Astel: Chosen – Ebook Giveaway

Congratulations to fan and friend (whose podcast I still miss) Stephen Kilbride for winning The Beginner. I hope you enjoy it!

This week I’m giving another novel length ebook. This is a YA Fantasy novel by a good friend and now collaborator JR Murdock, called Astel: Chosen:

The Princess of Strell wants to be like any other sixteen-year-old on her birthday. Unfortunately a young dragon shows up and proclaims Astel Farkas is the Chosen One to be taught magic. The Wizard Sangdanee insists that she must be secured inside the castle. He demands she be taught science by a wizard. So Astel does what any other sixteen-year-old in her situation would do.

She flees the castle.

Now Astel, along with her two handmaidens and an unwilling suitor, must figure out what to do before the Chosen One falls into the wrong hands.

You can, of course, purchase it here as I will be (and actually have for myself).

So, how do you enter? I want to change things up a little bit. I’d like you to pick a friend or a family member who you think would like to receive this book. Leave their first name in the comments section. This way the winner will be the “chosen one”. I will contact you, if you win, for that person’s email address.

I plan on giving away a book a week this year, but none of them will be my own. Why? Well, I believe in helping introduce people to new authors and nothing does that like FREE! The contests will be as simple as leaving a comment on the blog, or showing me that you’ve left a review on Amazon or Smashwords of books you’ve picked up in the past. I’ll try and change things up to keep them interesting, but by and large you won’t have to work hard.

If you’re an author and you’d like to pitch your hat into the ring, let me know. I’m not asking you to give me anything for free. I plan on buying your e-book from Amazon/Smashwords as a gift for the winner. So in addition to you getting your name out there, you’ll also get a sale for the contest. The most I can budget per week is $2.99, so if you have a book in the $.99-$2.99 price range let me know. I reserve the right to turn you down, but I will try and do so gently. I’d like to have a variety of genres represented.

If you have a free book and would like me to just get the word out I can do that, but you won’t be part of my contest. If your book is more expensive and you would like to donate a copy, that works too.

Shoot me an e-mail, a DM, or leave me a comment to enter your book.

Win A Whole Library

I’ve decided to take 52 Weeks of Indie up a notch. Giving away fifty-two books isn’t enough. I’m going to give away a hundred and three! How does that math work out? At the end of the year I’m going to take all of the winners, put them in a hat, and draw a name. The person who wins will get the other fifty-one books they didn’t win. Fifty-two plus fifty-one equals one hundred three! So you can win a whole virtual library.

I’ve got some great books lined up down the pipe too. Some are authors you know and love. There will be a number you don’t know, but that’s part of the fun.

As always I encourage you to go and drop a buck or three on as many of these as you can, though. Win or not these authors are worth supporting. So get cracking and help me spread the word!

Podcasters – Here’s a promo for you to play on your podcast! Let me know if you do!

The Beginner – Ebook Giveaway

Congratulations to long time blog reader and fan Lucie for winning “Donau Blues”. I hope you enjoy it!

This week I’m giving away the first novel length ebook. I’ve enjoyed Blake M. Petit’s work for some time, so it pleases me to feature him. This novel is The Beginner:

Filmmaker Curtis Dupré seems to have everything he could want on the set of his second film: studio backing, a professional crew, and an actress he’s admired for years in the starring role. But people begin to vanish from the set, and from the memories of everybody except Curtis. A strange visitor is eliminating those close to the young director, and there’s no telling who is next. To save his friends, to save himself, Curtis Dupré will have to look into himself and discover what it truly means to be The Beginner.

You can, of course, find out details on how to purchase it here and I would encourage you to buy Other People’s Heroes after reading my review.

So, how do you enter? Leave a comment with a link to a tweet or other social media share/blog post about 52 Weeks of Indie, using this link http://www.scottroche.com/thoughts/tag/52weeksofindie/ and the hashtag #52WeeksOfIndie where appropriate. I want to get the word out about this little effort!

I plan on giving away a book a week this year, but none of them will be my own. Why? Well, I believe in helping introduce people to new authors and nothing does that like FREE! The contests will be as simple as leaving a comment on the blog, or showing me that you’ve left a review on Amazon or Smashwords of books you’ve picked up in the past. I’ll try and change things up to keep them interesting, but by and large you won’t have to work hard.

If you’re an author and you’d like to pitch your hat into the ring, let me know. I’m not asking you to give me anything for free. I plan on buying your e-book from Amazon/Smashwords as a gift for the winner. So in addition to you getting your name out there, you’ll also get a sale for the contest. The most I can budget per week is $2.99, so if you have a book in the $.99-$2.99 price range let me know. I reserve the right to turn you down, but I will try and do so gently. I’d like to have a variety of genres represented.

If you have a free book and would like me to just get the word out I can do that, but you won’t be part of my contest. If your book is more expensive and you would like to donate a copy, that works too.

Shoot me an e-mail, a DM, or leave me a comment to enter your book.

Donau Blues – E-book Giveaway

Congratulations to Sophie Duncan for winning “Snow”. There were only two entrants and after a virtual coin flip thanks to Random.Org her name came up.

This week’s book is by a great guy that I’ve gotten to know thanks to the podcast fiction realm. He and his lovely lady friend voiced “Fetch” for me and they are the very reason that it exists. I speak of none other than Mick Bordet. It’s a spin off of Katharina Maimer’s Wiener Blut universe.

“In treacherous weather, a little lost toy leads to an emergency and an unusual rescue.”

It’s available as a podcast for those who are so inclined. As a result, I’d like for you to leave a note in the comments telling me about a podcast that you enjoy! If you’d just like to buy it, you can do so here.

I plan on giving away a book a week this year, but none of them will be my own. Why? Well, I believe in helping introduce people to new authors and nothing does that like FREE! The contests will be as simple as leaving a comment on the blog, or showing me that you’ve left a review on Amazon or Smashwords of books you’ve picked up in the past. I’ll try and change things up to keep them interesting, but by and large you won’t have to work hard.

If you’re an author and you’d like to pitch your hat into the ring, let me know. I’m not asking you to give me anything for free. I plan on buying your e-book from Amazon/Smashwords as a gift for the winner. So in addition to you getting your name out there, you’ll also get a sale for the contest. The most I can budget per week is $2.99, so if you have a book in the $.99-$2.99 price range let me know. I reserve the right to turn you down, but I will try and do so gently. I’d like to have a variety of genres represented.

If you have a free book and would like me to just get the word out I can do that, but you won’t be part of my contest. If your book is more expensive and you would like to donate a copy, that works too.

Shoot me an e-mail, a DM, or leave me a comment to enter your book.

Legendary Stories – Monetization

So I’ve had a few thoughts about how I want to get these stories out there and wanted to bounce them off of you, my loyal readers, to see what you thought.

Obviously, I’ll be selling them individually. Given their length I’m thinking $1.49 for each one on Amazon/Smashwords. I wanted to try something new, in addition to that.

$10 – You get all twelve stories, plus the prequel stories, personalized, in e-book format as they come out (possibly even a day or two early). This would save you $10.85 off of the cover price and hey PERSONALIZATION!

$15 – This would get you the above, plus e-book version of the stories I’m writing for the Action Pack. This is a joint project between Mike Plested, JR Murdock, and myself. Mike’s story will be Boy Scouts of the Apocalypse. JR’s will be a western/steampunk mashup. I’ll be writing a story that takes place in the Legend universe. I’m going to give the back story for one of the secondary characters. He’s basically Indiana Jones + Fox Mulder + Rube Goldberg. It’ll detail what REALLY happened at area 51 and events from it will enhance the modern stories I’m telling in the Legend universe. There should be twelve stories in there that I would sell for $.99 individually (and I’m not planning on doing that, only way to get those will be to buy the Action Pack or get this deal) so you’d get 24 stories for $15 that would ordinarily cost you $29.76.

$20 – Same as the $10 level, but you’d also get the further edited and SIGNED paperback version of the first season of Children of Legend when it comes out next year (may have to charge you for S&H when I get that out to you if you’re international). I’m thinking the paperback will run about $20 since it will be around 120-140K words.

$30 – Same as the $15 plus a SIGNED paperback version of my Action Pack short stories done up in a novelized fashion.

Now, this would be a sort of subsciption/pre-order deal. I’m not sure when I’d make this live per se. You might want to see the first few stories and I respect that. I’m also open to suggestions. If you think you’d like to do this leave me a comment with what level you’re interested in. I won’t hold anyone to this informal poll, but it will let me gauge interest. This worked well for Ginnie Dare and let me pay for the cover. I’d also like to get this professionally edited so this would help pay for that as well.

I may do this via Kickstarter or Indiegogo when the time comes so any thoughts on additional swag/levels of support are appreciated.

2012 Projects

Holy story teller Batman! I’ve got a lot going on this year and will be needing to turn my output up to 12.

Children of Legend – I’ve blogged about this before, but this will be a gritty YA super hero series. I’ll be releasing a story a month from the points of view of four radically different protagonists. I’ll also be making these available as podcasts. Starting next month the prequel short stories will be available. After that I’ll begin putting out the audio versions of the longer ones. They’ll be available in e=pub before they come out in audio.

Action Pack – This is a joint project between Mike Plested, JR Murdock, and myself. Mike’s story will be Boy Scouts of the Apocalypse. JR’s will be a western/steampunk mashup. I’ll be writing a story that takes place in the Legend universe. I’m going to give the back story for one of the secondary characters. He’s basically Indiana Jones + Fox Mulder + Rube Goldberg. It’ll detail what REALLY happened at area 51 and events from it will enhance the modern stories I’m telling in the Legend universe.

The Aethellian Age – This is the universe that Zach Ricks and I are doing together. We’re working on a website. We’ve put together some timeline stuff that’s incredibly exciting. We’ve got ideas for more novellas and a novel. There will be political intrigue, magic, adventure, and all kinds of AWESOME.

Monte and Molly – This has been unofficially back burnered. I plan on getting the text written up in January and sending it out to beta readers. I know that Ed will be providing his awesome art and we’ll be doing a Kickstarter campaign.

Vampire Novel – At some point during all of this I’m going to finish my 2011 NaNoWriMo project. I got 40K words in and life interfered. I love the world and the characters so I will finish this. Let’s say draft one by my birthday and finished novel by end of year.

WHEW.

Snow – E-book Giveaway

First of all, congratulations to Mark, the winner of “The Gift”. I generated a random number thanks to Random.Org and he was the winner. Mark, the email has been sent with your gift copy. Enjoy!

This week I’ll be giving away “Snow” by Val Ford. I love her work and she’s a great person. This story takes place in her Dark Horseman universe and is a sort of “what if”.

Here’s a description:

During the ten days surrounding the Solstices, no magic can be used to kill. This puts a serious cramp in Nikki Jeffries’ (aka the Horseman Death) style, since a lot of her magic is based in death. Breaking the Covenant isn’t an option. So when the StarChild sends her to the North Pole to find a missing Earth Lord, Nikki isn’t quite sure what she’s going to do. The North Pole isn’t what she expected; her illusions are destroyed, and she doesn’t know who to trust. Except for her Horse, and a sexy Jack Frost who may be her best ally yet.

So how do you win this one? I love it when people support independent authors. One of the best ways to do that is to review our works. Include a comment on this post with a link to a review or rating you gave an e-book by an independent author and your name will be put in the hat. It doesn’t have to be a new review and it can be a blog post review as well.

So go check out the sample and come back with your link!

I plan on giving away a book a week this year, but none of them will be my own. Why? Well, I believe in helping introduce people to new authors and nothing does that like FREE! The contests will be as simple as leaving a comment on the blog, or showing me that you’ve left a review on Amazon or Smashwords of books you’ve picked up in the past. I’ll try and change things up to keep them interesting, but by and large you won’t have to work hard.

If you’re an author and you’d like to pitch your hat into the ring, let me know. I’m not asking you to give me anything for free. I plan on buying your e-book from Amazon/Smashwords as a gift for the winner. So in addition to you getting your name out there, you’ll also get a sale for the contest. The most I can budget per week is $2.99, so if you have a book in the $.99-$2.99 price range let me know. I reserve the right to turn you down, but I will try and do so gently. I’d like to have a variety of genres represented.

If you have a free book and would like me to just get the word out I can do that, but you won’t be part of my contest. If your book is more expensive and you would like to donate a copy, that works too.

Shoot me an e-mail, a DM, or leave me a comment to enter your book.

Hostile Takeover – WIP

This story takes place in the same universe as X Marks the Spot and will be my own take on a super hero universe. It will owe a little bit to the Wild Cards series of books. This is a WIP and is covered by the Creative Commons License below.

Finding that box in the woods was both the best thing and the worst thing to ever happen to me. I was right that my life would never be boring again, but like my favorite comic book says, with great power comes great responsibility. I had a clear vision of how the world needed to be. The aliens told me that they had given me my abilities to fight in a war that had already passed. That was their mistake. There was still a war on of sorts and it needed fighting. The world was being controlled by idiots. I needed look no further than my own high school to see that. The power structure was determined by looks, popularity, and money in varying combinations. I had none of the above. For the first couple of years after my experience with the box I just sat back and observed. I tested my abilities, sipping intelligence from those around me and learning how to use the limited telekinesis. I read volumes that were beyond my years. I kept these things secret from those around me, even my beloved mother.

Once I was ready to begin my journey to power, I began to build the cadre I needed. I surrounded myself with outcasts. Boys and girls who were smart enough to be of use to me, but not so smart that they would catch on to what I was doing. I tried to add one other gifted person to the circle but that ended in disaster. I mishandled it and she doesn’t trust me any more than perhaps she should. Overall I was successful in my efforts. I had a few friends that I carried with me to the beginning of my Freshmen year and was able to convince my mother and my teachers to let me engage in a period of self study with these people. I used that time to begin to build to my ultimate goal, the takeover of the entire school.

Mind you, I don’t mean that in the strictest political sense. I didn’t want to be class president or the like. I wanted to run the daily operations. I wanted to control the actions of the adults from the principal down to my fellow students. If I could do that, I reasoned, then I could do the same thing once I was out in the real world. School would serve for me the same purpose it purported to serve the boys and girls that would grind through the next four years. It would mold them into what they wanted to be.

The school bell rung shrilly on that first morning. It amplified the headache that I carried with me nearly constantly. Being around too many people made me feel like I was in a vast echo chamber. I was able to damp down the effect, but it cost me. The pain was a dull throb that was only alleviated by solitude. Even my prescription for migraines, the source of which only I was aware, barely touched it. But I could function.

Billy sat across from me. We were the only two in the library during the homeroom period. I was supposed to be tutoring him. I had helped him all through Middle School, at first to avoid beatings. Eventually, even he saw the benefit of a more amiable relationship. While we could never be friends, he was now less of a threat and more of a weapon I could use when I needed strength of arms.

He flipped through Captain Underpants, while I took notes and doodled in my moleskine. It was the end of the first grading period and I had my first target in my sites. There was a small gang of miscreants that “ruled” the ninth grade. They were lead by Joseph Ramirez, a tenth grader who was by all accounts smart for his age. They weren’t a gang as such, but they certainly had a loose power structure and even made money by selling everything from tests to illicit over the counter and prescription drugs. Ramirez was smart enough not to delve into the harder drug trade. The Dragons and Ochos filled that niche and would step hard on anyone who tried to interfere. I was certain that he knew where the boundaries were and was likely being groomed for upward mobility.
Continue reading Hostile Takeover – WIP

The Gift – E-book giveaway.

I can think of no better way to start this voyage into giving away fifty two e-books then to start with one called “The Gift”. This story, by good friend and excellent stow away Doc Coleman, is available for purchase via Smashwords and Amazon, but one of you lucky people can get it for free! Read the sample for free here and if it floats your boat, drop a comment below to be entered in the drawing. I will make the call on January 8th and email you the story from Smashwords so that you can have the format of your choosing!

I plan on giving away a book a week this year, but none of them will be my own. Why? Well, I believe in helping introduce people to new authors and nothing does that like FREE! The contests will be as simple as leaving a comment on the blog, or showing me that you’ve left a review on Amazon or Smashwords of books you’ve picked up in the past. I’ll try and change things up to keep them interesting, but by and large you won’t have to work hard.

If you’re an author and you’d like to pitch your hat into the ring, let me know. I’m not asking you to give me anything for free. I plan on buying your e-book from Amazon/Smashwords as a gift for the winner. So in addition to you getting your name out there, you’ll also get a sale for the contest. The most I can budget per week is $2.99, so if you have a book in the $.99-$2.99 price range let me know. I reserve the right to turn you down, but I will try and do so gently. I’d like to have a variety of genres represented.

If you have a free book and would like me to just get the word out I can do that, but you won’t be part of my contest. If your book is more expensive and you would like to donate a copy, that works too.

Shoot me an e-mail, a DM, or leave me a comment to enter your book.