Science Fiction: More Marketing and An Exciting Military Series

Word of mouth..still a powerful means of getting your book out there, but there’s no way to control it except by writing a story worthy of mention.

As Mark Coker says, “Content trumps all.”

I am still figuring out the best path in which to offer my books that is both cost effective and energy efficient. As a counterpoint to Coker’s idea of spreading distribution access to your book across distribution lines, Hugh Howey has a thought provoking blog entitled. http://www.hughhowey.com/no-more-shitty-baskets.

Once again, I enrolled Caught in Time in Amazon’s KDP Select and this time tried the Countdown Deal. I did very little marketing on my own and was pleasantly surprised at the results. There are hordes of readers who have found the website for Countdown deals, and also sign up for daily offerings of free books through other websites. Avid readers are cleverly pursuing cost effective ways to satiate their reading experience.

As much as I honor Coker’s efforts, for my genre, or maybe just my books, they are not selling in Smashwords. Two books have been listed there for over two years and sales are dismal. I’m not sure why as they are listed on Apple iBookstore, Kobo, Sony, Diesel, Scrib’ner and now, libraries. While Smashwords sets my books on other shelves, Amazon helps me market and seeds the entire globe with them. And I am selling well there. I sell in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, India, Canada, Australia and more.

It makes me dizzy. It thrills me.

So the word is spreading and not always in American English.

Which brings me to this week’s selection suggested by fellow writer Ted Blasche. Ted just recently published a gem of a short story in VFW…or Veterans of the Future Wars, an anthology of short story military science fiction. Ted holds the rank of LTC USA (retired), and is in the process of writing an exciting military science fiction series that will eventually reach publication.

He leaned forward at our last meeting and with eyes alight recommended I read Aurora cv-01 by Ryk Brown. If you check out this series, you’ll notice there’s lots to it. Within days, Ted was on book#8 and intravenous feedings so as not to have to stop reading in order to eat.

Aurora follows a well known storyline. The influential senator’s son, Nathan Scott, rebels against his father and enrolls in the space academy where he is noticed by Captain Roberts. There is competition for the spot of helm with a smart and feisty female, Cameron Taylor but Nathan’s unorthodox strategies win him the helm position. Anal and by-the-book Cameron is paired with Nathan as his navigator. Sparks fly between the two competitors.

Unexpectedly, the unit is shifted to a brand new, top secret ship, named Aurora, and ordered out for a trial run and shake down cruise to Jupiter. To Nathan’s chagrin, a one night stand from his father’s party shows up in uniform in a security position on board the ship. But Nathan can’t be distracted by complications at the moment.

Upon arriving in the orbit of Jupiter, Captain Roberts unveils a prototype jump engine on board and receives orders from Earth Command to jump to the Oort Cloud to test its effectiveness. Captain Roberts also informs the bridge that the Jung, a powerful enemy, has recently conquered yet another system, and Sol system is the last remaining free system left in the galaxy. He speculates that within a few years, the Jung may attack Sol system with the intent to take it over. However, the trial jump lands them in the lap of an unexpected Jung fleet and they’re immediately engaged in battle.

Hit and barely functioning, the Aurora inflicts damage on an enemy ship that appears to be inoperative, but a boarding party finds surviving soldiers have activated an anti-matter self destruct sequence. Tension, non stop action ensues as the boarding party scrambles away, one brave soldier staying behind to give the Aurora more time to escape the imminent explosion. In desperation, the Aurora jumps as the anti-matter explodes in the nearby ship, kicking the ship 10,000 light years across the universe, landing it in the middle of yet another unexpected battle. Immediately, the Aurora’s crew is attacked by a huge unknown alien ship. Winning, the fight, Captain Roberts gets mortally wounded, leaving Nathan, three weeks out of the academy, as captain. Now the ship is badly damaged and again involved in active combat, but this time thousands of light years from Earth.

As you can see, Ryk Brown provides breath taking action. Young Nathan scrambles to save what’s left of the crew and try to figure out what’s happening in an unknown sector far, far from home. He needs to fix a damaged jump engine that is limited in how far it can function and get home so he can warn Earth of the Jung attack…but first…he needs to survive.

I don’t care if the scenario has ever been done before, I was breathing heavily through several action-packed episodes. The storyline has some great twists and turns and enough emotion and character development for most military scifi readers. The one screaming flaw was the disruptive changes in point of view. I would be reading in one point of view and suddenly flip to another, then within two sentences flip back. When you’re trying to fight a battle, this can become annoying. But other than that, I agree that this is the start of a fine new series and if military scifi is your interest…welcome aboard…and hang on.