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"It's better to burn out than fade away."

Summer's over - at least for the kiddos. With mine grown, I know this because the school zone lights are slowing down traffic and angering the rage monsters driving around town.

For me, it means this year's convention season is essentially over. As I promised in July, I'll address some of the convention challenges from this year and how I intend to deal with them.

I skipped a month, so this is a little lengthy.

Here's what I'd like to talk about:

• New This Month
• Recent Scribbles
• Reviews and ARC Teams
• Virtual Tour a Blood Phoenix 4 Location
• Convention Choices
• Contests, Giveaways and Freebies

So an author friend reached out to me and asked if I might be interested in contributing something to this irreverant idea for a story collection. Obviously, I couldn't resist saying yes (even before I know the crazy fools were going to put my name at the top.)

As you may remember, I tried changing how I accepted readers who applied to read Advance Reader Copies a few months back. 

Well, the new method didn't work. 

ARCs are given out by authors for a number of reasons, but mostly in the hope that readers will enjoy the book, tell their friends about it and enjoy the story enough to leave a short, honest review. 

My efforts to get reviews have been disheartening. 

Reviews help readers decide whether or not to try a book. Reviews are used by various review and promotion companies to determine if a given book qualifies for their programs.  

Reviews are a badge of quality.

When a reader feels passionately enough to leave either a good or bad review, it allows you to anonymously tell the writer what you like, what you don't like, and what you want more of.

So, if you've read one of my books, please go out to Amazon, Goodreads and/or the retailers where it's available.

Since the last fix for managing ARCs didn't work, I have a new one.  I'm now trying out a new ARC management service called Booksprout.  

I will be posting ARC opportunities on Booksprout on and off for the rest of this year. If you want to follow me there, the system should notify you when I open up a new ARC opportunity. This is new to me still, but you should be able to get their app and follow me here.

ARC opportunities currently live on Bookspout

Bittergate 1: Murder in Wizard's Wood

Blood Phoenix 1: Ashes of Raging Water

Blood Phoenix 2: Ruled by Tainted Blood

Scion 1: Scion of Conquered Earth

So as I work to bring the Blood Phoenix Chronicles to a close, I'd like to share one of the research gems for Book 4 - a 3D virtual tour of the origin point for Quayla, the Hedingham Essex Shield headquarters in Castle Hedingham

I tried something new this year.

Instead of a dozen conventions, I attended 6 big conventions.

Some were what I consider a big success. 

Some were colossal failures.

There were a number of reasons which contributed to both, but like it or not if I want to write full time I have to treat my writing like a business. 

Yeah, there are moments where treating my beloved writing like a business breaks my heart. 

Florida Supercon was one such moment this year.

I loved Florida Supercon last year. I got to meet a ton of wonderful new readers last year and the convention was such a rousing success I upgraded to a bigger booth. 

Keep in mind that for authors, conventions are almost always a business loss. (That's why books at conventions5 are sometimes more expensive.)

Unfortunately, changes in ownership, locale, the wind, the weather - whatever it was, despite getting too see some return readers and meet many new ones, the convention was a huge loss this year. 

HUGE.

So, as much as I hate to do it, I've cut Florida Supercon from my list of viable conventions. I'm looking for more southern Florida conventions so I can visit with all the great readers I met these last two years, but I haven't settled on them yet.

Galaxycon Raleigh (Formerly Raleigh Supercon) in the big booth on the other hand was an awesome success. I'll be back next year as long as they let me buy a spot.

Other than those two, I am debating whether I'll spend a lot of time at conventions next year or even more time writing. If you have any thoughts or conventions you'd like to recommend, please let me know.

The convention season is over. :( 

If you run into me in the wild, please don't hesitate to say hello.