SM Book Club: Tales of the Chernyi

That is odd that your books would be under fantasy but congrats on hitting the top 100. That must feel awesome!

 

Not nearly as good as seeing 50 copies sold...

Ya, I'm pretty mercenary on that stuff....

 

Sorry, but Amazon will only let me purchase one copy, ...

 

True. But why would you want to buy more than one? Under the Amazon current setup, friends are allowed to "borrow" the book (any of my books) for 10 days. Most are a fast read....

Thanks for the purchase..

 

I have bought two of your books but never loaned them. I never finished the series but that is normal for me.
and FYI monkeys if you read @DKR's books he is one author that will always answer your questions and give clarification if you ask. I always appreciated that.

 

I've bought most of the Chernyi series and have just finished Aftermath - they are outstanding bargains and are good for inspiring realistic thought regarding SHTF. Most of the SHTF/Survivalist type books I read usually have something to learn, but they are effectively dime store westerns being very entertaining but usually predictable as well.

I'll likely make a genre shift for a few months, then may come back and read it all again.

 

I have bought and read the Chernyi series also and enjoyed them. Enjoyed the characters and the plot. Emphasis on survival and the general interactions with destruction of infrastructure was done well. Agree it is basically an adult western series, but I still haven't tired of that genre either. He concentrated on basically a small group of characters and developed them well and neither bogged down in detail nor attempt to paint the whole world with a broad brush. Well worth the price and well worth supporting the author. I thank him for several very enjoyable hours of reading and he left enough plot lines going to add several more chapters if he does desire to continue the series. At my age and on a limited budget it was nice to see most of it priced at $2 or less. I have a hard time handling $10 for a e-book no matter how much I would like to read it.

 

My comment about westerns was not aimed at the Chernyi series - most of the other books have the classic but predictable hero/villain/schoolmarm that needs saving elements. Chernyi does have character development as well as plots and twists, but the story is abut how people react, survive, and finally thrive.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

I had initially priced the series at $3.99 and the first of the series @ $0.99. Later, I dropped the price to $1.99 - the hope was with an even lower cost, I would have more sales and pull in a bit more.

Books priced under $2 can only receive the 35% cut - books priced over that can get the 75% cut. Amazon has to make some money for hosting the work, delivery, payment to authors and providing tax forms and all.

Still, for a new author, Amazon is the best thing going. I believe self-publishing has grown tremendously since Amazon has offered an outlet.

In analyzing my sales for the past couple of years, the next book I put out will be the 2nd book of the Prism Mystery series. The target size is 50K words. Short enough to be easy to write, and I have the outline.

I had hoped that at some point another author would want to tackle a WoC story set in Europe, Oz or Central America - so far, no interest. Not surprising. The economy has settled down, unemployment is shrinking and the social unease that tends to make EoW/SHTF books 'popular' has or is on the wane. So, on to a mystery story....

Thanks to all for the feedback.

 

When I think of westerns, I tend to think of Louis La More and a well researched, well written book with good character development, lots of action, and a sense of the struggle between good and evil and the outcome is never a total given. When you read one of the Sacket novels in his series, you are hooked. The conditions in the old west, 1820's to 1880's, with the unchecked westward expansion, the Mexican American war, the Texas independence war, the occupation of Deseret, the removal of the Indian population, there were dozens of "trail of tears", the creation of the "reservations". no real law on the leading edge of the expansion or the breakdown of law with the end of the Civil War and the repressive carpet bagger governments, are probably very close to what would occur if the SHTF. History may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes. A lot of the Tales of the Chernyi could just as easily been written as a low tech historical fiction piece set in Bloody Kansas during the Civil war or interactions between the occupying Union Army and the LDS state of Deseret in the 1850's.

 

In book 6 of the series The Fisher People, I weave a lot of the history of Texas into the book - for example, the Battle of Sabine Pass. I got a lot positive feedback on that aspect.

I do extensive research on each area and related history. The area around the Ozarks are featured in Aftermath, and the TenTom waterway in the Fisher People, for example...

All great fun.

 

About those pieces parts of the moon hitting earth





much of the same crap found in "2012'

Just the same - pieces of the moon raining down would not be any fun....

 

These are the kind of reviews I'd love to see over on my Amazon book seller review pages....

Most are a single line...