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Read the First Four Chapters of Shadow of an Empire Absolutely Free!

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We understand: Shadow of an Empire can be a daunting prospect for a reader. A nine-hundred-plus page book? In paperback? Is it even worth the money? The reviews say yes, but folks don’t always trust reviews. They’d like to experience what’s between the pages themselves.

Which is why as we’ve done with our other books, we’ve made the first four chapters of Shadow of an Empire free to read for all. Right through your device and broswer. No catches, no subscription needed, no personal information required. Go ahead, open it in an incognito tab if you so desire! We don’t mind! Four chapters of Wild-West Fantasy adventure, right here at your fingertips.

It’s as easy as clicking the cover below. Hit that gorgeous sunny scene, and if your time in the deserts of Indrim leaves its impression, you can pick up a personal copy from our books page (or your local bookstore can order it for you). Enjoy!

Read the First Three Chapters of Colony, First Book of the UNSEC Space Trilogy, for Free!

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We get it: It’s daunting to be asked to spend money on a book when you won’t be certain that you’ll like it or not. And when that book is an 1100-page Sci-Fi Epic, and the first title in a trilogy atop that, the hesitation can be brutal indeed.

But it’s a lot easier to make that choice when you’ve already read a portion of the book and enjoyed it. Which is why we’ve made the first three chapters of Colony, book one of the UNSEC Space Trilogy, absolutely free. You can read it right now, on your phone, tablet, or other electronic device of choice, properly formatted and delivered right to you.

No strings. No hidden catches. Just a free sample of what the book entails. Three chapters (plus a prologue) of Sci-Fi adventure, action, and exploration.

It’s easy as clicking the cover below. Do that, and the world of Colony will open up in your browser tab. Enjoy, and we’ll see you on Pisces.

Axtara – Banking and Finance Special Preview #2

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Hello again readers! As we move into this Christmas season, the release of Axtara – Banking and Finance draws ever closer! The ebook will, to my delight, be out before Christmas! I’ll have an official date and open pre-orders as soon as I have the final cover! Oh, and once again, we hope you laughed at the pre-sketch mockup if you found this via Twitter or Facebook and saw that MS Paint image (it’s been replaced, so if you missed it, tough)!

So, to help prepare you readers for this awesome day, here’s another preview of what’s coming, a companion to the first special look at Axtara from a week age. Save where that preview was an excerpt from Chapter 1 about Axtara leaving her home, this preview is from chapter 2 and finds our young dragoness arriving at her new home in the remote kingdom of Elnacier … the place where she’ll be opening her new bank.

Axtara – Banking and Finance will be releasing soon! In the meantime, hit the jump for your second look!

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Axtara – Banking and Finance Special Preview

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Readers! I’ve got a real treat for you today! As you may have heard, Axtara – Banking and Finance is getting a cover at last. And no, it is not the featured image for this post. That was an amusing mock-up which, to some of you, will explain a post title from earlier this week. UPDATE: The real cover is now the featured image. If you find yourself wondering about the old one, well … you missed it. But you’ll see it again before long!

Anyway, with Axtara at long last nearing for many of you, well, there couldn’t be a better time to start hyping things up! So, for your enjoyment and delight to kick off this weekend, here’s a little snippet from chapter one!

Hit the jump, and get ready to meet Axtara at last! And once you’ve done that, get ready, because the whole of Axtara – Banking and Finance will be dropping soon!

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Jungle Releases in One Week

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One week, readers. One. Week!

We are one week away from the release of my biggest book ever, and the sequel to Colony. It’s almost here. All you readers are about to get your hands on Jungle. Are you ready?

You should be. Jungle sees the return of Jake, Anna, and Sweets after their mission to Pisces. You know, the one where everything went crazy? Well, certain folks back on Earth aren’t too happy with how the trio handled things. Not happy at all.

You can pre-order Jungle now to make sure you’ve got your copy right as they start releasing next Tuesday. Just click that cover! But if you’ve already secured your copy, hit the jump past the cover and synopsis for another early preview!

Jungle Cover

Jake, Anna, and Sweets are back in the long-awaited sequel to Colony!

Fresh off their mission to Pisces, the trio is looking forward to a well-deserved rest, and better yet, a fat paycheck after everything that occurred on the alien world. But all that comes to a crashing halt when they’re waylaid above Earth by their employer and find themselves with an extended contract, sending them right back out into space.

Worse yet, their trio has been split to best handle their new assignments. Jake and Anna find themselves attached to a scientific expedition, tasked as security escorts keeping the expedition safe as they investigate a new potential colony world thriving with a vast, vibrant jungle. Meanwhile, Sweets has been assigned aboard an UNSEC military vessel, tracking down the source of a pervasive cyberattack against their hardware.

But as both teams get to work, it’s clear that there may be more to their respective missions than they were led to believe. The cyberattacks are brazen and powerful, but simplistic and utterly untraceable. The alien world’s ecology defies logic and sense, puzzling the expedition team.

And above it all, the ripples of events on Pisces continue to spread through the galaxy …

Hit the jump for a third and final preview!

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The Rolling Sale – Round 2! (And Dragon Award Reminder!)

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The final results are in! One Drink moved 142 units and garnered three new reviews, for a final tally of 172. I’ll admit, it was a lot less than I’d expected, considering it has reached over a thousand copies in a single five-day freebie run several times before. I actually did expect it to quite easily shatter 500 moved, and make Dead Silver free. Market saturation, maybe? I don’t know.

But, I do know the results, and the results are that One Drink’s final tally was enough to knock Dead Silver down by 34%. Which means, starting Monday, July 24th and running through Friday, July 28th, Dead Silver will be marked down from its normal “heroic” price of $2.99 to $1.99! Two bucks for a 450-page mystery novel? Pretty good deal.

Of course, that’s not all. If that was all that was going on with Dead Silver, it would barely warrant a special post. No, that date also marks the beginning of Round 2 of the Rolling Sale! Which means that copies sold and reviews added once again start adding up to massive discounts for the next title in line. Which is—Are you ready for this?—Unusual Events: A “Short” Story Collection!

Now, the nice thing about this next title (Unusual Events) is that there’s a much wider array of discounts going for it. It is a more costly title, after all (it’s still on “veteran” status in age). That, and the numbers needed to unlock the various sale tiers are much lower than Dead Silver‘s were. Why? Because One Drink was free, but Dead Silver is only at a 33% discount. So the tier numbers have been adjusted to reflect this. Additionally, the value of a review in terms of units moved has been adjusted as well.

So, how many tiers are there, and how many units need to be moved to unlock each deal? Here we go!

Deals Unlocked for Unusual Events Per Units of Dead Silver Moved:

  • 0 units moved: Original Price: $5.99
  • 1 – 3 units moved: 17% Discount – $4.99
  • 4-8 units moved: 33% Discount – $3.99
  • 9-15 units moved: 50% Discount – $2.99
  • 15- 25 units moved: 66% Discount – $1.99
  • 26-50 units moved: 84% Discount – $0.99
  • 51+ units moved: 100% Discount – FREE!

Now, the lower number of units moved in this case does necessitate a small change to one other number as well: Reviews will not count as ten units moved with Dead Silver, but five. It’s a necessary change to keep the tiers from being too easy to leapfroged by just a few individuals. The goal of a rolling sale is to get everyone involved!

So, same as before, units of Dead Silver moved will unlock successively higher tiers of deals for Unusual Events. Here’s all the ways you can contribute to that number:

  • Buy a copy of Dead Silver during the period of July 24th through July 28th
  • Read a copy of Dead Silver via Kindle Unlimited (This counts!)
  • Leave a review of Dead Silver on Amazon.com OR Goodreads to add 5 units moved to the total!

Ready? Set! You’ve got until Monday, relax! But then, GO!

Now, two other bits of news here. The first is that the SUBMISSION DEADLINE for The Dragon Awards for excellence in Science-Fiction and Fantasy is July 24th! Which means this weekend is the last chance you’ll have to nominate your picks for the best of Sci-Fi and Fantasy in a wide array of categories for July 2016-2017! You don’t have to nominate something in every category, but there’s bound to be something you’ve read/seen/played with this many categories!

Speaking of which, Colony IS eligible for nomination. And yes, The Dragon Awards are okay with authors outright saying “Vote for/nominate me!” So at my urging, you can totally nominate one of my own books. Do I expect a win? Not very likely. But a nomination would be awesome … and you never know! Colony is a pretty freaking fantastic book according to all the reviews, responses, and the like. So if it got its name out there …

Anyway, it’s your ballot, so fill it out how you’d like. Just, you know, fill it out before the end of the weekend!

Now for one last little note. Both the BOOKS and the WRITING SAMPLES pages accessed by the tabs at the top of the site have been overhauled! Both now contain embed links to Amazon samples of each of my books, meaning you can just click and link and start reading a short sample of each book without the muss and fuss of going to the book’s page on Amazon, clicking the cover, loading the popup … etc. You just click the link, and a new tab opens dedicated to letting you read a free sample in a nice approximation of a kindle layout! Handy! Good on Amazon for this feature; it’s much better!

All right, that’s all the news for today! See you Monday!