Lincoln Cole's Blog

Ready for Halloween? I’m excited because this is my favorite Holiday!

In my opinion, it should be a holiday we get off, but oh well. Take what you can get.

I’m planning on putting books on sale for Halloween, but I’m also planning a huge giveaway to run all month, so make sure you enter that!

In other news, I’m also developing a new skill called Haunted House for Alexa that is just a choose your own adventure game to travel through a haunted house. The hardest part is trying to keep it from being too scary, so I’m trying to leave it more insinuation than actual frights. It’s a happy balance but hopefully it works out.

My goal is to have that released before Halloween, so look for that to come out soon!

I’m also frantically trying to add new content to The Dark Citadel, and that’s coming along nicely as well. I’m adding in tons of new features, a combat and leveling system, and more. It’ll require everyone who already has started playing the game to start over, but that’s because the new features will completely replace the old system of simple choices.

Don’t worry, though, because I’m also planning on releasing at least four new pieces of content with the new changes to continue the story!

Vacation!

Heading on vacation for the first week of the month and can't wait to get out of the office for a bit and relax. I've been working really hard on some changes to my skills, including Monster Trivia, and hopefully it will be getting a really cool promotion soon!

The Everett Exorcism ended up at #7 in the entire Kindle Free store during its BookBub promotion, which is super awesome! 15,309 copies in one day is the most I've ever done by a factor of three! Shows definitely why BookBub is king, and what's even better was I almost sold 200 copies of the other books in that same time period!

Nothing big planned this month, still working on the CRISPR launch to keep things going strong. It went on the back burner when this promotion started up, so now it's a matter of getting more copies out into the wild and getting people involved.

CRISPR is coming out early!

The book is done and ready for the world, so I decided to move it up. I decided to bump the launch forward by a month in preparation for the Amazon storyteller UK contest. It will only be eligible if published in August and I figured this would be an excellent way of getting it a little extra push and incentive.

I've also put together a giveaway from Instafreebie for the opening chapters to anyone who wants to get a jump start! Just download your copy here and get ready for the actual launch!

Sample

I'm going to be sharing a lot in preparation of the launch and running some promotions. I'm also sending out the final pieces of the kickstarter to everyone who supported the book, so you can expect all of that in the coming days! 

July is here!

We're flying through this year and it'll be winter before you know it, but right now we're getting ready for Amazon's big holiday.

Prime Day.

Yeah, sure, Amazon get's to make up it's own holiday and base it around their prime membership. Prime is a great deal, though, to be sure. After all, you get access to free music, discounted products, free two-day shipping, movies, and about a dozen other perks that you might end up using.

Sign up for Prime here to get ready for prime day!

My Deals and Sales

Raven's Peak, Raven's Fall, and Raven's Rise are all going to be on sale! Over 60% off for all three titles means you can get them all cheap! If you haven't picked up this series already, then during prime day will be the perfect opportunity!

But Wait, There's More!

I'm going to be offering another series for prime day, too. First off, you can get my entire World of Shadows series on sale.

Yeah, that's right, 90% off! The first two books are free and the third book (which just came out this year!) is going to be on sale! Keep your eyes open for this deal whenever prime day happens! Most likely that's going to be on the 17th of the month, so stay prepared!

Hard to beat!

The Underneath Trilogy

Also, a friend of mine is going to be offering her books on sale, too. She's my cover designer and has done every single one of my book covers. Check out her series about mermaids, and the third book is going to be newly released right on time for Prime Day! 

Pre-Order CRISPR

There will also be some extra deals on the day of that I'll let you know more about, so keep your eyes peeled for updates on my newsletter. If you aren't already subscribed, then signup here. You'll get news, updates, giveaways, and more!

This is the month I'm finally wrapping up CRISPR and getting it to my editor. I'm going to be thrilled to be able to wrap it up completely and turn it over. I've also been working a lot on new and upcoming Alexa Skills, including a complete rewrite of my existing system. This coincides with M.N. Arzu getting me updated skill covers, so there are a lot more awesome looking designs out there now to go along with my skills.

Please, if you haven't consider trying out some of my Alexa skills. I will be extremely grateful if you leave a review as well since those are so hard to come by. Other than that, I'm also working on a few other applications (trying my hand with Android to see what is possible) and always trying new things. I know I need to work on my books a lot more, and I'm planning on working on another series soon once CRISPR is finalized. I have a few projects in mind, just need to find the time and energy to finish them.

In real life, I've been busy with work and projects. I'm also watching Into the Badlands right now on Netflix for the first two seasons, and that's quickly become a top show to watch for me. I love action shows like that. I finished 13 Reasons Why as well, and I'm behind on about a dozen other shows as well. I'll get caught up eventually!

Oh well, back to work!

Enter to win an echo dot!

Running a giveaway and launching a bunch of new echo skills this month! I'll also be doing an exclusive giveaway for my mailing list, so keep your eyes open for that if you are on the list! That will happen closer to the middle of the month, but this one runs all month long!

Easy way to win a $50 echo dot to put in any room of your house!

In other news, Crispr is getting wrapped up soon, so there should be some news soon about how to pre order your copy. I've been having a lot of fun finishing that project up and it has sort of reinvigorated my desire to tell crazy stories, so I'll be working on some other stuff soon as well to keep the story going.

What else?

Just real world things, mostly around developing and releasing more alexa skills. I've been doing a lot of code rewriting and refactoring, so not as much new stuff as I would like to get done, but a lot of fixes to hopefully make things better. More on that to come. I got a really cool bug report from someone, too, so I'll be fixing up and making The Dark Citadel better in the coming weeks based on suggestions.

More news coming soon!

Hard to believe it is April already. Time keeps grinding inexorably forward, and it's not willing to wait for anyone. I'm working on a bunch of different projects this month, and it'll be hard to tell exactly which projects will get released or updated anytime soon.

The first major news, in case anyone hasn't heard, is that Kindle Scout is shutting down.

Losing Kindle Scout means one of my avenues of publication has disappeared, but in general I've been having better luck with other avenues anyway.

 

We got the email early in April, and it was an immediate shutdown without a lot of knowledge or consideration. There are a ton of campaigns still running and there was no warning that it was coming. Sure, the program has been faltering a little bit, but it's been a great way for indie authors to get exposure in the Amazon ecosystem.

I am going to miss having it as a tool for authors, and I spent a lot of time and energy working on my kindle scout guide and blog posts. I've already been working to remove those posts and redirect my energies, but it still sucks that the program had to end so abruptly.

In other news, I'm working on my newest Alexa skill: Word Hacks. It's massive, and ties into a lot of different APIs to find and deliver information. I tried to imagine it as an assistant that could do anything from translate to track progress on writing to get definitions. It's a huge and overwhelming task, and I'm pleased to say that I'm basically done with it. I have a few last pieces to wire up and test out, but then I'm going to unleash it into the world in the next couple of weeks.

Keep your eyes peeled for that, because I would love for anyone who has an Alexa enabled device to help me find bugs and problems that I can fix before May. That will be the big month for the application in getting it into the big life hacks competition that is coming up.

Apart from that, I'm planning on running some more free promotions during this month and May and getting ready for the launch of Crispr.

Into March and time to move forward for another month!

I'm releasing my newest Alexa Skill today, and it's the one I'm most excited about. It took a lot more time and effort than anything I've done before, and I'm happy with how it has turned out. 

If you have an Amazon Echo Device and can use alexa, then please check this skill out! Enable it for free and give it a try, and then let me know what you think. I plan to improve it and my other skills based on user feedback, and everything helps!

Shout out to M.N. Arzu for the wonderful design!

Alexa Skills Update

I've been building amazon alexa skills for a while now, and it's just something I do in my spare time to learn new programming tricks. At first, I just built really shoddy skills that no one wanted to use, and it showed because people gave them bad ratings on Amazon.

Now, though, I've been taking it a lot more seriously and learning how to make some pretty impressive skills. I've got a bunch of skills out for kids, as well as a couple of skills for trivia and facts.

My biggest upcoming project, though, is to release interactive novels. Basically, this will be a story you can interact with, sort of like a choose your own adventure novel (goosebumps did those for a while, and they were a lot of fun!). I'll do some for adults and some for kids hopefully, and they will be released in chapters with updates.

If you like using Amazon Alexa, then please check some of my apps out and see if you enjoy them. I would also appreciate a review on Amazon if you have the time so other people can find the skills easier.

Next Skill News

My next Alexa Skill is going to be an Interactive Novel. I think first I will release a sample 'concept' version of one of my applications (called the Dark Citadel) and then I will release my Interactive Bedtime Stories for Kids ones. Now that I have my biggest hurdle out of the way with the release of Party Trivia I can turn my attention to it as well.

I'm also working on a few more writing projects and will hopefully have some updates about those soon, too. I'm making slow progress with a couple of stories but I'm anticipating finishing a couple of projects by the end of the year.

Sales and More

I'm going to send out a couple of emails with free book offers this month, but February was the big time to get free copies of my main catalog. There will be a sale soon for The Bishop's Legacy discounted, but that is the extent of what March is going to have to offer. If you missed out on free copies, don't fret because I'll offer some again in a couple of months.

CRISPR: A Technothriller was successful on Kickstarter! It managed to raise the money for marketing and editing and will make my job considerably easier with bringing this book to life! Now I just need to finalize it and finish the edits and I'll be sending out those advance copies!

Thank you everyone who supported the campaign and made this a reality! I am not sure if I'll use kickstarter again in the future, but at least now I know that it can work!

Alexa Skills

I've been building amazon alexa skills for a while now, and it's just something I do in my spare time to learn new programming tricks. At first, I just built really shoddy skills that no one wanted to use, and it showed because people gave them bad ratings on Amazon.

Now, though, I've been taking it a lot more seriously and learning how to make some pretty impressive skills. I've got a bunch of skills out for kids, as well as a couple of skills for trivia and facts.

My biggest upcoming project, though, is to release interactive novels. Basically, this will be a story you can interact with, sort of like a choose your own adventure novel (goosebumps did those for a while, and they were a lot of fun!). I'll do some for adults and some for kids hopefully, and they will be released in chapters with updates.

If you like using Amazon Alexa, then please check some of my apps out and see if you enjoy them. I would also appreciate a review on Amazon if you have the time so other people can find the skills easier.

Other News

I'm working on my next project now when I have the time. I'm also running major promotions all this month to give away free copies of my books. This is because of how awesome the Kickstarter campaign went and I wanted to reward my fans and readers! Keep your eyes out for those free copies!

Here is my book signing schedule for 2018, including all of the different places I will be at and which books I'll be bringing to each event.

Check it out on facebook here to show your support!

I'll keep adding more signings to the tour as they get scheduled. There are already several that have been submitted to in the last couple of days that should hopefully get added here fairly soon.