Archive for the 'Ebooks' Category
March 7th, 2013 by jdsawyer
Some of you might 
have run across the sneaky early e-book release already, but this is the official announcement.
Over the last few years, on this blog and elsewhere, I’ve gotten a lot of questions from authors and podcasters and other people wanting to either get into the audio habit or to up their game. This book answers all of them, and a lot more that you didn’t know you had. It’s written in the same quirky, fun style as Throwing Lead: A Writer’s Guide to Firearms and the People Who Use Them
Available now in ebook and paperback, AWP Books proudly presents my newest nonfiction book Making Tracks: A Writer’s Guide to Audiobooks (And How To Produce Them). Now available at fashionable ebook retailers everywhere, available in the next day or two from most fashionable paperback retailers (find links to order now at the bottom of this post), like these:
Paperback
DRM-free ebook for your Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or other reading device.
Also check out my interview today on The Creative Penn where I talk about the book and delve into some of the story behind it.
If you have ever found yourself tempted to pick up a microphone and join the podosphere, make an audiobook, or learn to be a voice over artist, this is the must-have, easily-digestible book you’ve been waiting for.
Back cover copy follows:
Continue reading ‘Released: Making Tracks’
March 5th, 2013 by jdsawyer
Today’s blog post 
was supposed to be a big release announcement, but I’m holding that for a few hours because I received a wonderful email from Mark Coker (CEO of Smashwords) informing me that my story Control Room is featured as a Breakout Book in the UK iBookstore today. This is my first time on the front page there, so do tell your iBookstoring friends!
Huge thanks and kudos to Apple and Smashwords for the big support boost!
Click Here for the announcement on the Smashwords blog.
Click Here to buy the story now at the iBookstore.
What is Control Room, you ask? Well, it goes something like this…
One room…
Infinite possibilities.
He sits alone, with no name. A faceless creature with a single purpose, he lives in a small room. He knows only his consoles, his buttons, his screens–the surfaces of a control room for a great machine that he calls “the universe.”
Or, if you’re not of the Apple tribe, grab it for your preferred device by looking in the column at far right.
June 20th, 2012 by jdsawyer
Sometimes you can’t help
smiling a mile wide just typing an announcement, and this is one of those times (for me–at least I assume I’m the one typing. Yup. Okay, then, on with the show). Today I get to unveil to you my latest literary abomination, one that fulfills a lifelong dream to write a fun pulp sci-fi adventure story. A good short pulp needs a good long title, so here you go:
Suave Rob’s Double-X Derring-Do, a Short Novel of Long Odds.
One Surfboard. Two X-Chromosomes. All Man.
Climbing Olympus Mons put him on the map, winning a gold medal in asteroid jumping got him great press, and children everywhere tune into watch every time he skydives from a space station, but Suave Rob Suarez is just getting started. Together with his childhood hero and his stunt partner, he’s gonna stage the biggest daredevil stunt the universe has ever seen:
Surf a supernova. Or die trying.
Read a sample here, or get it now on your Kindle, Nook, or any other reader.
February 3rd, 2012 by jdsawyer
Ladies and gentlemen 
and those who prefer neither title, I am very proud to announce the continuation of The Clarke Lantham Mysteries.
This is the biggest one yet, ringing in at nearly the same length as Predestination, and the adventure scales with the book. Teaming up with his assistant Rachael and his new squatter Nya Thales, Lantham gets to match wits with alien hunters, Chinese assassins, and FBI agents in his attempt to solve an apparent alien abduction before the only witness is…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the back-of-book copy, to give you a better feel for what’s going on.
The California Academy of Sciences, a bastion of integrity in scientific public relations, has agreed to play host to one of the most valuable travelling exhibits in the world: a Mars rock with microbial alien life. But the attention it’s drawing isn’t just international, it’s interstellar. When a commando team of gray aliens steals the rock and abducts a security guard, in full view of the cameras, the head of the security contractor has only one place to turn: Clarke Lantham Investigations.
Clarke Lantham already turned down an alien-related job earlier in the week, and has had his fill of kooks, cranks, and crooks of all kinds. Unfortunately, with an old client suing him, a employee to pay for, and a new ward chewing through his finances, he needs the paycheck. This time, though, he’s not the only one looking for a missing person: the FBI, Lloyd’s of London, and the Chinese Ministry of State Security are all breathing down his neck.
From the dark underbelly of the Tongs slave trade to the shark-infested waters of Bolinas Bay to the skies far above the concerns of mere mortals, Lantham races against spies, assassins, and conspiracy theorists to find the missing man–and the treasure that went with him–before the theft becomes a diplomatic incident between the world’s most fearsome superpowers and the alien overlords they allegedly support.
When the field gets that crowded, someone’s bound to get hurt. But even that might be okay for Lantham…if he didn’t have to sleep on the couch.
Read the first couple chapters here.
Then, grab the book and dive in. It’s available right now through Read the rest on your Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.
I hope you have at least half as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Enjoy!
January 10th, 2012 by jdsawyer
Before I start, I should make something plain:
I like Amazon–they’ve been incredibly, uncharacteristically work-with-able on a level that’s unprecedented in the publishing industry. I am delighted to have my books available in their store, I’ve had an excellent time working with CreateSpace for POD books, and very much enjoyed access to what is currently the biggest online storefront in the world.
I need to get that straight right up front, because I’m seeing other authors do something that I think shows a fundamental misunderstanding of both their relationship with Amazon, and the business model of the independent author.
You see, Amazon has started offering KDP select, where an author enrolls their books for renewable periods of 90 days on an exclusive basis. In exchange for the exclusivity (and for allowing Amazon to lend your book to prime members at rates yet-to-be-determined), the author gets the promotional tool that everyone’s been gagging after for two years now:
Continue reading ‘Why the Flight to Amazon?’
January 7th, 2012 by jdsawyer
Being that it’s the beginning of the year, I’ve been a busy boy laying my evil plans. Since some of you have asked on twitter what’s looming on the horizon for the next few month, here’s a tentative schedule (subject to change if I work faster or get bogged down):
Audio
January:
Launch a Kickstarter campaign in concert with Gail Carriger. Yup, we’re gonna be working together on something audio-oriented (this will happen toward the end of the month).
Recording Free Will (big project) and the first 3 Lantham audiobooks
February:
Free Will podcast re-launches (probably. If not Feb, then early March, as I’ll be travelling in late Feb).
March:
Commercial release of the first (or more) Lantham audiobooks
April:
MAYBE the DF10 soundtrack, if the timing works out with me and Schadey
Ebooks
January:
Throwing Lead (the long-awaited “Gun Book”) will see the light of day this month.
Silent Victor (Clarke Lantham #4) will also show up late this month.
Chicken Noodle Gravity (Lombard Alchemist #2, featured last month on Escape Pod) will release as an ebook
There are two other short stories as well that will release, assuming I can find time to do the cover art.
February:
The Auto Motive (Motives, book 1–a steampunk urban fantasy YA adventure series–might release after I get back from my travels in March)
He Ain’t Heavy (Lantham #5, again, this is a maybe)
March or April:
The Summer Town (standalone Southern Gothic romance/horror)
Sunday Morning Giraffe (Lombard Alchemist #3, short story)
Several other short stories, perhaps as many as five
April or May:
Probably either Student Culture or The Last Uploader (both standalone SF novels, both currently in progress)
Paperbacks:
Janurary:
Down From Ten
Predestination (re-release–we had problems with the printer that have dogged us for months on this one)
Sculpting God, Vol. 1
A Ghostly Christmas Present/Smoke Rings (Lantham #2 and #3 in a single ace-double style volume)
February or March:
Throwing Lead
Free Will
Silent Victor
April or May
The Auto Motive
He Ain’t Heavy (assuming it winds up being long enough for a solo paperback release)
The Summer Town
The Last Uploader or Student Culture
— —
Projects that might jump to the front:
The book version of Principles of Contracts (with lots more content and a better title)
A podcast to accompany Throwing Lead
— — —
Like I said, this is all tentative and subject to change at my imperious whim. The stuff slated for January is basically a lock, the stuff further out is less certain. There’s also more going on behind the scenes here that is not directly tied to writing output, some of which will produce results that you’ll see on the blog and in other places around the ‘net.
And if you’re an Antithesis fan, don’t worry. I start work in earnest on Avarice (Antithesis #3) in April.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled Internet 
December 1st, 2011 by jdsawyer
I’ve been waiting for this day 
a long time. When I first wrote Down From Ten as a screenplay, a production company in Canada was going to be handling rights clearances for the Alan Jay Lerner music incorporated into one of the scenes. When I did the podcast, ASCAP was very helpful. But as a print book, I had to wade into a rights clearance arena I’d never worked with before.
It was worth it. And the folks at the company that manages the Lerner estate were very helpful. Because of their kind work, I can now proudly present you with the ebook version of Down From Ten, a novel uniquely close to my heart.
In early January, a group of friends gather for an annual retreat: eight artists, scientists, and authors cloistered together in a mansion in California’s high country for ten days of games, conversation, exhibition, and hedonism while isolated from the outside world.
The biggest Sierra snowstorm in over twenty years, however, is not part of their plans.
When the house is buried in an avalanche, leaving our heroes with no way to hike out, they must somehow survive and stay sane while waiting for rescue—which becomes difficult when they all start having the same dream.
“Down From Ten is a brilliant, sometimes creepy take on a bohemian cozy with surreal underpinnings and an irrepressibly touching ending.” –Gail Carriger, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Parasol Protectorate series
For the first time in text, read the story that View from Valhalla calls “Unique, lavish, and challenging…amazing in its scope and its detail…with THE most surprising ending I’ve EVER experienced.”
Get it now in Paperback or for your Kindle, Nook, or any other reader.
Or, read the first three chapters here.
Enjoy!
October 28th, 2011 by jdsawyer
The time has finally come. 
The revolution is about to begin. It is my distinct pleasure to announce, at long last, that Free Will, the sequel to Predestination, is now available for all electronic platforms.
The Lunar Revolution is faltering, events are spinning out of control, and Bill Shelley is inches away from achieving victory. Meanwhile, far away in the south, the footsteps of a little girl running for her life bring with them a secret that could start the war before anyone is ready.
As the Persian fleet moves and the American military mobilizes, the fate of Douglas Reeves’s conspiracy rests in the unlikely hands of a fugitive trapped between planets on a ship with his sworn enemy.
And his name is Joss Kyle.
From the surface of Mars to the forests of Vermont, the players are at the table, their antes are in, and the next round of cards is about to hit the felt. The winners will determine the face of the solar system…if they can survive the game.
Read the first four chapters here.
Or, buy it now for Kindle, Nook, and all other readers.
October 5th, 2011 by jdsawyer
We all know that adventurous types like Joe Konrath, and established types like Kris Rusch, and insanely successful types like J.K. Rowling have been having a ball publishing ebooks on their own–and we know that weirdos like me are going to do it because we’re maverick by nature and like tickling the envelope in ways that could get you arrested for molesting post office property, but what about other authors? What’s in it for them?
Why on earth would a youngish author (less than 20 years publishing) with ongoing publishing contracts ever even think about cheating on their publisher with Amazon, Smashwords, PubIt, et. al.? After all, isn’t it a lot of work? Who’s going to do the marketing? And if he’s getting checks from the big boys, why bother with the small-potatoes in ebookland? Why not just leave that stuff to the old guys with a backlist, and the newbies who aren’t good enough to land a New York Deal?
Continue reading ‘But I Already Have a Publisher…’
September 28th, 2011 by jdsawyer
We’ve been waiting for it. We’ve been talking about “What will happen if/when?” We’ve speculated ho how it will change things when the mythical species arrives:
The $99 e-reader.
Well, now we get to find out. Today, Amazon unveiled the $79 Kindle, as well as a $99 model. Don’t take my word for it, you can go and see them for sale right now.
So, what happens now? To the Nook and the Sony? To adoption rates? To ebook sales?
I don’t know. What I DO know is that this Christmas season is going to be VERY interesting for people in my line of work–and probably just as much so for readers.
