On the Radio Again!

I did a two-hour spot on the Midnight in the Desert radio show. This time I was talking about legends of the Wild West and spy shortwave radio stations. I love doing these radio spots. The host, David Schrader, is a real pro and makes it easy, and since all the listeners are invisible, I don't get stage fright!

Click here to listen to the show.

Results of an Amazon Ebook Giveaway

As I mentioned in my last post, last week I had a giveaway for my ebook Warpath into Sonora, a Western from the Apache point of view. This book came out last September and while it moved a couple of hundred units in its first two months, after that sales plummeted. It seemed that no one was much interested in Westerns. Sales got so bad that novellas I wrote five years ago were outselling it.

I decided to do one of Amazon's five-day giveaways to try to drum up some readership. I took an ad out on the Fussy Librarian's newsletter for free ebooks, which set me back five bucks. The ad went live on Thursday, July 27, the first day of the giveaway. Here are the numbers, broken down by country:

Thursday, July 27: US (296) UK (10) Germany (1) Total: 307

Friday, July 28: US (281) UK (4) Canada (4) Australia (1) Total: 290

Saturday, July 29: US (49) UK (3) Australia (5) Total: 57

Sunday, July 30: US (46) UK (3) Australia (1) Total: 50

Monday, July 31: US (41) UK (3) Canada (1) Total: 45

Grand Total by Country:  US (713) UK (23) Canada (5) Australia (7) Germany (1)

Grand Total: 749

What's most apparent is the big jump the newsletter gave me. It put Warpath into Sonora into the top five in free Native American (at times it was number one) and top 20 in free Western, where it remained for the rest of the giveaway. This, of course, added visibility and led to more downloads after the initial rush from the newsletter faded. I'll be using Fussy Librarian again.

One thing that annoyed me about those lists were the number of off-topic titles. In Native American, the Collected Stories of Conan vied for position with my book. The Western section was dominated by Western Romance, which is a different category. For a time there was also a romance featuring a muscular fellow with a kilt on the cover. I didn't realize my Scottish ancestors were actually Native American! 

What is also noticeable is the weak showing in the UK and other countries, lower than giveaways and discounts and even my regular full price sales figures. Generally the UK makes up about 10 percent of my overall sales, with the rest of the world being another five percent. This was not the case with this title.

So was the $5 expenditure worth it to give away so many books? I would say yes. First off, it got my book (and ads for my other books) in front of 749 sets of eyeballs. Also, it put my book into the Amazon algorithms so that it would show up in the "customers also bought" section. Since my sales had faded so many months ago, I was slipping out of that.

There was also an unforseen benefit. My Kindle Lending Library units went way up for that title, from almost nothing to the low hundreds of pages in the last couple of days of the giveaway and from then on. I suppose this was because people on Kindle Prime saw it and downloaded it. With these customers, while they get it for free like the regular customers who donated it, I get paid for page views. My ad has already paid for itself in real dollar terms. 

Free Summer Reading: A Western from the Apache Point of View

My Western novel, Warpath into Sonora is free through Monday. A blurb is below:

Arizona 1846
Nantan, a young Apache warrior, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter.
But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages.
Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

You can get it on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazons. Enjoy!

Old West Photo Friday: Exterminating the Buffalo to Exterminate the Indian

You've probably seen the above image. It shows a mountain of buffalo skulls and was taken c. 1870 on the Great Plains. It brings to graphic reality the slaughter and near extinction of a species that once blackened the plains in herds numbering tens of thousands.

What's often not mentioned in the history books is that the slaughter of the buffalo was encouraged by the U.S. Army. Commanders of the undermanned frontier garrisons, facing a tough war with the Plains tribes who were fighting to keep their land, realized that the tribes relied on the buffalo for food and clothing. Wiping out the buffalo, they reasoned, would bring the Indians to their knees.

During the 1870s and 80s, the army encouraged buffalo hunters to kill as many buffalo as possible. While Plains tribes would only kill a few and use all the meat and hide, white hunters would often only take the choice cuts like the tongue and leave the rest to rot. They would sometimes hold competitions to see who could kill the most and not even take any meat at all. Army bases generously supplied them with bullets and powder, and allowed their own men leave to go hunting. They would also look the other way when hunters jumped the border onto lands that were supposedly for Indians only.

As William Tecumseh Sherman, who for part of this time was overall commander of the U.S. Army, said, "If I could learn that every buffalo in the northern herd were killed I would be glad. The destruction of this herd would do more to keep the Indians quiet than anything else that could happen, except the death of the Indians. Since the destruction of the southern herd. . .the Indians in that section have given us no trouble." 

Below is an early postcard showing two buffalo hunters outside their sod house with their grisly trophies. The caption says what the Army thought this massive hunt signified: "The beginning of better things."

The Plains tribes had a different point of view. As Sitting Bull said, "A cold wind blew across the prairie when the last buffalo fell--a death-wind for my people."

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Warpath into Sonora out now!

My new novel, a Western from the Apache point of view, is now available on Amazon. Warpath into Sonora is my first Western novel so I'd love to hear from readers about how well I did. This is my second book to come out this week. The Last Hotel Room was released by Kindle Press on Tuesday.

Both books were on preorder and The Last Hotel Room sold much better, both in the US and UK. Warpath into Sonora didn't sell any preorders at all in the UK. I'm not sure why one did better than the other, since this is the first time I've tried preorders. The Last Hotel Room is more of a general interest novel than Warpath into Sonora, so that might be it. Thoughts?

A blurb for Warpath into Sonora is below:

Arizona 1846
Nantan, a young Apache warrior, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter.
But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages.
Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

Old West Photo Friday: A Dusty Day at Fort Defiance

In celebration of my two new Native American books, here's a photo of old Fort Defiance, Arizona, from 1873. This fort was established in 1851 to defeat the Navajo, who had been resisting white expansion into their land. Like most forts in the Old West, it didn't have walls since Native Americans almost never attacked large settlements, especially military ones, as they could not afford the losses this would incur.

It looks like dusty, miserable place, but for the soldiers it was home. It seems they're having a visit from some local Navajo. By 1873, most of the Navajo were at peace with the Americans. I've zoomed in on some of the figures below.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

My new novel Warpath into Sonora is available for preorder!

My new novel, a Western from the Apache point of view, is available for preorder on Amazon. Warpath into Sonora uses a lot of the research I did for my latest military history book, Apache Warrior vs US Cavalryman: 1846–86. I spent two years studying the Apache way of war and had so much left over that couldn't fit into the history book that I decided to write a novel. It even includes a recipe for making poison out of a rotting deer spleen! What more could you want? The blurb is below.

Arizona 1846
Nantan, a young Apache warrior, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter.
But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages.
Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

My Latest Military History Book Has Just Been Released!

Osprey Publishing has just released the seventh book I've written for them. Apache Warrior vs US Cavalryman: 1846-86 is the latest in their Combat series, which gives a soldier's eye view from both sides of a conflict. It was nice to get back to my old stomping grounds of the American Southwest, where I lived for many years. A blurb is below. You can see all my Osprey titles here.

From the 1840s onward, United States military forces clashed with the Apache, a group of Native Americans associated with North America's southwestern region. U.S. territorial expansion and conflict--first with Mexico and then during the Civil War--led to an escalation of hostilities that culminated in the defeat of the Apache leader Geronimo in 1886, although fighting continued into the twentieth century. In this study, the clashes at Cieneguilla (1854), First Adobe Walls (1864), and Cibecue Creek (1881) are assessed in detail.

Fully illustrated and featuring contemporary accounts and specially commissioned artwork, this history examines exactly how the Apache were able to pose such a grave threat to U.S. forces and how their initial advantages were gradually negated by the cavalry. Examining the tactics, equipment, and training available to each side over four decades of evolving conflict, this is an eye-opening combatant's-eye view of one of history's most intriguing campaigns.

Blurb and cover help please!

Hey all! Getting ready to release my next novel, Warpath into Sonora, a Western from the Apache point of view. My brother-in-law has come up with a couple of covers. I prefer the one with the photo.  I was thinking of having the subtitle "An Apache Adventure". He left it out and I'm thinking I might leave it that way. What do you think?
Also, I could use some help with the blurb, because blurbs are hard!

Arizona 1846
Nantan, a young Apache warrior just into manhood, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter.

But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages.
Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are young and inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

Military History Photo Friday: Images of the Mexican-American War

I'm currently taking a break from book four of my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series to write Warpath Into Sonora, a Western about a group of Apaches getting caught up in the Mexican-American War. So here are a couple of images from that conflict.

The top image is a daguerreotype of the Virginia regiment and Webster's battalion in Saltillo, Mexico, courtesy of the Yale Collection of Western Americana. It was taken in 1847 or 1848, making it one of the earliest military photographs ever taken. The men are formed up in front of a row of buildings while a couple of people on the right stare at the camera, probably wondering how that strange box on legs worked.

Below is a painting commissioned by the U.S. Army. It shows a fight in Resaca de la Palma, Texas, 9 May 1846. Captain Charles A. May's squadron of the 2d Dragoons (now 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment) slashed through the enemy lines in an attack that climaxed the opening campaigns of the war. A force of 2,500 American soldiers under Zachary Taylor shattered the Mexican force of 6,000 and ejected it from Texas

Warpath Into Sonora is proceeding well and I should have it to my beta readers by early July. Then it's back to the apocalypse!

Cover Reveal for my next Military History Book!

My next book from Osprey Publishing will come out this August. It's part of the Combat series, taking a grunt's eye view of the Apache Wars. I'm looking at the equipment, tactics, and personal experiences of Apache warriors and U.S. cavalrymen.

The cover will be higher resolution than this. I got this off the website and don't have a quality scan yet. As usual, this Osprey title will have several color plates showing battles and fighters. This will be my seventh book for Osprey. You can see all of my titles on my section of their website.

Wild West Photo Friday: Seth Kinman's Crazy Constructions

Now this looks like a saloon I'd like to hang out in! Just look at that furniture and the selection of hooch behind the bar. This is the bar of Seth Kinman, a famous frontiersman, taken in Table Bluff, California, in 1889. Kinman was a famous hunter who claimed to have killed more than 500 bears. He also shot any elk or Native Americans he saw and was considered dangerous to just about anything living.

His main claim to fame besides his itchy trigger finger was his skill at making furniture from elk horns and bear pelts. He gave examples of his craft to various presidents. Here he is posing with a chair he gave President Buchanan.

This bear chair had a special trick. You could pull a string and the head would pop out and gnash its teeth. A great way to break the ice at parties! The fiddle was made out of elk bones. Somehow I don't think old Seth Kinman would fit into today's world.

Old West Photo Friday: An Old General Store in the Territory of New Mexico

If you needed to go shopping in the little community of Farmington in the northwestern corner of the Territory of New Mexico back in the 1880s, this was the only choice. It was the A.F. Miller store, which also doubled as Miller's home and farm.

Farmington was a small town with little to show for itself except some sandy fields, but it was located at the junction of three rivers and thus saw a fair number of travelers pass through. When the town was incorporated in 1901, records show it only had 548 residents. It got a rail link to Colorado four years later, which helped the town grow. Farmington became briefly famous in 1950 when there was a wave of UFO sightings over three consecutive days. The local paper gave it extensive coverage, noting that about half the population saw up to 500 flying saucers dipping and weaving in the sky. I don't see any flying saucers in this photo, though.

The New Mexico Digital Collections claims this is New Mexico's first store and home, which is quite obviously untrue. Other sources say it was the first store in Farmington, a more believable claim although I haven't found any proof to back that up. As a researcher you have to be careful with your information even if you're getting it from a usually reliable source!

Insecure Writer's Support Group: What, it's February Already!!!???

Welcome to another post from the Insecure Writer's Support Group, where once a month we poor suffering writers air our insecurities to the world. This is the second post for this year, and that brings me to this month's insecurity.

Yep, all those New Year's resolutions have been delayed a month. January was filled with freelance work. I needed the money, folks, and my own projects had to go on the back burner. Besides a bunch of stuff for Upwork clients, I was also doing the edits for my next book from Osprey Publishing, an illustrated history of the Apache Wars, due out in the summer. Those edits took so much of my time that I didn't even get to blog last week.

I did get to do some work on The Last Hotel Room, a novel set in contemporary Tangier. I didn't finish it like I had planned, but it's almost there. Now that February is upon us and I have a lot of big freelance projects behind me, I'll be able to finish that and start, Emergency Transmission, the fourth in my Toxic World series of post-apocalyptic novels.

Now hopefully I can catch up and finish all my plans for 2016 by December 31. . .

So how did your January go?

Book Review: Iron Heart

Iron Heart by Jory Sherman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short and rather routine western about a teenager whose family is slaughtered by the Arapaho. He's saved by a mountain man and sets out to take vengeance on the entire tribe. The story takes place earlier than most westerns, sometime in the 1850s I think. Colorado is still called the Jefferson Territory, which is was until 1859. The descriptions of life at the time and the vast countryside are well done as one would expect from an experienced Western author like Sherman, who has some 200 books under his belt.
Our young hero goes through various adventures, becoming a deadly killer before eventually going after the chief of the Arapaho. The finale is rather perfunctory, as if the author was on deadline, and there are too many typos in the ebook edition. There was also something strange about the Native American dialog. When they are speaking English it comes out broken in B-movie Indian style. Fair enough, my Spanish can sound like that, but sometimes they talk like that even when speaking their own language to each other! Um, no.
If you're a fan of Westerns and see this on the shelf, it's worth grabbing, but there are heaps of other Westerns out there just as good.

View all my reviews

Wild West Photo Friday: Have you seen. . .The Thing?

One of the many signs advertising The Thing. Photo courtesy C. G. P. Grey.

OK, this is actually a modern subject, but who says the West isn't still wild? If you've ever driven along I-10 between Phoenix and El Paso, you've seen the signs about The Thing. Yup, both words capitalized. Every time. It may be the most advertised roadside attraction in the United States, with around 250 billboards hyping The Thing stretched across more than 200 miles of interstate.

I love roadside attractions. It's a dying bit of Americana that I hope never disappears. The Thing is in the tiny town of Douglas, Arizona, and features a roadside diner, shop, and of course the mysterious museum. I used to love going there when I lived in Tucson.

The museum is filled with displays "said to have been" owned by famous people. The Million Dollar Museum in Carlsbad, New Mexico, used a similar tactic to make dusty old things take on a new shine. Photo courtesy C. G. P. Grey.

The museum consists of three large steel sheds jam packed with dusty old exhibits--old guns, saddles, driftwood carved into weird shapes, and a large display of torture instruments. It all looks a bit tattered, but that's a part of its charm. There's no slick presentation like you'd get in a modern theme park.

On the walls hang garish yellow signs that proclaim the uniqueness and incalculable value of the displays. This is straight out of the carny handbook--hype up an attraction and once the crowd is in, hype it up some more so they don't have buyer's remorse.

The museum is filled with creepy folk art. There's even a whole room displaying of medieval torture techniques. Photo courtesy C. G. P. Grey.

As you make your way through the museum, you follow a trail of monster footprints leading to the final display--The Thing itself! Jump the cut to see what it is. If you're planning on going yourself, you might want to skip this spoiler.

Book Review: How to Write a Western in 30 Days

Write a Western in 30 Days: With Plenty of Bullet-Points! by Nik Morton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Want to write a western? This book will tell you how, more or less.

Much of the advice long-time western author Nik Morton gives is good, standard fare for any beginning writer. More experienced writers will find many pages not giving them anything they haven't seen in plenty of other how-to books and will end up skimming some sections.

Really only the research and theme chapters are specific to westerns, and they go over a huge topic too quickly. There are even occasional lapses, such as the list of Confederate states that doesn't include North Carolina, Alabama, and Florida! The border states that fought on both sides are also not mentioned, even though these provide the most grist for the writer's mill. There's also a handy appendix of western publishers which is still up to date, although of course it soon will be.

So what about the "30 days" part? Morton does, indeed, give a good overview of how to write a western novel (or indeed any novel) in a month. He relies a bit too heavily on planning and outlining for this author's taste, but all writers work differently and "plotters" will like his technique.

Books on specifically writing westerns are rare, so anyone interested in dipping into the genre should check this book out. Just don't expect to get a thorough treatment.

View all my reviews

Old West Photo Friday: Chief Satanta of the Kiowa-Apache

This is Satanta, a chief of the Kiowa-Apache who spent many years fighting the U.S. Cavalry, most notably at the First Battle of Adobe Walls where he fought a cavalry detachment under the command of Kit Carson. During the battle, Satanta used a bugle to imitate a cavalry bugler, giving false commands to the enemy.

Satanta was the last Kiowa war chief and was eventually imprisoned in 1874 after countless fights with the encroaching American settlers and the cavalry that protected them. Given a life sentence without hope of parole, he killed himself in 1878.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Wild West Photo Friday: Real Outlaws in Western Movies

This dusty gunman is Al Jennings, a lawyer from Oklahoma who became a bandit in the 1890s. He had a brief career of robbing banks and stores before getting injured in a shootout with the law and sent to prison. When he got out, he went back to being a lawyer and even ran for governor of Oklahoma!

When his political career didn't pan out, he decided to make movies where he played himself. Westerns had become a popular genre in the early silent films and he wasn't the only real-life bandit to sully the silver screen. You can read more in my post for Black Gate about Wild West Outlaws in Silent Film.

This image is a still from the film The Lady of the Dugout (1918) and is in the public domain.

Old West Photo Friday: Trooper of the Sixth Cavalry at Fort Union, c. 1888

The men of the U.S. Cavalry had a tough life in the nineteenth century. Stuck in uncomfortable barracks often in the middle of nowhere, they had to fight Indians and bandits while dealing with an unsympathetic citizenry who often blamed them for not be effective. Add to that bad food, harsh climate, and strict discipline, and you wonder why anyone volunteered.

This unidentified trooper of the Sixth Cavalry looks pretty proud, though. He was stationed in Fort Union, New Mexico, in the 1880s. I like this photo because you get a good view of his kit and the adobe brick building in the background he called home.

Fort Union was operational from 1851 to 1891, its soldiers playing a part in the Apache Wars, the Civil War, and various other border conflicts. It's now a national monument where park rangers will take you on a guided tour of the ruins while reenactors show off what life was like in those days.


Photo courtesy National Park Service.