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Book Reviews (And Another Free ARC)

No matter how much time we spend living inside our own heads, no matter how hard we work to develop thick skin, no matter how dedicated we are to our own artistic vision…the most important thing in the world to a professional writer is someone else’s opinion.

I’ve recently published an incomplete list of the ways you can support your favorite writer, but the most important far are the three I mention at the top of my Books page here:

If you’ve enjoyed any of my books, please leave a review. It makes more of a difference than you might imagine. One of the biggest things you can do to support me as a writer (right after “Buying my books” and “Recommending them to your friends”) is leaving a review at Amazon.com.

Published book reviews are a phenomenally powerful marketing tool whether they’re in a national paper, a book review blog, or just customer comments at Amazon. And reader recommendations (also known as “word of mouth”) are an even more powerful force.

Harnessing those forces can be a huge challenge. I’ve tried to spark a fire with my recent offer of Advance Reading Copies for my upcoming novel, and as you can see I’ve now blogged on two separate sites and posted a personal plea on one my Books page begging readers for review.

At my publisher’s site, we’ve just posted a standing request for reliable book reviews. That’s right: Consortium Books is willing to give away free copies of every book they publish to any applicants who can prove themselves to be reliable reviewers. That’s how important reviews are.

And today I want to share one with you. It’s for an upcoming novel by my friend and fellow Consortium Writer, Courtney Cantrell. Next Tuesday, the same day we’re releasing The Dragonprince’s Heir, Consortium Books will also be releasing the first book in Courtney’s epic fantasy series, Schism’s Daughter (Legends of the Light-Walkers, #1).

Schism’s Daughter is incredible. You’re going to love it. I read the book years ago, and it was a lot of the reason I came back to fantasy writing. If it hadn’t been for Courtney showing me what real fantasy could be like–rich, grown-up, exciting, and moving–the Dragonprince Trilogy might never have seen the light of day.

If you like epic fantasy, you will love this book. If you like anything you’ve read by me, this book is even better. Courtney Cantrell has a special kind of magic when it comes to high fantasy, and she has worked wonders here.

Read this book. You’ll be glad you did.

I love this book, and I want to see it succeed. I also love my fans who showed up in such great numbers to request a review copy of The Dragonprince’s Heir, so I told Courtney I’d send you guys her way if she would share a copy of Schism’s Daughter with you.

She agreed, and it’s the same offer I made: The first 100 people to leave a comment with a valid email address get free ARCs. So pop over to Courtney’s blog before the end of the day today and get a sneak peek at the next great epic fantasy from Consortium Books.

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Ask Me Anything

I’ve never been a regular at Reddit, but I have friends who are and they’ve been encouraging me for a while to do an AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread.

It’s a little scary, but that’s how I plan to spend my work day today. Swing by if you get a chance.

You might want to keep an eye out for spoilers while you’re there, if you’re that sort of reader. I’ve asked anyone who asks spoiler-y questions to mark the question that way so you can skip it, but for my part I’m entirely willing to talk unwritten plot.

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Fanmail

My final editorial review of The Dragonprince’s Heir is done. I finished it around 10:00 last night, then sat up for another hour tweaking the custom metadata file we use to turn a Google Doc into an actual e-book. Then I wrote a little personal letter to tuck inside the back of the book, ran BookMaker, and mailed out copies to a couple hundred people.

My name is Taryn Eliade, firstborn son of Daven Carrickson. I’ve been called a nuisance and a little lord, a kingsman and a traitor. I’ve been called the dragon-born son and the heritage of Chaos. I was born the Dragonprince’s heir. In the summer of my fourteenth year, at the waning of the dragonswarm, I went on a quest to choose my destiny.

When I woke up this morning, I already had answers. Nobody had sat up all night to finish the book (or if they did, they were too tired to email me), but I had lots of gracious “thank yous.” Those weren’t at all necessary (as I’ll explain below), but they started my day bright.

I also had one fan who’d caught a typo. He was terribly friendly about it, and I was grateful for the heads-up. (It’s already fixed in the source document. Digital bookmaking is a wonderful thing.)

Anyway, as I was making that correction, I glanced down the page and saw this little exchange:

“Those are dangerous words,” I hissed.

Jen’s eyes glittered like a viper’s. “Less dangerous than yours. I only insulted a king. You insulted Caleb Drake.”

(That link isn’t in the actual ebook, it just seemed appropriate here.)

I know it’s not cool to be impressed at your own writing, but when I saw those lines I fell in love with Jen all over again. She’s a relatively minor character in the book, but (for me anyway) she stole the show.

It’s been an interesting week. I’ve split my time between sending out fanmail to people I respect in the desperate hopes of making a connection so I might generate some real publicity for the KickStarter campaign (in its last week, and not even 20% funded), and checking my email for the WordPress comment notifications which, by and large, read like fanmail sent to me!

That still blows my mind. I know a lot of people are buying the books (I check the sales reports obsessively), and I have a lot of followers at Facebook and some wonderful reviews at Amazon. But it still comes as a shock when someone takes the time to contact me directly, especially if it’s to say my books robbed them of sleep or inspired their imagination or left them wanting more.

Those are the things I live for as a reader, and it’s almost unbelievable that I’m getting to have that impact as a storyteller now. You’d be surprised how much time I spend just smiling at my computer monitor.

So, last Saturday I posted saying, “Leave a comment if you want an Advance Reading Copy of The Dragonprince’s Heir.” That was a shrewd, soulless, calculated business tactic. Positive reviews (especially at Amazon) directly and measurably impact how many people hear about the book and end up reading it. When I offer ARCs, I’m doing it as a greedy corporate mogul, to drive the machine of business. Or something.

And your response to that offer left me speechless. For four straight days, I got a constant string of comment notifications from Amazon. It’s like I posted a blog saying,

“Make me feel good about myself!”

And the internet obeyed.

I just wanted to take a moment to express my thanks to all of you. It’s because of my readers that I get to be a storyteller, and that has been my biggest dream my entire life. Thanks for reading, thanks for visiting the site, thanks for recommending the books and posting reviews and leaving comments and sending fanmail. Every bit of that is amazing.

Most of all, thanks for liking me. I like you, too.

Sincerely,
Aaron Pogue

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Just Getting Started

Hey, there! This is the home page of international bestselling fantasy author Aaron Pogue!

That’s me. Yes, I call myself that. Wouldn’t you?

You may already be familiar with my writing advice website, Unstressed Syllables. I started building that one back in 2009, before I was an international bestselling fantasy author, and when AaronPogue.com was an unavailable domain.

I’m still writing at Unstressed Syllables, but I would like that site to become (or, rather, to remain) a destination for writers looking for writing advice. Teaching has always been important to me, but I wanted another page I could dedicate to my readers.

It’ll take some time before I find an effective balance between the two sites, but I’ll eventually manage. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook to keep an eye out for the most important bits.

And, of course, be sure to check out the books. I’ve got links in the sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sincerely,
Aaron