Score of Silence on Kindle Scout

Hello, all!

Today, the Kindle Scout campaign for my debut murder mystery novel, Score of Silence, starts. I’ve tried a few Kindle Scout campaigns, and unfortunately, I’ve never gotten the nod. The editors there have passed on War of the Worlds: Retaliation, which John and I licensed to Severed Press. We’re talking to them about another War of the Worlds book, tentatively titled, War of the Worlds: Firestorm. Kindle Press also passed on Sixteen Sunsets. Here’s hoping that the third time’s the charm.

Originally, Score of Silence was supposed to be a sequel to my techno-thriller, Body Rentals. After about 25,000 words or so, I realized that no one had switched bodies! So, I rewrote it into a murder mystery. There are still a lot of elements that stayed in Score of Silence. Tupper Jones is obviously Colonel Lance Bishop. (There was even a play on words in the first or second chapter about Tupper calling an ambu-Lance, but when I changed the name to Tupper Jones, the joke had to go.) Caroline Collins is Teresa from Tyrant and Body Rentals. Kimberly Smythe is Kimberly Smith. (I know, I know, “How original.”) The characters from Score of Silence took on a life of their own during the rewrite, and I already have a 48k rough draft of a second novel.

Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you could support the campaign by nominating, and sharing the link to your various social media outlets. Here’s that link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2EKMJBJRHGZ12

Here are the description and character bios for Score of Silence:

Retired FBI agent, Tupper Jones, has made a name for himself as a private eye. But today isn’t his day. His partner and right-hand woman, Caroline Collins, has woken up next to the dead body of the FBI’s star mob witness with no memory of what happened. Tupper and Caroline must solve the mystery of what happened before the FBI puts Caroline away for the murder.

War of the Worlds: Retaliation now on Kindle Scout

Hey, everyone! Wednesdays have been all about Days Until Home for so long, and now that the web serial is finished, and the special edition paperback is out, it’s time to move on from the space disaster.

Wait a minute… We’re still in space… But instead of doing this and that in the near future, we’re in an alternate past. A past where the War of the Worlds happened, and after the Martians died, we humans reverse-engineered their tech to better all of humanity. Well, for the most part. We also have the looming threat of another invasion by those slimy squids from the fourth rock from the sun. We’ve got to take the fight to Mars. End the Martian threat once and for all. After all, it has been twenty-six years since the original attack from the red planet.

War of the Worlds: Retaliation is the vision of my co-author, John Rust. He completed the first draft way back in 2012, but it floated around waiting for the copyright of H.G Wells’ 1898 story to expire in the European Union. I think I harassed John for a number of months in early 2015 to get this story published. We wrapped up the latest revision in December 2015 and started submitting the story to the major and some specialty publishers.

The final attempt to wrangle a publishing contract is going to be through Kindle Press via a Kindle Scout campaign. The campaign started in the wee hours this morning and will run for thirty days. After that campaign, Kindle Press offers a fifteen-day decision period. Since the stipulations of the campaign dictate that only one author is considered, John has authorized me to act as the sole author for the purposes of the KS campaign. I’m a tiny bit uncomfortable with this since John has had the lion’s share of the writing, rewrites, and general writer angst, but apparently, I’m higher profile. (Go figure!)

Anyone with an Amazon account can nominate War of the Worlds: Retaliation for consideration by Kindle Press, and I hope that you will nominate our story. Also, since getting the word out is of major importance, please reblog, retweet, and do whatever it is that you do on Facebook. The more exposure we can get, the better chance we have of receiving a contract. As a bonus, if War of the Worlds: Retaliation is selected by Kindle Press, anyone who nominated it will receive a free digital copy when it releases. Hopefully that will be the first week of January 2017.

So, please spread the word and nominate War of the Worlds: Retaliation on Kindle Scout today:

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1P15HGBUYJZLJ/

Kindle Scout Campaign for 16Sunsets

Hello teh interwebs! (Stupid autocorrect kept fixing my intentional misspelling of ‘the.’)

16Sunsets has been the long grind, and it’t finally ready for a Kindle Scout campaign. I’m sure most of you are already aware of what KS is, but here’s a refresher:

Kindle Scout is Amazon Publishing’s slush pile. People like you and me nominate books we’d like to see them pick up and publish with a $1,500 advance and a 50% royalty rate. Amazon has some mysterious wording on what books they actually pick up, and having the most nominations doesn’t necessarily guarantee a contract, but since they’re so secretive about everything, no one really knows what is going on. Unlike some other reader-nominated contests, you don’t have to sign up for anything or create a new account, because your Amazon credentials allows you to nominate. If 16Sunsets is contracted by Amazon, everyone who nominated it will get a free copy when it’s published.

In the words of Princess Leia, “Help me interwebs, you’re my only hope!”

The 16Sunsets Kindle Scout Campaign starts November 4th, 2015: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/26EAV4XHXJW33

*Yes, you all know I like Star Trek over Star Wars, but I can’t think of a great Star Trek quote that I could slot in there.