of a drunkard police investigator who never knew the truth behind her mother’s disappearance, finds a bloodstained love letter in the hidden compartment of her father’s coat. Convinced it belonged to the man recently found dead she sets out to deliver it to the Labyrinth of Love Letters. A mysterious place believed to be an urban legend where the transients of forbidden love leave missives for one another. She enlists the help of Isaac Quintero to find the Labyrinth and they soon realize their quest has opened the door into Old Sienna’s darkest secrets—the perils, madness and depth of tragic love.

Review

I loved following along as Isaac and Olivia went in search of the Labyrinth and I thought the story was brilliantly told as it addressed the secrets and mysteries that were unfolding around them. They were fun and relatable characters and the author has a brilliant style of storytelling that helped bring the world to life around them.

The intrigue was downright fun in this story and I loved following along as the missives were examined and the madness ensued. However, the problem with the story was the sheer lack of editing and number of mistakes that abounded in the text. This one needed a little more work and a few more passes before being released out into the world, and I feel that it is severally holding the author and his book back.

I wanted to love this story, but I could only appreciate it for what the author tried to do rather than what he did. Olivia was my favorite character, and she deserves to have her story told more cleanly so that readers can become engrossed in her world. I can't give this story about a 3-star rating without some more editing to make it readable, though I wish the author luck because he has a lot of talent.

About the Author

Felix Alexander (1976-Present) is a Mexican-born, American-raised novelist and poet of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.

Acclaimed by readers for his poetic prose, his indie releases include: Dear Love: Diary of a Man's Desire, a collection of love letters and poems; The Romantic: A Love Story; an epic historical fantasy Shadows of Time: The Amulet of Alamin; a mystery-thriller The Secret of Heaven; and most recently The Last Valentine (A Labyrinth of Love Letters novel).

Being third-generation military, after a grandfather and uncle who served in the Korean War and Vietnam War, respectively, Alexander is proud of his service in the U.S. Army and grateful for his experience.

After his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army, his third year served in South Korea, he embarked on the long and arduous journey of a writer. Having made a name for himself during his tenure serving his country, he vowed to himself and his fellow soldiers that he would answer his true calling.

When not spending time with his children, a son and daughter, he journeys through the portals in his extensive, personal library. When he returns, he immerses himself in his writing, and pursues the scent of his muse.

Check it out on Online Book Club!

https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=116864

Book Review: One Last Lie by Rob Kaufman

Today, I will be reviewing One Last Lie by Rob Kaufman, which was an OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day for July 7th!

About the Book

She’s demonic and evil, a wicked she-devil you’ll love to hate in this riveting psychological thriller that reviewers say is “gripping”, “heart wrenching” and “holding my breath suspenseful”.

Angela is beautiful and charismatic on the outside. But on the inside, a demon rages, determined to get anyone and anything she wants. And now with her biological clock ticking, she seduces her old friend Philip, and his partner Jonathan, into having a child with her through artificial insemination.

From the moment the parenting agreement is signed, Angela’s mask of deceit slips away and she leads the fathers-to-be on a relentless, agonizing journey filled with lies, anguish and finally tragedy that forever changes the lives of everyone involved.

Five star reviewers rave that One Last Lie is a gripping thriller of fiction, a novel of pure suspense from which they are unable to pull themselves away. Like Annie Wilkes from Misery and Alex Forrest from Fatal Attraction, Angela drags innocent lives into her web of insanity – a place from which readers have confessed is hard to escape, even weeks after turning the final page.

Review

I was initially afraid of reading this book because another review I read mentioned that it was vulgar, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a book is bad. It just depends on how that vulgarity is used. This book is about Angela and John and the very idea of dealing with and facing down doubt. Angela is an interesting character with a lot of issues, and as the novel unfolds we see a lot of this come to life and there are some intense interactions surrounding her preconceptions about the situations she finds herself in.

The problem I had with the book was that the vulgarity (of which there was quite a bit) felt like it was pointless and didn't really belong in the story. I felt like it was simply vulgarity for vulgarity's sake and the book would have been better served without it. There were also some editing problems I found with the book that needed to have been cleaned up, but in general the book was relatively clean.

I felt like the author had a fairly large agenda for this book and some good ideas, but the execution was lacking and the overuse of vulgarity was distracting. I can only give the book 3-stars because sensitive readers would need some sort of warning to steer clear of this one. The writing was okay, the story was interesting and unique, but the execution left something to be desired.

About the Author

As a child, Rob was always fascinated by the stories recited by those around him and the words used to tell them. As he got older, his need to tell his own stories grew, as did his ability to share them in exciting and captivating ways.

However, he wanted to share more than just stories. His primary desire was to create characters with whom people could relate, while at the same time bringing them through a journey from which most would crumble.

His degree in Psychology was the first step toward getting beneath the surface of the people in his life. What followed was a lifelong search for what makes people tick – what forces them to become evil when deep down in their heart of hearts, they are yearning for love. Rob’s characters walk this search with him, deep into the human psyche, creating psychological thrillers from every day events.

Rob’s first book “In the Shadow of Stone” continues to receive great praise and is selling well in both electronic and paperback formats. His current book, “One Last Lie” is much darker than his first, with characters who hold bits and pieces of strangers he’s known, friends he’s had and lunatics he’s only read about.

“This book hits home for me,” says Rob. “There were a few pages that made me laugh out loud as I wrote them... and many that made me cry. And the great thing is, I’m finding that many readers of this book are experiencing the same emotions.”

Through social and other media, Rob hopes to get “One Last Lie” into the hands of millions, so that they, too, can experience the ups, downs, twists, turns and final tragedy that has helped make this book a Five-Star contender

Check it out on Online Book Club!

http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=11387

Book Review: Border Post 99 by Kedar Patankar

Today, I will be reviewing Border Post 99 by Kedar Patankar, which was an OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day for July 1st!

About the Book

March, 2011 - In the pine forest that marks the No Man's Land along the volatile India-Pakistan border, leopards roam freely across enemy lines, instigating fear in a pair of rival soldiers who are each guarding an illegal post and trying desperately to follow the strict orders they've been given: Don't shoot.

Lt. Sharma is a 25-year-old Indian rookie, fresh out of military training school and longing to return home. Captain Khan is a war-weary Pakistani veteran whose only desire is to be left alone with his thoughts. When the men are suddenly forced to acknowledge one another's presence, their nerves begin to fray and their tempers fly high. Sharma and Khan launch into a fierce duel of wits and egos that can only end when one of them dies.

Review

I'll give this book a solid 5-star rating because of the content of the book. It was a little bit slow for me, and I felt like certain sections could have been chopped out to keep it moving along easier, but the sheer power of the messages that were being conveyed more than made up for that fact.

I liked Lt. Sharma and the way he was introduced to the new world he is inhabiting, and it also served to introduce the readers to something they might not be used to. I found a lot of powerful moments in this story, and even though it wasn't written for kids I can see the value of younger generations reading it and finding some inspirational messages about unity and overcoming.

Very entertaining and inspiring, I would recommend this one to anyone who is interested in a great cultural book about India and Pakistan!

About the Author

Kedar Patankar spent the first half of his life in Mumbai and the second half between Minnesota and California. He now lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay area, where he is an engineer by day and a writer by night. He has worked as a storyboard artist, an assistant director, and an executive producer on short films and a feature film shot in Minnesota and India; he writes short stories, screenplays, and a blog, and has recently completed a draft of a thousand-page novel. 

Kedar was brought up among stories and wonderful storytellers, and he fell in love with books early on. His maternal and paternal grandfathers, an uncle, and some cousins all fought in the Indian Army, and the tales they told of World War II and the border wars over Kashmir enthralled Kedar when he was a child. Even now, when he can't fall asleep, he concocts a story for himself, and Border Post 99 is one of them. 

Check it out on Online Book Club!

http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=31853

Amazon Prime Day! Sales, Free Stuff, and More!

Amazon is having their annual prime day sale, and I wanted to get in on the action and offer some of my books on sale!

Raven's Peak is only 99 cents all July long!

Get it now before it goes back up to full price!

Graveyard of Empires is on sale for only 99 cents!

There has never been a better time to pick up Graveyard of Empires since it is free for a limited time! It is a science fiction space opera about two different warring governments hoping to control the known galaxy.

But, it is the unknown parts that are going to cause problems...

Get Four Different Anthologies 100% Free! That is over 75 unique stories across multiple genres!

Lots of anthologies completely free! If you haven't gotten one yet, now is the time!

Kindle Unlimited is discountedAudible is on sale!

I have three audiobooks available now, and then the entire World on Fire series is being released in audible by October! This would be the perfect time to signup for a membership and get all of the books free when they come out!

A Sword of Fortune and Fate by Devyn Jayse

Check out A Sword of Fortune and Fate by Devyn Jayse. It is a new book for only 99 cents for a very limited time!

I am Dare Valari and I am being hunted.

Exiled from my home at the castle, cut off from family and friends, I fled to the Blights, the last place in the kingdom anyone would run to. In exchange for allowing me to remain in his territory, the dangerous outlaw Blaze has tasked me with guarding his sister, Penny, from unknown attackers.

Now I have to dodge two teams of assassins while also trying to keep Blaze from learning the truth-that the man after me is none other than Prince Jasper, the most powerful man in the kingdom. 

With only my sword beside me, I need to find a way to save Penny and myself without revealing all my secrets.

Kindle Scout Campaign - All Stats and Results Across All of the Campaigns I've Run

I'm about to give you all a conglomerated list of stats and other information about all of the campaigns I have run up to this point. I'll continue updating this post as I run new campaigns over time to keep it up to date!

Campaign Four - The Everett Exorcism

My most recent campaign, which I talk through extensively in my Kindle Scout blog posts. This one was not selected (they did not like the iconography on the cover and felt the book wasn't a good fit). I tested out a lot of services for this campaign and reviewed the services on my blog here. I was proud of the stats despite everything and I'm not too worried about their decision. If they feel it isn't a good fit I would rather not be locked into a contract.

Campaign Three - Collision of Worlds

I ran this campaign with a pure set-it-and-forget-it mentality and didn't really promote it much at all. It didn't really perform very well, and the book I submitted wasn't one I expected to get selected (it was a second book in a series that wasn't very popular, and the first book wasn't on Kindle Scout originally).

It floundered during the first half of the campaign, saw a little bit of traction during the second half, and was inevitably turned down by the Kindle Scout editors.

Campaign Two - Raven's Peak (Selected)

This campaign resulted in my first contract with Kindle Scout and constituted a lot of hard word and time spent putting it together. I had a pretty substantial period in the center when the campaign wasn't trending, which made a pretty big difference in the number of page views it received on those days.

The book after launch has sold a lot of copies and received some sizable promotion from Amazon, which is why I had no trouble turning to Amazon again when I had another series ready to publish to offer it to Kindle Scout first.

Campaign One - Second Chances

When I put together this campaign I had no idea what I was doing. I was barely into the writing process and just tossed this one up on Amazon without an agenda or goal in mind. I didn't know what to expect and had no audience, so the stats are reflective of that.

The nice thing about this campaign is that it shows Amazon and Kindle Scout aren't going to bias an author from previous efforts. My first campaign was a complete flop, but my second one (when I knew a little more of what I was doing) turned out really well and ended up getting picked.

Zero hours in hot & trending...

More Blog Posts

Kindle Scout Campaign - Guide - Part 7