For Nothing is in beta

My first stab at a novel, For Nothing, is now officially in the hands of readers.  It is a first draft (if you don't count the edits that Jen and I did over the last several years).  My editor has read it and made some really great points and before I commence with a 14 day smash mouth rewrite, I wanted to get the thoughts of the average reader.

Paul, Chris, Aaron, Lee; Thank you.  I really appreciate the effort. Now if you are reading this, stop checking out my blog and finish reading my damn manuscript so I can correct it.  Slackers.

Since I have read a shit ton of stories of how authors took their first novel and put it in a drawer, I am very interested to see the feedback that I get.  I have noticed several flaws in the story and am curious to see who picks up on those little, and sometimes big, errors.  However, once I rewrite the novel with the pertinent corrections, deletions, and additions I am going to head in a different direction.

I will publish the novel on the Kindle and try to drum up some grassroots support for it.

Items in my favor:

·         I used to grassroots organize

·         My brother Rob does search engine optimization at http://flseodesign.com/ 

·         My brother Alex is in the video blog community in a big way.  Check out his pages here and here

·         I have great beta readers

·         I know how to turn on a computer

·         My other brother Chris can be my agent should this take off

·         My cousin does book covers. Check out his website here

·         ...and hopefully the manuscript is not utter crap. 

Items NOT in my favor:

·         As of now I have a very small, some would say non-existent platform

·         I have no clue whether search engine optimization can help elevate book sales when the Kindle seems to have its own search engine through Amazon

·         My brother Alex may or may not be able to infiltrate the book blogger community successfully (I use the term infiltrate in jest ... sorta...)

·         I might be a bad organizer

·         I might be a bad novelist

In any case, I feel like the pieces are there if we can pull them all together then I might be able to have more than a dozen people read this book that took me about four years.  Maybe five.  Entirely too long at any rate.

It is important to me to put this novel behind me though because I really do have some cool ideas for a trilogy I want to explore.  And of course my other novel Gods Forgotten Son has been begging for attention the last year or two as well.

What do I have to lose?  A novel being read by twenty people is better than a novel that sits in a drawer fighting spiders for room amongst the cobwebs.  So let the games commence!