Tales From The Toxic World Out Now!

Toxic World fans, the wait is over! 

The latest installment in the series is out--Tales from the Toxic World. Here are nine stories featuring some of the most popular characters in the series, plus new characters and a town the citizens of New City have no idea exists! This collection expands the Toxic World setting. The fifth novel in the series, Election Day, will come out next year.

A scavenger with a wondrous artifact from the Old Times sets out to avenge his past …
The sheriff of a post-apocalyptic shantytown investigates a baffling murder …
Two fishermen in a toxic sea make a startling discovery …
A peddler has to compromise his faith to help others and not end up dead …
Here are nine stories from a grim future that’s all too possible. The world has been destroyed by war, pollution, and environmental degradation. Now only a few lonely outposts struggle to keep the light of civilization lit amid vast toxic wasteland filled with human predators.
This collection is a long-awaited addition to the popular Toxic World post-apocalyptic science fiction series. It’s sure to please fans and newcomers to the series alike.

You can buy Tales from the Toxic World here. 

To get it FREE, sign up for my newsletter, Sean's Travel's and Tales, the latest issue of which is coming out later this week. There will be a coupon in there for your free download.

More Honest Numbers from a Kindle Giveaway

Back in March I blogged my numbers for an Amazon free promotion of my post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope. Click the link to see the data. I just finished another giveaway, this time for The Scavenger, a 10,000 word short set in the same world. It also includes the first three chapters of Radio Hope as a teaser.

As usual when I do a promo, I tweeted and blogged about it, and I bought an ad in Book Barbarian, a newsletter catering to fantasy and science fiction fans. It goes out to more than 12,000 subscribers and my ad was posted on their Facebook page, which has 12,867 fans. The ad cost $25 and ran on May 6. Here are my numbers broken down by country:

Thursday, May 5: US (47), UK (3), Germany (1), Spain (1)

Friday, May 6 (Book Barbarian ad): US (616), UK (1), Germany (1), Netherlands (1), Canada (1), Australia (1)

Saturday, May 7: US (118), UK (2), Germany (1), Canada (1)

Sunday, May 8: US (52), UK (1)

Monday, May 9: US (29), UK (1), Canada (1)

TOTAL: US (862), UK (8), Germany (3), Spain (1), Netherlands (1), Canada (3), Australia (1)

GRAND TOTAL: 879 downloads

As you can see, there was a major spike on the day of my ad, and a sizeable tail for the following day. That launched me into the top five in two categories, where I remained for the next couple of days.

Otherwise the giveaway was rather lackluster. I have a couple of explanations for this. First off, this was the fourth time I've done a giveaway for this title, meaning quite a few people who search for this genre have already downloaded it (or decided they're not interested!). Second, note that my categories are in Kindle Short Reads. When Radio Hope got in the top ten for post-apocalyptic novels, that led to a lot more downloads than I'm seeing this time. It's been shown time and again, with my data and others, that readers prefer full novels to shorts. It appears that considerably more people are checking the top free books in novels than in Kindle Short Reads. I'm one of those people!

It's also interesting to note how few downloads I had outside the US. Normally about 15% of my sales on any given month are to the UK, with another 5% to the rest of the world combined. But for this giveaway non-US downloads accounted for only a little more than 2% of the total. The Radio Hope giveaway also didn't do so well beyond the US. I have no idea why this is the case, although part of it certainly is that low initial downloads kept me from getting into the top ten of these markets, hurting visibility and stifling downloads.

So was it worth the $25 I paid for the ad? Yes. Getting my book on 879 devices will lead to a lot more readers, some of whom will go on to buy the other books in my series. These giveaways are part of an ongoing process to raise the profile of my writing. There won't be any overnight successes, but a gradual climb upwards. It's already been heading that way thanks to my previous giveaway.

I hope this helps some of my fellow writers out there!

Possible blurb for Radio Hope. What do you think?

My trip to Tangier is winding down and now I need to think about my tough publishing schedule over the next year. First up is my post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope! Below is the proposed blurb. I'd love to have your feedback. Blurbs are tough.

In a world shattered by war, disease, and pollution. . .

. . .a female gunslinger longs to find a safe refuge for her son. . .

. . .a frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump. . .

. . .the assistant mayor of humanity’s last city hopes he will never have to take command. . .

. . .only to find their lives changing forever when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the world through conquest.

Radio Hope is done!

Done! My post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope came out to 71,161 words, 315 pages, and took 28 days!

Tomorrow: editing!

If you want to check out the first 51,000 words, Radio Hope is a free ebook on Smashwords. Anyone who sends me feedback will get a free copy of the ebook once it comes out in February.

Whew! Now that that's over I can get back to more blogging.

I met the National Novel Writing Challenge, so have a book on me!

My post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope made it past the 50,000 word mark yesterday, meaning I beat the National Novel Writing Month challenge in 20 days. As I write this the word count stands at just over 51,000. I think I have about 10,000 more words to go, certainly no more than 15,000. Barring a real apocalypse, I'll be done at the end of the month.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've posted this work-in-progress as a free ebook on Smashwords, available in all formats. I've now updated it, uploading an edited version with several more chapters added. The reason I’m posting this for free is so that you, the reader, can have input in the creation of this novel. What do you like about it? What do you think needs work? What characters would you like to hear more about in later Toxic World books?

Alerting me to any typos would be much appreciated too. :-)

Drop me a line at seansontheweb (at) yahoo (dot) com with your feedback and I’ll make sure you get a free electronic copy of the final book when it’s released on February 1. And keep an eye on this blog for regular updates!

Please repost and share!


Oh, and here's the blurb-in-progress:

An aging citizen of civilization's last community finds leadership thrust upon him. . .
A female gunslinger yearns to find a place to raise her son away from the chaos of the wildlands. . .
A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to a village mired in toxic waste. . .
And with the Righteous Horde descending on New City to convert and conquer, all three will have to rely on each other to survive.




Graphic courtesy flickr user Sarah G.

Websites for Writers: Fanac.org

Science fiction is a rare bird. I don't know of any genre that has created such a loyal and active fan base. Since Amazing Stories started a letters column back in the early 1920s, sf fans have been corresponding, arguing, publishing fanzines, and organizing meetings and conventions. Fans of other genres do this too, but not with the energy and longevity that sf fans do.

This is why this week's Website for Writers is The Fanac Fan History Project. "Fanac" is fanspeak for "fan activity", and a dictionary of fannish terminology is just one of the many goodies you'll find here. You'll also find various histories of fandom, photos from old gatherings and conventions, and lots of info on Worldcon, the granddaddy of all sf conventions that's been going since 1939.

My favorite section is for fanzines, with many rarities scanned in their entirety. I did a zine of my own back in the Nineties and I've always loved them, so I come back to this section regularly. Some famous names crop up in their pages, but they weren't famous back then!

Dedicated science fiction fans and writers will already know about this website. I'm really suggesting this to writers not in the community, so they can see what's possible. The world of sf fandom is a warm and welcoming place, and other genres need to encourage their own communities. A lot of great writers have risen from the ranks of fandom, and it's always nice to be in a network of folks with the same interests.