Dan Alatorre's Blog, page 11

Manuscript Update on Terminal Sequence (BTW, Preorder price for Rogue Elements goes up tomorrow!)

[image error]So it looks like I won’t meet my self-imposed deadline of 12/31 at midnight for finishing Terminal Sequence, book 3 in The Gamma Sequence series.
But I’m close!

50,000 words of amazing medical thriller written since November 22.

Not bad.

And Terminal Sequence is only 1-2 weeks away from completion, coming in around 65k-80k. I can live with that.

Terminal Sequence WILL meet the scheduled release date of February 28, 2020. No worries there.

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URGENT! Book 2 in The Gamma Sequence series, Rogue Elements is on sale right now for 99 cents while it is in preorder. The book comes out tomorrow, and the ebook price goes up to $4.99. Get the deal while it’s available.

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Writing Terminal Sequence has been fun. LOTS of cool stuff happening in it, and a lot of blow-your-mind scenes.

One scene is particularly terrifying.
I’m pretty proud of myself for that one.

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Anyway, The Gamma Sequence continues to climb the charts, having just been released on December 1 of this year in ebook. Rogue Elements will do well, too; many people said it’s better than the first book. Maybe it is.

The third book is amazing. You’re going to want to read it, so when I have it finished, you’ll be getting an email asking for beta readers (if you’re in my Readers Club).
Don’t miss out.

(Get Gamma’d HERE)

The year in review: onward to 2020!

[image error]I’ve never been much of a “year in review” guy. I just don’t care for those trite summaries that are supposed to be full of lessons!
But every few years or so I find myself doing one…
2019 was a very interesting year, as all years really are.

It had big highs and big lows.

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I was able to write three complete full length novels this year (a completely new 3-book series, 83k, 65k, and 80k – and in an entirely new subgenre for me) and I didn’t even start writing it until the end of February! How? I set deadlines and goals and I met them. The Gamma Sequence is on track to be my most successful book ever, far far FAR outpacing anything I’ve done before.

I also edited and compiled another very successful collection of short horror stories for the annual horror anthology, also our best ever, giving a higher profile to a lot of people in the process (some are going to be BIG, gang), as well as…

writing more than 12 new short horror stories for my own private anthology horror series I’ll be releasing in the next few months. Oh, and I successfully ran four Young Authors Clubs after school for gradeschool children. (That’ll keep you busy.)

I became a USA today best-selling author.
And got ripped off by a marketer – the @sshole and thief, Wid Bastian.

I learned a lot more about marketing (some good, some bad, obviously), which I think I say every year and probably will keep saying every year because I think every year it’s going to be true.

I said goodbye to some friends who I didn’t want to say goodbye to…

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and I embraced some friends who wanted to move forward with me. What choice do you really have, after all? You can’t make somebody be your friend. When I look back on all the different people I have worked with in this business (or any other business for that matter), it’s all seems very transitory. I find people, I work with them for a while, and then for various reasons we go our separate ways. Sometimes they quit writing; sometimes they find me impossible to keep working with. (Hey, I’m not perfect.) Sometimes it’s something else.

I wish that wasn’t the case, but it seems this business is that way – transitory – and I have to be okay with that. I miss the people I used to work with, joke with, goof off with, get ideas from, give ideas to, get help from and give help to, but I had my best year ever as an author of this year and really hit a new level in the second half of this year (more on that in a second), so how am I going to complain?

I’m always aiming higher and

I do my best not to let the backward steps – however they come about – bring me down or hurt me too much.

Some losses I incurred in 2019 hurt – a lot. Some of those losses will hurt forever AND I HOPE THEY DO. I don’t want to forget the people who were with me, who helped me get this far. It will always hurt that some aren’t there anymore. I don’t want to forget that I got ripped off, not because the thief gets to live in my head; he doesn’t. I name him to mess with him, not to show I’m wounded. I want to remember what happened because I need to be smarter – for me and for others I can help.

There are GOING to be mistakes. There are GOING to be miscalculations.

There are going to be things that we wish hadn’t happened and which were preventable if we just weren’t so… human and vulnerable and needy and wanting.

But even though I occasionally get down about what I’m doing, it doesn’t last.

I don’t let it last.

That’s what’s amazing about me and that’s what keeps me moving forward.

I had a setback in 2019 (as we all do to varying degrees), and while I was struggling through that, along came an opportunity to change gears and write a second medical thriller book with a very talented group of bestselling authors. So I (eventually) took it – and ended up a USA Today bestselling author as a result. Maybe that would have happened anyway, but it DID happen because I said yes to the opportunity AND because I couldn’t just pick up and start writing the other series. I needed that break, so I switched gears – and then I threw myself into it. Rogue Elements, book 2 in The Gamma Sequence series, was a lot of fun to write; book 3, Terminal Sequence, was even more fun. But writing Rogue helped me move on, and it showed me how to fix what I need to fix so I could write the other series if I wanted to go back to it. (I’m not sure I do; I don’t need to. And I’ve enjoyed the stretching my writerly muscles into new realms…)

Those who chose not to continue on with me, I wish them well. I really do! It gives me no pride or satisfaction to quietly check in on them and not see them doing well.
I want to know everybody’s doing all right.

If they quit writing, I wish they’d start again. If they put a book out, I wish I’d have been allowed to help, but I want it to be successful without my involvement because I was just a cheerleader anyway; they always did the work. They deserve their success, and I want them to have it. (And I’ll be happily jealous of it, too.)

I don’t know what 2020 holds.
None of us do.

But it seems somehow or other I find a way to make my book writing thing a little better and sometimes a lot better.

I’ll never know if the people I leaned on held me back or kept me from sliding further than I would have if I wasn’t leaning on them.
They will never know, either.

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I choose to say they helped a lot and my successes are partly theirs. I smile for having known them.

I guess, in the end, let’s all just think fondly of old friends. Like the song says, auld lang syne. Remember everybody fondly; they’re not gonna be around forever. Forgive and forget. Reach out and say hi. Send a letter. And if someone from your past reaches out after six months or a year or sixteen years or however long, we can all let bygones be bygones and be old friends again just like we used to be.

And I equally know a few will never reach out; these are authors. They don’t do the reaching out thing. It’s not in their DNA.

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I feel I’m not supposed to reach out to a few, that they want me gone, but I don’t want anybody gone, so that lack of reaching out will be a memory of sad regret and possibly the empty feeling of missed opportunity to know again what once was. I think I’ve reached out a lot, sometimes to have my hand ignored and sometimes to feel it wasn’t welcome. I’ll never know if I’ve reached out enough, but I know for some people nothing is ever enough.

For those who keep plowing forward with me, I’ll try to make it worth your while.
CHEER ON 2020 AND EVEN MORE SUCCESS!

Wid Bastian RIPPED ME OFF

I recently became a USA Today bestselling, something I’m very proud of. But in the process, Wid Bastian, an alleged marketer, stole more than $20,000 from me and other authors I worked with.
That’s not okay.

(I have no concerns about what follows because the truth is the best defense. Here goes.)

The idea was…

cross market between 17 authors, our fan bases, our newsletter subscribers (some of these authors have 30,000 subscribers!), buy ads, AND – this is big – get a few big charities to work with us: we’d give 100% of the preorder money to the charities if they advertised our book to their donor list (that’s tens of thousands of people, gang).

So… we did.

The charities, contacted by authors in the group, advertised our books to their donor list.

The authors cross marketed.

We networked.

We tweeted and posted and a bunch of other stuff, to build a critical mass to get our books the recognition necessary to sell enough copies to make the USA Today bestseller list.

We worked hard.
We helped others who had less experience.

The set manager/marketer, as far as we can tell, did very little. (That’s Wid Bastian, who we now know has several aliases like Widstoe Bastian, Widstoe Bastion, Bastian Widsoe, and others; his co-conspirators like Cameron Davis and others used to work for Genius Media and now work for Kairos Phoenix, but there could be dozens of shell companies, so you have to stay alert. According to MyLife, Wid Bastian has a consumer safety rating of “bad.” The site shows multiple red flag warnings indicating

Widstoe Bastian “DOES have arrest or criminal records” and
“DOES have lawsuits, liens or bankruptcies.”

This isn’t sour grapes. We EACH paid $750 for ads to promote our books. 17 x $750 = $12,500, which was to buy ads and pay expenses. We made a TON of royalties in a short period, adding up to over $20,000 combined.

But apparently, Wid Bastian and Cameron Davis had other ideas for him and his co-conspirators. It seems

they decided their expenses were magically going to equal JUST a little more than the total of ALL the fees the authors paid AND ALL THE ROYALTY MONIES EARNED.

THEY KEPT ALL THE MONEY.

EVERY CENT.

They kept the fees. They kept the royalties. They kept the money the promised to charities.

All of it.

Well, gang, in my opinion, that’s just fraud.
(Seems the Florida Attorney General agrees with me, too, as does the AG in half a dozen other states.)

The contract says he can’t keep all the money.

But it gets better! Before he told us that lie, he kept telling us he needed to file a report or get with an accountant to make sure the numbers were right, DELAYING the payment deadline.

That’s a big old red flag.

Then, on the DAY OF deadline, he said his company got acquired that day and he was really busy. Like, he tripped of this acquisition in the dark – whoops! how did that acquisition get there? – and had no idea it was about to happen. Because that makes total sense. (I’ve done a few acquisition when I was at a Fortune 500 company working my way toward President’s Circle. Acquisitions just happen out of the blue! Uh huh.)

Here are some other fun facts.

Wid has engaged with dozens of other authors, writers and filmmakers, pulling the same scam.

But…
We aren’t stupid.

Criminal complaints have been filed by more than half a dozen state Attorney Generals regarding the founder of this company, Wid Bastion and his aliases, among them Cameron Davis, formerly of Genius Media. The IRS has been contacted, as well as the FTC and FBI, as well as a criminal attorney who instructed us to file certain notices to Wid via email and certified mail…

My advice is: DO NOT do business with this company. Duh.

How Wid and his scammers operate:

 In early 2019, Wid Bastion and his associates via Genius Media targeted authors, entering into contracts with more than 17 individual authors for book marketing services, and defrauded each of them, as well as defrauding at least two charities he encouraged them to use as network partners. Wid violated the terms of his agreements, paying none of the more than $20,000 in fees and royalties generated from these contracts.

Allegedly, Kairos Phoenix company took over “Genius Media” on the very day that the checks were due to the set participants. Wid Bastian gave numerous excuses for delaying the payments, in what appears to some to be a Ponzi scheme. His plan appears to be to create a company, bilk the customers out of their royalties and fees, and then fold the company and create a new one.

BEWARE. Widtsoe Bastian is 59 years old and was born on 04/06/1960. Widtsoe Bastian lives in Providence, UT; previous cities include Saint George UT, Las Vegas NV and Reno NV. Sometimes Widtsoe goes by various nicknames including Widtsoe T Bastiam, Widstoe T Bastian, Bastian Widtsoe, Wid Bastian and Widsoe Bastian. He currently claims to work as a Publisher, Editor and Writer at Genius Media, Inc., and now Kairos Phoenix company.

Wid Bastian’s scheme appears to involve sending UNSOLICITED letters to authors, writers, and filmmakers stating “My name is Wid Bastian and I own Genius Media, an eBook promotion company. I’m reaching out to you today because you are a well branded Indie author. Your (genre) books are fantastic! I wish that I had time to read all of them. I have peeked at a couple, read reviews of your work and scanned your author bio…” However, Wid Bastian has repeatedly been labeled on K-Boards as someone authors should stay away from.

His form letter appears to contain “positive” references from at least one author who is suing him for breach of contract and fraud.

There are a LOT of people who will rip you off in this business. You have to be careful. I wasn’t.

I achieved USA Today bestseller status because I networked and cross marketed with 16 other authors and two charities. We aren’t sure Wid bought ANY ads.

We actually aren’t sure what “marketers” Wid Bastian and Cameron Davis he did – except keep all our fees and royalties.

The fees were supposed to be an investment to buy ads and pay the salaries for managing us, but they kept OUR ROYALTIES, which we were supposed to get – and there were a LOT of royalties!

He kept it ALL.

So, in my opinion, Wid Bastian is a piece of shit, and so is Cameron Davis and their  cohorts. Avoid them, and tell your friends to avoid them.

He offers to give you something you want – USA Today, networking, interaction with other authors who sell tons of books, better exposure – but you can do that without him (as we did), and without losing a lot of money to a thief.

How to protect yourself:

Hey, Google any marketer you think about using. Ask friends. 99% of the time that will tell you what you need to know. K-Boards had a TON of warnings about Wid Bastian, by reputable authors who asked questions no one could answer.

Usually, the thief wins because they take advantage of people’s good natures and the embarrassment and shame that comes from being ripped off.

Ha! Not in this case! I have no shame. And I have author friends who I will protect from you.

Wid, you ripped me off. I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t rip off anyone else.
I’ll get satisfaction on my terms.

This post is just one small, itsy bitsy step.

Oh, and by the way, I was able to TELL the piece of shit Wid Bastian weeks ago on Facebook that I was on to him and that I knew he was a thief. (That felt good.) He replied, which means he read the comments I made calling him out. Each reply was basically a delay tactic – a request to be nice and give him more time, like this one, which came in an email after he’d had enough of Facebook (I cut some parts out to keep it to the relevant stuff):

Dan;

I have fully explained to you what’s going on. Everything I’ve said in my posts is 100% true. You have no reason to believe otherwise. What you’re doing now is inappropriate and will help no one…

Why will you not give me a few days to get all of this done? I am not asking for weeks, just a few days… I’ve been in this business for years.

Please calm down and give me a few days. This will be handled.

Wid Bastian, Piece Of Shit

(I added that last part after his name)

A few days later, he stopped replying to all of us – and about 10 days after, that

we got an email saying his salary ate up all the fees and royalties.

Who could have seen that coming?

Oh, we did.

So, we’re going through the channels to stop this thievery, and you can help by reblogging, posting this on social media, etc., so whenever anyone does a search for Wid Bastian, this is what comes up. The courts and state Attorney Generals will do the rest, but sharing this info with your friends might keep them from wasting time and money with a thief.

BTW, I have not lost one bit of sleep over this. I gambled and lost, and I’ve sought legal representation to ensure Wid Bastian and Cameron Davis are stopped. So have at least 25 other victims of these assholes.

They get to lose sleep, not me.

 

Review / Warning of ‘promotional service’ by Wid Sebastian / Genius Media / Kairos Phoenix Company

Gang, the scammers are out there – and I got taken.

My set sold a TON of books, but this guy kept ALL the money – ripping us off AND the sponsoring charities. STAY AWAY.

writerchristophfischer

Here is a little warning about a “service” I subscribed to recently:
Wid Bastian of Genius Media who now has a new business named Kairos Phoenix Company (KPC).

https://www.facebook.com/widb1

https://www.bizapedia.com/wy/kairos-phoenix-company-llc.html

I’m usually sceptical when it comes to professional indie author support but was taken in by his string of box sets. So many authors couldn’t be wrong?

Our book, Do No Harm, A collection of Medical thrillers, did well. Thanks to advertising and our own huge efforts we made USA Today and gathered 1.5 millions page reads during the short time it was in KU.

Two charities were named for this set, both 501c3 charities in the US and were to receive the pre-order proceeds.  The charities advertised and marketed the set along with the authors. I’ve seen predominantly the marketing efforts from charities and the authors involved – actually next to nothing from his company.

Anyway, when…

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Protected: UPDATED 01/10/2020 – Nightmareland narrated stories for authors to review – sorry, gang; these are password protected, not a site error

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Protected: Nightmareland narrated stories for authors to review – sorry, gang; these are password protected, not a site error

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WOW!

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Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2019

Format: Kindle Edition



The Gamma Sequence: A MEDICAL THRILLER was an awesome read! The author was new to me but I will be reading more!
He created an exciting & intense story with unique & likable characters.
The plot had a couple of twists that I didn’t see coming
& I always love a thriller that keeps me guessing!


– Amazon review.


Get your copy HERE. 99 cents for a limited time.

Currently #50 on Amazon paid bestseller list:

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“Santa Maybe”: Believe in the Magic

Writing to be Read

Dan Alatorre’s Santa Maybe is a delightful tale that will make you believe in the magic of Christmas at any age. This story is brief, but it will keep you smiling all the way through. A brief trip to the store and a bearded man in a red shirt lead a dad and his daughter to ask, “Could it be?” What they discover may not definitively resolve the existence of Santa Claus, but it proves that the magic of Christmas is real and everlasting. This is a great seasonal feel good story to brighten the holidays and capture the Christmas spirit in all of us.

Some stories you just judge by the way they make you feel inside. I give Santa Maybe five quills.

Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.

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“The last few chapters blew me away.”

“The last few chapters blew me away.”
Yep. I do that.
Gang, here’s a review by a new fan.

[image error]Genetics – the subject that is the marker of humankind, everything is decided by our genetics.

I love medical thrillers, not many can write it well.
Dan Alatorre went one step ahead in this thriller and thought wickedly.
And I cackled in delight.

In this book, we had Lanaya who was in deep as she knew someone was killing off the geneticists who had worked 20 years ago on the gamma sequence which led to disastrous results. So she hired a private investigator, an ex-cop, Hamilton DeShear to help her. And boy!! Were those bullets zapping!!

My first book by author Dan Alatorre, authored solely by him,

the story was absolutely mind blowing

when the truth was revealed. I loved the mind of this author who could see beyond what he knew or read. He put the theory into words which I had always been scared of. Brilliance of the plot deserved all the accolades along with the ingenuity of the villain in the book.

The majority of this book was a high octane action thriller with both the main characters trying to escape the killers. The mid section meandered for me as I wanted to know the reason. Something had been done years ago, and I needed to get more hints of it. I understood the various layers that the author had to add to bring the shocker of the reveals at the end. But the doc in me craved for hints in the mid-section and more action by the main characters.

Genetics was given the spotlight, but nothing which would confuse a non-medico. I loved how the author played with the idea of it and showed the dark side. Who is to say that a gamma sequence is not happening in some lab somewhere on this world?!

Overall this was an amazing fun read.
The last few chapters blew me away.

Me: Patting self on back.

Get your copy HERE

Writing Rule #1: Tension Drives Stories

We have addressed hundreds of writing related topics here on the blog; use the search button to find the ones you need.

[image error]I’ve been watching a TV show/miniseries about the Unabomber, and it’s basically told from the point of view of the FBI agent who ultimately got enough information together to capture Ted Kaczynski.

As I was watching the third weekly episode, I realized that it was very compelling drama – and I wondered why.

Half of my brain loves just enjoying the show and the other half of my brain – or less, I guess – breaks it down and analyzes it.

 

WHY is it good drama?

 

Why am I tuning in week after week?

Why do I like a certain character or dislike a certain character?

 

The guy from Sex And The City plays a boss pretty high up in the FBI. Below him but above our agent hero is a Jerk Boss.

 

We really dislike the Jerk Boss because he’s a jerk – but what does he do that makes him a jerk?

 

Jerk Boss is always frowning. Always negative body language, and he does not believe in Hero Agent’s work. In fact, Jerk Boss basically says what Hero Agent is doing is a waste of time and feels they should be spending their resources in other areas (Which they are, too. I don’t mean to imply otherwise. The FBI was chasing down all sort of leads.)

 

So it’s especially victorious when the Jerk Boss and his theories turn out to be dead ends and he’s the one who’s been wasting time.

 

The Sex And The City Boss pretty much also doesn’t believe in what the Hero Agent is doing, but Sex And The City Boss is not a jerk. And it’s because he’s almost as strict but he’s not as personally demeaning. And usually he appears much more rational in his thought process. Jerk Boss automatically says no. The Sex And The City Boss is more thoughtful before he says no. But ultimately it is a long series of no’s for Hero Agent.

 

Occasionally the Sex And The City Boss will think about or consider what the Hero Agent has to say. So it’s like chipping away at an iceberg with the Sex And The City Boss. Whereas with the Jerk Boss it’s just a brick wall. He’s not changing and he doesn’t care what you have to say.

 

All that’s fine except for one thing.
We know the Hero Agent was right!

 

And that is why it’s compelling drama.

 

See, in stories like Gladiator, we immediately saw a hero who was unjustly victimized by the new emperor. The gladiator gets sold off into slavery, his wife and child murdered, his home burned – because he told the truth.

 

In Bambi, this beautiful new baby deer is learning all these things and his mother gets killed.

 

You can find it time and time again, but it’s

an unjust thing happening to the hero or the main character and it tends to make us root for them. The more unjust, the more we root.

And if we can drag out that unjustness, and make it last, oh, three to six episodes, people will be shouting at their Tv sets. Leave him alone! He’s right, Jerk Boss, you fat cow!

 

Grr. Jerk Boss is such a . . . jerk.

 

Anyway, in this instance, with the Unabomber show, and like in Titanic and other stories where we already know the ending, it’s the simple fact that you know he was right that frustrates you. He didn’t know he was right. He just believed in himself. Everybody kept saying he was wrong and he kept sticking to his guns and working hard.

 

On the other hand, WE know he’s right. We know his research ultimately leads to the capture of Ted Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber.

 

So as we watch Hero Agent run into dead ends and frustrating brick walls and damned Jerk Boss who should just die, we marvel at his resolve and determination.

We pull for him as he just keeps chipping away at the iceberg.

 

And ultimately, although we are only three shows in to a six-episode miniseries, Hero Agent wins because Kaczynski gets caught and they even show us that. (They show Kaczynski and the Hero Agent talking while Kaczynski is in jail.) So they jump back-and-forth in time a little bit,

and that’s neat to see but it also is a constant reminder of:
the hero was right,
the hero was right,
THE HERO WAS RIIIIIGGGHHHTTT!!!
Die, Jerk Boss!! DIE! DIE!

 

Uh…

Where was I?

Oh, Hero Agent. See, he didn’t know he was right most of the time. He believed it, but he didn’t know it. And he had a lot of high-powered people above him telling him to stop. Sometimes in embarrassing ways.

 

(In reality I marvel at the fact that even though this is a dramatic representation, there were a lot of different ways this could have gone and they would not have caught the Unabomber. And I marvel that this guy was such a champ to hang in there and pursue his belief, probably just as vigilantly as other agents who were pursuing dead ends or things that turned out to be dead ends. So that’s a big thumbs up to just good old fashioned police work and hard work and determination.)

 

But as far as storytelling goes, you can complain maybe they’re over playing their hand with the Jerk Boss and some other elements, but

the reason I’m pretty much glued to the set is because of the drama, and
the drama comes from the hero having to constantly overcome challenges.

 

Sound familiar?

 

He has challenges everywhere. Inside himself. With his coworkers. With his bosses. With his wife. With his children. And of course, with the bad guy.

 

That tension drives this story. Make sure it drives yours.

 

Whether it’s a manhunt or a romance or whatever, overcoming the challenges are what make us keep turning the pages.

[image error] Dan Alatorre has had a string of bestsellers and is read in over 112 countries around the world.

To get free books and updates on his newest novels, join his Readers Club HERE.