Hey everyone,
Justin Fike and I are proud to present a new fiction series: The Stetson Jeff Adventures. The first one is called “Beatdown in Bangkok” and it’s on Amazon for $0.99! Free on Kindle Unlimited!
There are lots of positive reviews and you can read about it and buy it here
Things are moving forward with Stetson Jeff Stetson. I’m waiting for chapter six from Justin.
The next novel I’m working on, working title: Zeppelin Zeke, is coming along smashingly, as the Brits say.
Just this week I pushed the rough draft over 110, 000 words. Sound like a lot? Well, it is.
This will probably be two or three books when the dust settles.
A good metaphor for books, that. The dust settled a long time ago on White Buffalo Gold, but it’s a great read and you won’t be disappointed with it. If you’ve followed my everyday blog (every other day) you know you’re gonna love WBG. Pick up a copy today! Proceeds go towards editing of my next novel.
Thanks for checking out White Buffalo Gold! Here’s some exciting news:
In December 2015 I’ll have a new book out called The Art of Motivational Listening.
It’s a collection of essays on the topic of leadership coaching, and if you want to read more about it hop on over to my current blog, www.adamgfleming.com and you can purchase it there. I don’t post on this site too often, so if you want to follow what I’m doing you can follow that blog via email or through WordPress, or you can sign up for my monthly newsletter on Mailchimp there, too.
In brief, everything is going through that site now!
If you’ve read White Buffalo Gold and would like to leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!
Recently, someone asked me if it isn’t expensive to stock copies of your book. Don’t most people just sell books online?
Yes, it’s expensive if you buy them and never sell them. They sit around collecting dust in the garage. You have to hand-sell them, which means finding new people.
Fortunately, I have a sales job which requires cold calling. The other day I dropped in at a small bookstore in Niles, MI. I told the lady behind the counter I loved bookstores because I’m a writer. I handed her my card, which has my cover image on it. She asked what it was about, and I told her briefly. “I’d like to read it,” she said. “I have some in the trunk,” I said. “How much are they? I don’t have cash.”
“Not a problem… I can take credit cards.”
I sold the book.
I started with an order for 200 copies. It takes a LONG time to hand-sell 200 copies, but the return on investing roughly $1000 in 200 copies is pretty good, even compared to the stock market, even if it takes 5 years. So last September I fulfilled my Kickstarter orders, and began the arduous process of hand-selling the rest. I’ve sold two to four copies a month. Recently I completed a sale (of my day-job product) to a therapist. His office was decked out in all things pertaining to American bison. Pictures, little sculptures, even coasters. White Buffalo Gold was an easy sell. “I have some in my trunk, I’ll show you.” I read on another author’s blog that when hand-selling you should literally put the book in someone’s hands. It’s hard to give it back or say no. Also, have a method of payment for credit and debit cards with you at all times. Square is a decent option if your volume is under $1500/ mo. If you’re over that, you should contact me (I sell credit card payment systems, that’s my day job.)
I think it’s important to have your books with you. I figure if people like me and like fiction, they will like my fiction.
If I told the bookstore lady or the therapist to buy it online and walk out the door, my odds of completing a sale go down drastically. Yes, you want to sell books online. The more you sell online, the more online traffic you drive. But hand-selling is fun, the margin is better, and you get to sign the book and make a new friend.
Three bloggers have already reviewed the book and there are several more to come in the next week or two. You can see those on the reviews page.
I’ve announced an Amazon Bump day for December 8. I’m giving away an original charcoal drawing for one lucky person who posts a review on Amazon by that time.
A few more book signings coming up: Mummphy’s on Saturday the 1st in Elkhart, IN and Next Chapter in Warsaw, IN on Dec 7. Perhaps a small family and friends affair in Iowa over the Christmas holiday.
Finally, I’m beginning to enter some major book contests. I’ll do one per month over the next six months or so. Hope I can win an award from one of them.
Yeah, I can’t help it. I’m starting to kick around some ideas for my next book.
While I’m preparing right now for a season of Down Time from creative pursuits, a period in which I’m working on building my coaching client base, the machine is in place and moving forward. The blog tour is about to begin, posts should start appearing early next week. I have my first book club appearance scheduled for December 4 in Michigan. More bookstore signings begin after Thanksgiving and into December. Most importantly, from the run of 240 books I got on September 24 there are only about 110 left.
I gave some away, and I haven’t crunched the numbers exactly, but I’m pretty sure this means I’ve sold at least 100 copies. That’s a milestone I’m thrilled to have reached within the first two months as a first time novelist. Performing the parallel theater piece titled A Pebble Among the Rocks in October and early November was instrumental in selling a lot of them, and I want to thank everyone in the cast and crew and especially the audiences for checking it out!
People do wonder what my next project will be. First, I need to take a break, as I said before. That’s not going to be easy, though, because I do have some ideas. I’m going to do some character sketching, but the two major ideas in my mind are: 1) A story about a mouse, an old lady, and a televangelist. 2) A story about a three year old boy who gets lost at a Led Zeppelin concert. On this latter concept I have at least 30,000 words written in extremely rough draft. I got stuck for a while (and sidetracked when the time came for hard-core proofreading of White Buffalo Gold) but one of these two will either be a novel or a play and a novel. Tentatively I’d like to have another project done and in your hands by the end of 2014. The only considerations are money… and time. But I found the time and money for the editing, proofreading, design and printing of one book. I know I can do another.
White Buffalo Gold books and tee-shirts are now in stock at my house. People have been dropping by to pick up a copy. I’ve fulfilled 10 of my 30 orders from Kickstarter backers already, now that I have the shirts I hope to fulfill the rest of them within a week.
I’ve been out there doing signings already. The first one was at Ukazoo Books in Toledo (Ohio). I didn’t sell a ton, but it was a Thursday night. The manager, Patrick, was awesome, though, and if you’re ever in Toledo I highly recommend dropping in there. It’s a used bookstore but it looks like a new bookstore. Clean, brightly lit and painted, shelving is good… You can now pick up my book there, they have a few copies in stock.
I’ve recently been invited to speak at a Rotary and another book club, I’m very open to doing this!
Also, my play is going fabulously. Ticket packages for the Goshen shows are available now. I can’t say enough good things about the cast and I hope EVERYONE in Goshen makes time to see this. The actors are raving about how good it’s going to be. There’s a lot of positive energy around the performance and it will leave people slack-jawed. High Quality, baby.
None of these of themselves are all that exciting, but the sum total is that this book and all the marketing push associated with it are coming together.
Kickstarter is over. That went well, the project is fully backed. 128% to be exact.
Tee Shirts will soon be ordered. Most will go to Kickstarter backers. If you want one let me know.
The blog tour is now up to seven blogs, thanks to GingerSister and Let’s Eat Grandpa.
Author Appearances (that phrase makes me feel like Elvis or Bigfoot) are getting scheduled rapidly. I’ll be signing books all over the region, generally in conjunction with other speaking engagements.
Final proof of the book should arrive tomorrow or the next day, and then it will be time to order a couple hundred copies and get them out to those who have preordered and to the book bloggers.
Don’t miss A Pebble Among the Rocks, a play upon which this novel is based. We’re beginning rehearsal in earnest tonight. The cast is really going to be great. See events page for more info.
Adam and White Buffalo Gold are going on a blog tour to celebrate the publication of WBG, coming up November 2. Several bloggers have graciously agreed to post reviews and/or invite Adam for an interview or guest post. Here are the dates we have so far, with more to come! Watch our event calendar where we post as events are confirmed.
Nov 12 – Unabridged Chick
Nov 15 – Denice Rovira Hazlett
Nov 19 – Classics Defined
Nov 22 – KellyVision
Dec 1 – Literary R&R
Thanks again to all the bloggers — we look forward to hearing your candid opinions of WBG!
Thanks go out to blogger Lindsay Keesling for publishing an advance review of White Buffalo Gold. So happy to have her on board as part of the WBG launch team!
http://emphaticasterisk.com/2012/08/07/book-review-white-buffalo-gold/
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