The Insane 2017 Publishing Experiment Has Already Begun

Hey readers - Been a while since my last post, but I have a good excuse: I've spent a good chunk of my time actually writing. And you know what happened when I did that? I actually wrote some books.

Many, in fact.

As anybody who has tried to indie publish knows, it's getting more and more difficult to gain visibility on Amazon. To put that in laymen's terms, I simply mean it's getting harder to be noticed by readers.

Big name authors, i.e. those hard-working and fortunate enough to have gained a significant following already, are somewhat immune to this increasing difficulty as they have large readerships who are willing to purchase or borrow just about anything they put out. Think Stephen King and Lee Child. They can release a book per year and be just fine. Other big-time indie authors can do the same thing and still see significant sales.

As for the rest (most) of us ... well that just doesn't work. If you're lucky enough to score a breakout, record-smashing bestseller, then you can join the ranks of the elite on Mount Olympus and publish fairly infrequently. The chances of this happening to any author are about the same as winning the lottery.

It seems that Amazon's latest version of algorithms (how it directs readers to books, and how the website influences a reader's purchasing decisions) strongly favors new releases. This incentivizes writers, especially those looking to break through to the next level, to put out quality books as quickly as possible.

So that's my game plan for the rest of 2017. Write, edit, release, repeat. As quickly as possible. So that's why:

The latest Eddie McCloskey novel launched August 29th.

And one week later, the final comedic mystery, Not Safe for Work, in my Close of Business series was available too!

And in the next day or two, the first in my new amateur sleuth series will drop. Here's the cover:

The plan is to release several more novels this year and sprinkle short stories in between book launches. The goal is to utilize Amazon's algorithms to my advantage and increase my visibility. Fingers crossed this works, and I'll strive to send out periodic updates about my progress.

New Release - UNDO

If you like upper-YA, time travel, and books like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ...

... then maybe you'll like my latest, UNDO.

Here's the part where most authors will pitch you on why you should read their latest release. I'm not going to do that. My father was a great salesman, but I am not my father ;-)

What I will do is tell you about this book. It's a passion project. I've tinkered with it for several years. It's changed significantly over time. I could never seem to get it exactly the way I wanted. The idea of the story always seemed just out of reach and what I was writing was just an attempt at describing this thing in my brain that kept mocking me. Stories take on a life of their own sometimes, to the point where they feel almost out of the control of the author. This is one of those rebellious, recalcitrant stories which makes a kind of sense, since it's about teens.

UNDO was both maddening and a joy to write. The prose is highly-stylized, filled with made-up lingo, slang straight out of the Urban Dictionary, and other impenetrable argot in the vein of A Clockwork Orange. That was the best part of writing the book.

The plot is more convoluted than a Raymond Chandler novel. That was the worst part of writing the book.

The main characters are teens. I tried to avoid filling them with angst but ... their teens, for God's sake, and that's what they're usually filled with. At least in my experience.

It's a time travel book, which will have many people rolling their eyes. But it's a new take on time travel, so hopefully those who haven't rolled their eyes yet will give it a chance.

There are no zombies, vampires, fairies, trolls, or any paranormal critters running around. There are no dystopias, mutants, superheroes, mysteries, or world-ending threats only our teens can solve. There is a lot of pining, brooding, high school drama, and ambivalence as the characters try to walk the dangerous, contradictory tightrope that is adolescence.

This book attacks what I think is the most fundamental question we all have: who am I? What is self? Do people change? What makes us change? If we grow, are we no longer the people we used to be?

Those are the questions at the heart of the narrative. So if you find those sorts of philosophical wanderings of interest, then you might enjoy UNDO.