Somewhere Over the Sun

Here’s my marketing background coming into play in my career as a writer. Time for some market research to test consumer receptivity to an upcoming product release.

As you may have heard, I‘ll soon be releasing a collection of short stories as an e-book on Amazon. While it will have a lot of stories that have appeared on this site before, the collection will also include a few exclusive pieces not found here. My friend Mike will be designing and illustrating.

Since I will be charging something for the collection (price not yet determined- don’t worry, it’ll be very low), I figure I might want to give my readers further incentive to purchase. How would you, dear readers, feel if I included the first chapter of my unreleased novel, Bright and Blue?

Hi there! Isn’t it silly how little there is standing between a stranger and an acquaintance? Just silence, really. You are a conversation away from meeting someone. Many of you have been following me for a while and know tons about me (Mexican, recent uncle, star of the most ridiculous basketball picture ever taken). But for those of you I haven’t conversed with, let me tell you why I’m here.

I started this blog a little over a year ago to help promote my debut novel, Somewhere Over the Sun. I wanted to tell people about my book, share reviews, share some writing tips, and hopefully use your readership to become a best-selling author. That hasn’t happened quite yet. So I’ve updated this site’s purposes to include giving away the occasional free copy of my book and luring you in with some original short stories.

Because I have a few more copies of Somewhere Over the Sun than I can foresee needing anytime soon, I’m going to have another giveaway/contest! I want more people to read my book, so here’s your chance to do so for free. If you’d like to see if this book is right for you, please check out the synopsis and customer reviews on Amazon.

Here are the guidelines:

• Send a tweet with the hashtag #SomewhereOvertheSun and a link to either this site, my Amazon page, my B&N page, my Facebook page or my Goodreads page = 1 point
• Tweet/post a link with the hashtag #SomewhereOvertheSun and a link to your favorite blog entry of mine = 2 points
• Recommend Somewhere Over the Sun to your Goodreads friends = 1/2 point per friend
• Get your friends to visit my site and e-mail me your name = 1 point per friend
• Get your friends to visit my site and e-mail me your name and what is their favorite blog entry of mine = 2 points per friend
• Mention my Facebook author page in your Facebook status = 2 points
• Reblog this or any other of my blog entries on Tumblr, adding that you are doing so for the sake of this contest = 2 points per reblog (1 additional point for every reblog stemming from your reblog)
  
• Tweet/blog a picture of you doing something awesome along with the hashtag #SomewhereOvertheSun = Sliding scale from 1 point to 300 points, depending on awesomeness
• Get a celebrity to tweet #SomewhereOvertheSun = Sliding scale from 1 to 1,000 points, depending awesomeness of celebrity 
  
• Get a celebrity to add Somewhere Over the Sun to their Goodreads reading pile =  400 points
• Other publicity efforts I have not thought of will be rewarded points according to, of course, a sliding scale of awesomeness.
• Top three point-earners will receive a free, autographed copy of Somewhere Over the Sun.
• Contest ends 9/29 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Good luck. 

And by all means, swing by and say hello.

I’ve been indulging in my creativity lately and haven’t taken the time to give you guys updates about the novel. Sales are still trickling through, but word-of-mouth takes time, and most of the reviewers I’ve sent the book to still haven’t had the chance to get to them. An upcoming review and interview over at Girls Just Reading has been pushed back to next week. For you fellow aspiring novelists, make sure you’re equipped with some patience.

The e-book version of Somewhere Over the Sun will be available in about a week. That includes Kindle, Nook and Apple products. I’ll let you know as soon as I do when those are officially out. That should help boost sales a little bit.

I recently received a burst of Tumblr attention for my post “Letter to a Young Novelist” which was inspired by the reading of the book, “Letters to a Young Novelist” by Mario Vargas Llosa. I wanted to say how overwhelmed and appreciative I am of the positive reactions to this little piece. I hope future pieces I post will inspire you to the same or greater degree.

Coming up very soon: a tiny excerpt from the novel, which I hope you’ll love enough to check out what my book is about and maybe drop a few dollars to get it.