One More Time for Character Names

Believe or not, I’m writing my tenth Jackson story! I’m getting excited about this one. The action is intense, the emotions run high, and the body count is a little freaky. But right now the manuscript is full of places where I’ve typed XXX, instead of a name. Because I didn’t want to slow down the flow of the scene to come up with the right moniker.

So once again I’m asking for your help. Even the names you submit that I don’t chose for the main characters, I’ll try to use for the many small-part characters—as I always have. I’m sure many of you have seen your own names in my books, along with your other suggestions.

First up, I have homeless male twins in their mid-thirties, who end up as suspects. Their temporary names are Dustin and Josh Harvick but I think we can do better, at least on the first names. I’d like to avoid names that are too similar (ie., Zeke and Zack), because readers might get confused.

There’s also a young female activist, who is a crusader for the rights of the homeless. I’ve called her Willow, because that fits Eugene, but it may not be strong enough for her. Give me your best suggestions, and we’ll see.

And the story opens with a male, 40-something police officer, a really good guy, whose name I’ve changed three times already. So it’s time to throw that one to my creative readers and see what you come up with.

I’ll give free ebooks of The Target (Agent Dallas #2) to everyone who participates, and a couple of printed copies to the grand winners.

Thanks for your input, as always!

Summer Sale: Jackson books $.99 in July!

As a thank you to readers who’ve supported me and made it possible for me to write full time—and in celebration of my birthday—I’m offering all five Detective Jackson books on Kindle and Nook for $.99 for the month of July. If you own another type of reader and want to take advantage of this offer, contact me. Read more

Looking for Logic? Not in Book Sales

Watching your digital book sales climb is exhilarating. Seeing them fall is heartbreaking and confusing. “What changed?” you ask yourself, feeling panicked. Did I slack off too much on blogging? Or forget to post in the forums? Did I take this success for granted for 24 hours? Frantically, you try to recreate the right combination of effort and luck that made it happen. Read more

6 Ways to Read an E-Book

LJ with KindleSeveral readers have e-mailed me and said, “I’d really like to read your e-books, but I don’t how… Which inspired me to put together this list:

1. Buy an e-reader: Kindle is the most popular, but there’s also the Nook (Barnes & Noble), Kobo (Borders), Sony Pocket Reader, Pandigital Novel, and many more. When you make your choice, think about more than the device and price. Read more

E-Book Self-Publishing Roundup

With Borders getting into the act, there will soon be four platforms on which authors can self-publish e-books directly to readers. I summarized them for comparison and thought I would share my findings.

Amazon: Digital Text Platform
This venture has been around the longest, has a reported 76% of e-book sales, and publishes content directly to the Kindle bookstore. Read more

Liberation!

In a post about how e-books are changing the publishing industry, Timothy Hallinan, author of the highly acclaimed Poke Rafferty series, said: “I’m writing two books I don’t even plan to try to sell through the usual channels; they’ll go direct to readers. I have a list of a dozen more I want to write. It feels as though I’ve been cooped up in a small room for years and the walls suddenly fell down. There’s space to swing my arms. I don’t have to reject exciting ideas because they’re not ideas I can sell.” Read more