Map for Epertase Two

In August, the second chapter of my Epertase trilogy will be released and believe me when I say it is full of surprises. One of those little surprises is the map. Rhemalda, being as wonderful as they are, has agreed to alter the map from book one to reflect some of the changes that occur in book two. I think it is super cool and I can't wait until you read how these changes happened. I have written five books at this point (2 of which have been published) and I believe without question Epertase two is my best work. Anyone who liked Epertase one even a little will love Epertase two. I am so excited for the release.
Here is the cover if you haven't seen it yet, followed by the new map. Cool, huh? (Click on the map to see it closer.)

Tamed hits 20,000 Kindle downloads in first 3 months

Tamed hits 20,000 Kindle downloads in first 3 months

Moses Lake, WA (PRBuzz.com) April 18, 2012 -- Rhemalda Publishing and author Douglas R. Brown are excited to announce that Tamed has surpassed 20,000 ebook downloads. This is Douglas' most successful book to date and he is excited to share his work with so many readers.

Released on January 26th 2012, Tamed has been met with high praise for its originality with Cherie Reich calling Tamed, "The Jurassic Park of werewolf stories." Author Ashley Knight said Tamed is "Viciously brilliant." Rhemalda Publishing believes Tamed is a werewolf book unlike any other with werewolves being sold as pets.

The idea for Tamed came from Douglas' desire to change how people view werewolf stories much in the way HBO's True Blood changed how people view vampires. While brainstorming for a unique idea to accomplish that goal, Douglas was inspired by his 95-LB. Doberman Pinscher. The idea that such a powerful creature could be so docile and tame gave him the original idea he needed.

Now that the first 20,000 readers are enjoying Douglas' writing and sharing their views, he is looking forward to the next 20,000 and what they think.

Douglas R. Brown is a fantasy and horror writer living in Pataskala, Ohio. He began writing as a cathartic way of dealing with the day-to-day stresses of life as a firefighter/paramedic in Columbus, Ohio. Now he focuses his writing on fantasy, where he can draw from his lifelong love of the genre. Douglas R. Brown's website is at http://www.epertase.com. Tamed can be purchased from Rhemalda Publishing, your local bookstore, or your favorite online retailer (Amazon).

Tamed ISBN: 978-1-936850-70-9
Legends Reborn; The Light of Epertase ISBN: 978-1-936850-10-5

Rhemalda Publishing
PO Box 1790, Moses Lake, WA 98837
marketing@rhemalda.com
www.rhemalda.com

KDP Select and My Experience (Plus tips you can use)

Amazon has a program called KDP Select (not to be confused with KDP as the two are different programs. The select is Amazon exclusive and the other isn't.) With KDP Select, authors and publishers offer their books to Amazon for 90 days exclusively. In exchange for the exclusivity, they allow a 5-day window where the book can be offered for free.

Now, that doesn't sound like such a great deal for anyone aside from Amazon, but it actually is. By offering the ebook for free, the author or publisher gets to use Amazon's marketing muscle by way of their ranking system. Also, the more people who download the book, the more the book shows up in Amazon's "customers who bought this book also bought x" section. That gets the book in front of more people which, of course, is the whole goal of marketing. On top of that, if the book does well enough, it's ranking gets better, in turn gaining more exposure. The hope with this process is that the book goes semi viral and becomes self-sustaining in the downloads during the 5 free days.

I'll tell you my experience and a few tricks that I felt helped my success with the program. My first foray into the program was a collection of horror short stories called Death Alarm that I self-published as a way to test the waters. I had a nice cover created by cover artist, Steve Murphy, and started my 5 free days. I did a bit of promoting, but not a lot. My final numbers were 344 total downloads and 0 paid downloads after the 5 free days. Other than the fact that my work was now in the hands of 344 people who may never have seen it otherwise, the program was basically a failure for me considering the amount of work put into the project.

So, when Rhemalda approached me about using the promotion for Tamed, I was highly skeptical. Rhemalda had been seeing different results with a few of their books and felt Tamed had a chance to be far more successful than my short story collection, Death Alarm.

After a bit of convincing on Rhemalda's part, I gave in. Boy, was I wrong to be skeptical. At the end of the first day, Rhemalda told me Tamed was being downloaded at a rate of 750 per hour. It hit 10,000 downloads in the first 24 hours or so. Yeah, I'd say that was successful.

In the Amazon free store, Tamed rose to number 1 in horror and number 1 in contemporary fantasy. It held those rankings throughout the promotion which meant it was still being downloaded at a pretty good clip. OK, it dropped to number 3 in horror on the last day, but still. During the 5 days, Tamed hovered between 17 and 49 in the overall rankings (top 100 should be your goal) which I was pretty happy about.

My final downward numbers were 21,466. In addition to that many downloads, I received 3 unsolicited reviews and about 25 likes. The reviews were (2) 5-star and (1) 3-star. Pretty exciting start. On a side note: The 3-star reviewer liked the story and characters but complained about the editing. I wonder if that person received a corrupted file because he/she said sentences ended in the middle as part of her complaint and that wasn't something anyone else had complained about.

You probably are asking if this promotion has translated into sales and the answer is a big yes. When the free promotion ended about 24 hours ago, my ranking was 324,000. My current overall ranking is 8,809. Plus, Rhemalda has told me that Tamed is selling pretty steadily in the UK right now as well.

A lot of the success for the KDP promotion has to do with genre, cover art, synopsis and luck. I believe there are few things the author or publisher can do to help, but there are some. For me, I put a ton of promotion into the first day in hopes of having enough downloads that the self sustaining aspect of Amazon took over and that is what happened. Did my promotional work help? Who knows, but I'll tell you what I did and you can decide.

First, I sought out as many Facebook groups that posted free ebook deals as I could. (Simply type kindle, ebook, or free ebook in the FB search.) Be sure to go to their websites and read their instructions ahead of time because some groups want 5 days notice. If there are no instructions just post your book on the day it becomes free.

Next, and I think this helped the most, was tweeting. A lot. Remember, you aren't trying to get your followers to download your book as much as using keywords to expose your book to a ton more people. I had a fortunate Twitter thing happen on day one and it might help you with your tweets. Once I started tweeting, a couple of my tweets were picked up by several werewolf fans and retweeted because, unbeknownst to me, Wednesday is werewolfwednesday. I then added that tag to my tweets. Though I got lucky, you can make your own luck in the same way. Research Twitter with different keywords relating to your book to see if anything is trending and include that word in your tweets. For instance, the word werewolves seemed more popular than werewolf or lycan so my tweets included the word werewolves. I found that you should also include #freeebook #freekindle #Kindle and whatever else you can think of. Also, use bitly.com to shorten your Amazon link to your book so you have more room to tweet. Because Twitter is such a good avenue, I used twuffer.com to schedule tweets throughout the 5 days so that I always had stuff going out.

Next, blog about your giveaway, post to all of your FB groups, and have all of your friends download your book even if they already have it a paperback or whatever. Also, be visible on the Goodreads forums and kindle boards (you can directly promote in the Kindle Board Book Bazaar section). Other than in the Book Bazaar, don't flat out promote your book. Join in on the conversations and have a link to your book in your signature. People who troll those boards often click on your signature and check out what you have. The other thing I did was to create an event to your Goodreads friends. After you do all of these things, cross your fingers and hope for some action.

I realize some people have had equal success with the program without doing any of this, but I like to increase my odds, even if just a bit.

So, good luck everyone.

Free offer for Tamed

When I began seeking publication for my first novel my number one priority was to get my work into as many hands as possible. I wasn't concerned with the money because I figured if what I wrote was well-received, then the money would come in due time. And if it didn't and people were able to get enjoyment from my work, then so be it.

Therefore, I am happy to announce that my wonderful publisher, Rhemalda, is going to give my latest novel, Tamed, away for free for 5 days on the Kindle. This is a great chance to get my werewolf tale with a twist and give it a try at no cost. If you don't have a Kindle, simply download the free Kindle app to your smart phone or tablet and give it a try. Tamed has recently been called, "the Jurassic Park of werewolf stories," and I can't wait for you to give it a read.

There are no strings attached to this deal. Simply download my story and move on. If, however, you would like to help out in return, I'd love for you to share this free offer with your fellow bloggers, Facebookers, and Tweeters so I can give this book to as many people as I can. Also, while you are on the amazon page, feel free to give Tamed a like by clicking on the like button at the top of the page.

So there it is. From now until Sunday, Tamed is yours for free with no strings attached. I am unbelievably proud of Tamed and just knowing this offer will get it into the hands of even more readers is exciting. If you are wondering why Rhemalda would do something like this, I'll give you a brief explanation. First, giving Tamed away gets my writing, along with their company, a larger reach. But also, if the Amazon ranking for Tamed gets low enough, the book will get more visibility and that will, hopefully, turn into sales after the free promotion.

And if it doesn't, well, I hope the readers who get in on this deal will enjoy what I have written.

Here's the link: Free Amazon offer.

Here is the description for Tamed.

 Werewolves are real.

And they make excellent pets.

Owning one of the legendary creatures is the latest fad. The WereHouse insists werepets are loyal, docile, and 100% safe, but what happens when these gentle giants turn on their masters?

While on a routine EMS call, paramedic Christine Alt is attacked by a rogue werepet. She escapes with her life, but the encounter leaves her with more than just scars. As her body begins to change, she discovers the WereHouse is hiding a terrible secret, and they will stop at nothing to keep her from exposing them.

Rhemalda Opus Spring 2012

Rhemalda Publishing released its newest quarterly newsletter and I think it is worth checking out. Wonderful art, great articles, and best of all-free. Here is the Opus.

Repost: Like the medicine we use, life as a paramedic has an expiration date.

Warning* This blog contains disturbing details and is not for sensitive readers.



I’ve been a paramedic for thirteen years, eleven of which on a fairly busy department. When I set out to become a paramedic, I longed for the excitement and rush of racing against time and nature to bring someone from the brink of death. I dreamed of being the guy that people called when there was no one else who could help them. Guiding me, in a sense, was my older cousin, Greg, to whom I’ve always admired.


As I was beginning life as a paramedic, Greg was slowly realizing what I have only recently learned. He was losing that thrill—that special drive—being a paramedic brings to a person. Though I saw it happening to him, I couldn’t fathom it ever happening to me.


Life as a paramedic is tough. I’m not complaining because it can be the greatest job in the world but it is hard.


Part of our job is to forget each horrible call in time to focus on the next. For the most part, I’ve done that throughout my career. But I’m not a robot. Whereas most people have never watched a person die, I’ve done it, sometimes, more than once in a single day. While most people couldn’t imagine holding a baby who has been shaken so violently that they die in their arms, I have done that. 


It is those calls, the ones where a family is driving behind their son’s vehicle when he hits a tree and dies on impact, that add up over the years to set in a special place in my heart. Most paramedics, I imagine, carry similar weight within and continue carrying such burdens throughout their career.


But then, for some paramedics, a run changes everything. For me, it was a car accident on a beautiful fall day. For others, it might be something entirely different or it may never happen. Though I’d seen death of every imaginable type, I wasn’t prepared for that wreck. You might ask why it was different and I’ll try to explain here. That day, in the back seat of a destroyed minivan, I looked into the dying eyes of a little boy. In that split second I made a subconscious connection with him that few people have ever had with a person. At that moment, I couldn’t move; I wanted to call a time-out and hug him, tell him everything would be alright. But I knew better; I had work to do. Outside of the van, with his mother praying next us and police officers surrounding us holding up sheets so passer-bys couldn’t see this boy at his worst, my crew and I worked our best, all while secretly knowing our efforts might be in vain.


Despite the doctors’, nurses’, and our best efforts, several hours later in a hospital bed, that little boy died. The wreck had killed him.


You know what? In some ways that wreck killed me as well.


I didn’t consciously say I never wanted to be a paramedic again, it wasn’t like that, but the joy of my job was gone.


So that was my call, the call that ruined me as a paramedic. It took me awhile to understand that I’d passed my expiration date like my older cousin had so many years before but I eventually realized I wasn’t the same paramedic that I once was. Don’t get me wrong, my skills are fine, heck a lot of them I could do in my sleep, but my zeal—my love of the work—is gone.


It turns out my expiration date was September, 2007 and like any medication past its expiration date, I can still do the job but I’m not as strong as I once was.


Thanks for listening. I promise my next fire department blog will be lighter.

Working in the Inner City

Regular followers of this blog probably already know that I am a lieutenant for a large central Ohio fire department and I have been working mostly in the inner city for the last year. For firefighters, working in the inner city also means living in the inner city for 24 hours out of every 72. It is almost like a second home. We sleep there, eat there, and take emergency calls there.


On nice days we leave our bay doors open and a lot of times we sit out on the ramp (we call it ramping), but it is basically just a way for us to be a part of the neighborhood. Doing this makes us approachable for people needing help or people simply wanting to chat. With this blog I wanted to give you a little glimpse into working in that kind of an area. Let me preface this by saying there is a lot of good that happens around there, but this blog will mostly focus on the bad. Hey, I'm trying to paint a specific picture here. Here are just a few of the interesting things that you may not have imagined could happen.


Sometimes the neighborhood is very noisy and very violent. If you have ever heard of the gang the Bloods, then you'll understand how violent when I say there is Blood turf only a few blocks away from our station.


Nightly, police helicopters fly overhead so often that we don't even bother looking up at them anymore. They are just there, like airplanes for someone living near an airport. At least once a month I am approached at my vehicle as I am either getting ready to leave work or getting ready to start my shift. The person who approaches me usually asks for money. Typically, the story is that the person is out of gas and needs a few bucks to get to wherever they need to go, but sometimes the story is a little more clever.


On a typical New Year's Eve, the gunfire at midnight sounds literally like a war zone. Celebratory automatic gunfire explodes from around the station and continues for quite some time. If you're quiet enough you can hear some of the bullets land on the roof as they make their way back to earth. You know, gravity and all. The other medics tell me they have responded to calls where bullets have come back down and struck people in the tops of the heads or shoulders, though I haven't been on any of those calls yet.


Our parking lot is surrounded by an 8 or 10 foot chain-link fence topped with barbwire that we lock every night. Even doing that, there has been times where the fence has been cut and firefighters with full tanks of gas on the night before find themselves stopping at the gas station on the way home.


With that said, let's get to last night. I was on the engine. My driver was another medic and is a friend of mine. Here's a quick side note about him: During his first week on company out of the academy (13 or so years ago), he responded to a fire. As he knelt on the front porch to put on the facepiece of his SCBA (Self-contained breathing apparatus or air tank) he heard a loud pop and felt pain in his knee. He knew right away what had happened and he shouted, "I've been shot." Turns out he was right. The fire had heated ammunition within the house to the point that it went off and my friend successfully tried to catch one of the bullets with his knee. Yeah, ouch. Not a great way to start a career.


Anyway, back to last night. As a couple of us walked into the apparatus bay for who knows what reason, we heard multiple distinct, rapid-fire gunshots somewhere right outside the station. We immediately shut the bay doors and waited for the police and what was sure to be a run. Within a minute, our tones went off and we were dispatched to a street one block west of the station on an auto accident. Before we reached the truck, the dispatcher called on the phone and told us not to respond until the police arrived on the scene because the accident was from a shooting. We waited about 30 seconds until the police had everything secured and then we hurried to the scene. Because of the nature of my job and the sensitivity over talking about details, whether those details concern an on-going investigation or HIPPA laws for patients, I'm not going to get into what we found. I will say that we did find a person who had been shot and we did what we do to help him. The last I heard, he was in stable condition at the ER.


Here is the news report if you want to know more along with some video of the aftermath.


So, that was the start of my night. The amazing thing about that call is that it isn't something entirely unusual. I've only been spending most of my shifts at this station for a year now, but the other firefighters tell me this kind of thing happens quite often. The night didn't get much better, although none of the other calls were much worth mentioning here. Let's just say we were busy. In 24 hours, Engine 15 responded to 18 calls. That's busy.