HUNTER has just received its 400th Amazon customer review — which, simultaneously, was also its 300th “5-star” reader review.
To receive this extraordinary response for my debut thriller is an experience I never anticipated. And I can’t begin to express my gratitude to many tens of thousands of readers, who propelled the book to the top of the bestseller lists.
My only appropriate thank-you will be if BAD DEEDS measures up to your expectations. We’ll both know about that soon enough!
While I finish writing BAD DEEDS, I want to give you folks something else to read. So, how about browsing all the fabulous deals on Amazon for your Christmas shopping? A huge range of products is available throughout this first week of December.
And if you buy through this link, your friendly neighborhood Vigilante Author will receive a small referral royalty, at no cost to you. Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Happy shopping!
BLACK FRIDAY BARGAIN SALE for the HUNTER print edition: Now through Sunday, December 1st: Take an extra 30% off HUNTER (print edition only). Just enter code BOOKDEAL at checkout.
Folks this is the perfect Christmas gift for the thriller lovers you know. Now, before the forthcoming release of Bad Deeds, is the time to introduce your friends and family to Dylan Hunter, Annie Woods, Grant Garrett, Ed Cronin, Danika Brown, “Wonk,” and — of course — Luna! They’re sure to become fans and to thank you for your thoughtful gift.
IN ADDITION, If you plan to do any Black Friday or holiday shopping on Amazon, I’d be grateful if you’d do it by logging on through this link. At no cost to you, I’ll get a tiny royalty based on your purchases. It will help pay my bills while I finish BAD DEEDS. Thanks much for your consideration.
As I promised, here is the sensational cover for BAD DEEDS, brilliantly executed by designer Allen Chiu. You can click on the images for a better look, and to read the back-cover copy.
First, the front cover, as it will appear on the Kindle ebook edition; and below it, the wrap-around version — back, spine, and front — for the print edition:
I hope you are even half as impressed by this masterful, evocative work as I am.
Now, in answer to the constant question: When will the book be published?
Obviously, it has taken me much longer to write than I anticipated. However, I’ve been making great progress lately, and at my current pace, I believe I will be done with the writing by Christmas. Thanks to the wonders of self-publishing technology, I should be able to have all of the editing, revisions, proofreading, interior design, and layout completed within a month after I complete the draft. That means I anticipate publication now in early February — or about 75 – 90 days from now, barring any more unforeseen challenges.
My goal now is to make sure that the story lives up to this stellar cover — and to your expectations. The back cover summary hints at the plot; I’ll offer an expanded description in coming weeks.
Thanks so much to all of you who loved HUNTER, who have enthusiastically reviewed it and recommended it to friends, who have encouraged and prodded me to write further Dylan Hunter adventures, and who have been so patient in waiting for me to sort out and produce this sequel. I do hope you will find it to be worth the wait.
I’m thrilled to announce that my hugely talented book-cover artist, Allen Chiu, has produced a sensational cover for BAD DEEDS, my forthcoming Dylan Hunter thriller.
I’ll be unveiling the BAD DEEDS cover right here, on Monday, November 18th, at 10 a.m. And it goes without saying that I’ll enjoy reading your feedback.
Allen also designed for me the cover of HUNTER, the header image for this blog, and the Avenger Books publishing logo.
BAD DEEDS picks up where the story in HUNTER left off. In addition to bringing back many characters that readers enjoyed in the first novel, BAD DEEDS introduces a lot of new ones — including some villains that you’ll love to hate. It’s loaded with action, suspense, mystery, thrills, romance, surprises, and sinister plots. And if you found the themes and ideas expressed in HUNTER to be thought-provoking, I promise you that BAD DEEDS will be even more controversial.
I’m working hard to complete the novel soon. I know that many of you have been waiting impatiently for a long time; but this complex tale has so many moving parts that it’s been a real challenge for me to plot and write. Moreover, I will never short-change you by rushing a story into publication before it completely lives up to my standards, and to what I know are your high expectations.
In the meantime, while I finish the book I’ll treat you to its spectacular cover on November 18th. I hope you’ll join me here for the occasion.
It has been a mantra in self-publishing circles that an author’s most reliable pathway to long-term financial success is to rapidly write and publish more and more books. This strategy is supposed to increase your exposure and name recognition, and therefore the “discoverability” of your books to buyers who browse retail websites like Amazon.
This quantitative strategy seems perfectly sensible, too. The key to strong sales is to make your work visible, or “discoverable,” to your target audience of readers. So, how could your cumulative sales over time not increase if you issue an ever-expanding number of titles for readers to find and buy?
Author Mike Dennis recently summarized this mantra as: “Write more books. That’s the surefire way to increase sales!” However, Dennis touched off an intense online debate by questioning the validity of this “quantitative” strategy on the “K-Board Writer’s Cafe” site, a discussion board for self-publishing authors.
Despite his release of more and more titles over the past two years, he reports steadily declining monthly book sales since January 2012. That month he sold 1077 books, spread over 6 different titles. By August 2012 Dennis had increased his offerings to 9 books; yet his cumulative sales had plunged to only 159 copies. A year later, in July 2013, he had 10 titles for sale, but the total purchased that month sagged to 90 copies. And though by October 2013 he had added yet another book, his total monthly sales for all 11 titles were just 42 copies.
Discouraged by this trend, Dennis asked if fellow authors also were experiencing declining sales over time, despite publishing more books. A lot of other writers then chimed in to confirm the trend. Clearly rattled, the discussion participants have since been bemoaning — and trying to explain — the apparent failure of this, one self-publishing’s main articles of faith. After all, how could you not sell more copies if you publish more titles?
They have pondered a host of possible explanations for what seems inexplicable. Has Amazon changed its promotional algorithms to hurt sales? (Why would they do that?) Maybe our books aren’t ideally categorized on such online sales sites. Maybe authors need to compile better customer email lists — or perhaps they should start (or stop) using this pricing strategy, that sales channel, or the other promotional gimmick. Or maybe the ebook market has just become overly glutted with too many self-published titles clamoring for readers’ attention.
On and on the thread goes, with numerous hypotheses, theories, personal anecdotes, and suggestions. And many of them have a lot of merit. Other writers, such as Libby Fischer Hellmann, have weighed in; in fact, I have offered my own suggestions about marketing.
Now, all other things being equal, it’s probably true that more titles = more visibility —> more sales. But I don’t think all other things are equal. Focusing mainly on quantity, no writer, no matter how prolific, can possibly crank out books fast enough to keep up with the thousands of new titles being published each week. The sea of available titles is now enormous, and ever-expanding. In that vast sea, how are your kind of customers going to discover your titles?
It’s been a sad year for thriller fans. First, we lost beloved thriller master Vince Flynn to cancer at age 47. Today comes news of the untimely death of the inventor of the “technothriller” — Tom Clancy, at age 66.
Clancy propelled himself virtually overnight from an unknown insurance salesman to bestselling author with the release of The Hunt for Red October. Rejected by numerous publishers, it was finally accepted for publication by the obscure Naval Institute Press in Annapolis, which had never before released a single work of fiction. But that suspenseful tale of Cold War cat-and-mouse submarine warfare was packed with authentic military technical detail, and it captured the public imagination.
Other memorable Clancy titles from among his many thrillers included Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Without Remorse. Many of Clancy’s tales became popular movies, as well. In all of his tales, the U.S. military, CIA, and special ops communities — represented by such fictional icons as Jack Ryan and John Kelly (“Mr. Clark”) — were portrayed as honorable heroes and American patriots.
Fearlessly outspoken and opinionated, Tom Clancy, too, was an American patriot. He also was a literary pathbreaker. We who write in the thriller genre owe him much. Rest in peace, sir.
UPDATE: I like this profile, including a video, in USA Today.
UPDATE #2: I was quoted in The Capital Gazette, the Annapolis newspaper, on the death of Tom Clancy:
“It’s been a sad year for thriller fans and for thriller writers like me,” said Robert Bidinotto, author of the best-selling Amazon thriller “Hunter” and a Grasonville resident. “First, we lost Vince Flynn to cancer at the tragically young age of 47. Now, Tom Clancy — also far too young at 66.”
Clancy was considered the founding father of the “techno-thriller” genre, Bidinotto said. “He set the bar higher for all of us, bringing a new sense of realism in his big, geopolitical stories,” Bidinotto said. “And in all of his tales, the U.S. military, CIA, and special ops communities were portrayed as decent, honorable heroes.
“This was a refreshing departure from the jaundiced cynicism that colored so many political thrillers … We who write in the thriller genre owe him much, and will miss him greatly.”
UPDATE #3: An outstanding tribute in The American Thinker to two seminal thriller authors who died this year, far too young: Vince Flynn and Tom Clancy. Definitely worth your time.
It is always a kick to get glowing feedback on one’s work from a peer. Thriller author Ty Patterson just posted a dream commentary about HUNTER on his blog, along with some generous comments about Yours Truly. With my permission, he also reprinted an essay of mine first published here. Check it out.
MARYLAND AREA WRITERS, MARK YOUR CALENDARS.
On Sunday, Sept. 29, I’ll be speaking about “The Brave New World of Self-Publishing” at the “Just Write Writers Conference,” Bel Air Public Library, 100 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Bel Air, Maryland.
My workshop presentation, from 12:30-2 pm, will cover the exciting new options in publishing today; how I used simple, low-cost methods to publish HUNTER; and the best ways to market and promote self-published titles. Attendees at my presentation will be given access to my free “how-to” guide on these topics.
For more information on the conference and the other speakers and presentations, which deal with all aspects of writing and publishing tradecraft, check this link.
Hope to see you there.
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Photo (c) by Debbie Scott
