Ready to change your outlook on life?

Please check out my powerhouse novel, DROP OUT. It’s Kindle Fire Department’s Book of the Day! Thanks.

http://fire.kindlenationdaily.com/2013/05/21/when-the-twin-towers-fell-nathan-cruz-saved-the-lives-of-strangers-but-the-one-life-he-couldnt-save-would-send-him-in-isolation-neil-ostroffs-gut-wrenching-thriller-drop-out-now-1-99-on-kind/

A writer’s calling

I recently received my ninth unsolicited review for DROP OUT ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FX0K7U ) on Amazon and I am quite pleased with the five star rating and comment. It seems the book is really having an impact on people. I’ve been getting fan email (for the first time) and reading a lot of discussions on social media about how the story has changed reader’s lives. That’s what I had hoped for when I wrote the book.

I knew the plot would question the reader’s outlook on life but what surprised me most is by how much. I wrote the first draft of the story during an eight day period when my wife was performing hospice for a friend who was dying of pancreatic cancer. This friend went into the doctor with a backache, got the horrible diagnosis, and passed away a week later. The second half of DROP OUT is based on this experience of dealing with those last days of life.

The first half of the book examines loss and tragedy and how one man couldn’t cope. He drops out of society to live out his days in isolation and loneliness. Disfigured and depressed, the main character learns the importance of living life to the fullest by someone who has little life left. The same lesson learned on the day our friend died in his apartment leaving behind a long list of regrets and unfulfilled dreams.

Funny thing about DROP OUT, it’s the only manuscript that my agent didn’t want to represent, saying it was too literary and that he signed me to be a thriller/YA sci-fi writer. When I became adamant that he give it a chance in the marketplace he dropped me as a client. I went through a phase of depression and anger, and cursed everyone and the world. What saved me from giving up the dream of becoming a published author was the very theme I had written about in DROP OUT. Live your dreams no matter what.

Now, three years after losing my NY agent and two years after publishing DROP OUT, I find that the book is by far my best seller out of my nine books now available worldwide. I’ve sold thousands of copies and given away even more. Although I’d like to say it’s made me rich… it hasn’t, but I’m no longer thinking about writing just for the money. I believe reading DROP OUT will affect a reader deeply and give pause to reflect upon the meaning of life, love, and loss. If I have achieved that, then I have achieved all that I ever hoped my writing would do. 

Fooled! Beware!

Attention writers looking to book promotions for their novels or are considering paying for one or more of the thousands of marketing opportunities out there, watch out for booksandauthors.com. They solicited me without my having any previous knowledge of them and I decided to try it. I know, I know, at this point I should have been smart enough to know better.

Having had a particularly bad sales day, their gmail ad caught me at the worst time, somehow getting passed my spam folder. They claimed to have a Twitter account with 180,000 eager readers and followers. They have several author’s blurbs on their site claiming how the tweets took their ebooks to the top of the bestseller lists and, like I said, having had a bad day I thought to myself for $150 bucks, the site tweets my blurb for DROP OUT (After overcoming incredible personal tragedy Nathan Cruz meets a terminal, young woman who helps him find the strength to piece his shattered life back together. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FX0K7U three times a day for a month. Seemed like a good deal to me.

Well, it didn’t go well from the start and after I realized that somehow the site had gained and lost tens of thousands of followers each day, anywhere from 120,000 to 240,000 followers in any given twenty-four hour period (I don’t even know how that is possible) I realized something was amiss. I emailed the site and asked to stop the promotion immediately and refund my money. I did this several times over the next two days, and each time an answer was given to just be patient and wait and see the results. I didn’t want to wait and they refused to refund!

It was right then that I realized I was f**ked. It just wasn’t worth the emotion and mental effort to pursue legal action so I gave up and swallowed my pride realizing that I had been had. The tweets to a hundred thousand ghost followers continued and my sales remained about the same as they did before the promotion.

Now that this Twitter promotion is ending and the wasted money is behind me, I will say one more thing to all writer’s out there desperate to do almost anything to get noticed: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Define success

I was asked the other day if I thought I was a successful author. Instead of a simple yes or no answer, I found myself rather perplexed by the question. If by definition a successful author supports themselves wholly by their craft, then the answer is no. If by definition a successful author is one who has legions of fans and gets world-wide recognition, then the answer is no. If by definition a successful author is one who enjoys the writing process, the editing process, and the birth of a complete book… then the answer is yes.

I define the measure of an author’s success by how happy they are while writing their books. I write books. I sell books. People tell me they like my books. Though I have not received tremendous sales they have been steady these last two years and with the virtual bookshelf in existence forever, who knows how far I could go?

Success is defined and measured differently by different people. Just a few short years ago (since 2007 when Kindle first came out) a struggling writer’s success was measured in just two ways; traditionally published or not. Self-publishing and indie publishing were sure signs of failure, even though the author never even had his work tested in the mainstream readership.

I had a powerful, NY agent who loved my books but after four years of trying and wooing the big houses he still couldn’t sell a single one. Does that make me a failure? Since that time, I’ve sold thousands of ebooks through Kindle, Nook, and Kobo and gotten some really great reviews. Does that make me a success?

One’s own perception of success and failure are deeply personal issues and different for all of us. Though I haven’t achieved rock star/writer fame (yet), the mere fact that my stuff is out there and gets read is enough for me to label my twenty-plus writing career a success. Though I may never achieve the heights of Stephen King or Clive Cussler, with the advent of digital publishing at least I (we all) have a fair stake in the publishing game.

Okay results

Well, the bookgorilla promotion for SILENT INVASION didn’t go as well as it had for DROP OUT, but I still got down to the 5,000 rank on Amazon. I’ve come to believe that the majority of book buyers who purchase a book because of an ad on a website are older readers compared to the middle-grade/YA readers. I’ve always done fairly well on promotions for my thrillers, but my other genres seem to mostly sell by word-of-word.

What that means, is my younger audience is texting, tweeting, and Facebooking about my books, rather than being exposed by surfing reader’s sites. I think younger readers know what they like to read and tend to stick within those genres, while older readers are more likely to be intrigued by an interesting plot or synopsis. If you are planning to pay for a sponsorship for a younger audience make certain you concentrate on sites devoted especially to them.

I think my mistake with this promotion for SILENT INVASION is that my main audience is finishing up the school year right now and aren’t as interested in reading for pleasure at the moment with final papers and tests due. I won’t do another middle-grade/YA sponsorship until mid-summer, when kids are looking to pass the time.