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Fresh website design!

Published by Adam on April 27, 2015

I took this selfie just before seeing the new Avengers movie. It was awesome. — I took this selfie just before seeing the new Avengers movie. Guys, It was so awesome.

You may have noticed the site looks different. I mean, assuming you’ve been here before. If this is your first time on my website, that’s cool, but–hey don’t click away! Ok, click away, but at least check out one of my novels or something!

Still with me? Cool, so I’ll point a few things about the new design. First off, it’s way more modern in appearance, and the responsive design means it looks great on mobile devices, too.

It’s also a little less “bloggy.” I used to have a separate website and WordPress blog, but a little while ago decided they were a bit redundant and it made sense to kill the increasingly dated-looking website. The only problem with that approach was that my old blog design didn’t quite give me the flexibility to highlight news about my writing, and it felt a bit plain for presenting my novels.

This brings me to the next thing, which is that I’ve also killed the individual book websites I had up at wethewatched.com and wethedivided.com. Those links still work, but now they redirect to pages on this website. As much as I loved those old sites (heck, I designed them myself!), they were only kind of, sort of responsive design. I really tried, but they never actually looked that good on phones or tablets. I lived in denial about this until Google itself told me so.

I'm happy to report that Google has come around to liking my website. — I’m happy to report that Google has come around to liking my website.

So there you have it. Brand new web design. I think I’ve transferred over all the great stuff about my old websites, and I’ve even brought back some stuff like web samples of my novels WE, THE WATCHED and DIVIDED WE FALL. There’s also some new stuff coming soon and maybe a few more design tweaks.

Please let me know if you notice anything missing or if something just plain doesn’t look right!

Yes, yes. You’re welcome, eyes.

-Adam

Now you can subscribe to eBooks

Published by Adam on December 21, 2013

The popularity of the Kindle and tablets like the iPad have driven eBook sales in recent years. Their beautiful screens, light weight and anywhere, anytime store interfaces have convinced readers from around the world that digital books can be just as nice to read as the traditional paper version.

As an author, it’s been great. When I first released We, The Watched online, most people didn’t have eReaders and the best I could expect was for people to read my novel in their web browsers or–maybe, if they had the ink to spare–download the PDF and print it out. Now, with eReaders widespread and my self-published book available on all of the major eBook stores, I have a much wider potential audience than when I began.

Of course, the essential problem with self-publishing remains: how to convince people to give my book a try when I have only a limited marketing budget. Why take a chance spending money on my book when you haven’t heard of it and there’s plenty of other books out there that your friends have been talking about?

It’s a good point. Sure, I could spend all day telling you how great my book is, but why would you take my word for it? I’m no LeVar Burton.

This is why I am so excited about a new wave in eBook publishing: subscriptions!

Following the model of Netflix and Spotify, new sites are popping up promising readers unlimited reading for a small monthly subscription price. These include Oyster and a revamped reading service from Scribd.

Oyster charges $9.95 per month for unlimited reading through an app for the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Scribd charges $8.99 for unlimited reading through its own app for those Apple devices plus Android phones and tablets. Both have promotions offering the first month for free.

The Oyster app running on an iPad Mini. Credit: Oyster

While I’m not sure I read enough books to make this worth it for me personally, I know a lot of people who do. And the ability to discover new books without any risk is pretty cool.

As an author, I am excited. Thanks to some great deals worked out by Smashwords (one of my eBook distributors) We, The Watched is now available on Oyster and will soon be released on Scribd.

This means that readers can try my novel–and read it to the end–and not pay a penny more than the subscription price they would have paid anyway. And I even get about the same royalty as I would have from a traditional sale.

It’s an exciting concept, and I am hoping it is the beginning of a trend. Perhaps in the future, we will see the bigger eBook stores try similar price models. It is certainly a great development for authors and one that will make an even better business case for going self-published.

Watched in the real world

Published by Adam on June 12, 2013

The current debate over the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, PRISM, highlights a great conundrum for citizens of any country: How much personal privacy should one give up in exchange for better national security?

When I wrote my novel We, The Watched and its upcoming sequel Divided We Fall, I imagined a dystopian nation in which the government had used national security as an excuse to take all privacy rights from the people. That’s not the case today, but it’s one possible outcome if the balance swings too far in one direction.

With every call, social media update or credit card transaction, people leave behind a long trail of data that can potentially be stored and analyzed by businesses and the government. The digitization of video and an increasing number of surveillance cameras potentially adds even more data to mix.

Evolving tools for big data analysis provide an ability to parse and make sense of all this information like never before. This technology can be used for good and keep people safe, but like any great power it can be abused without the right privacy checks in place.

Category: Technology

Fresh website design!

Now you can subscribe to eBooks

Watched in the real world

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