Scott Nicholson's Blog, page 10

Home for Halloween Kindle, Nook, Kobo giveaway

THE HOME. Visit it! You can drop by the book blogs listed to the right and read exclusive excerpts, and there's easy contest entries from the blogs, too.

Amazon
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Experiments at a group home for troubled children lead to paranormal activity--and the ghosts are former residents of the home's past as an insane asylum. In development as a feature film.

To celebrate the launch of The Home, you can win your choice of a Kindle Fire, a Nook HD 8G, or a Kobo Glo. Other prizes include MP3-CD audiobooks of Liquid Fear and Chronic Fear, and signed copies of Chronic Fear, Monsters Inc., Drummer Boy, If I Were Your Monster, and Dirt. I'll also be randomly selecting Twitter RTs for a $20 gift card each week that use the #HomeForHalloween hashtag. If The Home hits the Top 100 on any of the ebook outlets during October, I'll give away a bonus device of the winner's choice. (Best rank today is #4,400 on Kindle).

If you don't use social media, you can enter by emailing bigkindleboogie@yahoo.com. Thanks and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

2 likes · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on October 03, 2012 05:38

The Home for Halloween giveaway

It's alive. THE HOME is now available in all ebook outlets at a temporary sale price of 99 cents.
Amazon
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Experiments at a group home for troubled children lead to paranormal activity--and the ghosts are former residents of the home's past as an insane asylum. In development as a feature film.

To celebrate the launch of The Home, you can win your choice of a Kindle Fire, a Nook HD 8G, or a Kobo Glo. Other prizes include MP3-CD audiobooks of Liquid Fear and Chronic Fear, and signed copies of Chronic Fear, Monsters Inc., Drummer Boy, and Dirt. I'll also be randomly selecting Twitter RTs for a $20 gift card each week. If The Home hits the Top 100 on any of the ebook outlets during October, I'll give away a bonus device of the winner's choice.

If you don't use social media, you can enter by emailing bigkindleboogie@yahoo.com. Contest ends Oct. 31 at midnight EST. Thanks and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on September 30, 2012 18:44

You can't go home again, but you can call your book "The Home"

After much deliberation and debate (mostly consisting of reading tea leaves and sacrificing a goat to the oracle of smart marketing), I've decided to release THE HOME under the title of ...tah dah, drumroll...THE HOME!

While that may seem like a no-brainer, there are several good reasons to go with my preferred title of "Troubled" (which is the title I used for the non-US ebook release, since I held all rights except US/Canada.) Now that all rights are reverting to me, I can call the shots. I didn't like the publisher's title because I felt it was rather uninspired, although many people say The Home sounds creepy and mysterious.

And of course, it's kind of a horror handle to put "The" in front of everything. The Fog, The Ward, The Orphanage, The House, The Asylum, The Mall, The Gas Station, etc. (If you read October Girls, you can see me having a bit of fun with this, with movies titled things like "The Bloodening.") Tip of the cap to Bentley Little, whose market my original publisher was obviously chasing.

The main reason to stick with The Home is to support the movie script being shopped by North of Seven Productions. So The Home it shall be until a better reason comes along. Already available for Nook, Kobo, Smashwords and Amazon UK, the U.S. Kindle release will be at the end of September.

Since you're special and rare, you get a free advance ebook copy if you like. You don;t even have to write a review, although I will follow up with an email with the link once the book is live, in case you feel so inspired. I don't expect to make this free anywhere else at any time, so it may be the best chance to grab it. To get your copy before the red carpet rolls out, bang an email to hauntedcomputer AT yahoo.com.

Oh yeah, about the book...controversial experiments at a group home for troubled children stir up paranormal activity...and the ghosts are former residents of the home from its days as an insane asylum.
###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

4 likes · Like • 5 comments • flag

Published on September 16, 2012 15:49

The Skull Ring limited editions for collectors

In this digital age, it is easy to adore instant gratification. That's why Twitter and Facebook exist. But there's also something to admire about the slow way, the persistent path of hard work with a goal in mind. Zach Powell of King's Way Press is someone to admire. Zach took over some publishing projects from the ill-fated Full Moon Press and carried them to the finish line. Among those projects are The Skull Ring, a creamy-looking limited edition hardcover of my suspense thriller.

With art by the esteemed Alan M. Clark, much like my writing career was before the cataclysmic changes of the digital era. But digital is fleeting. These hardcover editions will last unto the fourth generation and beyond.

This is the first of my novels to get the royal treatment, in three different editions, all extremely limited and sure to soar in value when I do something spectacular one day like show up at a national political convention and rant at an empty chair.

Available in the minty fresh noble, regal, or royal editions, $30 and up. Don't go broke! http://www.kings-way-press.com/

###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on September 11, 2012 05:56

Audio horror: Speed Dating with the Dead now on Audible, iTunes, Amazon

As part of my secret capitalist plan for world domination so I can revel in eventual taoist surrender, I'm diving into the world of audio books. I am a big fan of audio books in the car, especially for longer trips or commutes, and the technology is making it easier than ever to get the work into a recording device. Right now three of my books are out in audio: Liquid Fear, Chronic Fear, and The Red Church.

Working with the immensely talented Daniel Dorse via Amazon's ACX.com, we have just released a full-length production of Speed Dating with the Dead. Available for Amazon.com, Audible.com, and iTunes. You can also listen to a free sample here: http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B0094JNIG6&qid=1346710151&sr=1-1 (Click "sample" beneath the book cover).

You can get Speed Dating for free if you open a new Audible.com account. If you open an account to get my book, or the book is one of the first three you purchase through Audible, I will send you a signed trade paperback of Speed Dating with the Dead. Just email me at hauntedcomputer at yahoo.com if you do that.

Look for more audiobooks coming soon. Currently in production are Kiss Me or Die and Creative Spirit.
###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on September 03, 2012 15:16

Help me pick the AFTER cover!

Right now I am hitting the stretch run on AFTER, my post-apocalyptic thriller. It's the point in the marathon where you have a stitch in the side, dehydration, and blurred hallucinations of giant bunnies hover in the periphery of your vision. But it's one aching foot after another..."after," after all.

But I need a cover. Stephanie of Mooney Designs has offered these two very cool images to choose from, so please chime in with your thoughts! Thanks!

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

Like • 6 comments • flag

Published on August 27, 2012 06:18

A month of Nicholson Rain

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

2 likes · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on August 10, 2012 06:23

Sample scene of new novel AFTER

Here's the opening of the new novel, AFTER, which should be out in the fall. I will be posting bits and pieces, cover art, etc., on the blog and will need help shaping the story and deciding if it will be a series, so check back from time to time and help me get this done!
Kindle freebies: July 26-27: The Red Church Amazon US Amazon UK
July 30-31: Speed Dating with the Dead Amazon US Amazon UK AFTERBy Scott Nicholson
CHAPTER ONE
There were three of them.She’d stopped naming them a week ago. It had been an amusing distraction for a while—and the Good Lord only knew, she needed distractions—but then they’d all started blending together, the Black-Eyed Susans and the Raisinheads and the Meat Throats.But now Rachel couldn’t resist, looking out the grimy drugstore window as she waited, crouched there in the litter of baby powder and cellophane.Stumpy.The one on the right, sitting on the sidewalk bench surrounded by a mountain of bulging plastic bags, was missing his left arm just below the elbow. The wound was swathed in a filthy towel, strapped in place with duct tape, stained dark brown at its blunt end.Stumpy was waiting for a bus that would never come. Rachel couldn’t tell if he was a Zaphead. He might just be another of the schizophrenic homeless, the underclass that hadn’t even noticed the world had ended. Although gaunt, he didn’t appear particularly motivated to kill, obsessed instead with swatting away the flies that swirled around his stump.He was fifty feet away, and she could outrun him easy. All she had to do was run as if her life depended on it. Which wouldn’t be a challenge.The Beard, the guy staggering back and forth a hundred yards down the street, was almost certainly a Zaphead. His expression was hidden by the unkempt hair, but he was hunched and his fists were clenched, rage curling around whatever strange energy burned inside.Okay, Beard, you’ve solved my little dilemma of whether I should head east or head west.The mountains were her destination, and they lay to the west, but she wasn’t willing to risk The Beard.The word “destination” sounded odd in her thoughts, because of the root “destiny.” Such abstractions were laughable now, but laughter was the only weapon against the fear that sapped the strength###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

1 like · Like • 4 comments • flag

Published on July 27, 2012 05:29

Overview of eBook Publishing class (Boone NC area)

I'm teaching a community college class if you are in the Boone NC area of the northwest corner of North Carolina. (Yes, I know, this class should be an online seminar instead, but this is what it is! In person...)
Overview of eBook Publishing July 30-Sept. 24, every Monday night, 6-8 p.m. at the Ashe County campus of Wilkes Community College (beside the Ashe High School.) To preregister, call Celia Robinson at (336) 846-3900.
Digital publishing is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. Local author and digital publisher Scott Nicholson will teach the basics of digital publishing for Kindle, Nook, iPad, Kobo, and other devices during a participatory class that covers product development, formatting, design, and marketing. If you can write an email, you can publish a book. You will be able to publish an ebook yourself by the end of the class series, regardless of your level of technical skill.
###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

Like • 1 comment • flag

Published on July 16, 2012 08:42

Paper books as artifacts in the digital age

I was on an ebook panel at the local library yesterday, speaking with a writing group, and the inevitable defense of bookstores arose. I've come to believe this is an emotional issue, not an issue of logic, data, or even the reality that is occurring all around us--bookstores are closing, and rapidly. I'm not here to gleefully dance on graves, since I like bookstores and they have helped sell my books in the past. But the idea that "Paper books CAN'T die out because I like them" is not going to stop paper books from their rapid decline. They are nice artifacts that give many of us comfort, but the incredible drain of resources to get a book from Point A to Point B will forevermore put it at a competive disadvantage.

(Disclaimer--worldwide nuclear war would restore paper books to dominance because many of them would outlast all the digital information erased by the electromagnetic pulse. But I can safely predict overall readership would still decline.)

Paper books are already clear artifacts to me, comfort items for the shelf. Oddly, I have been reading paper books more than my Kindle lately--but this doesn't mean I've "decided that paper is better." No, I am clinging to the last bits of nostalgia and indulging in some works that might never be available in digital form.

I took my wife to an antique store a couple of weeks ago--proof of the depths of my love and sacrifice, if you know how much I abhor any form of shopping--and I was startled how much of the store was occupied by books. Yes, books are already antiques, even while the major publishers churn out tens of thousands of copies of the latest trendy fiction and celebrity bios. You could look at those huge bestsellers as signs of publishing health, but they actually reflect the disease--publishing is only practical on a blockbuster level: Many sales each of a few titles, not a few sales each of a few million niche titles.

In the store, I found a stack of Dean Koontz books and thumbed through them, mostly out of curiosity, since I have enough Koontz paperbacks to last a lifetime. But I found a tattered 1977 copy of Demon Seed, the movie tie-in edition of the 1973 novel. On top of it was the newer, re-released and thicker version. For those who don;t know, Koontz revised most of his books as he got the rights back and re-released them. In the new version, I read the afterward where Koontz explains how he cleaned up the book and honed it. Of course, I was far more interested in the old version, the rawer, less polished, version. Koontz often works too hard to remove any provocative edge in his books, and my only complaint with him is that his protagonists are always too relentlessly and predictably noble, cheerful, and idealistic. To see how Koontz changed in the quarter-century between the two versions, simply read the Wikipedia entry on the book and what you find is an unfortunate case of revisionist history.

The other reason I chose the older version is because I am pretty sure it will never be available as an ebook. No way would Koontz allow its release. The new version is $7.99 in ebook, while you can buy used versions of the new paperback for a penny plus shipping. I paid $1.99 in the antique store, far more than I'd normally pay for a paperback (well, I also paid gas to drive to the store, but you could argue I'd be there anyway). Versions of the older version are on eBay from $3.50 to $30 plus shipping. They will always be "worth" more than the revised, supposedly improved editions in similar condition.

The moral of the story is that there is no morality in the paper/digital war. Times change, no one is wrong, neither is inherently "better." For this reader and writer, I know when I am buying an artifact and not just a story. I often delete digital books after I finish them. I often give away paperbacks after I've finished them. Maybe I'll keep Demon Seed awhile. Maybe not. It's fun to read precisely because I can see the anti-Koontz in it, the smirky little twenty-something writer who delighted in being a bit naughty and edgy. What you could call "the artifact Koontz."

Bookstores are turning into antique stores. But that's okay, because we cherish our artifacts. And perhaps we will even value these artifacts more when they are no longer widely available. Do you cling to any similar artifacts you know are artifacts? Cassette tapes that mark a time in your life? Videocassettes? Old paper books?
###

View more on Scott Nicholson's website »

1 like · Like • 3 comments • flag

Published on July 13, 2012 07:34