Back-To-School Book & Blog Block Party

Today it’s my turn at the Rave Reviews Book Club’s big party. The party runs all through the month of September, and it features some cool prizes. One of the first things I’m supposed to post is whatever today’s prize is. I’ll do that, but first I want to tell you about this great club.

RRBC is made up of authors and readers. We support each other by helping spread the word about each other’s books. I’ve been the beneficiary of this support on several occasions. I was a Push Tuesday recipient. I was promoting Panama at the time, and my Twitter feed blew up before I even got out of bed. I entered a little friendly competition regarding blogging about the club and won that about six months later. My prize was a week long blog tour all set up by folks who know what they are doing. Last week I was selected as Member of the Week. It was good timing with my book release, and I doubt there’s anyone left on social media who hasn’t seen my cool cover.

I’m only giving away one prize today, but I think it’s a good one. I’ve already pre-paid for a one year membership to the Rave Reviews Book Club. I’d like to encourage folks to join, and this is my attempt. If you’re already a member, I’ll extend the winner’s membership for another year. You can check out the club at this link: RRBC. The way to enter is to leave a comment here today. Winners will be posted here tomorrow. I already won a free book, and they notified me by email too.

I’m supposed to tell readers about my wares today. I’ll just say that I write speculative fiction and leave it at that. There’s more info in my sidebar and on the ‘about me’ page. I want to have some fun at this party too. So here we go:

***

Dawn filtered through the trees just east of the writing cabin. I gathered up an armful of stuff from the refrigerator and shoved it into a cooler before dragging it into the paranormal office. Nothing too scary, a few shrunken heads and one old hand of glory.

I made sure the Will O’ the Wisp was safe in its bell jar before yelling up the stairs. “Lisa*, can you throw the Raven of Doubt in here too before we lock the door? I don’t want any of our visitors to walk away with a head full of doubts.”

Lisa and Doubt

“No problem, boss. Then I’ll set up that cask of Dwarven lager for your guests.”

“Oh my God, what are you wearing?”

“You said it was a party.”

“That’s more red carpet than what I had in mind.”

“Fine. I’ll change then. Maybe you prefer overalls and my straw hat.”

“There’s no time. Cars are coming up the driveway right now. Is my tie straight?”

“You look fine. Relax, the cabin’s nice this time of year. I haven’t seen a wolf since the migration last Spring. I even put all your carnivorous plants in the basement. You don’t want one belching in front of your friends.”

“Okay, you tend the bar, and try to stay out of trouble. I’ll mingle and have some fun today.”

“You need it. You’ve been wound up like an eight day clock.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, don’t forget to tell everyone about the free paper dolls at the top of the page.”

Good idea, the ‘Look Free Stuff’ tab. Okay, remember to smile. As my spokes model, we want people to like you.”

“Everyone likes me. It’s you I’m worried about.”

*Lisa Burton is the main character in my first novel. She’s a robot, and serves as my assistant out at the writing cabin these days. She’s also the official spokes model for Entertaining Stories.

***

I hope everyone enjoys my stop on the party tour. Have a beer, look around, click some book covers. Avoid the basement.

My new book, The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack is on pre-order right now from Amazon. This is a book of short stories and micro-fiction. I’m only asking 99¢ and would really appreciate a few more early sales. Amazon will deliver your books tomorrow. (That’s why I picked today as my party stop.)

In October I’m running a blog series I call Macabre Macaroni. This involves me posting a new micro-fiction every week for the month. I’m asking folks to contribute artwork to display with the stories. The theme is Macabre Macaroni. I will include all of your links when I display the art. If I only get one, I’ll display it every week. If I get too many, I may have to do a separate art post to cover them all.

Note for Jason Zandry, kids can send in stuff too. The stories will be more Goosebumps than Stephen King.

Tacky stuff is welcome here too. If you want to send me a macabre picture you made by glueing dried macaroni to a board, I’ll display it. Maybe some of you have mad photoshop skills and can create a dish of maneating macaroni, send it over. Macaroni with tentacles or medical waste would be awesome. I’d love to see what you come up with. Let’s avoid anything that might be adult themed though, please. Artists are welcome to contact me at: Coldhand (dot) Boyack (at) gmail (dot) com.

Ya’ll come back now.

Update: To bring closure to the contest. The winner of the fully paid membership in Rave Reviews Book Club is Ali Isaac. Wonderful addition to our book club.

Playing, but breaking the rules

You guys have heard me discuss the Rave Reviews Book Club before. They’re having another blog recruiting day today. I’m playing along, but not entering the contest. I have two reasons for this.

First, I won the last contest. I think it’s important to let others play along. I’m pushing the club today, but not as part of the contest.

Second, I don’t like the theme. It’s officially called Celebrating Women. That sounds wonderful, but the emails I received said to note certain women to push as authors. Of course they want self published women, and members are even better. I love women, so don’t jump my shit here. My issue is some of my favorite authors are women, and some of them aren’t club members. Additionally, I think female authors outnumber us guys by about two to one. I don’t know that they need extra help.

Therefore; I want to concentrate on the value of this great club. RRBC has been very good to me. I was selected for a push Tuesday event some months ago. When I woke up my email had already exploded with notifications. Someone was pushing my book, Panama. It took me a minute or two to figure it all out, but the push was amazing. These people don’t just push for a day either. People were still tweeting about Panama a week later.

I did a rough count on how many followers some of the pushers had. It was a guesstimate, but I’ll wager I appeared in over a million timelines. There is certanly some overlap, but that’s a lot of exposure. I moved copies that week too.

Then I competed in the last blog recruiting day. This involves writing a post similar to this one, as part of a contest. People are invited to read all the posts and vote on the best one. I won the darned thing. My prize was an all expenses paid blog tour, some social media pushing, and a live Twubs chat.

This is real exposure that I wouldn’t have reached otherwise. It’s the reason I’m taking Will O’ the Wisp on a blog tour. I might add that Panama remains my most popular title to this day.

The members are also encouraged to buy one member title per quarter and post a review to Amazon. They are encouraged to post to other sites too, but Amazon is the most important one. We all know how hard it is to get reviews.

They also gave me a chance to host a few authors on their own blog tours, and this brings fresh blog traffic. Most of these people stuck with me, and I gained followers. I will happily renew my membership when the time comes, and you can bet I added Will O’ the Wisp to their catalog.

This is a link to read all the current competitors. https://ravereviewsbynonniejules.wordpress.com/blog-recruitment-day/ It’s a good way to discover new writing blogs, and everyone is welcome to vote. They might give better insight to this great club.

The whole point is to gain members today. The membership fee is $25 US. That isn’t much for the kind of promotion they offer. They also published an anthology of short stories last year. I’m still kicking myself for not submitting something.

Here is my own membership push. I’ve been writing some micro fiction and short stories. My idea is to bundle them up as a book of short stories. We’re going to work on the honor system here. Click this link https://ravereviewsbynonniejules.wordpress.com/join-here/ If you decide to join, please drop my name.

Drop me an email at Coldhand (dot) Boyack (at) gmail (dot) com and let me know you joined. I will send you a copy of one of my yet to be published micro fictions or short stories to say thanks. I do not maintain an email list, so you have no risk at my end.

Note: the official push day is the 26th, but I’ve already seen some posts go live. Since I’m not competing, I’ll post mine tonight too.

Another Recruiting Day

As many of you know, I am a member of the Rave Reviews Book Club. The club is having another recruiting push today. They’ve even lowered their prices for one day only. This push is across all social media, and not limited to blogs. Some of you may have seen a tweet or two.

This club has helped me a lot. They organized a big push for Panama, and they heavily supported my giveaway earlier this month. They also accept non-authors with a reader membership at a reduced rate. Many of the members are quite sociable, and that helps with blogging and other promotions we might run.

The club has over 600 members right now. If you think about it, there are probably over a thousand titles available in the catalog. I have four titles there myself, and several other members do too. That’s a ton of reading across a wide swath of genres for your reader membership.

One of the good rules is that all members are expected to read and review several member books. God knows writers need reviews, and this has really helped me out. I’ve read some good stories that I might not have found otherwise.

There are prizes during all the pushes too. Readers can earn these prizes by participating. The prize for bringing in the most new members today is substantial. That means, if you decide to join, I’d appreciate your dropping my name.

Click the link above, and check them out. There are several pages with FAQs, books available, and other data. If any of you are on the fence, ask me in the comments and I’ll try to help.