Where Art Thou, My Writing Muse?

Well, my writing muse hasn't visited very often or for very long this past week. That being said, I've still made some progress on the new e-novel, Arizona State Guard: Freedom's Forge. The page count keeps growing and the story continues to come together in my mind as the days go by!!! I'm even getting some ideas for the cover art that I need to share with Sean in the near future.

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Just a reminder that I will be running a Kindle Promotion sale for my e-novels* starting at 12:00 a.m. (PST) February 12th and running through 12:00 a.m. (PST) February 19th. Sale prices will be:

Arizona State Guard: Bloody Border -- $2.99 (normally $3.99)

Arizona State Guard: Target Terror -- $2.99 (normally $3.99)

Chaos on Terra-Prime -- $1.99 (normally $2.99)

Foothold on Terra-Bravo -- $1.99 (normally $2.99)

Crisis on Terra-Bravo -- $1.99 (normally $2.99)

The Terra-Bravo Saga Volume 1 -- $3.99 (normally $5.97)

Death Haunts the Stars -- $3.99 (normally $4.99)

My e-novels can be found at my Amazon.com Author Page: www.amazon.com/author/jeffreyfortney.

* This is for my e-novels only and does NOT include Honing Your Instructional Skills which is already at the bargain of 99 cents!

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On a side note, I do intend to revise Honing Your Instructional Skills inside and out in the near future with new and revised content, add in some illustrations/photos, and a new cover. It's just not on the front burner...yet!

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Not much else to report at this moment. I'll let you know how the promotional sales goes after it's over. 

Stay safe out there!

Jeffrey 

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2016

The Year of the e-Books - Part IV

January 2016 is off to a very good start! Sales are up (moderately, but up none the less)! With my books now exclusive with Amazon.com's Kindle Select Program (except for Honing Your Instructional Skills), Kindle Prime members can read each of these books for "free".

Never fear, authors aren't getting ripped off by this! Kindle Direct Publishing has established a multi-million dollar fund to pay authors based on the number of pages read per each book. An my pages read numbers are doing well.

I'm planning to run a price promotion on each of the books in the very near future for each of the books! Need to do some planning before I do this, but I'll let you all know when, for how much, and for how long! Stay tuned.

In the meantime, work on Arizona State Guard: Freedom's Forge is picking up steam! In going back through the novel, I've reached the point at which I stopped prior to the Christmas/New Years Holidays. I've made some changes along the way and am now writing fresh material as I go! Setting the stage with some of the villains at the moment. (Boo! Hiss!)

I've spoken with Sean to let him know that we need to start planning for the cover of Freedom's Forge. I want to be sure that we're ready to e-publish in mid-April! 

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www.amazon.com/author/jeffreyfortney

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Wishing all of you a great week!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2016

Big Changes Coming!!!

Death Haunts the Stars and The Terra-Bravo Saga - Volume 1 (box set) are doing well on Amazon; particularly in the Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read program. This program allows Kindle Unlimited subscribers to read Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select editions of e-books without having to purchase the books.

Now, it may seem that the authors are getting screwed. How are they paid for these reads? Well, Amazon/Kindle set aside a portion of the KU subscription dues paid to fund each page read by a reader! So, I enrolled both Death Haunts the Stars and The Terra-Bravo Saga - Volume 1 in the KDP Select program and I am indeed seeing the page counts racking up for those books and have calculated the royalties being generated.

So, this means some changes in the way my other e-books have been published. I've pulled Chaos on Terra-Prime, Foothold on Terra-Bravo, Crisis on Terra-Bravo, Arizona State Guard: Bloody Border, and Arizona State Guard: Target Terror from Smashwords.com (and thus, from any of their other distributors). This may sound counter-productive, but truth be told, I haven't been generating much of any royalties through Smashwords.com. This is not a reflection on them, but on my limited advertising budget to direct customers to them and other online bookstores.

I need to give it a couple of weeks for the e-books to clear then I'll enroll them in KDP Select. That will give me seven e-books available through Kindle Unlimited's reader program. Time will tell how much that increases my royalties!

So, Amazon.com's Kindle Store will be my exclusive sales point for my e-novels moving forward (unless some major event occurs).

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With all of the above going on, I haven't had much time to work on Arizona State Guard: Freedom's Forge. But, that will change starting tonight!

This evening I plan to revise the outline for ASG:FF then begin a major writing push. I'd really like to get this book published by mid-April. There! I said it! I've gone and given myself a deadline so by God, I've got to keep it! (OY VEY!!!)

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In the meantime, here's my usual advertising for the current books:

Amazon.com Author Page: [url]www.amazon.com/author/jeffreyfortney[/url] 

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Winter is out there folks, so let's be careful! If you have to travel in the snow and ice, slow down and be sure to get there alive!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2016

When Vacation Ends, Work Begins Anew!

Well, my big annual vacation for 2015 is drawing to a close in just a few hours. Tomorrow, I return to the office recharged and ready to tackle another year of creating new training materials for the Fire Services around the world!

I must say, this has been a very busy vacation:

- The family gathered the weekend before Christmas for our annual get together. Gary's fiancee, Stoni, was able to join us this year so the entire family was together.

- Death Haunts the Stars did not receive an exclusive Kindle contract, so I put the book online at Amazon's Kindle Store (Here!)

- I finalized the glossaries and other updates for the Terra-Bravo novels AND finished the collected box set, appropriately named The Terra-Bravo Saga - Volume 1! The new editions of the three original books and the new collected edition are available at Amazon's Kindle Store:

Chaos on Terra-Prime

Foothold on Terra-Bravo

Crisis on Terra-Bravo

The Terra-Bravo Saga - Volume 1

- And a little home/property repair necessitated by some high winds around Christmas-time which blew down part of our fence and a gate. I still have a little finish work to complete, but it will get done! The cold weather has not helped with the repairs!

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And here's my new joint advertising artwork for my novels over the next few months:

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Enough for today! Things to do before the day is done.

Y'all be safe out there!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2016

Moving On!!!

Well, despite a great job by one and all, the Kindle Scout campaign for Death Haunts the Star did not receive an exclusive Kindle contract. So...this morning I began the process of e-publishing it through the Kindle Direct Program. It's becoming easier to do with each book and I found only one minor typo in my book description!

Long story short, Death Haunts the Stars is now live on Amazon's Kindle Store at: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019VBUUH6. Will be doing a lot of advertising over the next few weeks to hype the new novel (while simultaneously working on a boxset of The Terra-Bravo Saga and a new novel! Fortunately, it's my annual big vacation and I have only one major household project [fixing a broken gate]).

Part mystery, part suspense and science fiction...all action! 

In the early 23rd Century, Humanity is spreading out to the stars. Colonies have been started on many new worlds. The Terran Colonial Vessel Conestoga is one of many star vessels carrying hundreds of colonists to their new homes. 

But the Conestoga's latest voyage to the colony world Camadin is different! First, a number of dangerous incidents occur involving some of the crew of the ship. Then dozens of disruptive teenage passengers endanger the ship. When a passenger dies, questions arise about the cause. 

Captain James Rivers, Security Chief Mac Bradley, and the crew of the Conestoga face a seemingly endless series of threats aboard a ship that is light years from Earth. It appears someone aboard the Conestoga is trying to sabotage their mission! But who could it be? And what is their motive? 

As the danger increases, can Rivers, Bradley, and the crew stop Death from claiming the lives of everyone aboard the Conestoga? 

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Now that Christmas is over, I'm sure there are a number of you out there who received e-readers or tablet PCs as gifts. The Kindle app can be downloaded and installed on many of these devices! So, with the hope that you may need some new e-books to read, let me recommend my other books:

You can locate these e-books on my Amazaon.com Author Page at www.amazon.com/author/jeffreyfortney.

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Well, the U.S. has experienced rain, sleet, freezing rain, snow, blizzards, flooding, and tornadoes all within the past couple of days. Hopefully, you and yours have remained safe. Be careful in the days, weeks, and months ahead!

Gotta run!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015

Down to the Wire!!!

Only 4 more days to nominate Death Haunts the Stars for an exclusive Kindle contract at http://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/19M67224KD07R. I must admit to being disappointed. Not at my loyal readers, but at the project's performance overall. The numbers are down and we've not hit "Hot" or "Trending" once. *sigh*

Here's hoping for a last minute burst of nominations to get us across the finish line in good form! If not, I can still e-publish Death Haunts the Stars through Kindle as I've done with my other e-books. So THAT will be one of my projects over the Christmas and New Years Holiday Break! 

I don't plan to e-publish this one through Smashwords.com. With all of my advertising over the past couple of years, I've only sold 11 books through that site and its partners. Better to focus on Amazon's Kindle.com and ramp up the advertising for that location.

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On another note, I've begun creating a box set of The Terra-Bravo Saga for sale through Kindle! This will combine Chaos on Terra-Prime, Foothold on Terra-Bravo, and Crisis on Terra-Bravo into one volume, with a nice 3D box set cover to boot! Along the way, I've upgraded the covers for all three books and will be developing a glossary for the box set (later to be added as appropriate to the three separate books). I hope to get this completed over the Holiday Break, as well, and get it posted to Kindle.com! 

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With only a few days left before Christmas, some of you may still need gifts for family members and friends. If I may, please allow me to recommend my current set of e-books. Amazon.com makes gifting a snap! My e-books can be accessed through my Amazon author page at www.amazon.com/author/jeffreyfortney.

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Christmas and New Years are a wonderful time of the year to spend with family and friends. Many of you may be traveling over these two holidays and I pray that each of you reaches your destinations (and, later, homes) safely and that your celebrations are happy ones!

I'll be posting one more blog before New Years. So, until then...

Merry Christmas!!!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015

Update on "Death Haunts the Stars" Kindle Scout Campaign

Good evening, everyone!

I just wanted to give you a little update on the Kindle Scout Campaign for my new e-novel, Death Haunts the Stars! 

Well the campaign is still live and will remain so for another 12 days! We haven't hit "Hot" or "Trending" yet, but I'm trying to remain positive that we will! Our daily number of nominations dropped for a couple of days, but are picking back up. So we still have a chance to get our numbers up high enough to trigger "Hot/Trending".

So, please, continue to tell everyone you can about the Kindle Scout program and my campaign to earn an exclusive contract for Death Haunts the Stars! Ask them to go to http://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/19M67224KD07R and click on "Nominate me". That's all there is to it.

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Check out my other e-books at www.amazon.com/author/jeffreyfortney.

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I've had a couple of sick days this week. (Darned flu shot!) So, I didn't get as much writing and advertising in as I would have liked. Will pick back up soonest, I promise!

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With the days until Christmas (and Christmas and New Years vacation) counting down, I ask you all to plan ahead for your holiday travels and festivities. Stay safe out there!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015