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News from author

Martin Roy Hill

Mutiny In Space


If you haven't heard about it yet, this year's announcement of the Hugo Awards for science fiction writing was ... well, fractious. Charges of racism, homophobia, and practically everthing else were leveled, and in five categories there were no awards given. WIRED's Amy Wallace has written an in depth view of the controversies that marred Sci-Fi's prestigious award. Fine it here.
The Killing Depths, my military mystery thriller, is now available in all popular ebook formats. Now besides Amazon, you can find it at Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and all major ebook retailers.

Hearing Voices


If you're a writer, you've been asked this question: How do you come up with your characters? Well, now there's a scientific study to determine how writers hear their characters. The Writers' Inner Voices project at Durham University is surveying authors on how their characters develop via voices in the writers' heads. You can read about it here.
 
And while you're thinking about characters, read author John Rechy's 2014 essay on how fictional characters can invade your personal life. Find it here.

Murder Under the Oaks


The schedule for this year's Boucheron conference has been released. This year, the famed writing conference will be held Oct. 8-11 in Raleigh, NC. 

This year's guests of honor include Kathy Reichs, creator of the Temperance Brennan novels, and multiple award-winning mystery author Margaret Maron.

Click
here for the schedule.
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Organizing Your Review and Publicity Campaign

All writers need reviews and publicity for their books. For well-known traditionally published authors, it's not necessarily difficult. Your publishing house publicity office will send out advanced reading copies (ARC) to well-known reviewers who will publish their reviews in well-known book review publications. Piece of cake.

For the rest of us, however, not so simple.

You could, of course, do as many not-so-well-known authors do and ask your family and friends to read your book and leave a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere. Or you could do what some authors have been accused of doing, namely buying up copies of their own book to jack up its sales rating, then leave five star reviews under false names.

I have never done either. Okay, I admit to being tempted to doing the latter, but I have never done it. No, really, I haven't.

When I published my first book, Duty, I really just stumbled through the process of getting it reviewed. I was a little more experienced in the effort when The Killing Depths, my second book, launched, but it was still a haphazard process.

By the time Empty Places, my third novel came out, I had it down to a science. I'd developed a system for not only getting reviews for my new releases, but publicity as well. And it's really quite simple.

Long before I release any new book, I create an Excel file for it. Within that Excel file I have separate spreadsheets, or tabs, for Reviewers, Interviewers, Reader Sites, Paid Advertising Sites, Press Releases, and so forth. Then I start my research.

While each Excel file will have the same tabs, the information in those tabs is often different for different books. For instance, Empty Places is a mystery thriller while my latest book, Eden, is a sci-fi novella. In the first instance, I had to find reviewers who read mystery thrillers; in the second, reviewers who read science fiction. Don't just ping the same people repeatedly. Start fresh with each book.

Continue reading...

Spy novelist Joe Dacy II has published the concluding book in his Esquelle trilogy. Esquelle (Es - Cue - EL) Données (DU - Nee), a French technologist turned agent, disappears on her honeymoon only to show up again as a small child. This novel explores the farthest reaches of quantum computing, nanotechnology, and Zero Point Energy, and will change everything you thought you knew about the nature of time travel. You can find all of Joe's books on his web site.
 

SEX!!!

(Now that I have your attention.)


Do you like writing sex scenes? Playwright and novelist Ellen Byron doesn't. In a guest post on the Do Some Damage blog, Ellen provides a hilarious and honest explanation why she hates writing sex scenes. (Eeeewwwww...)

Read Ellen's post here.
 
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