Description:Careful what you wish for...
Sarah Schilling’s twelve year-old brother is wicked smart. But this? Pure genius. Brian snagged an invitation to spend the summer with their favorite aunt and uncle on St. Croix. Uncle Jack tells them, “There will probably be some swimming, some diving. We like to run. There’s a range, so maybe you’ll learn to shoot. Cooking. Your Aunt Helen is a classically trained chef. You knew that, right? There’s the Mallard seaplane, so maybe you’ll learn something about flying. That sort of thing.”
That sort of thing sounds like too much work for Sarah Schilling’s summer on the beach. Until Brian’s scuba regulator mysteriously fails sixty feet underwater. Her training snaps into laser focus. During Brian’s rescue they unearth the 250 year-old secret of Black Bart—the pirate and his ghost. The discovery launches them into a hurricane of peril at the hands of modern-day pirates. The Schilling family will not survive unless Brian and Sarah discover the most powerful weapon that is within themselves.
A Pirate’s Time Served is a YA thriller of a ghost story. It shows how two teens can dig deeper than they thought possible, discovering what it means to lead, to follow, and to never ever give up—especially on family.
A Pirate’s Time Served is my third novel. I wrote it while attending Stanford’s Writers School, Continuing Education. My second novel, God’s Banker, reached number eight on Amazon’s suspense list. I have also written eleven business books published by Simon & Schuster, Putnam, McGraw-Hill, Wiley, and Adams.
GUEST POST
For a professional writer, creating the book is usually the easiest and most fun part of the project. It’s what we were trained for. Then comes the marketing—something foreign to many of us. No matter how great a book we may write, it won’t get any traction in the market place without a smart, aggressive and well thought out marketing campaign.
The first part of the marketing campaign is right in front of you. It’s called the preorder period. Nowadays books must have some sort of buzz going in the market place before they’re ever released. This pre-release buzz comes from the wonderful blogs that so graciously talk about the book and the author. The professional book reviewers also contribute mightily to a book’s success in the preorder stage.
In the case of A Pirate’s Time Served, the preorder time period is about a month long. I’ll be interviewed on a number of very fine literary blogs. I’ll take part in library workshops. I will tweet and Facebook my little heart out. And I’ll make frequent entries to my own blog (www.EnforcementDivision.com). I’ll also begin dripping excerpts and short chapters from the book throughout the Internet.
All of this generates interest in the upcoming A Pirate’s Time Served. Readers can go to Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, Page Foundry, Baker and Taylor and most other eBook platforms (except Amazon) and preorder the book. As a special thank you to these readers I’ve given them 1/3 off the regular price by placing a preorder. When the book is released on August 25, the eBook platform will automatically download it and put it into their library.
Convenience to my readers is certainly a great benefit of preorders. But it does something else. All the preorder sales accumulate during the preorder period. Say I am very lucky and my faithful readers have placed 5,000 preorders for A Pirate’s Time Served. On release day, August 25, all of these accumulated preorders instantly transform into regular sales. Suddenly A Pirate’s Time Served has 5,000 sales to its credit on during the first hour of its first day in release.
This gets attention. The book will almost certainly climb its way into the rarified atmosphere of most platform’s bestseller list. This generates even more attention. Like editors, booksellers are always looking for a parade to jump in front and lead. Here my readers and I have just provided them the very parade they’re looking for. They just may start marketing the book themselves on their sites. If enough readers see the ads, read the book, write a review, and recommend it to their friends and family, the book will go viral.
That is how books gain traction in the market place. It all begins with a strategic marketing plan of which the preorder campaign is an integral part.
Enjoy the day, Chris Malburg
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About the author:
Chris Malburg is a widely published author, with work spread over 11 popular business books--including How to Fire Your Boss (Berkley) and Surviving the Bond Bear Market (Wiley, March 2011). In his other life, Chris is a CPA/MBA, a former investment banker and now the CEO of Writers Resource Group, Inc., providers of professional financial literary content to corporations (www.WritersResourceGroup.com). That’s the professional side of Chris’ career. The fun side began when UCLA’s Writers’ school taught him to transition from biz-speak to fiction. GOD’S BANKER and the first installment in the Enforcement Division series, DEADLY ACCELERATION, both combine Chris’ natural talent for story telling with his professional command of the high-stakes investment world and what money and power do to some people.
GOD’S BANKER came to fruition from Chris’ hospital bed while recuperating from an athletic injury. As a long-time endurance athlete, Chris is no stranger to the surgeon’scalpal. Over 130,000 words later, GOD’S BANKERwas complete. “It just poured out me,” says the author. “I carried my note pad to physical therapy; made plot notes during the hours in the gym doing rehab; even while on my long bicycle rides through the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean where we live. Slowly endurance returned and with it, GOD’S BANKER.”
Chris Malburg lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Marilyn. Their hobby is raising service dogs for Guide Dogs for the Blind. As of this writing, they have raised eight Labrador retrievers and have had three make the cut for placement with their disabled partners.
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