Free eBooks Daily: Author Interview - Q&A With Wayne Stinnett About His Free Book, Fallen Palm

Link to original interview: Free eBooks Daily: Author Interview - Q&A With Wayne Stinnett


What was the inspiration for your book?

I grew up in Florida and spent a lot of time in the Florida Keys, living
there for a time. I wrote three short stories set in the Keys in the
eighties, but was never able to get them published. A year and a half
ago, at the urging of my wife who found a hand written manuscript, I
compiled the three shorts, made the main character a few years older and
published it as Fallen Palm.

How did you come up with the title?

I love this question. Fallen Palm was initially titled Lynx Key Reign. I
didn't come up with the title Fallen Palm, until I wrote the very last
paragraph. I won't give away any of the plot, but a coconut palm in the
middle of the main character's island had to go, to be able to write the
sequel, Fallen Hunter.

Share with us a fun fact about your book.

The island that Jesse McDermitt lives on is real. When I lived aboard a
1926 Alden 42' sloop in the nineties, I spent my free time up in the
back country around the Content Keys, north of Big Pine Key. I found a
small island that had a bit of a beach on the west side and camped there
quite a bit, while fishing and diving the patch reefs around the area.

Tell us about the setting. (Detailed description)

The Florida Keys are a group of about 700, mostly uninhabited islands that
stretch for almost two hundred miles from Key Biscayne off the coast of
Miami to the Dry Tortugas, seventy miles west of Key West. No, Key West
isn't the last one. It's just the last one that you can drive to. They
Keys have a rich history dating back to early Spanish colonization and
the waters surrounding the islands are teeming with life, above and
below the water.

Introduce us briefly to the main characters.

Jesse McDermitt is a retired Marine. No, not a gray haird shuffleboard
player. He retired from the Corps at the age of 37, having enlisted at
the age of 17. His dad was a Marine and died in Vietnam. His
grandparents raised him from the age of 8 and his Pappy was a Marine
also, WWII. They passed away just before he retired and Jesse was left
with a sizable fortune. Having no immediate family, he looked up an old
friend, Rusty Thurman, who lived in Marathon in the heart of the Keys
and with a little help from friends old and new, he bought a boat he
could live on and started a dive and fishing charter business, while
building his island home. Rusty's a very portly Conch, whose ancestors
have lived in the Keys for many generations. He owns the Rusty Anchor
Bar and Grill, a fictional place in Marathon, with his daughter, Julie.

Who is your favorite character in your book and why?

Jesse's dog, Pescador. I love animals and have three dogs, myself. But Pescador
isn't your average canine. Jesse found him stranded on a nearby island
after a hurricane, living off of fish he'd catch in the shallows.
Pescador is Spanish for fisherman. He's a highly intelligent and well
trained dog that never ceases to amaze Jesse.

What is the conflict in the story?

Primarily greed. A lost shipment of Confederate gold is discovered by one of
Jesse's old friends, Russ Livingston, who ends up dead, drowned while
diving and getting tangled in his own anchor line. The murderer wants
the rest of the gold that Russ knew the location of and thinks Jesse
might be able to lead him to it.

What makes this book a great read?

I hope that I was able to convey not just the location, but the smell,
flavor, and feel of the islands and the lifestyle of the Florida Keys.
Action junkies might find Fallen Palm lacking. There is action, but it
takes a back seat to adventure. 

Download: Free thru January 3

Year End Book Promotion: Free and Discounted Books!

Fallen Out, the first book in the Jesse McDermitt series is $2.99. The rest are regularly priced at $3.99.

 Except for a very limited time, celebrating the arrival of 2015!

For the next few days the second book, Fallen Palm, will be FREE and the third one, Fallen Hunter, will be REDUCED to just $.99. Also, Fallen Out, the first book in the series, is part of a seven novel box set called Seven Seas Mysteries for only $.99.


For a very limited time, you can get all three of the first books in the Jesse McDermitt series for only $1.98, a SAVINGS of $8.99 off the the regular price. PLUS, you get 6 other author's novels in the box set for free. That's 9 best selling novels for the price of a cup of coffee!!!

This deal will expire at 3am Eastern/12am Pacific time on 1/4/15. The links to download them to your Kindle are at the right. Just right click on the covers and open each in a new tab or window.

Don't have a Kindle? You can download the Kindle for PC app, or the Kindle app for iPhone/tablet for free and read Kindle books on your PC, laptop, tablet, or iPhone.

Already read all three and looking for something else? Fallen Pride and Fallen Mangrove are next in the series. If you've read all five and are waiting on Fallen King to be released next month, allow me make a recommendation. Right now I'm reading Steven Becker's Mac Travis series, set in the Florida Keys. I'm really enjoying this series (on the third book now) and highly recommend any of Steve's great novels. You can find them all on Steven Becker's Amazon Page.

Happy New Year,
Wayne

A Prequel to an Existing Book Series?

Prequels, in both literature and film, have been wildly successful in many cases. Some others not so much. I decided last spring to write a prequel to the Jesse McDermitt series to answer many questions my readers asked about the characters' back stories.

Originally, I'd planned it as a short novel and intended to price it lower than the others, both to entice new readers and as a thank you to my existing fan base and answer their questions. When release day came around, I set the price a dollar less than my other books. It was a huge success and I received a lot of fan mail thanking me for answering questions people were to timid to ask.

Fallen Out is a short novel, or long novella, depending on how you look at it. It can be read in about five or six hours, the perfect beach book. It starts on the day the main character retires (falls out) from the service and quickly moves through two years, highlighting the important parts of his (and many other characters) backgrounds.

Quite a few characters that appear in later books have cameo appearances in Fallen Out. I tried to write it just like the others, so that it could be read as a stand alone story, before or after any other book in the series. Many have said they loved reading it after the others and many others have said it's best to read it before the others.

It's my favorite of the five so far. It takes Jesse back to a simpler time, when he was nothing more than a "wet behind the ears landlubber", as his best friend Rusty would say. In this prequel, the reader learns exactly how Jesse came to be a charter boat captain, how and when he bought his tiny little island north of Big Pine Key, and how he came to own the ugliest truck in the Florida Keys.

Writing it was so much fun, because I only had to devolve everything from the other books. In fact, it took only six weeks to write and another week to have it edited and the cover made. The first chapter starts with Jesse waking up on the day of his retirement.

When most people think of someone retiring, they envision gray hair, wrinkles, and shuffleboard. But, military retirement can come as early as twenty years of service at age thirty-seven. Retiring and playing shuffleboard weren't a part of Jesse's plans, though. With no relatives or friends back home, he headed south to see an old friend he'd served with early in his career. Along the way he decides he wants to buy a boat and live on it, taking out the occasional fishing or dive charter for fuel and beer money.

I won't give away too much of the plot here, because I know a few who read this might have read the other books in the series and not be aware of this fun prequel. It's been available on Amazon since late May, but still hasn't sold as many copies as what used to be the first book in the series, Fallen Palm, so I know a lot of people have missed this one.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Fallen Palm will be free on Amazon, while Fallen Hunter, the third book in the series will be only $.99, for a year end promotion. I wanted to make Fallen Out free but Amazon says it's not eligible yet. It'll be free in March for a few days, but why wait? You can get the first three of the five books in the series for less than $4, with a sixth one due out in late January. If you haven't read these yet, I'd like to invite you to grab a copy, light a fire and cozy up to it for a little fun in the south Florida sun. Start with Fallen Out and bookmark my blog so you can come back on Tuesday and get the others in the series at the special promotional price.

The links are on the right.

Seven Seas Mysteries Collection is now LIVE on Amazon!

Seven Seas Mysteries

The release of the much anticipated Seven Seas Mysteries has just occurred.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been working with six other writers to put together a Christmas gift for our readers. If you enjoyed reading my books, you'll like this collection of seven nautical thrillers. How do I know? Simple, I write what I like to read and I enjoyed reading their books. Which is why I agreed to join in with them.

I've gotten to know these other writers in a private Facebook page where, in only 16 days, we've hammered out all the details to put this together. Imagine that for just a second. Seven creative minds agreeing and organizing the dozens of details large and small in just a couple of weeks. It was a lot of fun and I'm proud to have been able to work with these story tellers.

Here's the books:
A Dangerous Harbor - RP Dahlke
Blue Water Killer - CLR Dougherty
Fallen Out - Wayne Stinnett
The Inside Passage - Pendleton Wallace
Trawler Trash - Ed Robinson
Troubled Sea -  Jinx Schwartz
Wood's Relic - Steven Becker

This set is now available on Amazon for only $.99 at the link below. The individual book's settings range from the tropical Caribbean, to the sunny Sea of Cortz, to the icy coast of Western Canada. Together, the seven of us have more than sixty novels. Enough to keep even the most voracious reader warm through the cold winter. So build a fire in the fireplace and take a little sail with us. These seven novels are available individually on Amazon for a total of  $22.93, so you're saving almost $22 with this collection.

While I'm sure some of you may have read some of these already, you'll still want the Seven Seas Mysteries collection, even if there's only one in it that you haven't read. All seven are regularly priced from $2.99 to $3.99.

This offer will only last a short while and 100% of the royalties after the cost of production will be donated to Veterans Writing Project, a non-profit organization that helps Vets to write about their experiences, not just as a possible second income, but also as a means to deal with the adjustment back to civilian life.

Okay, here's the link. Just click the cover.

Seven Seas Mysteries: A Collection of Nautical Thrillers

The release of the much anticipated Seven Seas Mysteries is just hours away.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been working with six other writers to put together a Christmas gift for our readers. If you enjoyed reading my books, you'll like this collection of seven nautical thrillers. How do I know? Simple, I write what I like to read and I enjoyed reading their books. Which is why I agreed to join in with them.

I've gotten to know these other writers on a private Facebook page where, in only 16 days, we've hammered out all the details to put this together. Imagine that for just a second. Seven creative minds agreeing and organizing the dozens of details large and small in just a couple of weeks. It was a lot of fun and I'm proud to be able to say I was able to work with these story tellers.

Here's the books:
A Dangerous Harbor - RP Dahlke
Blue Water Killer - CLR Dougherty
Fallen Out - Wayne Stinnett
The Inside Passage - Pendleton Wallace
Trawler Trash - Ed Robinson
Troubled Sea -  Jinx Schwartz
Wood's Relic - Steven Becker

This set will likely be available by the end of the day. The settings are from the tropical Caribbean, to the sunny Sea of Cortz, to the icy coast of Western Canada. Together, the seven of us have more than sixty novels. Enough to keep even the most voracious reader warm through the cold winter. So build a fire in the fireplace and take a little sail with us.

While I'm sure some of you may have read some of these already, you'll still want the Seven Seas Mysteries collection. This offer will only last a while and 100% of the royalties after the cost of production will be donated to Veterans Writing Project, a non-profit organization that helps Vets to write about their experiences, not just as a possible second income, but also as a means to deal with the adjustment back to civilian life.
http://veteranswriting.org/

In Writing, Are You a Hobbyest or a Business Person?

In a number of discussion forums and blogs, I've seen this topic come up. It amazes me how many writers think of their work as a hobby until they reach a certain level of success. That level for them might be anywhere between being able to pay for a night out with their spouse to doubling or tripling the income from their day job. But, at some point they have to concede that it is a business.

I've got news for you. That point is with the sell of your first book. It's not some lofty goal "that I'm working toward". It's the minute you sell your very first book. How important do you treat your business? Many will still continue to call what they do a hobby, even after writing and publishing half a dozen books or more. The truth is, as long as they look at it like a hobby, which it clearly isn't, their success won't come. Success is measured in book sales. Bottom line.

Why is it not a hobby? Consider the definition of each. A hobby is something we do in our spare time, that relaxes or invigorates us. Something we like to do, even feel passionate about. Whether we're good at it or not doesn't matter, we love to do it and we'd do it for free and eventually we'll get better at it. In fact, that's the only way it can still be a hobby. If you do it for free.

Once you produce a product and offer it for sale, you're still in the realm of a hobbyest. But, as soon as someone buys it and you're compensated in some way, usually money, it's no longer a hobby. It's a business. It fits all the parameters of a hobby up until money is exchanged. From there on, it fits all the parameters of a business. Make no mistake about it, if you're an indie writer and someone has bought your book, you're participating in the capitalist marketplace that can either eat you up or make you a success.

So how do you guarantee success? You can't really. However, there are a lot of steps you can take to minimize the resistance. Very few businesses can be started up without some kind of seed money, or venture capital. We're very fortunate that our chosen profession doesn't have a really high buy in. In fact, the biggest part of your venture capital can be time. We're indies, we do it ourselves.

We write the stories and hopefully they're the kind that people want to read. Some of us do our own cover designs, our own formatting, and our own editing. The more we can do of the former and spend less or no time at all doing the latter, the more successful we'll be. That doesn't mean a first time novelist has to spend hundreds on cover design and thousands on editing and formatting. But those expenses should be a goal. I look forward to paying my editors and cover designers over a thousand dollars. It puts me one step closer to making that money back in spades.

Story tellers all have one thing in common. We're able to tell a story and hopefully keep a person interested through to the end. Cover designers have an artistic flair that the story teller might lack. As much as we might like to tell ourselves that you can't judge a book by its cover, people do. A really good blurb needs a salesman's touch. It's basically a sales pitch, your first chance to hook the reader after they're attracted by the cover. Your cover is the first sales tool in your belt. Without it, your book won't get a second glance. The blurb is the second tool.

So how do you get a really great, eye-catching cover to adorn that first masterpiece and put together a blurb that'll make a snake oil salesman envious? You can do it yourself, right down to the individual pixel level and word choice. But, for a story teller, that'll get old real fast. There are alternatives in between doing it yourself and paying a high price for professional cover design and marketing blurb.

Look at your friends. Ask around. There are some talented people trying to break into the business that will do the job just as well but for a fraction of the price. Or you might have a buddy that can whip out a quality cover for a beer. Give a copy of your book to someone you know whose career is in sales and offer them a steak dinner to write a good blurb. Sales people love a challenge.

A network of friends that are willing to beta read your manuscript can be your first editing team. No, they won't find all of your mistakes (we all make them) and they might take weeks to get to it, but they'll find a lot of the mistakes you miss, because they don't know the story. The writer knows a line is supposed to say, "They went across the street, hand in hand" and can easily miss the fact that it actually says, "The went across they street, and in hand." Soon, you'll be able to hire someone to make it even better and make your second book even better than the first one. Your investment with using friends is minimal, financially speaking, but could be expensive in time. Take whatever time required to create a good quality product.

A small investment in time and perhaps a little money, will allow you to present a better product for sale. Don't rush. I know, the world's gonna be a much better place after people start reading your book, but they'll wait. With every sale of your first book, you're building residual income. Keep that income separate from your personal money and use it only to better your product. After a few months, when a little royalty money starts coming in, you can use it for a better cover on your next book or make the first one even better. My first book has had four cover revisions. A little more money comes in and you can use that to have a professional proofreader look at it. They'll catch more, but don't give up your betas. They can help with specialty things in the plot that the proofreader or editor might not be familiar with. As sales pick up, keep funneling the income into your business, making your product better and better.

Having a separate business account can make this a lot easier. All your book income goes into it and nothing more, while all your expenses come out of it and nothing more. Congratulations, you just made your first profit and loss statement.

It's not a hobby. It's a business. As soon as you come to grips with that, regardless of how low your sales might be, you'll start making business decisions. Make the wrong ones and the business world will let you know. Sales will falter. Make the right ones and you'll know that, as well.

But make no mistake, if you've sold even one book, you are a small business person, not a hobbiest.

Veterans Day Book Promo for Veterans Charities

Friends,

All day, from midnight to midnight on Veterans Day, 100% of the royalties earned by every author on the titles they display on the Veterans Day Challenge page will be donated to each writer's favorite Veterans charity.

Veterans Day Challenge

Each author on the page is a Veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States or her allies and has pledged to donate their royalties to the charity of their choice. Many like myself already donate a portion of their royalties to their charities.

There's a short bio on each author's service, along with a link to their chosen charity and other links where you can buy their book. I urge everyone to take advantage and buy one or two books of your choice. Oh, go ahead and buy them all, even if you're not a reader. Your donation will be very much appreciated and rest assured, what you spend on these books will go a long way to helping our Veterans and their families.

If you're interested in making a separate donation to one or more of the charities, we have another page set up describing each charity and a place where you can make a pledge. Being Vets, we're 100% on the honor system. If you pledge, please follow through and donate.

Sponsor Page

If you'd like to chat with some of the authors, we set up a Google hangout where many of the authors will drop in from time to time throughout the day. You can access it through this Facebook page starting at 0900 EST.

Author Chat

Each of the above links will open in a separate page, so you won't lose your place. Please feel free to share this post on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or just pop a smoke and send smoke signals.

Lastly, this whole thing was thrown together in just a matter of days and we'll be taking submissions all through Veterans Day. If you're a Vet and an author, please join us. Better late than never. Email the organizer, Richard Peters, for instructions on how to submit. His email address is bsthing2010@hotmail.com. If you know a Vet who is an author, please forward this post to them.

Semper Fi,
Wayne

Veteran Authors Helping Veterans

A group of authors, myself included, are building a website over a period of just a few days to promote books written by Veterans. The site will go public on Veterans Day and all the royalties from the whole day's sales of each author's work will go to each author's favorite Veterans charity, as listed on the website.

Our submission criteria for promotion eligibility is simple:

1) The book must be authored by a Veteran of the Armed Froces of the United States or her allies.

2) The author must pledge to donate 100% of the promoted title's royalties accrued on 11/11/14. The proceeds are considered the net payment to the author for print/ebook/audio sales and Amazon KU/KOLL borrows recorded on 11 November, 2014.

4) Add the pledge, using whatever wording you like, in bold print on your product's description page. It's suggested, but not required, to also post the link to the main promo page listing all participating books.

5) CRUCIAL: Authors MUST post the estimated dollar amount raised for their charity to the event coordinator by midnight EST on 12 Nov 2014. This will be posted on the main promo page. You don't have to list exact sales/borrows. The receipt number is also required when payment has been made. We understand that Amazon releases the funds 60 days after the end of the calendar month, so you'll have 90 days maximum to make payment.

Our goal is to raise a total of $10,000 for the many charities the authors represent. Being Veterans, I know we'll easily surpass that goal. Anyone wishing to donate to some worthy causes, have only to buy a book, or two, or three.... Oh heck, just buy them all.

Currently, we have about fifteen different author's books listed, but hope to have more than double that number by Veterans Day. I'll be blogging the link to the site here on the morning of Veterans Day, and will be promoting it throughout the day, on Facebook and Twitter, as will all the other authors.

Any Veteran author interested in promoting his book on Veterans Day and donating the proceeds for that day, should contact Richard Peters at bsthing2010@hotmail.com as soon as possible. Time and space is limited.

A Veteran is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable, "To My Country". For an amount, "Up to and including my life."

Great Interview with Robert Bidinotto, “The Vigilante Author”.

I've been working hard on my next novel, Fallen King, which will be available around the first of the year. In this novel, Jesse is stalked by a ruthless Haitian gang out of Miami, for reasons he can't figure out. It seems that the gang is trying to draw Jesse out, by destroying small patch reefs in the back country of Florida Bay using hand grenades and collecting the dead fish. I'm about 30% finished writing it and hope to have it in the editor's hands by Christmas.

I've taken a few days off from writing to work on a couple of projects around the house and to find a new (to me) truck. My daughter was embarrassed to be seen in my old wreck. Although my new ride is twenty years old, it looks new, has a brand new engine and should last many years. Jordy's no longer embarrassed.

A couple of days ago, we had the earliest snowfall recorded here in upstate South Carolina. Only an inch, but it foretold the kind of winter we had to look forward to. While the snow lay on the ground, I did an interview with fellow author Robert Bidinotto. Robert is a very thorough and professional interviewer. You can read the interview here: Interview with Author, Wayne Stinnett.

This week, I've been reading one of my favorite author's new releases. "Second Chance Gold " is the fourth novel in John H. Cunningham's exciting Buck Reilly Adventure Series. The first book in this series is "Red Right Return". All of the books in the series are guaranteed to keep any Caribbean action/adventure reader turning the pages.

Well, that's it for now.

Cultivating a Strong Mailing List to Chart in One Day.

As most of you know, I launched my fifth novel two weeks ago. It debuted in Amazon's top 1000 in less than twenty-four hours thanks to the dedicated fans I have on my newsletter mailing list. Do you have a mailing list? Do you engage with them?

During the course of writing Fallen Mangrove, I emailed my list about every two or three weeks, usually talking about how the book was coming along and recommending books that I was currently reading, but occasionally also asking for advice. My main character's new airplane was named this way. I asked for name suggestions and received nearly a hundred replies. Many readers from my mailing list correspond with me on a regular basis now. I have just over 400, but that was less than 200 when I started writing Mangrove and corresponding regularly. While that's not a huge mailing list, they are a dedicated bunch.

In the last two weeks before publication, while the manuscript was undergoing editing, I emailed them more often, culminating with two emails in the last week before publication, keeping them abreast of the editing process, getting input on the cover design and holding contests for free, signed, print copies. I set up a soft launch at $.99 for two days, where only those on my mailing list and Facebook Fan page would know about. This was a way of paying them back in advance. Do you engage your fans?

Fallen Mangrove went live on Amazon about 10 pm EDT on 9/29 and I already had the release email drafted and only needed to add the link to the book. Within the first hour after sending the email, it sold 30 copies and wound up at 87 sales in just the five hours left in the day. Amazon is on Pacific time. The next day, over a hundred more sales. Only those on my mailing list, Facebook page and those who read my blog knew about the soft launch. At 4 pm it was ranked at #10 million, but the 5 pm update had it at #1,722 and it peaked at #990.

On 10/4 the book had its public launch, with announcements on Twitter, my website and my regular Facebook page. Three days later, on 10/7, I had an ad on BookBub for Fallen Pride, the book immediately before Fallen Mangrove in the series. You can see the results of the soft launch, the public launch, and sell through from Pride on the graph below.

How important is cultivating a mailing list and engaging with them? Fallen Mangrove has never fallen below #3,700 since it launched and that was the day before the public launch. It's sold over 600 copies in twelve days, more than 400 of those at full price of $3.99. That's how important your mailing list is.