Tag: ebook

“The 7 Most Common Misconceptions About Science Fiction Publishing” from io9

On By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Self-Publishing, WritingLeave a comment

Worth a read for any writers aspiring to be published by Tor, Orbit et al. Prepare to have your illusions shattered! (Maybe.)

2) When you’ve published a book, you’re immediately a famous author

Often it seems as though people believe that “as soon as you’ve had a book published you’ve made it somehow,” says Jonathan Oliver with Solaris Publishing. In reality, “it can take a long time to build up a profile as a writer and, unless you’re immensely lucky, your first published novel isn’t immediately going to shoot you into stardom and untold wealth. You don’t just write a book and rest on your laurels. You build up a reputation one book at a time.”

Yup, much like being a recovering alcoholic, becoming a famous author is a long process. Full piece here.

I’m Baaaaaaack

On By Dan HarrisIn Random, Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, WritingLeave a comment

[Silence. After a few moments, footsteps are heard. Faintly at first, but then louder as they approach. A man appears from stage left. His stride stutters for a moment as he glances toward the darkened auditorium, but he gathers himself and steps confidently to the microphone.]

*cough*

[He taps the microphone twice. Feedback whines through the auditorium’s speaker system, and the man winces. He moistens his lips and peers out at the shadowed space where the audience might be.]

“So. I’ve… been away for a while.”

Silence.

“I don’t know if anybody’s out there, but… well. Let’s just pick up where we left off, shall we?”

Continue reading “I’m Baaaaaaack” →

Shameless Plug Alert: Ascension Point is on sale at $0.99 TODAY!

On By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and FantasyLeave a comment

But not tomorrow. If you haven’t already grabbed a copy of the first book in The Unity Sequence, it couldn’t be a better time. In conjunction with a promotion I’m running I’ve slashed the price on the ebook to a faintly ridiculous $0.99 until midnight tonight.

It’s on sale at all the usual retailers, so you can grab it from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and iTunes.

Kind strangers said:

“Ascension Point is compelling, exciting, well-written and properly edited. It is good science fiction in every way.”

“Move over Star Wars… the story also bristles with imagination, twists, pace and a motley crew of characters with depth.”

“Already looking forward to the sequel.”

So I’m Not Writing Much at the Moment

On By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Self-Publishing, WritingLeave a comment

In case you were wondering. I do have a complete outline of my next book, the third in The Unity Sequence, and I’ve drafted the first four chapters. But a combination of the tendinitis in my left wrist flaring up a few weeks back, and the fact that Mrs. Dan and I preparing to relocate from Brazil to the US at the start of July–with all of the visa getting, flight planning, and shipping organising that this entails–has meant I haven’t put any words to digital paper in the last few weeks.

Not pictured: Me grimacing.

But never fear. I’m still confident I can get a first draft done by about October, and edits complete ready for publication before the end of the year. That’ll keep me on the two-books-a-year plan which should make me rich and famous by about 2024.

It’s good to have attainable goals.

Links Ahoy! Time Lords, Green Lanterns, Super-Humans and Superman

On By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy3 Comments

Over at The Wertzone there’s a stunningly in-depth history of The Time Lords, which is a fascinating read for anyone even remotely interested in Doctor Who. (I’ve never followed the show myself, shamefully. I’m just waiting for it to end so I can watch all the DVDs in one go.)

io9 have a funny article on why the Green Lanterns are the worst.

“For almost the entirety of the Green Lantern Corps existence, they have had one weakness — the color yellow. There was an impurity in the giant Green Lantern that powers their rings, so any time the Lanterns tried to manipulate or fight anything colored yellow, they’d be weakened or possibly even completely ineffective.”

Nice one.

While we’re there, check out this piece on augmented human intelligence.

“The real objective of IA is to create super-Einsteins, persons qualitatively smarter than any human being that has ever lived. There will be a number of steps on the way there. The first step will be to create a direct neural link to information. Think of it as a “telepathic Google.”

And there’s a NEW MAN OF STEEL TRAILER OH MY GOD I NEED TO CALM DOWN.

KNEEL BEFORE ZOD! He’d better say that in the movie at some point.

(I also can’t get used to Michael Shannon as General Zod, seeing as me and Mrs. Dan are currently watching Season 3 of Boardwalk Empire where he plays the tightly-buttoned ex-prohibition officer whose life has fallen apart. Check it out.)

Finally, Tor.com asks ‘Is There A New New Wave of Science Fiction, And Do We Need One Anyway?’.

Happy reading.

New Release: Venus Rising is Out Now!

On By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Self-Publishing, Writing7 Comments

It’s been edited, re-edited, and polished until shiny, and now Venus Rising–the second book in The Unity Sequence, and the follow up to the occasionally critically acclaimed Ascension Point–is available from all good online bookstores. Here’s the blurb:

_________________

A year has passed since the events of ASCENSION POINT, and the galaxy shifts uncomfortably as the opposing forces of progress and tradition threaten the new and fragile peace. Titan society teeters on the brink of civil war, the Commonwealth bristles with hostility towards the returning Seryn, while the Collective remains silent in the spaces between the stars, watching. And waiting.

VR-smallAgainst this backdrop of turmoil and unrest, the Peacetrooper brother of Commonwealth Senator Neela Kane has gone missing. Intelligence places him on Karak, an Independent desert world, and Operative Dante Zo is dispatched to bring him home—or confirm his demise. Quinn, employee of the shadowy Seryn Agency, is also headed to Karak, where rumours abound of a fierce and sudden tribal war centred on a mysterious woman with uncanny power: Venus, the Seryn’s most dangerous rogue agent.

Meanwhile, on Karak itself, other forces bring their pieces into play. Tasha, a young but mercurial assassin, is unleashed to kill the foreign witch and bring peace back to her home. But with a renegade Titan mercenary at her side, Venus will let nothing stand in the way of her plan—and the conquest of Karak is just the beginning. With a world in the firing line, and the fate of the entire galaxy at stake, only one question remains:

In the name of duty, is there anything that can’t be sacrificed?

_________________

I’m also delighted to be able to say that, like its predecessor, Venus Rising has been awarded ‘Outstanding in Genre’ status by Red Adept Select.

It’s available from Amazon.com in Kindle and paperback, and from Amazon.co.uk (Kindle, paperback). Those of you with other e-readers or iDevices can grab it from Kobo, Barnes and Noble or iTunes.

Thanks to all who’ve followed me on another journey from vague idea to publication–and happy reading!

Les meilleures ventes en Space Operas

On By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Self-Publishing, WritingLeave a comment

Ascension Point has stormed into the top ten of the Amazon.fr English-language Space Opera bestsellers’ list, and is rubbing shoulders with Iain M. Banks’ Hydrogen Sonata and Orson Scott Card’s Enders’ Game!

frtopten

 

(And a novel called WARPAINT, which I’ve not heard of before, but find oddly compelling for some reason.)

And what glut of sales do I have to thank for this new-found popularity, I hear you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

I sold one copy.

In five months.

So… I guess they’re not reading a lot of English space opera in France.

…And Back to Normal

On By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Self-Publishing, WritingLeave a comment

Just a quick update as promised: it looks like the sales bump from Book of the Day ad has now ended. The final tally was eighty-two sales on the day of the ad, twenty-two the day after, and just the one today. 105 total, which is 30 more than I needed to break even. Yay!

Here’s hoping a few more readers take the plunge over the next few days and grab a copy while Ascension Point loiters near the top of the Amazon Space Opera bestseller list, and that I get a nice big tranche of new customer reviews from all of these lovely sales. All in all, well worth it.

Edit The Second One, Sell The First One: Rinse, Repeat, Profit

On By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Self-Publishing, Writing2 Comments

Bit of a status update, this post. My wonderful editor–Misti from RedAdept–finished her initial edit of Venus Rising at the end of last week, and we had our edit kickoff call this Tuesday. Some of you might remember this post from the same point during the writing of Ascension Point. Highlights included an hour and a half on the phone to talk through all of the things that needed fixing, and a mammoth 619 comments from Misti on my first draft, as well as all of the inline edits she’d suggested. This time?

Twenty five minutes on the phone. 90 comments on the draft. (Fewer than on the first chapter alone of that draft of Ascension Point.)

So, yeah–it certainly seems like I’m improving as a writer. Hurrah! I’d thought so, but it’s nice to have something approaching quantitative evidence.

Anyway. Lovely wife is away at a conference this week, giving me a certain amount of spare time to fill. There are only so many back episodes of Chuck that I can watch in one evening, so I spent quite a lot of time on my edits, and sent Misti a new draft last night. It’s looking really good, and I’m confident the final draft of Venus Rising that I release in April is going to be great. Exciting times!

In other news (the ‘sell the first one’ part of the headline) today Ascension Point is Ereader News Today’s Book of the Day. This is far and away the biggest promo I’ve ever done. Greg at ENT gets thousands of applicants in January for the 240 BotD slots available for the coming year, so I was thrilled that he deemed Ascension Point worthy of one.

It’s $150 for the promo, and as you’ll have seen from my post a couple of days back I chopped the ebook price down to $2.99 to make it even more enticing to the ENT subscribers. 75 sales will see me break even, which would be a lovely goal to achieve; mainly I’m after some word of mouth and a few more reviews. After eleven hours–and with folks on the west coast of the U.S. just now getting home from work and checking their email–I’ve sold 49 copies and the book’s Amazon rank has gone from 673,000 to 11,000, so it’s looking pretty promising!

I’ll post final numbers in a few days once the bump is over, for the interest of the more writerly readers out there.

G’night!