John Locke Blog | Adventure Category

04

An Army of Authors and Friends!

John Locke posted on February 04, 2012

Last year publishing houses wanted to buy rights to my next four Creed books. A possible couple million for books I planned to write anyway? Talk about validation and prestige! There’d be talk shows, newspaper reviews, feature articles in major publications!

Heady stuff, even for an old war horse like me.

But I said no. I’m proud to be an independent author, proud to be self-published. Those who remember me from my first tweet in late 2009 will tell you I’ve always believed in self-published authors, always believed we could compete with industry giants. They’ll tell you I always supported indie authors by tweeting news and buying books. In some cases I bought three, four, and even five indie books at a time, announced contests, and paid to ship these books to the winners, to help indies gain not just readers, but also much-needed reviews.

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Posted in: Adventure, Best-Sellers, epublishing, Fiction, Nook, Kindle, Smashwords, Self-Published Authors, Authors

Tagged with: John Locke, indie, Kobo, readers, reading, Reading Groups, writers, writing, books, airport bookstores, Barnes & Noble, bookstores, entertainment, independent authors, indie authors, mass market paperbacks, mystery, paperback books, thriller, Wal-Mart, Walgreens

23

I Love You!

John Locke posted on November 23, 2011

A huge thanks to my loyal readers! I asked for your opinion about publishing a particular book and more than 500 people responded in 24 hours! That is just amazing! But even more amazing, I received more than 100 emails or messages of support for both decisions.

I’m not going to publish the book.

Those who voted yes gave me brilliant reasons that inspired me! Those who voted no told me tragic stories that hurt my heart.

I need to confess something: my book was not nearly as creepy and graphic as I led you to believe. But I wanted to phrase it that way because the subject matter was rough. While my advisory council thought I shouldn’t publish the book, they also said it was the best writing I have ever done, which is what led me to the quandary. So I wanted to get your opinion.

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Posted in: Action, Adventure, epublishing, Fiction, Horror, Nook, Kindle, iPad, Smashwords, Self-Published Authors, Dani Ripper, Donovan Creed

Tagged with: John Locke, Amazon, authors, book sales, Call Me, ebooks, Email Marketing, hostage, how-to, indie, Kidnapping, Kobo, Literature, marketing, readers, reading, Reading Groups, selling books, success, writers, writing, book marketing, ebook, Sony eReader

21

Need Your Advice!

John Locke posted on November 21, 2011

You know I have the utmost respect for your time, right? That’s why I only publish a few posts a year and keep them short. I usually tell you about things I’ve learned or people I love. Sometimes I tell you odd things that happened to me.

This time I need your advice.

As an author, I’m a “push the envelope” type of person. I like to shake things up. I think the worst thing an author can be is boring or predictable, so I created a new series about a former kidnap victim. I wrote two books. The first is present day, where 24-year-old Dani Ripper is a private investigator who searches for missing kids. Nine years ago she was kidnapped by a serial killer/rapist who held her captive in his basement for a month. Obviously, bad things happened in the basement. By using her wits and courage, Dani eventually managed to escape.