Books, books everywhere, but not a drop to drink!

The books are finally arriving. Again, I’d like to thank everyone who bought a copy for their support. What you are holding/will hold in your hands would not exist without your help. I hope you enjoy it.

Still, even with the release of physical books to backers, there’s still plenty to do. The actual release date is March 15th (no Caesars were stabbed during the making of this novel.) And naturally, we need as many people as possible to be aware of An Unattractive Vampire by then. So, if you like the book, tell a friend or two or seventy. Rate and review it on Goodreads. Amazon won’t let you review it until the actual publishing date, but prepare a review for them too. Seriously, reviews on Amazon are apparently super important for sales of a book as they determine how visible your book is on their website. 

(Oh and if you don’t like the book, tell someone you don’t like very much to read the book. Ruin their day. I’m not picky.)

On March 15th (release day), I will be interviewed on the podcast that started it all, The Sword and Laser. Kind of a dream come true for me. I’ll try to keep it together. Anyway, I only mention it because they are currently taking questions on Goodreads, so if you’re one of the 20,000 or so members of the Sword and Laser and you’d like to ask me a question regardings writing, monsters, audio drama, places to dispose of bodies, etc, head over there and ask it. Otherwise, people will just spend thirty minutes of me squeeing.

Also for anyone who is in or around Chicago remember that March 18th, we will be having a launch party at Bucket O’ Blood Books and Records (appropriate, no?) at 7 PM. Come say hi on your way to green beer. 

Anyway, before I let you go, I thought I should remind everyone that the Nerdist Space Opera contest is still going on. There are plenty of good books still in the running to be published including:

The Madness of Mr. Butler by Michael Haase: a tale of a crazy old man desperately trying to prove to everyone that their world is round.

Lucky by RH Webster: the story of a space trucker who finds herself caught in middle of an interstellar conspiracy.

The Life Interstellar by Zach Jordan: a novel the most dangerous and terrifying creature of all time: the galaxies last human.  

Space Tripping by Patrick Edwards: a Hitchhiker’s Guide like story of outer space hijinks as human and alien delivery men try to avoid being killed by marauders and space criminals on the way to their next drink.

Today is launch day... more importantly; today is Rate & Review day.

So why should you take your precious time and write a review for The Life Engineered on Amazon? Because reviews are incredibly important to the visibility of a book and visibility is what helps a novel get into the hands of readers who will appreciate it and thus increase the chances that it will be a success.

Amazon’s system relies on certain milestones being reached before including certain books onto various levels of their platform. What the numbers are and how they impact visibility is a moving target, but what we’re aiming for is between 50 and 70 reviews. You can read more about why reviews are important in this awesome blog post on the subject, but trust me; reviews are extremely important. YOUR review is extremely important.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Read the book
2. Go to the Amazon page for The Life Engineered
3. Scroll down to Customer Reviews and click on the ’Write a customer review’ button
4. Pick a rating between 1 and 5 stars (preferably 5, but I’m biased)
5. Write a review. This can be as in depth as you want, but if you don’t have the time or inclination, even just writing "I liked it!" is enough.
6. Submit the review and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done.

That’s it. That’s all you need to do. Congratulations; you’ve changed my life.

Oh! Hey, today’s the day of my Sword & Laser interview. You might want to leave me a question about The Life Engineered on their Goodreads thread for that very purpose!

Thank you.

J-F Dubeau

BEHOLD! TECHNOLOGY!

If you are like me, that is to say, a denizen of the FUTURE, than you are capable of teleportation, have a robot butler, and read books via brain implants. For those of you hipsters who still use handheld computers for nostalgia purposes (there is nothing quite like the smell of fresh downloads), well, I have some exciting news...

 
RELEASE THE E-BOOK!

That’s right. If you ordered the e-book version of An Unattractive Vampire (or both e-book and print option) than it is on its way to you in a series of 1s and 0s via outer space satellites (uphill both ways). 

Hooray! I hope you enjoy this silly monster book I thought up almost a decade ago.

Now comes the important part: once you’ve read the entire thing (which for those of you without brain implants may take at least a day of binge reading), it would be great if you could rate and review it on Amazon and Goodreads, but especially Amazon. The more love I can get for the book on Amazon, the more Amazon’s algorithms will push my book, the more people will see my book, the more people will buy my book, the more successful the book will be, the more likely it will be that I’ll be allowed to write more books. Or...to simplify that rambling run-on, Amazon reviews = Good. 

Thanks everyone for buying a book and I hope you have fun reading it.

Jim

CONTINUING COVERAGE OF EVENTS

Hey folks,

So, it happened. I received the final e-mail from Girl Friday, the production company that has been handling all things editorial and the final version has been sent to the printers! It’s done! We did it! (Well not quite yet. I’ll get to that.) Thank you to everyone at Girl Friday for being great and pushing me to make my book the best it could possibly be. 

So from here on out, it’s all about pushing the book for me! To that end, there are some pretty big deal happenings that you should be aware of starting with...

A LAUNCH PARTY! Yep. It’s been confirmed. An Unattractive Vampire will be coming out in style here in Chicago with an official launch party at Bucket O’ Blood Books and Records. So in the midst of your St. Patty’s Day stupor come out (please come out) and buy a book or get your book signed and say hi and then go back to green beer and vomiting on sidewalks, a Chicago tradition. For more information about Bucket O’ Blood you can visit their website or Facebook page.

Also...THE SWORD AND LASER! In very much another "crossing off a life goal" moment, I will be appearing on The Sword and Laser podcast on March 15 (PUBLISHING DAY). So you’ll be able to listen to me stumble through a haze of glee and make a fool of myself very soon. Also, if you have any questions for me (looking at you other authors) head over here and ask them. I have wisdom dammit! Let me share it!

Finally, the Nerdist space opera contest is still going strong with a just under a month to go. If you happen to like starships battles and alien wars, you might want to head over there and check it out. Here are a few suggestions:

The Madness of Mr. Butler by Michael Haase: The tale of an eccentric old man on a far away planet desperately trying to prove that his world is a sphere circling a star. Also, God talks to him through an astronauts helmet.

Aurora by Taylor Hopkins: A bounty hunter faces off against a criminal mastermind in a planet-hopping adventure. The sample chapter reads like a combination of Alien and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Lucky by RH Webster about a woman hitching a ride back to earth from the dusty end of space. I’ll be honest, there aren’t a lot of details about the plot for this one, but the writing is REALLY good.

Anyway, until next time everyone.