The contest runs from now until 4/5 – the official release of AMOD. Even if you’ve already pre-ordered, I would LOVE it if you would add the book to your Goodreads queue.
I, quite nerdishly, adore Goodreads. I know the ecosystem has gotten a tinge more corporate since Amazon aquired them – but it is my first stop for reviews, ideas of more books to read, and my never-ending TBR pile is virtually curated. And if you’re looking to do AMOD and me a solid – you passively adding it to your queue alerts all your friends – and THEN THE SYNERGY OF SOCIAL MEDIA DAEMON BLACK LILITH WHOAAA will happen. If you want to be my Goodreads friend or – more unsettlingly – follower you can also do that here.
Please share this link around, that is what it is for. You DO have to be a Goodreads user to apply – but other than that, anyone can enter and win a free copy.
Time for another giveaway! I’ve been sitting on these download codes for the Spell/Sword audiobook for long enough. My birthday is at the end of the month and to celebrate I want to GIVE 10 people a free download of the book from Audible.com. Admittedly I’m GIVING you these with the idea that you will GIVE me an honest review and GIVE me your undying support and perhaps GIVE me a sandwich if I am hungry at some undisclosed date in the future. All of this giving, it warms the heart.
10 people will win the free download, and one person will win the The Gray Prize.
The Gray Prize
$50.00 gift certificate to local book store of your choice OR I take you to lunch and tell you what nice person you are (location/travel permitting)
Unique, one of a kind Gray Witch mug, hand-made by the author with a Sharpie.
Your choice of one (1) of my completed Gundam models
One Question That I Must Answer Truthfully*
So, how do you enter?
Send me a picture of yourself with a SPELL or a SWORD. [counts twice if your picture has BOTH]. You can email to me directly spellswordcontact AT gmail DAWT com OR tweet to me @gderekadams. If you tweet it, because of the native social media boosting properties, I will add a x3 multiplier to your entry.
1 chance – Picture of you with a SWORD
1 chance – Picture of you with a SPELL
2 chances – Picture of you with a SPELL AND A SWORD
Tweet your entry – x3 Chance Multiplier
Other bonus attacks for pictures:
+2 chance – cosplay
+4 chance – Spell/Sword cosplay
+6 chance – bad cosplay
+10 chance – bad Spell/Sword cosplay
+5 chance – somebody famous
+5 chance – impressive location
+5 chance – unsettling composition/spooky
+50 chance – Lev Grossman
x4 Mystery Multiplier – ????
The contest ends at midnight on January 31st, 2016.
No purchase necessary – all entries will be entered into the drawing for the download codes and The Gray Prize. I’ll do the drawing on February 1st and announce here the winners and contact you via email to get you your filthy winnings.
NOTE: I’m going to want to share these pictures with the Internet, obviously – if you are NOT OKAY with that, you can still enter. Just let me know in the email that the images are not for sharing. I’m planning on sharing the 10 winners – along with any other pictures I get that are super hilarious or poignant.
Any questions? Drop them in the comments below – let’s go! I’m very excited to see what you folks come up with.
*What is truth? I am a secretive writer, and much of the Grand Plot of Spell/Sword still lies in shadow. This is your chance to ask me one question about the books that I have to answer truthfully and fully to the best of my ability. Or I guess you could waste it asking me about my political views or something? It’s your nickel.
Now available on Audible, Amazon,and iTunes. I haven’t been talking about this much, because I’ve had lots of AMOD on my plate – but this has been quietly progressing in the background and now it’s here!
For those unfamiliar:
Audiobook!
Rime is a wild mage. She can bend the very fabric of reality, but at a cost – a cost to her health and her sanity. Her power is unstoppable but it leaves her empty, weak, and often unconscious. Jonas is a squire on the run – running away from the shadow of murder. They travel together to find the one person that can save Rime from the wild magic, from the inexorable madness and death that comes to those who are born to ignore the rules of the universe. The Gray Witch of the Wheelbrake Marsh, a creature out of a fairy tale.
The audiobook was produced and narrated by Rachel Ahrens (no web presence! – this just adds to my theory that she is some sort of wandering inter-dimensional sorceress) – and I cannot be more pleased with the final product. Her voice is wonderful and hypnotic, great shifts for the different character voices – I feel she really nails Jonas and the Gray Witch most deliciously. She was an absolute delight to work with and I cannot wait for everyone to enjoy her performance of the text. When you listen – MAKE SURE you leave a review on Audible – much like me, Rachel is just getting her start, and reviews are the lifeblood of writers and voice actors alike.
I hope this will be another doorway into my stuff in preparation for the release of Asteroid Made of Dragons coming from Inkshares in April. I really should wait until I have more time to properly launch this audiobook – but that just isn’t my style.
SO! It’s two days before Christmas – and I have promotional codes for free downloads of the audio book ( a 19.99 value, son!). How about I’ll take five of them and raffle them off to whoever comments on this post? Let’s say by 8 pm EST on Dec. 25th – sort of a last minute, last second Christmas gift. You have to comment here on my blog – no where else counts to be entered into the raffle. I’ll pick 5 people randomly from the comments and send them the promotional codes that night.
I’m giving my books away this week – in hope that you will think about helping me reach my dreams and pre-order my new book. I put out the first two all on my own – now I’m working with Inkshares.com – a crowd-source publisher and their Sci-Fi / Fantasy Contest sponsored by Sword and Laser. Normally I would have to get 1000 pre-orders to get my book published – but in this contest the top 5 campaigns by the end of May all get published. For a raggedy self-publishing scamp like me, it’s the chance of a lifetime.
So here we are! I’ve gone through my friends and contacts online and begged, lied, pleaded, wept, and cajoled. And, almost unbelievably, so many of them have stepped up to support me. But now I have to convince you – total stranger – to take a chance on my new book Asteroid Made of Dragons.
So I want to meet you half-way — I want to give you my first two books for free.
There they are – the fruits of my brain garden – please take them. You can learn more about each here and via the reviews on Amazon. The short version is: if you are a huge dork, well I pretty much wrote these books specifically for you.
And now, your part of the bargain! Because we have entered into some sort of bizarre internet blood-pact – bang a gong and summon the lukewarm spirits. The link to campaign page for the third book is below. Take a look! It’s another adventure for my heroes Jonas and Rime – but fret not! I write episodic fantasy – not epic – like any good episode of X-Files or Sherlock Holmes investigation, you will be provided with the minimum required knowledge to enjoy the adventure du jour. There are a couple of sample chapters already up of the third book, but if you enjoy those FREE BOOKS I JUST GAVE YOU – the third book will not disappoint.
Pro-Tip: If you sign up for Inkshares itself, they give you a $5 credit – which you can use towards my book!
Well – I guess that’s it? I don’t know quite what else to tell you, stranger. You are on my blog now, so there’s a metric ton of my other ramblings, short stories, and other errata – plus I just GAVE YOU TWO FREAKING BOOKS.
This is always where I come a little unglued at self-promotion. You have no reason to help me – but I hope you do! Even if you decide not to pre-order – maybe you know some people that would like some free books – or maybe people who would really like to help a book about a nuclear winter caused by a meteor crammed full of mythological creatures get published.
There are those people, right?
Leave comments here if you have questions, concerns, or burning rages — or come burn me down @gderekadams on Twitter.
I’m giving away 5 free copies of the paperback on Goodreads! The contest ends on release day of 11/26 so get in there now if you’d like a copy. You do have to be a member of Goodreads to enter -but why aren’t you already you book nerd, you?
Feel free to share this around – this is one of the best ways to get some easy publicity on Goodreads and have people add the book to their queue.
So, I gave my book away on Kindle for five days, how’d that go?
This is mainly for the edification of other self-publishers, or folks who are just super nosy about my BIZZ.
Big Caveat, right off the top. I am a terrible and slap-dash marketer. There are many, many people on the internet who are much more consistent, pervasive, disciplined…and successful than I am at self promotion. So this was an experiment, with little leadup-or follow through. I knew I was going to attend DragonCon, that place is bursting at the seam with nerds, fish in a barrel, right?
So, here’s what I did to prepare.
I went through my Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard, and activated the days I wanted for the Free Promotion. You are
Promotional Card in the Wild
allowed 5 days per…quarter? I went ahead and set it to run over all of Labor Day Weekend, and then the Tuesday after. The rationale being, that if people find out about the sale, or pick up some of my promotional items, they can download the book when they get home.
Talked it up here on my blog, and also on my Facebook fanpage. [Become a fan, if you’re so inclined! There’s all sorts of randomness I drop on the fanpage, that doesn’t merit a full blog post. Button’s on the right hand side of the page.]
Made a post in a Free Ebook subreddit, to hopefully attract some folks to my blog.
Printed 1000 business cards to pass out at Dragon*Con, each with the cover art on one side, and a quick pithy description of the special and the book on the back, with a QR code that lead directly to Amazon. [This cost me about $50 bucks.]
Printed up some special shirts for my local friends who were attending the convention. [And also stuffed a few cards in their hands to pass out themselves.]
Quick pact with a lesser demon.
Things I Didn’t Do [and Probably Should Have]
There are tons of sites and twitter feeds that advertise Free Ebooks. I researched a few, but it all just seemed so sleazy and mechanical. I’m as desperate for readers as any other Level One Author, but I’m hoping to start this out with something a little more personable than a free Ebook spam. There probably are better venues out there that I didn’t find, but as usual, I ran out of time and decided not to worry about it.
Attend Lev Grossman’s panel and denounce him.
Throw some cards at Jim Butcher like ninja stars.
Make a lengthy pact with a major demon.
So, a fair amount of time invested, and a small amount of cash. How did it turn out!
Free Downloads of Spell/Sword: 315
315. Copies of my book. Out there in the world. Hopefully 315 copies that will be read and cherished and reviewed on Amazon or Goodreads. Spell/Sword is sold through two services on the Amazon platform, Kindle Direct Publishing and CreateSpace for the paper version. Because of this it’s a little fuzzy on getting exact sales numbers, especially going back all the way to April when the book was released. Prior to this special, my lifetime sales of the book were somewhere between 125-175 copies. That means in one weekend, I increased the number of copies of my book in the world by easily 200%.
I’m sure other authors have had more success than I, with much better planned promotional strategies. But I’m stoked, regardless! For the amount of time and money required, this thing was an excellent experiment.
As usual, I ramble. Let me know if you have any questions about any of these numbers or details, or about the processes used to make all of this happen.
To quote the inimitable Stanley Spudowski — if you’re the sort of person who likes to wait for the last minute, well THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE LAST MINUTE.
This is the last day of the free Kindle special — go to Amazon post-haste and download my book for freeeee!
Look, you’re a smart person. I’ve just spent a whole week listing reasons why my book is going to be free, and why you should take a few seconds to download it for free this weekend. But I know none of that matters. You are a discerning individual, who makes decisions in their own time –in their own way.
So if this doesn’t convince you, The Seven Reasons My Book is Worthless:
And even if you don’t trust me, and the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads don’t convince you.
Even after all that, you still won’t give Spell/Sword a chance when it costs you zero moneys — well, then I guess you’re just a hard nut to crack.
I mean lighten up. It’s just a little space on your Kindle, or your smartphone, or your PC.
What do you want from me — to look into your eyes, convince you in person, get on my knees?
VERY WELL.
Dragon*Con Challenge
But only if you’re under a waterfall.
I’m going to be at Dragon*Con in Atlanta this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If you need even more convincing, comment on this post with your location or a way to contact you — and I WILL FIND YOU.
Anywhere on the grounds of Dragon*Con.
Unless, you know, I’m asleep or something.
I will come to you and look into your eyes.
And music will play. And fairies with pan-flutes will appear.
And a cobalt-steel gryphon will coalesce from the ether, rockets blazing.
And you will download Spell/Sword for free on your freaking Kindle.
And here’s the one where I stop being self-deprecating, and lean on the Vainglory Lever.
In my unbiased opinion, Spell/Sword is the most important book currently available in print. It’s cheeky, unbalanced, not professionally edited — it’s peppered with the mistakes that a Level One Fantasy Author, such as myself, is bound to make. But it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter. Because I’m on to something. I’m up to something. I’m taking a swing at the whole epic fantasy genre. Tropes and troubadours and troubles and trousers. I want to break it and honor it and love it and push it screaming off a cliff.
And I’m doing it wrong, I’m making mistakes. But in the rubble I will stumble into moments of glory and wonder.
Reason #7: Because It Isn’t
I wrote a book! I worked very hard on it, and damn if it isn’t unique and spiffy.
Run down to the bookstore, or glance over your Goodreads lists. How many of them have all of these things?
– fairy tale mythos
– an eel-powered juke box
– a female protagonist with no romance subplot
Artist – Andrew – ~shu-no-kurohi. [My first fanart!]– a male protagonist who uses a sword, but isn’t really that good at it
– roller-skating frogs
– a long lost civilization whose technology and architecture have completely defined the modern era — but are only barely mentioned or explained (Trust me, it’s for your own good. If you get me going about the Precursors, the Arkanic civilization, the books are going to get really, reeeeaaaaallly long.]
– lesbian bards who’s sexual preference is of almost no interest or relevance to the narrative
– foreshadowing that doesn’t resolve in the same book (it’s episodic story structure, DEAL WITH IT)
– bunnies with mechs
– villains who aren’t
– heroes who aren’t
– the only book that lives in what Terry Pratchett called the ‘consensus fantasy universe’.
– one really mean turtle
– The Gray Witch [shudder]
This book is my first controlled stab at establishing Swordpunk, and even through all my anxiety and hubris — I think it matters. I think my work matters. I think there are a lot of people who can pick up the melody, and will want to sing along.
I’m going toe to toe with authors with a lot more experience, the armory of a publisher at their back, and let’s be honest, almost as much talent. I’m never going to get there if more people don’t read the book, and join the Swordpunk Army.
Or I could be wrong. I could be talking a great game, and the book is still garbage.
audiobook for long enough. My birthday is at the end of the month and to celebrate I want to GIVE 10 people a free download of the book from 
![Artist – Andrew – ~shu-no-kurohi. [My first fanart!]](https://spellsword.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ac.jpeg?w=218&h=300)
spell-sword.com 