a new crime novel, and the revival of an old pen name

Back in 2011, when I first self-published a story on Kindle, I did it under the pen name Don Broma. The story I released was The ElectroLive Murders, and I decided to go with a pen-name because at that time self-publishing was still considered career-suicide for folks who had hopes of one day being traditionally published.

The ElectroLive Murders was a sort of breakthrough for me. Up until then, I'd been reading and writing "literature", meaning prose that was focused primarily on tone and theme. ElectroLive was the first successful attempt I'd made at writing from a more "pulp" perspective, meaning trying to put plot and action at the forefront. And the book that led me there was The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, one of the classic noir detective stories.

I'm a big reader, and I read a broad range of stuff. I love fantasy and sci-fi and horror, but I also love thriller and crime and mystery, especially hardboiled stuff like what Hammett wrote. After finishing ElectroLive, I was pulled farther along the range of more speculative-type fiction, the sci-fi and fantasy sort of stuff where the story takes place in a world that is significantly different than our own. But I've also wanted to try my hand at a more typical crime story, a story firmly grounded in the real world, but also capable of showing us that world from a different angle.

Dry Shores is my attempt at writing that sort of book. It's a crime novel set in Honolulu, and I'd like to think that the setting is a crucial part of the story. The book shows some of the seamy underside of Waikiki, one of the biggest and most Disney-fied tourist destinations in the world. But despite it's somewhat sordid subject matter, the book has plenty of humor and a fair share of action, too. There's even a bit of heroics thrown into the mix. I hope you'll consider giving it a try. You can click this link if you'd like to: Dry Shores: A Hawaii Crime Novel

self-publishing advice

My dad has a friend who's planning on self-publishing her first book soon. My dad forwarded the friend's email to me, asking for any advice, and I spent a few minutes thinking about it and wrote the following:

Self-Publishing Advice from M.F. Soriano

1. The place where I've learned the most about self-publishing--what works and what doesn't--is the Writer's Cafe section of the kboards.com forum. I recommend joining the site and reading extensively.

2. Sales mean most, and promotional efforts are most effective, during the book's first week live (ready for purchase). This is when Amazon is establishing it's ranking of the book, and it's easier to start with a good rating than to sell poorly at the start and then try to crawl back from the bottom of the Amazon ranking list. With that said, I recommend setting up certain promotions in advance. Two sites that promote books and will reserve a spot in advance (before the book is online and can be linked to) are kindlenationdaily.com and bargainbooksy.com

3. In general, be conservative with money and effort. There are limitless amounts of things you can do, and money you can spend, and the vast majority of it will have NO positive effect. Most self-published books sell less than 100 copies. If a book does better than that, and goes on to continue selling on its own, it pretty much comes down to positive word-of-mouth. So put some promotion in at the start to try to establish some visibility and give the book a chance to start selling by word of mouth, but don't keep dumping money and time and energy into it after that. You're better off putting that time and energy into writing another book.

I'd say a budget of less than $1000 for a book--70% for cover design/formatting for print and ebook versions, and 30% for that initial launch promotion--is all you really need. My most successful book was launched for $200 ($30 for cover and $170 for promotion). Spend more than that and you're probably not going to get a return on it, and lots of the more expensive services--like hiring someone to do web-design/public-relations/promotion--are VERY unlikely to ever produce sales in a way that will justify their costs. The book must have the ability to sell itself--throwing money at it will not change that.

A pretty good book for learning the basics of self-publishing in the digital book world is: Let's Get Digital by David Gaughran

Zombie City now in paperback

The paperback version of the Zombie City Omnibus is now available on Createspace. It's trade paperback size (6"X9") and 420 pages, and it costs $14.99. It should show up on Amazon in another few days, and they'll probably offer a discount when it's available. But if you want to order now, click here for the Createspace page.

Zombie City: Episode 5 is now available!

The final episode in the Zombie City serial is now available on Amazon and Smashwords. It should show up everywhere else (Barnes&Noble, iTunes, Kobo, etc.) within a few days.

Click here for Amazon.
Click here for Smashwords.

Thanks to all who have followed the story thus far!

Hardcore wRapper

The Goodreads Giveaway for Blood Brothers ended on July 14th, and Goodreads gave me the names of the six winners last night. I wrapped up the books today, and mailed them out. They might take a week or two to arrive--I sent them media-mail class, which is slower than regular first class, and I'm in Hawaii, so they've got to cross the ocean--but they're on their way. Thanks to everybody for participating!

ZC5 First Draft Finished!!! & Blood Brothers giveaway on Goodreads ends soon!

Yesterday I finished the first draft of Zombie City: Episode 5. Total word count is around 38K (like 120 pages). I wrote a little over 20K in the past two weeks, which is pretty fast for me. I'm going to start the revision process today, and hope to have it ready to publish in another week or so.

Also, my Goodreads Giveaway for six paperback copies of Blood Brothers is coming to an end on July 14th. If you haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for?

write wild! (ZC5 update)

Friday, June 27th, was my last day of work with the temporary job I started back in January. Since Monday, June 30th, I've been writing as if it were a full time job. So far I've written around 15K words for Zombie City Episode 5, which puts the total word count at just over 30K (around 100 pages). I think the story will take another 10K words to complete, and I'm hoping to finish the rough draft this week.

I've been writing wilder than I normally do, just jamming words into the keyboard and plunging ahead. The story has gone in some pretty wild directions, and I'm sure I'll need to do more revision than normal, but I'm having fun.