For Readers (and Authors, too)
This blog is for anyone that reads my books, as well as for anyone else who is self-publishing, thinking about self-publishing, or just curious about what it’s like to be an author during rapidly changing times. Whenever you visit here, I hope you’ll share your own comments and thoughts. If you’d like to know whenever I post a new entry, please type your email address into the box in the right-hand column and check the appropriate box (and the newsletter one, too, while you’re at it).
Countdown to The Turing Test, a Tale of Artificial Intelligence and Malevolence
I see that it was on February 25 that I announced the completion of the first draft of Book 4 in the Frank Adversego saga. Back then, I hoped the finished book would be available in May. Hmm. Well, better late than never. In any event, I can now say with assurance that you can look forward to seeing the finished product, seven drafts later, within a couple of weeks. Here’s a brief recounting of what happens between a first rough, and a final finished, draft of a book by an Indie author.
Tales of Adversego, Book Four: On the Way!
Earlier this week I finished the first draft of the fourth book in the Frank Adversego saga. This time the technologies du jour will be artificial intelligence (a/k/a machine learning) and the Internet of Things (a/k/a IoT, a/k/a machine to machine, or M2M). Unlike the first three books, the technological capabilities (in the case of AI) will be over the horizon. So this time around, you won’t have to worry that the disasters I write about will actual happen. Yet. read more…
How to Run a Successful Free Book Promotion
While I regularly run discount promotions on my books, I haven’t run a free one in years. The reason? It’s mostly a road to nowhere when you only have one book. At most, you can hope that someone will read that book and recommend it to a friend. But with three now, well, it seemed like it was time to give it a try once again.
Alright, this is getting Spooky
So a year and a half ago I wrote a book called The Lafayette Campaign, a Tale of Deception and Elections. In it, a totally ridiculous conservative candidate leaps to the top of the polls, and then wins the nomination. Sound familiar?
Sadly, yes. But wait, there’s more.
Frank Rides Again!
Well, no peace for the wicked, as they say. After all, the third cybersecurity thriller in my Frank Adversego series has been out for ten days, so I’d better get busy, right? And as a matter of fact, in the last week I’ve come up with a plot that I’m pretty pumped about. Lots of surprises and plot twists, a solid and (God help us) timely political subplot, and another focus on cutting edge technologies with plenty of potential for making rue the day the patents were filed. This time around it will be the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence that will threaten to do us in. For a sample, read on.
Now Available – The Doodlebug War, a Tale of Fanatics and Romantics
Yesterday was the big day – fifteen months after tapping out the first few words of my latest satirical, political, cybersecurity thriller, I uploaded the files for Frank Adversego’s third world-saving adventure. This time around, the villains are an ISIS-like terrorist group that’s been even more successful at gaining ground in the Mideast. Now they threaten to bring the Western world to its knees.
Like the first two books, everything in the book is technically accurate and could actually happen. Frankly (no pun intended), this book scares the hell out of me. The reason? There seems to me to be little doubt that some day, perhaps as early as tomorrow, just such an attack will actually be launched. read more…
How to Hack a Presidential Election
According to Donald Trump, “the US Presidential Election is rigged!” That’s a bit disingenuous coming from The Donald, given that if it’s being hacked by anyone, the evidence is that it’s being hacked by the Russians. And not for the benefit of Clinton, either. But just how realistic could such a claim be? read more…
The Doodlebug War – Bookblurb
Indie authors not only have to learn how to be self publishers, but self-publicists as well. One of the core deliverables of any book publicist is usually referred to as “the blurb.” That’s the short piece that appears on the back of a paperback, and in a longer form, on the somewhat more generous real estate afforded by a hard cover book jacket. For an eBook, it’s most important function is to appear as the book’s summary at Amazon and any other on-line distribution platforms the author plans to use. Now that I’m on the countdown to launch The Doodlebug War, book three in the Frank Adversego thriller series, I’d love your opinion of what I’ve worked up so far. read more…
In Startling Reversal, Trump Claims Credit for Groping Women
To the dismay of the Republican leadership but the delight of his core supporters, Donald J. Trump today announced that he had, in fact, sexually assaulted each of the women who has come forward in the last several days. “And not just them, folks,” the Republican nominee for president said, “lots more – a huge number more. We’re talking hundreds – maybe thousands. There’s no way I can keep track.” read more…
An Interview with Ian Probert, Author of Dangerous (and much more)
Last week I posted a review of Dangerous, the latest book by mutli-genre author Ian Probert, concluding, “The result is a unique combination of themes and insights that does not attempt to reach any pat solution or heart-warming resolution. Instead, we leave the author and the boxers he has profiled the way we found them – damaged by their life experiences and making the best of the hard-won lessons they have learned along the way, but still entranced by the sport that has by turns served them so well and so dangerously.” This week, I’m following with an interview with the author, in which he tells us how and why the book came about.
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