Let's book bomb the hell out of John Brown

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As many of you know, last year I did a book tour with fantasy author John Brown.  He wrote Servant of a Dark God.  I’ve reviewed this book before, and to summarize it is great. Really great. And it is the beginning of a series and the others are supposed to be even better. John is a good friend, and a really sharp writer. He’s actually helped me get better by helping me understand the things that I do, right or wrong, and to put them into words. He’s way more analytical than I am. I basically make sure something explodes every 40 pages and call it good. John actually understands the craft of writing.

That said, SoaDG originally came out in hard cover, and hard covers are expensive. Especially when it is from a first time writer that you haven’t heard of. I’m actually glad I came out in paperback first because it gave me a chance to build an audience. A $7.99 impulse buy is a lot easier than a $25.00 impulse buy. So John hasn’t gotten nearly the exposure he should have considering how talented he is.

Well, SoaDG is finally coming out in paperback November 2nd. And I would like to help John get some more exposure. One good way to do that is to bump up your Amazon scores until you start showing up on various lists. So now you only need to drop a measly $8 to see if I’m telling you the truth. 

Amazon works on some sort of bizzarre, indecipherable rolling-average algorythm. It is voodoo. But basically it changes hourly based on how many books were sold compared to everybody else in some unknowable time frame. I want to knock John’s number way up there, and the best way to do that is to buy a bunch of them at approximately the same time.

http://www.amazon.com/Servant-Dark-God-John-Brown/dp/0765362309/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287502096&sr=8-1

There’s the link. Go buy a book. Trust me, it is good. If you don’t like epic fantasy that doesn’t involve contractors shooting monsters in the face, then buy one now anyway, and then give it as a Christmas present to whoever you know that does like fantasy. What I want to do is to see if the Monster Hunter Nation can bump up the stats of somebody other than me.  Think of this as a telethon for making a good writer more famous. I’m going to update the stats here throughout the day to see what we can do.  Right now John is at:

  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #220,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    • One note on SoaDG, because I got the behind the scenes; It starts out slower than it should have, and makes it seem like a different kind of fantasy novel, which throws some reviewers.  In reality, the first action chapter (which is like #4 if I recall correctly) was originally the beginning, but John’s editor made him change it. See, that’s why I love my editor. So far she’s only told me where I’ve done stupid things and told me to make them not suck. 🙂

    And here is a link to John’s webpage. http://johndbrown.com/ He’s got free samples on there too.

    EDIT: Trending upward, big time. 🙂

    Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #19,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    EDIT 2: Not too shabby.

    Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #15,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    EDIT 3: HA HA! Now we’re talking!

    Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #5,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    EDIT 4: BAM!  Top 100 in epic fantasy baby!  And now beating MHI which is at #91!  The Monster Hunter Nation is rocking the charts.

    Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #4,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    EDIT 5: Super Author John Brown moves up a page in Epic Fantasy!

    Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #3,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    EDIT 6: This is now higher than John got when his hard cover came out.  Congrats, Monter Hunter Nation. You are more effective than Tor’s marketing department. 🙂

    Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #3,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    EDIT 7: A new record

    Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #3,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    My geeky hobbies

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    By popular demand, here is a quick pic of my new geeky hobby, building custom Monster Hunter International action figures. From L to R, Earl, Lee, Trip, Sam, Holly, Milo, Julie, Skippy, Gretchen. My Blackberry takes lousy pictures, so you’ll have to wait until I get back from AZ before I take any good ones.

    These still need lots of work, touching up, finishing, etc. Not pictured is Edward (needs work on his hood), Franks (screwed up sculpting his neck, botched the face paint), and Owen (saving him for last).

    I’ll take detail shots later. I’m proud of a few things that came out surprisingly good, like I built Trip’s dreads from scratch, and I built a shotgun shell leg caddy on Lee that looks like it came from the factory. I built Abomination to spec using a Marvel legends AK, M203 & EO Tech from Marauder, and a bayonet that I carved.

    Massad Ayoob also hunts monsters

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    In addition to being the most widely read gun-writer of our time, a great instructor, and all around interesting guy, Massad Ayoob also collects the occassional PUFF bounty. 

    http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2010/10/14/monster-hunters/

    Thanks, Mas. 🙂

    He points out that Stephen Hunter and I are two of the gun-culture writers to have made it on the NYT bestseller list. For my readers that haven’t read Stephen Hunter, you owe it to yourself to do so.  My personal favorites are Hot Springs and Pale Horse Coming.  Maybe Stephen Hunter and I should collaborate. We could have Earl Swagger team up with Earl Harbinger. Two old-school southern badasses shooting everything. We could call it A Tale of Two Earls.  Now that would sell a lot of books.