WALKING DEAD recap up, plus #SilerSaturday

On October 17, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Television, WritingLeave a comment

Want to read a recap of the Season 6 TWD premiere? Click here.

Want a free book? THE SANCTUM OF THE SPHERE is free today! Click here!

#SilerSaturday: SKYLIGHTS again!

On October 3, 2015October 2, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn WritingLeave a comment

Hoping to capitalize a bit on the (hopefully) runaway success of a certain Mars-themed movie, we’re making SKYLIGHTS free again, today and tomorrow! I promise to be a bit less noisy around here about it, because I figure a lot of the people who see the blog have had plenty of chances to download it, but feel free to spread the word however you like.

August 15, 2022: the Tycho, the most advanced interplanetary craft ever designed by the human race, launches from Earth on an expedition to Mars. The Tycho carries four passengers, soon to be the most famous people in human history.

February 19, 2023: The Tycho loses all communication with Earth while orbiting Mars. After weeks of determined attempts to reestablish contact, the Tycho is declared lost.

2027: Journalist Gabriel Southern receives a message from a mysterious caller: “Mars.” Ezekiel ben Zahav isn’t talking, but he wants Southern to accompany him for something– and he’s dangling enough money under his nose to make any amount of hardship worth it.

SKYLIGHTS is the story of the second human expedition to Mars. Their mission: to find out what happened to the first.

Here we go here we go here we go it’s #SILERSATURDAY!

On September 26, 2015September 25, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing5 Comments

What’s the free book this week? THE SANCTUM OF THE SPHERE, the novel-length sequel to THE BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES! This book has never been free before! Check it out!

“Go rob that train.” Nice, normal. An everyday heist.

But nothing is ever normal for Brazel, Grond and Rhundi.

A simple act of motorized larceny quickly explodes into a galaxy-spanning adventure for the two thieves. Blade-wielding elves, a fast-moving global war, a secret outlaw space city, incomprehensible insectoids and one impossibly lucky human are just the start of their problems. And that’s before they learn that someone from Grond’s past has gotten the Benevolence involved…

What is happening on the ogrespace moon Khkk?

Who are the Noble Opposition?

And what is the secret of THE SANCTUM OF THE SPHERE?

Some words about some stuff

On September 25, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing1 Comment

Blech.

I got some stuff I probably ought to talk about soon, except right now I don’t really know how. In the meantime, I’ve spent most of the last couple of days teaching astronomy– hands down, my favorite topic to talk about– and thinking and talking about cardboard miniature golf. Bits of the last couple of days have actually been fairly pleasant. We’ve been watching a lot of Chris Hadfield videos. Which reminds me, I haven’t reviewed his book yet, and I probably ought to get on that soon. This weekend, maybe.

Speaking of books: It’s almost #SilerSaturday again, and this week’s free book is The Sanctum of the Sphere. I was hugely happy with how Skylights did last weekend, and I’m hoping Sanctum does even better, if only because I kinda feel like it’s the red-headed stepchild of my books. It’s my only sequel (until the Skylights sequel comes out next spring sometime) and I really haven’t figured out how to market it yet. That said, a lot of people have downloaded The Benevolence Archives– it’s had nearly three times as many downloads as Skylights has. Hopefully I can convince a bunch of them to grab Sanctum tomorrow. I expect the book to at least triple its number of copies out in the wild tomorrow; hopefully I’ll get even more than that. Spread the word, if you don’t mind!

A brief #SilerSaturday saleswank

On September 20, 2015September 20, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn WritingLeave a comment

My Author portal tells me that Skylights’ overall peak yesterday was at #486, which is the best ranking any of my books have ever had, but this was the best screenshot I caught:

Subgenre peaks appear to be #5 in Space Exploration and #8 in Science Fiction Adventure. That’s 293 downloads in a day to get those ranks, with no advertising other than my social media. My best day ever, and the best month of the year all by itself. Once I have a day for Sanctum (next week) to get a baseline, I may experiment with ads. Or maybe not.

Thank you, everyone. I genuinely appreciate it.

#10!

On September 19, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing2 Comments

I never really know how seriously to take sales ranks in subgenres, but top 10 is cool. MOAR!

It’s #SilerSaturday again! SKYLIGHTS free today!

On September 19, 2015September 18, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn WritingLeave a comment

My Mars novel Skylights is free all day today! Go download it!

I suspect that this one’s subgenres will be a trifle harder to crack than Benevolence Archives’ were, but this book has also never been free, so presumably I’ll get more people from my social networks downloading it. We’ll see.

Friday grab bag (ALSO: 1500th post!)

On September 18, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy2 Comments

This is my 1500th post. The blog came into existence in June of 2013, so that’s a rather ridiculous number. Clearly the place was appropriately named. I’m closing in on my 200,000th pageview, so I probably ought to start thanking people every day for bothering to pay attention to me at all.
Speaking of thanking people for paying attention, how about a free book? It’s #SilerSaturday again tomorrow, and Skylights is the book of the week. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it does, since this is the first time it’s ever been free other than a handful of little contests and giveaways. It’ll probably go free sometime late tonight and will be free until the wee hours of Sunday morning.
It hit me today that I don’t really have any funny or interesting stories from school yet. The dynamics of my classes haven’t really changed all that much, although I’m starting to get the afternoon dialed in a bit better (don’t tell them.) I just don’t have anything memorable to say yet. That’s really surprising.
That said, our district has in its infinite wisdom decided that on Monday and Tuesday of next week every math, language arts and special ed teacher in seventh and eight grade in the entire district is going to be at a training, and that furthermore all teachers new to the district should also be at a training on Tuesday. These two things overlap, of course. How people are expected to attend both is an open question, and the fact that we appear to have no subs at all even on a normal day means that they may as well cancel school. We have 22 people scheduled to be out on Tuesday, plus one of the administrators, and that only because they rioted and insisted that one of them be allowed to stay behind. Yeah. They thought they were pulling 22 teachers and both of the administrators. From every middle school in town, plus the high schools. You understand why I don’t want to work for these people any longer.
We played a fun game at lunch, called “Try to come up with a way for this plan to be more stupid than it is.” No one won.
Our zoo acquired four new tigers this week. Four! Omg zoo zoo zoo zoo NOW. I’m going this weekend tigers tigers TIGERS!!!
I was all psyched about starting to watch Dr. Who this season. Apparently Dr. Who was not all psyched about me starting to watch it. Doing it anyway, show! Screw you!
That’s all I can think of. Watch Sourcerer tomorrow for another Fear the Walking Dead post, though. And remember: Skylights is free on #SilerSaturday for the first time! It’s a great book! Check it out!