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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.

Review – Other People's Heroes

This week’s review is of Other People’s Heroes by Blake M. Petit

Synopsis: Josh Corwood has spent his whole life in a world full of superheroes, even becoming a reporter just to get a little closer to their world. When he finally comes face-to-face with the Capes of his dreams, though, he realizes his ideal view may not be in synch with reality.

Production: The audio quality in this podcast is good. He made serious strides compared to his previous podcasts. I’m going to ding him here for one pet peeve of mine. Edit marks. Not infrequently, he’s guilty of leaving obvious edit marks in the episodes. This is easily rectified and according to the author he will be doing more serious QA for the Podiobooks version (which they would, of course, require). No idea if he’ll be doing the same in his own feed. For this, he loses a letter grade.

Grade: C

Cast: Blake elects to act as the voice for each of his characters and stays consistent within each character. If hearing a man do a woman’s voice irritates you then this isn’t the podcast for you, but then that would also disqualify Sigler and a number of other podcast novels. He’s a stage actor and this is to his credit as I’m sure it played a role in his being able to… play… roles.

Grade: B+

Story: This is a comic book in audio form. The characters are fairly well fleshed out (some more than others). The story is certainly enjoyable and there are a few surprises towards the end. That’s always good. If you’re looking for a serious treatise on the state of humanity at large, well there’s actually a little bit of that here. If you’re looking for an interesting take on what it would be like to live in a comic book universe, then I recommend this. It compares favorably in my mind to Playing For Keeps*.

Grade: B+

Verdict: Audio issues aside, I think this is a strong entry. It’s funny. I love the takes he has on some of the superhero/villain tropes and the world he’s constructed is very interesting. There are more stories in this universe including on that was published in Flagship. I will continue to check out Blake’s podcast projects. I might recommend waiting for the Podiobooks* version though.

Grade: B

*At the time of posting the Podiobooks site is down due to upgrades. Consider donating to help them defray costs and keep money flowing to the authors!