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The sequel to Aliens & Latte is here!

Coffee to Go, With a Spaceship is now available on Amazon! Yeah!

I started on the sequel to Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte in the spring of 2016. Fans have been asking about it ever since I announced that the 2nd book was in the works, and many of you asked to be put on my mailing list so you’d be notified when it was released.

Well, it’s finally here and available on Amazon for Kindle.

Coffee to Go
Book 2 in the Jack Winters adventures

The title is slightly different than what I had originally announced, but I felt that it was a bit of a mouthful and decided to shorten it.

In this sequel to ‘Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte’, the alien bounty hunters are back and bent on revenge against Jack. They kidnap his son, Johnnie, and take him to a desolate slave world. Donna accompanies Jack into space on a rescue mission to get Johnnie back, and along the way she learns how to fly a spaceship. With them is Montclair, a little elf-like man from another world who offers the use of his spaceship to go after the bounty-hunters. But Montclair’s generosity comes with a price, and Jack is forced to make some promises he may later regret.

I hope you enjoy the sequel as much as the first one. If you find the time, I’d love to hear from you after you have read it and let me know what you think.

Thanks again for reading my books! Being a writer is so much more fun when there are readers who enjoy it  🙂

And yes, I did leave a huge opening at the end of the 2nd book for a third installment…

Cheers

Mike

 

Jack Winters sequel being beta read

The long-anticipated sequel to Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte went out to beta readers this week. I’m

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looking forward to hearing back from them. Polishing a manuscript is a real process and beta readers are an invaluable part of it. A big thank-you to all my brave beta-readers!

This week’s exciting news – Aliens & Latte promo in 2 newsletters

Gone on a road trip

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged or done much of anything on this site. I’ve been on a long sabbatical from writing, and a couple of days ago a posted a blog in which I listed all my excuses for the year long break, so I won’t repeat myself here. But right now I want to tell you about an exciting promotion coming later this week for Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte.

Marketing and promotions has never been my forte, and most of my writer friends I talk to don’t like it any more than I do, but it’s something that has to be done.

Actually, just to follow a rabbit trail for a bit, I do have one writer friend who absolutely loves promoting and marketing. He wrote one book, then spent 4 years marketing it. He went on books tours and even landed a TV spot. He always carried a copy with him and he would tell everyone we met, even the waitress serving our lunch when we met at a restaurant. It got a bit embarrassing, actually.

About the same time he finished his book, I finished mine. But I stuck mine in a drawer (okay, a virtual drawer), and then immediately started writing another, never giving marketing a thought. And then I wrote another. I’ve finished 7 novels and my friend still hasn’t written his second. But then he’s made more money at it then I have.

Well, enough of that rabbit trail. I just wanted to let you know I’ve engaged the services of a nice marketing outfit going by the name of Bargain Booksy. Maybe you’ve heard of them. They email a newsletter to a big list of subscribers every day in which they feature novels. When subscribers sign-up they pick the genre’s they want to see, so the newsletter they get will only have books they might be interested in. Booksends is another group of nice people who do the same thing, and I’ve engaged their services as well.

I’ve dropped the price of Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte and Sand Angel to 99 cents. Aliens and Latte will be featured in Booksends April 7 and Bargain Booksy April 8. Sand Angel will be featured in Booksends April 8.

Both newsletters feature a picture of the cover, a small blurb about the book and links to Amazon where you can buy them.

Sign up for Bargain Booksy and Booksends, or go right to Amazon and buy the book. They really are extremely well written and clever, and for 99 cents you can’t go wrong.

Cheers

Aliens & Latte promo this week

I’m launching a new promotion for Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte later this week. I’ve reduced the price for the Kindle version to 99 cents (crazy, I know), and it will be featured on BookSends April 7th and Bargain Booksy April 8th.

Both these advertisers use an email newsletter sent out to a list of subscribers, and subscribers can sign up to see book features in their favorite category. I’ve had good success with both of them in the past! After the promo is over I’ll post the results (for better or worse) on this blog.

More details to follow in tomorrows blog!

Where oh where is Jack Winters???

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Okay, I owe my fans an explanation. The second book in the Jack Winters series has been on the back-burner for a year now. And I have a very good reason – I took a badly needed break from writing. Yup, I set writing aside for a year. My sanity – and my long suffering wife – both needed it.

I’m an 80 per-center. I belong to that group of writers that have to work a day job to pay the bills – and that’s 80% of all writers. So that means getting up early – and I mean crazy early, like 3 and 4 AM, to get in a few hours of writing before leaving for work. I did this for 9 years straight to be exact, and finished 7 full novels.

It was starting to make me a bit crazy, and a bit too much, with a home and a full time job, six kids and three grandkids. No dogs or cats, thankfully. The cat died a few years ago and we’ve never replaced it, and I don’t have time for puppies, as cute and adorable as they can be. (Who’s got time for those?)

To top it off, two of our kids got married last fall, within a month of each other, so it was a bit nuts. I did ask them to consider rescheduling, just to spread the craziness out a bit, but they weren’t listening to Dad on that score. Go figure.

I read a book by a well-known writer on writing a while back, in which he pontificated upon the traits of the successful writer and the necessary commitment that required. And while I agree it takes commitment and hard work, he took it too far. He extolled the virtue of making it the number one, absolute top priority, without which you won’t be successful (according to him). And just to underscore the point, he used as an example another famous writer who missed his son’s funeral – a son who died by suicide in his early twenties – because he was too busy writing.

Yup – he wouldn’t leave his writing long enough to attend his son’s funeral. Kinda sick, eh?

Sorry, but I won’t sacrifice to those gods.

But I will be getting the manuscript to my beta readers next week, once I’ve finished another pass through it. (I don’t want to torture my beta readers any more than necessary.)

So my game plan is to publish the sequel this spring.

sci-fi detective noirPlease feel free to drop me a line with any questions, comments, or thoughts on how we can attain peace in the middle-east, cure cancer, encourage Trump to leave office early, or anything else that might be helpful to humanity.

 

Coffee to Go – Progress Update on the Jack Winters Sequel

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This past week several fans of “Aliens & Latte” have emailed me to ask about the sequel. It is heart-warming to know so many people enjoyed the first book and are eagerly awaiting the second.

Well, the good news is that I finished the first draft last month. Now, first drafts always have to be proof-read, edited and polished. No sane writer would ever inflict a first draft on his fans. Heck, I wouldn’t even inflict it on my editor. So I will be going over the manuscript again to clean it up, then send it to my ‘editorial staff’ for final polishing.

I hope to have “Coffee to Go, With Spaceships & a Bounty Hunter” ready this summer. But please be patient. Most writers, myself included, hold down a so-called ‘real job’ for a living. So I get my writing done between the hours of 4 and 7 in the morning before getting ready for work, which means progress is not always as fast as I’d like. It’s a good thing I’m what my wife calls an annoyingly perky morning person, and all I need is a good cup of coffee at 4AM and I’m ready to go. (BTW, according to recent stats, 80% of all writers work at other jobs to pay the bills unless they have a spouse that supports them. This includes traditionally published NYT authors.)

This is my first post since last fall, so admittedly I’ve really sucked at blogging. I’ve been too busy writing and working and keeping up with my kids. But I promise to keep you updated on the progress of the sequel more faithfully in this blog.

And always, if you have any questions or want to know more about Jack Winters and his adventures, please feel free to drop me a line.

Cheers!

Mike

 

Aliens and Latte print version is now available

I’m thrilled to share the news with all my readers that the print version is now ready. I received the proof copy from Amazon Createspace yesterday, and it looks great! This is my first novel in print form, and it was a real thrill to hold the physical book in my hand and look through it. A book is a book, but I have to admit – although I am a huge fan of digital – it was a bigger thrill to see and hold the paper book than it was to see the eBook on my Kindle.

It will be available on Amazon in 2-3 days.

Thanks fans and have fun reading!

Mike

Print version ‘Latte’ coming soon

Due to overwhelming demand from at least two friends and my favourite aunty, I’ve decided to go into the tree-killing business and make a print version available of my first book, Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte. I expect it to be ready shortly, in the next week or so.

It will be available on Amazon. Keep on eye on my blog for the news, or my book site on Amazon.

 

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Hello world!

sci-fi detective noirWelcome to my new website. I’m glad you came to visit. I write sci-fi detective noir and futuristic fiction featuring hard-boiled detective Jack Winters.

I’m still building my website, so be patient, okay? It will be done soon – hang in there.