BAMWriters: May 2009

I’m retired from the Navy and today is Memorial Day. That’s all the explanation I really need to give for what I’m about to do.

I sold my very first book under my name to Berkley in the late 90's. I'd been writing technothrillers for them for a while under a tough guy name but it was the prevailing philosophy that women weren't supposed to write the sort of stuff I'm good at -- military action adventure. Chicks don't write that kind of stuff. Gag.

And why not? My novels are based on MY time in the Navy and MY TOUR at the War College and all -- heck, I was XO of the unit I'm writing about!

Anyway, Berkley was just then experimenting with female protagonists in technothrillers. There was some thinking that men wouldn't buy books like this written by a woman. They insisted that I use my initials rather than my name and we never ever capitalized on the fact that we were breaking new ground. Let’s ignore the simple fact that women buy 60% of technothrillers….

Personally, I deeply regret that I didn't insist on having my name on my books. I did not understand a lot of things I know about now -- heck, I barely knew standard royalty rates. As an aside, that's one reason I found the entire Reality Check series of workshops I do now. I don't want other writers to repeat my mistakes.

Anyway -- this book went on to hit the USA Today bestseller lists. We should have springboarded off that to push for wider distribution. My subsequent manuscripts sold in the six figure range. And then -- well, there's more to the story that I'll tell you about some day. At any rate, this was my very first bestseller.

Today, Memorial Day, I wanted to share it with everyone again. This is my present to you. There's no obligation.

Go to http://dogbooks.org and click on the Memorial Day tab on the top. Or use this direct link: http://dogbooks.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=23&Itemid=31 If something glitches, let me know. I think I’ve got it set up to work easily but one never knows for sure.

If you like it and you want to make a donation to At Risk Intervention (http://atriskintervention.org) to help us save more dog lives, that'd be both cool and tax deductible. Or if you'd like the file in a different format, you can get it from smashwords HERE (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1983): http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1983. I think if you want Kindle etc it's $3. But this pdf is free.

Rereading it, I still love it. I see my strengths as a writer and wince over the places I want to rewrite. I know some of my students are going to read this and I'm going to hear about it later, as in, “Yeah, but on page 147, YOU did the same thing!” Hey, I was new. What can I say?

Let me know what YOU think. Because in my not-so-humble opinion, I think it stands up against anyone writing today and I think if you like technothrillers, you're going to love Rites of War and the books that followed. I sweated blood writing this book and I am jazzed about making it available now. (I'm still more than a little peeved about Berkley, in case you didn't pick up on that.)

Oh, yes. I do indeed rock today. Blog/Twitter/FB all integrated.

Now, the folks who've been to my workshops know I preach that writers need to start well ahead of publication date establishing an audience, a platform. We have guidelines about how that needs to work within our publishing plans and it makes a huge difference in sales.

Recently, I've even been taking my own advice. Seriously.

And after a long few days of noodling about, I've got the pipeline down. A system. Yes, seriously.

Think I'll host an online course on how to do it all. It'll be up on http://bamwriters.com in a day or so and will save you a TON of time and frustration.

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