Rob D. Smith's Blog

I feel like I’m trapped in a haunted website not unlike Mike Enslin in Room 1408 in The Dolphin hotel. This will all be testing until I get the hang of WordPress editing or it kills me. It’s fifty-fifty at this moment.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

My plan is to post raw, yet to be professionally edited chapters of Dang: The Legend of Vernon Boone with a giant disclaimer explaining that the sample chapters may change and that I will have the book professionally edited before it’s published. I will also include a big bold spoiler alert at the top of each sample chapter. I’m going to post the first three chapters then evaluate whether or not to continue. If everything goes according to plan, I will have chapter 1 posted next week. Keep your eyes peeled!

What drives you to leave a review on Amazon?

Do you read the reviews before buying a book?

How do you feel about books that don’t have any reviews?

I’m a lurker on several different author forums and some authors seem to be obsessed with getting reviews on Amazon. Partly because many promotional sites require a minimum number of reviews with a minimum average rating to advertise. There also seems to be the assumption that more reviews equals more sales.

I haven’t been all that concerned with getting reviews, and I haven’t put much effort into pursuing them. I did paperback giveaways for Dang: Episode 1 and Dang: Episode 2 on Goodreads and through Rafflecopter last summer, but that was more for publicity than for reviews.

I would really like to here from readers on this. What is your opinion of reviews on Amazon?

A quick note about my plans for the Dang series. Dang: The Dang Series Book 1 (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) is no longer available as a Kindle Unlimited title. In a couple weeks, Dang: Episode 1 will also be out of Kindle Unlimited. My plan is to release Dang: The Dang Series Book 1 on Barnes and Noble, iBooks and other sites.

I’m no longer releasing serial episodes. As a part of this shift away from the serial format, I have completely unpublished Dang: Episode 2 and Dang: Episode 3. I haven’t decided what to do with Dang: Episode 1 yet. I’m thinking about making Dang: Episode 1 free and releasing it on the other sites as well. Any suggestions?

This may change but the working title for book 2 is Dang: The Legend of Vernon Boone. What do you think? I’m considering posting the first few chapters as I write. Not sure about that yet either. I know, I’m not sure about much…

Progress on book 2 is slow but steady. I have the crime all laid out, and I’m fine tuning the details. As I write, I have two burning questions I need to answer to speed up the writing process. Please let me know what you think. All feedback is welcome.

1) In the first book I ended each chapter with “Dang.” I’ve only had limited feedback on this, and the few people who have commented on the “Dang” endings seem to like it. For all those I haven’t heard from, do you like the way each chapter ended in “Dang” or was that annoying. Would you like the chapters in book 2 to end in a similar way or should I do away with that type of thing?

2) After I released Dang: Episode 3, I decided not to release Dang in the serial format anymore. My plan now is to release book 2 (I haven’t decided on the name yet) and not release individual episodes. However, sales of the individual episodes have been much better than sales for Dang: The Dang Series Book 1. This leads me to believe that readers actually like reading one episode at a time. So what do you think? Would you like for me to release book 2 as episodes first and then bundle the episodes to make book 2, or do you prefer just to wait and get book 2 all at once? If enough of you want episodes, I will gladly reverse my decision and release individual episodes before releasing the complete book. 

Please let me know your thoughts. I really, really, really could use some feedback. I look forward to your comments and thanks for reading!

All Kindle editions are on sale for a limited time. Check it out here!

For fun (and for research), I’ve started reading books that come up when I search for my own books on Amazon. I’m creating a reading list of other fun mysteries and thrillers set in the South. First on my list is Louisiana Longshotby Jana DeLeon.

Louisiana Longshot is a southern cozy mystery. Many of the “Also Viewed” and “Also Bought” books for Dang are cozy mysteries. Although Dang isn’t a cozy, I guess something about it appeals to cozy readers. Must be the humor…

If anyone has suggestions for my reading list, please let me know.

Dang: Episode 3 is available for free November 20, 2014!

Get it here!