Shameless Plug - My New Novel
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Interesting. I've really been struggling with advertising. I have some Amazon ads, but my click rate is so low that Amazon doesn't even charge me. They write it off rather than bother to charge my credit card for a few cents each month.
So I took out an ad on Google Adwords. And I had enough clicks to max out my daily budget cap within half an hour...
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@mott555 My ad campaign has like 5 ads, most of which have what I thought were thoughtful descriptions about the story. But one of them made me think "This is the stupidest, most click-baity thing I've ever written, and I'm ashamed of it." Guess which one people are actually clicking...
And this is why I don't like marketing.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
So I took out an ad on Google Adwords. And I had enough clicks to max out my daily budget cap within half an hour...
Or adwords is a lie. Something updated and it went from 10K impressions/views to only 5. Not 5K, just 5...
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@mott555 Figured it out. It changed to show me yesterday instead of today.
In other news, the top clicks for my ad are from people trying to book movie tickets online, or searching for English test answer keys.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
So I took out an ad on Google Adwords. And I had enough clicks to max out my daily budget cap within half an hour...
Your book is really popular with the bots.
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@adynathos said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
So I took out an ad on Google Adwords. And I had enough clicks to max out my daily budget cap within half an hour...
Your book is really popular with the bots.
Damn Russian bots! We need some Congressional hearings on how Putin's hurting American science fiction writers!
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I finally got a paperback proof I like. So I clicked the go live button.
The next day, Amazon rejected it during review because my "page numbers are not in order." First off, the page numbering was automatic, and second, I reviewed the proof and couldn't find any discrepancies in the page numbers. Unfortunately, the notification from Amazon was a "noreply" email address so there's no way for me to say "Hey doofus, check again because you're wrong."
Just submitted the same manuscript again. Maybe, if the file date is different, it'll get past whatever machine
learndumbing algorithm does the automated review.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
I'm going to hold off on any more free promos until I'm ready to release the sequel, and I'll put in a sample of book 2 at the end of book 1. Then hopefully the free promos can help drive people towards buying the sequels.
Speaking as a reader, this is probably your best approach to reach people like me. (But your chances aren't great.) I have approaching 400 books on my Kindle now, nearly all of them free things in the fantasy / SF area. Lots of them are, frankly, mediocre at best. In a few cases I've found something so compelling that I've immediately gone and bought the available sequels. Anything less than that tends to be filed as "that was pretty good, I'd be interested to see what happens next, might be worth following up" and almost invariably goes no further, because there's another batch of free stuff to read.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
The next day, Amazon rejected it during review because my "page numbers are not in order."
This is maddening. On the re-submission, they rejected it because "The barcode on your cover obscures other elements". Um, what does this even mean? Amazon sticks a barcode/ISBN on the back, in the bottom-right corner. Which obviously obscures a tiny portion of the full-page back artwork, but...why is that a problem?
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
Um, what does this even mean?
Amazon didn't like your book, but they're trying to let you down gently.
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Finally, the paperback is live. I'm not too happy about the price, I'm used to novels being $7.99, but the on-demand printing costs are pretty high.
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Firstly, very good book.
It's been in my queue for a few weeks now and I finally got around to reading it. The story premise was good and I really like what you did with the characters and how you developed them throughout the story. Tough moral decisions (and their consequences), space battles, and an insane amount of edge-of-your-seat tension combine to make this a really good read.
I'll leave an Amazon review when I get home from work later.
I'm looking forward to the sequel!
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@anguirel Thanks!
I'm stuck in the research phase on Book 2. Gotta write a war, and having never been involved in a war I decided to read some Napoleon, Clausewitz, and even an Army field manual or two lol. I feel a bit bogged down by it...but I'll get through it eventually.
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@mott555 I feel like you can pretty much get the war experience 100% by viewing Saving Private Ryan a few times.
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@blakeyrat said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 I feel like you can pretty much get the war experience 100% by viewing Saving Private Ryan a few times.
Or at least whatever you need to narrate/describe a war for a fictional book
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I would write a book, but it would come out as an endless first person run-on statement.
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@xaade That's already been done, and some literature critics thought it was a masterpiece.
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@remi The Road seemed pretty similar to that concept also. It's also an awful book. (The movie was decent, not great. The added flashbacks added at least a little substance to the nothing-sandwich of the original.)
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Shameless self-promotion: The ebook is on sale for $0.99 this week (US) and Ā£0.99 (UK). It also now includes the first chapter of the sequel as a preview.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
Shameless self-promotion: The ebook is on sale for $0.99 this week (US) and Ā£0.99 (UK). It also now includes the first chapter of the sequel as a preview.
Thanks for the reminder! Awaiting arrival of ppbk edition on the 26th.
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@mott555 I just bought the paperback as well
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@Placeholder Ha, I actually forgot about the paperback. It's so expensive that nobody buys it.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@Placeholder Ha, I actually forgot about the paperback. It's so expensive that nobody buys it.
I like to smell what Iām reading
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@mott555 Most of my physical books came from used book sales at the local library. Paying full price for a physical book once in a while isn't going to bother me one bit. It feels really good to set aside the e-reader every once in a while to read a book the old fashioned way.
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@Placeholder said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
used book sales at the local library
Those are great, and Goodwill is as well (books for fifty cents or a buck fifty in my area, IIRC!).
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@Placeholder said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
Paying full price for a physical book once in a while isn't going to bother me one bit. It feels really good to set aside the e-reader every once in a while to read a book the old fashioned way.
I keep thinking that. Then I try it (usually a library book) and get annoyed about how much work it is to lug everywhere.
Thanks for the sale notice, @mott555!
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
Shameless self-promotion: The ebook is on sale for $0.99 this week (US) and Ā£0.99 (UK). It also now includes the first chapter of the sequel as a preview.
Shows as $2.96 for me on the US store, and $3.99 on the AU one. But what the heck, I've heard good things.
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@Scarlet_Manuka said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
Shows as $2.96 for me on the US store, and $3.99 on the AU one.
Are you in Australia? There are probably some IP-detection shenanigans on Amazon's part, if I had to guess. Although $2.96 isn't even correct for the normal price...
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@mott555 from .ar shows as
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@mott555 Yeah, hence the AU store price being relevant.
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So, either the reporting modules don't take something into account, or my royalties during a sale are based on the ebook's standard price and not the discounted price, but I won't know for sure until the payments hit my account in 60 days...hmm...might be time to jack my regular price up to something insane and then push $0.99 sales every time it's eligible.
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@mott555 I suspect the former... paying you more in royalties than consumers paid just doesn't seem sustainable for some reason.
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@Unperverted-Vixen Actually, it's worse than that. Part of it is that I can't math...
However, I can see the royalty amounts on two different reports, and they don't agree with each other by a difference of around 30%. 
Lesson learned: Ignore Amazon's reports and go by the bank statements.
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@M_Adams said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@Placeholder Ha, I actually forgot about the paperback. It's so expensive that nobody buys it.
I like to smell what Iām reading
@M_Adams said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@Placeholder Ha, I actually forgot about the paperback. It's so expensive that nobody buys it.
I like to smell what Iām reading
*sniffs* ahhh.... Computers.....
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
Shameless self-promotion: The ebook is on sale for $0.99 this week (US) and Ā£0.99 (UK). It also now includes the first chapter of the sequel as a preview.
Boom. Have a few pennies.
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@mott555 So, I read it, but part way through I started wondering about something that was never explained. The greater culture has been cut off from Earth for so long that it's only remembered as a legend, presumably thousands of years... so why isn't there a language barrier?
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@Scarlet_Manuka said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 So, I read it, but part way through I started wondering about something that was never explained. The greater culture has been cut off from Earth for so long that it's only remembered as a legend, presumably thousands of years... so why isn't there a language barrier?
Some questions are not meant to be asked...
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@mott555 This is TDWTF, we make a point of asking those questions. :D
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@anguirel Thanks!
I'm stuck in the research phase on Book 2. Gotta write a war, and having never been involved in a war I decided to read some Napoleon, Clausewitz, and even an Army field manual or two lol. I feel a bit bogged down by it...but I'll get through it eventually.
great book;
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Are there any Goodreads.com users here? I'm running an ebook giveaway for the month of September. Sorry, it's only available to U.S. readers.
Book giveaway for Rescue at Waverly (Thaddeus Marcell Chronicles, #1) by T.J. Mott Sep 01-Oct 01, 2018
100 free copies available. Giveaway dates from Sep 01-Oct 01, 2018. Enter for a chance to win one of 100 copies of the science fiction novel Rescue at W...
Synopsis:
Earth is a lost, mythical planet, long considered to be an ancient legend. Those who search for proof of its existence are seen as eccentric treasure hunters or unmedicated lunatics with more money and ambition than common sense.
But one thing sets Thaddeus Marcell apart from the rest of the Earth-seekers: He was born and raised there. Abducted years ago, he's spent most of his adult life trying to find his way back home.
Now, Thaddeus is a mercenary and information dealer, running an elite mercenary company with an extensive intelligence network in hopes that his men will stumble across evidence of Earth as they work contracts across the galaxy. He's made some powerful enemies, and he still hasn't found his missing homeworld.
But everything could change when his spies locate a woman he once personally knew from Earth--as cargo aboard a distant slave ship.
His mission is clear. Thaddeus must take his fastest starships on a rescue mission before his men lose track of her ship. It's incredibly risky, for the distance is great, time is short, his enemies are many, and even some of his own Earth-doubting crew thinks he's insane. But he might finally have a clue that could lead him back to Earth...if he survives...
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@Luhmann said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
only available to U.S.
Belgium!
It's Goodreads' policy, not mine.
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@Scarlet_Manuka said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 So, I read it, but part way through I started wondering about something that was never explained. The greater culture has been cut off from Earth for so long that it's only remembered as a legend, presumably thousands of years... so why isn't there a language barrier?
Okay, this bugged me and wouldn't go away. Not the shared culture thing, but the Earth legend thing. In all honesty, it was just a plot device to explain the main character's origins and obsessions, and I never had major plans for it. Although Earth is partially explained eventually, I realized the series' ending would raise many more questions than are ever answered, and people like you were going to hound me over it.
So, I wrote up an outline for a sequel series which skips forward about a generation. It's provisionally titled "Secrets of Earth" and I won't say any more for now other than it should provide a lot of closure. It's good to figure this out now, while I'm still wrapping up the second novel and outlining the original series, so I don't have to risk major inconsistency.
Unfortunately, at my current pace of one novel a year, that series won't become public until around 2023. But I'm actually working on the entire series in parallel l so I expect my pacing to increase as I knock out the earlier stories and reduce the remaining amount of work, and I hope experience improves my writing speed as well.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@Scarlet_Manuka said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 So, I read it, but part way through I started wondering about something that was never explained. The greater culture has been cut off from Earth for so long that it's only remembered as a legend, presumably thousands of years... so why isn't there a language barrier?
Okay, this bugged me and wouldn't go away. Not the shared culture thing, but the Earth legend thing. In all honesty, it was just a plot device to explain the main character's origins and obsessions, and I never had major plans for it. Although Earth is partially explained eventually, I realized the series' ending would raise many more questions than are ever answered, and people like you were going to hound me over it.
So, I wrote up an outline for a sequel series which skips forward about a generation. It's provisionally titled "Secrets of Earth" and I won't say any more for now other than it should provide a lot of closure. It's good to figure this out now, while I'm still wrapping up the second novel and outlining the original series, so I don't have to risk major inconsistency.
Unfortunately, at my current pace of one novel a year, that series won't become public until around 2023. But I'm actually working on the entire series in parallel l so I expect my pacing to increase as I knock out the earlier stories and reduce the remaining amount of work, and I hope experience improves my writing speed as well.
About the ālanguageā thing, hereās how you āretro-splainā that..
Both the earthers are a) intelligent, b) used to dealing with multiple earth languages (cruise ship work), and due to that they picked up the language used in this part of space while they spent those years as slaves. Slaves that canāt learn are generally, in slave cultures ādisposedā of.
There, @Scarlet_Manuka can now rest easy.
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@M_Adams said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@Scarlet_Manuka said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
@mott555 So, I read it, but part way through I started wondering about something that was never explained. The greater culture has been cut off from Earth for so long that it's only remembered as a legend, presumably thousands of years... so why isn't there a language barrier?
Okay, this bugged me and wouldn't go away. Not the shared culture thing, but the Earth legend thing. In all honesty, it was just a plot device to explain the main character's origins and obsessions, and I never had major plans for it. Although Earth is partially explained eventually, I realized the series' ending would raise many more questions than are ever answered, and people like you were going to hound me over it.
So, I wrote up an outline for a sequel series which skips forward about a generation. It's provisionally titled "Secrets of Earth" and I won't say any more for now other than it should provide a lot of closure. It's good to figure this out now, while I'm still wrapping up the second novel and outlining the original series, so I don't have to risk major inconsistency.
Unfortunately, at my current pace of one novel a year, that series won't become public until around 2023. But I'm actually working on the entire series in parallel l so I expect my pacing to increase as I knock out the earlier stories and reduce the remaining amount of work, and I hope experience improves my writing speed as well.
About the ālanguageā thing, hereās how you āretro-splainā that..
Both the earthers are a) intelligent, b) used to dealing with multiple earth languages (cruise ship work), and due to that they picked up the language used in this part of space while they spent those years as slaves. Slaves that canāt learn are generally, in slave cultures ādisposedā of.
There, @Scarlet_Manuka can now rest easy.
As the author, my official response to this is "Dammit why are you people nitpicking and obsessing over the one little detail I intentionally chose to ignore for convenience while setting up something that I otherwise consider a realistic hard sci-fi universe?" Of course, I shouldn't be expecting anything different from TDWTF. I'm glad I cut the couple programming jokes that actually made it into my first draft
, although the flame wars generated by the eight readers worldwide who would have understood it could be amusing.One of the things that bugged me the most about Star Trek was the Universal Translator. I thought the explanation was far worse than simply pretending the problem didn't exist.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
I'm glad I cut the couple programming jokes that actually made it into my first draft , although the flame wars generated by the eight readers worldwide who would have understood it could be amusing.
Okay, now that I mentioned this, I know someone's going to ask. Originally, some of the initial difficulties with the stolen cryogenic hyperdrive were a result of bad software code. Specifically, the misuse of poorly-named global variables getting modified at runtime by other threads which thought the variable was for something else. It was almost a mini-TDWTF article, and I cut it because it was out-of-place and would have sailed right over the heads of 99% of science fiction readers.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
One of the things that bugged me the most about Star Trek was the Universal Translator. I thought the explanation was far worse than simply pretending the problem didn't exist.
Yes. The problem was not with a Universal Translator for known languages, but one that worked even with previously unknown societies with no connection with known ones.
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@mott555 said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
One of the things that bugged me the most about Star Trek was the Universal Translator. I thought the explanation was far worse than simply pretending the problem didn't exist.
There's like 3 episodes that have the universal translator not working as a plot point. (Also Hoshi's job in Enterprise is to program the universal translator, but the writers kind of forgot about that 7 or 8 episodes in and from that point on it just worked magically.) The bigger vexing thing for me in Star Trek is how Voyager shot 70,000 light years to the other side of the galaxy and yet everybody still has compatible communication gear, even from the first episode (ditto that with the other side of DS9's wormhole). Like... you use the same codecs and frequencies? How? Who determines those?
All the stuff in the alpha quandrant, well ok, despite the opening narration Star Trek ships rarely talk to aliens they've never talked to before, so it makes sense. (Actually thinking about it, it's a plot point that the Federation - Romulan war happened originally specifically because they couldn't figure out how to communicate with each other.)
Farscape had the "translator microbes" and similarly there's a couple episodes where the fact that not everybody has the microbes is a plot point.
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@blakeyrat said in Shameless Plug - My New Novel:
There's like 3 episodes that have the universal translator not working as a plot point.
I thought those were terrible episodes, but mostly because there's no way it would work anyway. Real-time word-by-word translation with no syntax lookahead that's perfect? And that somehow doesn't interfere with normal hearing despite being some kind of tiny hearing-aid thing that blasts a translation into your ears at the same rate as the original speech? And that makes aliens speaking in other languages move their mouths in a way that seems to be English? Way too much wrong there for me to allow suspension of disbelief.
I did enjoy the DS9 episode where the Ferengi accidentally time-travel and cause the Area 51 incident, and they fry their UT on the way. But that was the only one.
Amazon.com
All Quiet on the Western Front - Wikipedia
