THE JACK OF SOULS is up for preorder on Audible!

The audiobook for The Jack of Souls is up for preorder on Audible, and it’s freaking fantastic!  I am so pleased!

Here’s an audio file of the opening pages. The actor, Alex Wyndham, went with an English accent—probably because of the lofty material, 😉 –and he rocks it! Turns out he’s a great character actor.

JOS - Audiobook

Even in the first minute I love what he did with the barman. II can’t wait to hear how he did Caris and Willard and Brolli and Bannus’s voices.

I shall have to subject my kids to it on the road trip to the mountains this weekend. Mwa-hahaha!

 

Steampunked

   Announcing the cover for  this year’s Writers of the Future Anthology (vol. 32)!

coverS

I love this cover. In my opinion it is the best in all 32 years. I think Steampunk lends itself well to this kind of whimsy. And such colors!

What’s in the Anthology?

The anthology, which includes all twelve of this year’s winning short stories (including mine) as well as stories by Brandon Sanderson and Dave Wolverton, is now available for preorder on Amazon.

 

 

More in the Anthology

The anthology also features essays on writing by Tim Powers (who wrote On Stranger Tides, from which Pirates of the Caribbean was made), and others.

Final Edits

My story is now in final edits. I got to work with the fabulous Dave Farland (Dave Wolverton), who will also be at the conference. How lucky was I that my spring break coincides with the week-long conference and gala? Can’t wait.

Fun Review From Kickstarter Backer

Back in December, I was out delivering books to Kickstarter backers in the neighborhood around the high school where I teach, and met this woman whose daughter goes to my school! It was fun to meet her. And I just discovered her review on Amazon.
on February 22, 2015
Format: Paperback
I came across this book because the author teaches at my daughter’s school. What luck to stumble upon such a great story! I’m not a connoisseur of fantasy, but this book is enthralling. After a few chapters, I was thoroughly captivated with Harric and Caris, Sir Willard and Brolli, and their intertwined adventures. I highly recommend “The Jack of Souls” for anyone wanting to experience a new genre, and am looking forward to the next installment (2nd book!).

Entertaining Review of THE JACK OF SOULS

Author and Reviewer Barb Taub Wrote a Fun Review of The Jack of Souls

Here’s an excerpt:

Simple Cover - 72dpiThe Jack of Souls is a tribute to the Trickster, an exhilarating and funny and larger-than-life paean to the ones who might not be the strongest or bravest, but can out-think, outlast, or outplay their musclebound foes. It’s a lightning-paced roller coaster world built of humor, bravery, brains, and excellent writing. The villains are unequivocally evil. The heroes are flawed, hexed, unlucky, or just plain old. And sometimes they smell really bad.”

Read the full REVIEW AND INTERVIEW here.

Barb Taub is author of the Null City series. Click here to read her recent India travel log.

The War on Obscurity

What did I do for the month after I sent out all the Kickstarter rewards? I launched what I’m calling

THE WAR ON OBSCURITY!

For an indie author, obscurity is public enemy #1. Of course, the more reviews a book has, the easier it is for readers to make a decision about it, but there’s more:  to be taken seriously by the best publicity engines out there, a book needs at least 25 reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

So, January’s Target was to Acquire Book Blog Reviews 

What the Heck is a Book Blog?

I didn’t know, either. But it turns out there are thousands of book bloggers–book lovers who’ve taken to posting their own reviews of books in a blog. They don’t get paid, and they don’t HAVE to review anyone. Authors contact them with an attractive pitch and request, and the bloggers accept or decline.

If they accept, the book goes in their To Be Read pile, and months later a review appears on the their blog, Amazon, and Goodreads.

In January, I Queried 127 Book Bloggers

Tiny BRYPThese I found in The Book Reviewer Yellow Pages (exactly what it sounds like, in heft and content) and Indieview. I started with a base pitch email, but each had to be individualized to fit each bloggers requirement policy, preferred genres and formats, and flavor/tone of their blog site.

IndieView

I Heard Back from 22!

Believe it or not, that’s really good results! The marketer who coached me submitted a book recently to 200 reviewers, landed 20 reviews, and was happy with that. She says 10% is standard, so I’m very pleased with my 17%!

Here’s a Sample Line from my Spreadsheet

Website             Blogger     Date Queried     JOS Sent     Est.Post

 SFBook.com    Vanessa    Dec28/Jan28     (Pbk 1/13)    Mar 15  

You can see too that I queried Vanessa twice—that was b/c she didn’t respond to the first query. I figure, why not send again after a month? Reviewers get busy. Maybe she didn’t reply because she was over whelmed with requests and had to delete a bunch, unread; or maybe my pitch didn’t catch her attention and she deleted it. Who knows? In any case, I re-queried and made sure to re-target my pitch, and it worked! I’ll do the same for the other 100 who haven’t replied.

 Reveiwer SpreadsheetHere is a look at the full spreadsheet: