Xander WeaverNotes from a thriller writer’s desk
I'll be at Robinsonfest this year: Sept 12-14. This year, the event will be at Niagara Falls. So far, authors attending include Jeremy Robinson, Kane Gilmour, me, and Dan Delgado. Jeremy and Kane are bestselling authors of numerous books, including the Chess Team series, and Dan is the narrator of a growing catalog of work available on Audible.com (including 4 of my books). If you're interested in joining the festivities, you can find more information here!
To paraphrase something I saw in a magazine back in my pre-press days, "if you give a monkey a laptop, time, and enough RAM, it will eventually take itself seriously enough to publish a book." I released Sleepwalker: The Journal of Grady Ledger earlier this year. Over this last weekend, I released the audiobook version. This is my first experiment with Amazon/Audible/ACX's virtual voice technology. While nowhere close to the talents of Dan Delgado (the narrator for my Cyrus Cooper series), the AI voice tech …
Amazon launched a new crowdsourcing initiative earlier this week called Kindle Scout. Authors can submit previously unpublished books into the program and Amazon then gets a 45-day exclusive with that manuscript. A sample is made available to Amazon account holders and readers then effectively vote on the books they like best. The so-called winners get a publishing contract with one of Amazon’s imprints. I’ve submitted Rogue Faction Part 1 into the program. You can find it here: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2XMSEJY3JFKJ6. Read the sample. Give it a vote if you like. The program will be …
The social circus has been buzzing with a question that I found interesting. What are 10 books that have stuck with you? The idea is to create a list of books that had an impact on you the lasted for months, or even years. It’s a great question, and one I only needed to give a little thought to before creating my list. The major shortcoming of the meme that’s making its way around the social networks is that it doesn’t ask people to explain what it …