Recommended Independent Authors

My earlier posts about self-publishing got me thinking about the quality of self/independent published authors versus those from a mainstream publisher. Generally, the latter will provide a better, professionally edited and written book, and more competent research, plotting, and dialogue. I've also tried many self-published authors whose work left a lot to be desired (as I have with New York Times bestsellers from the big five publishers, to be fair). 

But I'm not here to criticize or disparage anyone's work they spent months, if not years working on, so, in my opinion, here are your best options for independent authors. 

These guys have all turned out consistently entertaining, well-written books with engaging plots and characters, and deserve the commercial success and critical acclaim they've garnered. Reading these books, I can totally see them as a hardcover release from Putnam or St. Martins on the bookshelf. Except these books are much more fairly priced than a $30 hardcover or a $13 ebook.

First off is Jack Murphy. A former army Ranger and Green Beret, Jack Murphy has so far published four books in his series about Deckard, a former special ops soldier turned freelance operative. His books are unique in that they combine big, completely over-the-top, creative action stories with real life details and authenticity when it comes to weapons and tactics. The first one, Reflexive Fire, remains my favorite. Anyone who likes the The Executioner/Mack Bolan series will love Deckard.

Then we have Peter Nealen, a former Marine who has written multiple books in multiple series and is apparently an absolute machine when it comes to writing. I highly recommend his American Praetorian series, about a private military corporation in a not-too-distant dystopian future where the US is a mess domestically and is no longer a superpower. I loved all five books, especially Alone and Unafraid. The first book in Peter's new series Brannigan's Bastards comes out next month, and I am very much looking forward to that.

There's also Stephen England. His books aren't as heavy on the military aspects as the above authors. Instead he's closer to Vince Flynn, covering espionage and political maneuverings, with a dash of Robert Ludlum-esque global conspiracies. His books are also quite long, approaching Tom Clancy size, and each volume reads like the season of a television series. I've read the first two, Pandora's Grave and Day of Reckoning. Hopefully, I'll get to the third one soon. 

Next is JT Patten, a former intelligence professional whose books have received praise from Mark Greaney, Joshua Hood, and Dalton Fury. He's also made the cross from self-published author to landing a contract with a publishing house. His first hardcover from Kensington comes out next year. It's always encouraging to see a self-published get a major publishing contract. 

Elsewhere in this blog, I've recommended The Ronin Genesis by Steven Hildreth. Hildreth, who writes realistic CIA and Special Forces-based thrillers. His books are very well written, but unfortunately he does not appear to be very prolific. Hopefully, it'll be less than two years before his fourth novel is published.

AP Bateman is another quality author, and I recommend his books Lies and Retribution and The Contract Man, which cover the British side of things and focus on MI6/SAS.

Between the above authors, that's enough quality reading material to last you well into the next year at an affordable price.

Book 4

I'm 15,000 words into Book 4.

These articles give some hint as to its subject matter.


-US Special Forces Sabotage White House Policy Gone Disastrously Wrong With Covert Ops in Syria

- We Finally Know What Hillary Clinton Knew All Along - US Allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar are Funding ISIS

- Amnesty Report: ISIS Armed with US Weapons 

- Emirates Secretly Sends Colombian Marines to Yemen to Fight

- UAE Planned to Invade Qatar with Blackwater-linked Mercenaries

- Yemen Crisis: Who is Fighting Whom?  

- Is the Iran-Saudi Cold War Heating Up?

Market Research II

Continuing from my last post below, I've been looking into other variables that contribute to the success of independent-published authors.

I'll set aside the matter of quality and won't name specific authors or books, because the quality of writing is rarely a factor in the success of a book; there's some atrociously written books that are hugely successful.

And these successful independent authors have a lot of things in common: Really slick, professionally made covers (that probably cost in the $600-1,000 range at least), a very strong social media presence, paid advertisements around Amazon, physical copies of their books available, multiple and frequent books in ongoing series, and lots of reviews very early on. 

Some of these are things I'll be working on. 

I've already been more active with this blog (which has correlated to more views and sales), and now I have a Good Reads page up and running, with an author Facebook page on the way. At least as a test, I'll try paying for advertising on the pages of related books on Amazon. 

Physical copies of the books are also something I'm looking into. (Even though independent authors generally have low sales with physical books but really high sales as ebooks. Maybe readers just think a book is more legit and professional if it has a physical release).

I also want to increase my productivity. From what I observed, the more you publish the more customs on Amazon see your work. I didn't publish a book last year, because I cancelled COBRA, and my sales took a huge dive during this period of inactivity. I'm aiming to have two books published next year (one will be an Avery book, the other will be COBRA).

As for reviews, this is a bit out of my control. Early on, I wondered how all these brand new books/authors suddenly have dozens of 4 and 5 star reviews coming in overnight, but then as I looked into finding ebook cover artists, I fund numerous sites providing "ebook services," which also entails paid reviews. I suppose it's also common for an author's friends and acquaintances to leave positive reviews to support the book, but I'm not going to ask people to give me positive reviews. For a price, one can also pay professional reviewers to review a book for their publication.

This is the first time I've really looked into the marketing and promotional side of things. It's a bit daunting and it takes a lot of the fun out of what is basically a hobby for me, so I've decided my time right now is best spent writing and finishing more books. 

Also, apparently I have some sort of following in Russia. A lot of this blog's traffic comes from Russia, and it's come to my attention that there's a pirated copy of Scorpion available for free on a Russian website. Not sure what's up with that.

Market Research

I've been looking into the books in this genre that are selling well, and the popular books, the ones with strong sales and lots of reviews and attention (regardless of the qaulity of the writing and research) are all ones covering more topical subject matter: ISIS, Middle East, Korea etc. 

Which makes sense and is consistent with my own limited experience doing this. My second book, Viper, which is about Colombia and FARC, has been selling abysmally, especially compared to Scorpion, which was more relevant, dealing with Afghanistan, the Taliban, and nuclear proliferation. In fact, Viper sales really only picked up last year during the time the Colombian peace talks and FARC disarmament were topics in the news.

So, we shall see how well Scorpion II does, since it covers Ukraine, which is somewhat topical these days, at least to those who follow world events, and also Georgia (the country), which I fear might leave a lot of people scratching their heads and wondering why the heck they should care about Georgia.

Of course, this isn't really an issue once you have a large audience and your primary character has a fan base. If Mitch Rapp goes to Colombia next year, it's still going to be an instant best seller.

As a reader and a writer, I'm always interested in stories that cover more obscure/fresh locations and subject matter rather than the same old terrorist plots, but from a marketing standpoint, trying to appeal to the largest audience possible, that might not have been a wise approach, especially for my first few books, before I've established a wider audience. 

I'd be very curious to hear readers' opinions on this and your thought process when it comes to deciding to try a new author or book, so please leave a quick comment below.

On a final note, one of the two books I'm currently writing will cover ISIS and the ongoing "cold war" between the Gulf Arab states and Iran. Not entirely because I'm seeking to boost sales, but because I feel it's time to cover the Middle East and my story has a slightly different take on things.  I'll post more details here as the project advances.

Good Reads Page Now Up

I now have my author page on Good Reads up and running; you can find it here. Good Reads is a great site in general for keeping track of authors and finding new books, and now if you're so inclined, you can follow me, private message me, leave comments, review/rate my books, and other Social Media-type things. I don't know, I'm not very savvy or interested in social media, but that's something I'll need to change going forward, because it's a pivotal marketing resource if you're an independent published writer like myself seeking to expand your audience. I suppose I should look into creating an author Facebook page like everybody else at some point...

SCORPION II Available Now

SCORPION II is now available on Amazon here. 

If you enjoy action, espionage, violence, guns, international politics, and not having to spend $14.99 for an ebook then this just might be the book for you. 

And if this does sound appealing to you but you don't have a Kindle and you're thinking, "oh no, I don't have a Kindle, I can't read this :( ," then you can conveniently download the Kindle software for your computer, for free, here.