Some of you are aware that I have delved into the Genera of Paranormal Romance. As such, I am working with a completely different group of proofers, as there isn’t a lot of crossover readers from Fantasy and Sci-Fi. One of the things that has boiled up from their reviews is that I needed to take the sex scenes to the next level. One proofer even commented that my current scenes were like two virgins on a first date.

Now why this is relevant to all my readers is I took a bit of heat in the Alice books because they had more sexual detail than some readers preferred to see. Other readers complained I stopped too soon. In conversations with an agent, he recommended I roll it way back on general principle, and thus the Ranger books are very PG.

This new feedback has me questioning the early criticism and maybe I should not have backed away from my first attempts after all, I just needed to better set expectations in the description? To help answer this question I have attached this poll, looking for reader feedback on this very perplexing question.

Coming Soon

Do I need to sex up my stories?

Yup you really need to Spice things up, no more kids stories

Keep it just the way it is, fades to black at the right time

Roll it back even further, I want to pass these to my kid to read.

Results Vote

Do I need to sex up my stories?

Yup you really need to Spice things up, no more kids stories 30 ( 53.57 % )

Keep it just the way it is, fades to black at the right time 24 ( 42.86 % )

Roll it back even further, I want to pass these to my kid to read. 2 ( 3.57 % )

Back

Reaching out to all you Goodreads members. They are doing the 10th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards. I would love it if you would do a write in on my Lost Ranger title for fantasy.

Thanks!!

OK, for all you non-Kindle Unlimited readers who have not taken a chance on the $3.99 for my Lost Ranger fantasy I have good news. starting today it is reduced to $0.99 starting at 11 am eastern.

Most of you probably don’t know, but Amazon has consolidated their Print on Demand services under the Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP. For us authors that had been in the Create Space services this meant moving our books over and re-registering them if you will.

In following the new process as I moved them over, I was able to drop my print prices to a more reasonable, in my opinion, price range. You will now find all my hard copy prices between $7.99 and $9.99, far more typical for a traditionally printed paperback.

This in no way effects my eBook sales, it as only applicable to the hard copy divisions under Amazon.

Most of you know that I try and read every review posted on my work. It’s not because I am some secret masochist or that I am looking for reader validation and praise (OK, mostly not for the praise).

I do it for two reasons. The first is to see if I am hitting the mark for what the readers want to see in my stories. While that’s almost the only feedback I get outside of the proofers and though they are great, they are limited in number and don’t cover every demographic. You will see in a lot of my reviews an acknowledgement of thanks or a possible reply to a comment from the reader.

The second reason I look over my reviews is to correct mistakes. The wonderful thing about eBooks is I can release a corrected version and everyone who purchased a copy can get the update for free.

Now why am I droning on about all this? Well Amazon has made some changes on how they allow reviews and in some cases are removing them. The intent is good as they are trying to fix the problem of fake reviews which hurts us all.

Because of this I am getting fewer reviews and am having a hard time tracking when new ones show up.  So, if you post a review and don’t see my reply, it’s only because I didn’t catch the update with the shifting numbers.

Tantor, my audio book publisher, reached out to me to let me know early sales for Ranger and Dragon’s Teeth were fantastic! Just wanted to say thanks to all of you that enjoy that format.

Dragon’s Teeth released this morning with over 1800 pre-orders. thanks to everyone!

Alliance of Independent Authors asked me to do an interview. I think it came out pretty well!

Self-publishing Success Story: Charlie Lamb, Engineer Turned Indie Author