Category Archives: News and the Latest Goings On

Amazon News, Announcements, News and the Latest Goings On

Murder On The San Juan Express Hits Number One On Amazon!

It’s always a bit scary when you launch a new series and character. While it’s not quite the same, it is a bit like sending your child out in the world and hoping everyone likes your child.

I’m excited to share the fact that Murder on the San Juan Express was liked well enough to hit Number One on Amazon Kindle in the category of Railroad Fiction!

Cover of Murder on the San Juan Express

Murder on the San Juan Express is available in Kindle and paperback editions from Amazon. It is also available as an eBook from the following online eBook retailers.

Amazon News, News and the Latest Goings On

Posting Amazon Reviews: It’s Easier Now!

If you as a reader love a book or are a fan of a particular author, one of the best ways to support the book or author is by leaving glowing reviews on Amazon.

In communicating with a wide range of readers over the years I have learned a few reasons why readers don’t leave reviews even though they loved the book or are a fan of the author.

The first reason most commonly given by readers is “I’m not good at writing things. I don’t know what to write.”

Another common reason is “I don’t know how to write a book review. It’s not like reviewing a toy or electronic device.”

If you’ve ever experienced either of these reasons I have great news for you! Leaving a book review on Amazon is now super easy!

Amazon now allows readers to provided customer feedback in one of two ways. Readers can still write reviews. What has changed is readers can now leave “ratings” in lieu of a review!

The rating is based on how many stars a reader wants to assign a book. The rating is averaged into the star average for the book. Let’s say a book has 75 ratings/reviews that average out to 4.5 stars. That source of the star ratings to determine that average could be 62 reviews and 23 ratings. The reviews are posted in the same manner as always. The ratings are only averaged into the star average for the product review.

This simple change will allow more readers to support their favorite author with ease!

So, what does this mean for the readers who read my stories? Please, take a moment to leave a rating if you feel uncomfortable writing reviews. I LOVE 5-STAR reviews but will settle for an honest and fair review.

I hope this information encourages readers to leave ratings/reviews on books they love on the Amazon site.

Announcements, News and the Latest Goings On

Dead Silent Earns USA Today Best Seller Status!

The Dead Silent Box Set, an anthology of 18 crime, mystery, and thriller stories earned USA Today Best-Selling status! My contribution to the Anthology, A Matter of Vengeance, introduces my new protagonist, James Benoit, “Heat” Heatley, a private investigator who works out of Houston, Texas.

Dead Silent is still currently on sale for $9.99 and is available from Amazon on Kindle Unlimited.

Announcements, News and the Latest Goings On

Interview With The Creator of The Street Games Series, L.K. Hill

I’m excited to add L.K. Hill to the list of authors being interviewed. She’s another of the authors in the 18 author omnibus box set of mysteries and thrillers titled Dead Silent.

Author L.K. Hill

To read the interview, just click here, or you can go to the interview page.

On sale January 19, 2021, Dead Silent is available now for pre-order at the super low price of .99 cents!

Dead Silent
Announcements, News and the Latest Goings On

Check Out My Interview with Author J.D. WEston!

I was lucky to score an interview with British thriller writer J.D. Weston, author of the Best Selling Stone Cold thriller series! To read the interview and learn more about J.D. Weston, just go to the interview on the interview page of this site.

Author J.D. Weston

Also, check out Weston’s upcoming release, Black Blood, The Frankie Black Files!

If you enjoy the interview and want to learn more about Mr. Weston, click here to go to his author website.

News and the Latest Goings On

Helping Authors Out: Tips on Writing Reviews

Once an author sends the work out into the world for others to read, purchase, and hopefully enjoy, there beloved story is in many ways at the mercy of the cold, cruel world out there.

To many authors, the worst thing that can happen is that nobody reads their stories. Some might say a bad review is the worst thing that can happen. I’d argue at least someone read your story and it evoked enough of an emotional response the reader felt compelled to write and post a review.

Why are reviews so important? I can promise you its not so the author gets their ego stroked. Nothing stings like a critical review of your defenseless baby and the positive ones, well, from the author’s perspective reviews should all be positive ones right?

Reviews are important because they are social proof!

Proof that somebody else:

  • invested time in reading the story.
  • enjoyed the story.
  • paid money for the book.

Reviews are the only factor in a potential reader’s decision to buy a book or borrow it on KU, but they are important and authors crave reviews – even if they may not want to read them.

In the back of nearly every ebook you’ll find a request to leave a positive and honest review on a variety of platforms:

  • Amazon (or your book retailer of choice)
  • BookBub
  • GoodReads

Periodically, I get comments from readers who tell me they loved one of my stories. I love these emails. The reader took the time to dig up my email address and send me a nice note. I always send a thank you and ask as politely as I know how if the reader would post a positive review.

Then comes the response. The reader informs me politely, they don’t know what to put in a review and that’s why they don’t leave reviews.

If you talk to even just a handful of authors, they will all tell a similar story.

If you’ve ever felt this way as a reader, you loved, or even just liked, a book and would write a review if you had a few pointers on how to do so, here are some suggestions and tips on how to leave a good (meaning a well constructed) review.

Use Keywords:

Keywords are terms used to help search engines find things. Use two or three key words, if possible in your review. For example, if writing a wonderful 5-star review of The Predator and The Prey, you would want to work in keywords like:

  • crime fiction
  • crime noir
  • future crime thriller
  • science fiction crime thriller

These descriptive terms help the reader know the genre or type of story they would be reading if they purchase or borrow the book.

Review Length:

Amazon, the king of ebook retailers, HATES short reviews. In fact, it is very suspicious of them and will often remove them, sometimes even penalizing the author and/or the publisher in some way. Amazon’s thinking is these are false reviews. One thing Amazon takes dead serious is reviews.

Everyone who takes the time to write and post a review wants the review to be approved and posted. I know I do.

Reviews need to be long enough to be helpful but not too long!

Reviews should be between 100 to 450 words in length. 100 words is long enough to make Amazon happy AND give a potential reader enough information for the review to be helpful. Anything over 450 words and the reader of the review might get bored or the reviewer might reveal too much of the plot.

Note: In the case of non-fiction, especially technical works, longer reviews are acceptable.

Don’t include spoilers!

If for some reason you, as the reviewer feel absolutely compelled to include a spoiler and give away the ending or a key plot twist, POST A SPOILER WARNING! This way, the reader of the review can decide whether or not to continue.

Some hints to get started:

  • State what you liked about the book! (Sully is a cool dude!)
  • What are some comparable books you’ve read.
  • If you were given a copy of the book in the form of an ARC – Advanced Reading Copy

A word about Advanced Reading Copies – ARCs:
It is NOT okay to pay individuals for reviews. Amazon in particular and other ebook/book retailers frown on this practice.

It is OKAY to give readers copy of books for free prior to the book going on sale so the reader can write a review. Stating this makes Amazon in particular happy as well as the other retailers.

Besides, stating you got an ARC means you were cool enough for an author to give you a copy to read and review!

A final thought.

I love five-star reviews! I need them to sell my books. But I will settle for an honest review – so long as it’s fair.

One of my non-fiction books got a one-star review early in its retail life and it absolutely killed the sales momentum. It took me two months to get Amazon to remove it.

The book was on strategy and tactics for basketball coaches. In a previous life I was a very successful varsity basketball coach, winning nearly 500 games in 22 season, averaging 22 wins a year.

The author of the one-star review was a coach who had never beaten me in the years we were in the same district. The review was nothing more than sour grapes on his part and was patently untrue and unfair.

When posting a review with 1 or 2 stars, especially if the book has just been launched and doesn’t have many reviews, you will kill any momentum the book has.

So think about it before you hit submit. Is the book truly so bad you need to destroy any chance the author has of success? If the answer is yes, go ahead and hit submit.

Just be certain its a fair review.

News and the Latest Goings On

Check Out My Interview With Author Dan Petrosini

I recently had the opportunity to interview author Dan Petrosini, author of the Luca Mystery series! To read the entire interview, you can click here to go to the permanently posted interview or wait and read it in the July 14th issue of The Inspector’s Report.

If you’re a fan of crime noir, mysteries, or thrillers, you’ll want to take the time to read the interview.

Announcements, News and the Latest Goings On

Friends In Low Places Audiobook Version Is Available Now

Sort of. I’m used to hitting the button on KDP’s Author Dashboard and in 72 hours Amazon is ready to sell your latest Kindle or paperback.

The same isn’t true with Audiobook distribution. It can take up to 45 days for all 43 audiobook retailers to have a new title listed and for sale.

How do you promote the launch of a title when it’s spread out over 45 days and guess who is usually the last retailer to go live with your new audiobook? Amazon.

As I type Friends in Low Places – Audiobook edition, is available from:

Kobo

Chirp

Google Play

Audiobooks.com

Friends In Low Places Audiobook
Announcements, News and the Latest Goings On

Coming Soon! More Lessons Learned in the process!

In 2008 I published my first book. It was a non-fiction title and to my surprise it sold well. Well enough to become an Amazon Best Seller. My third non-fiction book not only became another Amazon Best Seller, it generated enough revenue to pay for a new roof, replacement of our HVAC system, and some fun money left over. All of which was from one month’s sales!

Years later, I decided to try my hand at the fiction game. I’d had a brief flirtation with success in non-fiction and learned a tremendous amount about the publishing game, both traditional and indie. It had been a steep learning curve made bearable by the fact I didn’t need to master my knowledge of my subject matter.

Surely the learning curve to sell fiction wouldn’t be that difficult?

Like most things in my life, the instant I make a grand assumption I set my self up for a humiliating reality check. The learning curve has been steeper, more challenging, and financially more uncertain. I knew I would at earn back at least my costs with each of my 20 non-fiction titles.

While I learned the fiction game, my non-fiction revenue could underwrite my new enterprise. At the same time my youngest daughter was still a competitive gymnast, would soon be a freshman in college, and a host of other ongoing expenses.

While I misjudged the degree of the challenge I faced, and I’m glad I had some success under my belt writing non-fiction first or I would have quit long ago, I’m glad I took the leap.

Recently, I committed myself to yet another learning curve in the publishing world. My first audiobook will be available soon!

Friends In Low Places Audiobook

I selected to have the first episode of the Capital City Characters series of novellas, Friends in Low Places, as my first venture into audiobooks.

There is considerable expense for an indie author to have a print work, paper of digital, converted into an audiobook. Like it or not, being an author means you are an entrepreneur as well and there is financial risk in everything you do.

Friends in Low Places was a good choice. It is only 18 chapters long, tells the back story of a popular secondary character in my Sullivan thriller series, and is the first in a series. If sales warrant it, I plan to have Dolls, Dames, and Danger converted next with each title eventually becoming available as an audiobook.

Audiobooks are growing in market share. One of the things I learned in my venture into non-fiction was being an early adopter of converting my titles to ebooks meant I had little competition in my niche. I estimate that fact alone is why I have the roof over my head as I type.

The revenue generated from audiobook sales is earmarked to pay for the next title in line to be converted. My goal is to have every title in my backlist made available in audiobook form and if possible, for each new release to be available in digital, audio, and print versions upon release.

If you enjoy my stories and you like audiobooks, please support the effort. Friends in Low Places is reasonable priced! It will sell for $5.95 upon release.