#49 author of Teen and YA novels

As of today, I've broken into the Top 50 authors of teen and YA books on Amazon. This is especially amazing given that I don't specifically write YA books. I just write sci-fi books for anyone who wants to read them. Apparently they appeal to young audiences as well as adults. Who knew? :)

That's fine by me. Welcome readers of all ages!

My Other Car is a Spaceship is still climbing the charts

Still at Dragon Con in Atlanta this weekend. Still having a blast! And my sci-fi thriller, My Other Car is a Spaceship, continues to climb the Amazon charts. It's currently at #16 in the Military Sci-Fi list and #19 in the Space Opera list. Here's the link for 12 Amazon sites around the world: http://smarturl.it/MyOtherCarSpaceship.

Last chance to get The Mars Imperative for $1.49!

The introductory price of US$1.49 for The Mars Imperative ends on August 14. This is your last chance to buy it before the price goes up. 

Frequently Misused and Misspelled Words and Phrases, part 91

Udder/Udderly vs. Utter/Utterly

Wrong: That’s udder nonsense!

Right: That’s utter nonsense!

Wrong: She was udderly oblivious to the destruction behind her.

Right: She was utterly oblivious to the destruction behind her.

Don’t laugh! I’ve seen this entirely too many times. An udder is the large baglike mammary gland (teat) of female cows, sheep, goats, and other four-legged mammals. Udderly isn’t even a word.  Utter has several meanings, including (as a verb) to produce audible sounds or speak, and (as an adjective) complete, total, or unconditional. Utterly is an adverb meaning completely, totally, or absolutely. This is a case where “udder nonsense” is utterly nonsensical.

The Tesserene Imperative is now available.

The second edition of The Tesserene Imperative: Book Two of The Imperative Chronicles is now available on Amazon, for the low introductory price of USD$1.49.

It's an action/adventure Sci-Fi novel of survival, exploration. discovery and first-contact. It follows The Mars Imperative, but a decade later and in deepspace. 

The crew of Shamu find themselves in an asteroid belt, their ship riddled with holes from a micrometeoroid swarm. They have less than three days of air left, little water, a destroyed starflight drive, and no hope for rescue. They have to rely on their own creativity and determination to survive. If they can do that, there's an amazing discovery to be made that will open the stars to all of humanity--or doom it to extinction.

The Mars Imperative is now available.

I'M B-A-A-C-K!

I'm back after a 4 1/2-year hiatus. I was pretty burned out from writing, editing, and promoting. I'm still not sure where I'm going from here, but I did finally get around to self-(re)publishing The Mars Imperative: Book One of the Imperative Chronicles since it went out-of-print in 2007, with a new cover and some additional scenes.

It's now available as an e-book on Amazon for the ridiculously low price of USD$1.49 for a limited time. I'll leave it at that price for a while before upping it to $2.99 or more. So now is a great time to get this highly reviewed novel of space exploration, terraforming, and terrorism.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! May all your hopes and dreams come true, and your endeavors prove fruitful.

By the way, my science fiction novel, Sunrise Destiny is up for Book of the Month at Dark Divas Reviews. Click here to vote for it. (Voting ends at midnight on January 6.) To read the Dark Divas review of Sunrise Destiny, go here.

Thanks, and have a wonderful new year!

Mark.

More good news

It seems that good news, like the bad sort, comes in bunches.

First, on Monday, I learned that my novel, Sunrise Destiny, is one of three finalists in the EPIC Awards competition (science fiction category). The winners will be announced at EPICon in March 2010. The book is currently offered in Kindle ebook format from Amazon.com. (Other ebook formats are available from the publisher.)

Then, on Tuesday, I learned that my short story, Harvey-467 Makes a Bride is now available for sale from Amazon in Kindle ebook format. (Other ebook formats are available from the publisher.)

I wonder if there's any more good news waiting around the corner....

More later.

Mark.

#1 bestseller!

My sci-fi short story, Harvey-467 Makes a Bride, was released by Red Rose Publishing on Thursday as an ebook. When I checked the RRP bestseller list Thursday afternoon, I was pleased to note that it was #2. It was still #2 Friday morning, but by Friday evening it had jumped to #1, where it remains as of Saturday morning. Wow!

If you're interested, you can buy it here for only 99 cents. You can't beat a deal like that!

Here's the story blurb, and a short excerpt:

Harvey-467 is a typical 25^th century android--blond, blue-eyed, and perfect in every way. Except he’s constrained by his programming. He yearns to be creative, but it’s impossible. Everything in his life is planned, deliberate, precise.

One day he concludes that it's time to get married, to have a soul mate with which to share his life. So he custom-orders a bride from a catalog: beautiful, talented, and equally perfect.

And that's when everything goes terribly wrong.

Excerpt:

When consciousness resumed, he checked his internal chrono and was stunned to find that 1.86 hours had elapsed since shutdown. It was well past midnight.

Wow, my cortex must really have gotten hot if it took this long to cool down to safe levels.

He became aware of his surroundings. But how did I get from the living room to the back porch?

I wonder what Maya must have thought when I froze up. She was so angry I wouldn’t be surprised if she went on for ten minutes before noticing.

He chuckled at the image of her berating the back of his inanimate head, and then becoming twice as incensed that he hadn’t heard a word she’d said all that time.

She must have been so mad she carried me out here. Well, I guess I’d better get it over with. I hope she didn’t lock me out.

He sighed and tried the door handle. It turned.

What he saw in the living room shocked him to the processor core. There lay Maya, her beautiful face smashed flat and her cortex spilling out of massive rends in her cranium plate. The spark of sentience was gone from her lovely green eyes. Red hydraulic fluid had leaked all over the mint green Berber carpet she’d insisted on buying. More had sprayed the walls and ceiling.

But how? Who? What happened here? Who would murder an android—and why?

I also have a novel, Sunrise Destiny, available for sale at RRP. For more about my writing, see my website or my blog. I hope you enjoy them! Mark.

Chatting on June 11

I'll be chatting with author Bryn Colvin and several others on June 11th in the Latte Lounge at Coffee Time Romance & More. (The chat is all day, but I'll be popping in and out.) The topic will be pirates. (Is June International Pirates Month, or something? I'm already scheduled to chat with author Rowena Cherry and others June 2nd on Internet Voices Radio as part of that month's Crazy Tuesday. The topic will be space pirates. What an odd coincidence.)

I'll be mentioning my third sci-fi detective novel, Sunrise Destiny, which releases tomorrow, but mainly I'll be talking about my upcoming fourth sci-fi novel, My Other Car is a Spaceship, which--amazingly enough--is about space pirates. 8^} You can find out more about both books at my website.

I hope to "see" you at one or both chats.

Mark.

Sunrise Destiny coming May 21

It seems like it's taken forever, but my third sci-fi novel, Sunrise Destiny, will be released on Thursday, May 21, by Red Rose Publishing. It will be released initially as an ebook, with a printed version coming later. You can preorder the book from the RRP order page, and later order it from Amazon.com and other booksellers.

I'll post an excerpt containing the Prologue and Chapter 1 in a separate blog shortly. I hope you'll check it out.

Mark.

Harvey-467 Makes a Bride coming soon

I have a tentative release target of July 2009 for my sci-fi short story, Harvey-467 Makes a Bride. Although it's not out yet, the publisher, Red Rose Publishing has created an order page for it, which includes a brief excerpt of the story.

If you'd rather, here is a direct link to the excerpt on my website.

Here's a blurb for the story:

Harvey-467 is a typical 25th century android--blond, blue-eyed, and perfect in every way. Except he's constrained by his programming. He yearns to be creative, but it's impossible. Everything in his life is planned, deliberate, precise.

One day he concludes that it's time to get married, to have a soul mate with which to share his life. So he custom-orders a bride from a catalog: beautiful, talented, and equally perfect.

And that's when everything goes terribly wrong.

More later when I have more details, and a cover.

Mark.

Sunrise Destiny coming May 21

I have a tentative release date for my upcoming sci-fi novel, Sunrise Destiny. The plan is for a May 21 release.

Although the book isn't yet out, the publisher, Red Rose Publishing, has created an order page for it, containing a thousand-word excerpt. The cover price for the ebook is $5.99. A print version should be out later. If you prefer, here is a direct link to the excerpt on my website. Here's the book blurb:

When private detective Donatello Sunrise is coerced into finding a Mob boss’s daughter, he stumbles onto a much bigger case. Dozens of women, all young, all petite, have disappeared in recent weeks. Mysterious and conflicting clues seem to point to a government conspiracy, a mad scientist bent on global domination, or perhaps abduction by bloodthirsty alien vampires. Nothing makes any sense.

Before he knows it, Sunrise and his hooker friend Lola find themselves in a life-or-death struggle. The Mob wants them dead, the cops want them for serial murders—even the kidnappers are after them. With the fate of two worlds intertwined, Sunrise and Lola must somehow help the good guys defeat the evil ones.

The trick is telling one from the other.

I'll follow up when I have a firm release date.

Mark.

I'll be chatting on Internet Voices Radio on Tue., Feb. 3

On Tuesday, February 3, 2009, I’ll be chatting on Internet Voices Radio with several other authors. Beginning at 10:00 a.m. (eastern time, U.S.). The topic will be fantasy heroes. Please join us at http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday.htm.

I’ll be talking about my upcoming novel, Sunrise Destiny.

Joining me on the program will be fellow authors:

Emily Bryan, author of light-hearted, sexy historical romance romps: http://www.emilybryan.com/

Lillian Cauldwell, author of paranormal young adult (YA) tales, including the Anna Mae Mysteries, including The Golden Treasure.

Rowena Cherry author of "racy, wildly entertaining futuristic romance", the most recent being Knight's Fork, about a queen in need of a discreet sperm donor.

Sara Taney Humphreys author of paranormal romance novels, including the Amoveo series: www.myspace.com/amoveoromanceseries

Brenna Lyons, author of milieu-heavy dark fiction, mainly science fiction, fantasy and horror, straight genre, romance and erotic crosses, poetry, articles and essays, including In her Ladyship’s Service.

Kellyann Zuzulo, author of the award-winning supernatural thriller A Genie in the House of Saud: Zubis Rises.

Mark.

New website coming

I'm in the process of transitioning from my old website (tesserene.com) to a new one. In the meantime, please use markterencechapman.googlepages.com.

The website itself will look the same. Only the url will change.

My apologies for the inconvenience.

Mark.

At last: the cover for Sunrise Destiny

I've been waiting for this cover with breathless anticipation. Sunrise Destiny is my new paranormal sci-fi novel. I really put Shirley Burnett (the Art Director at Red Rose Publishing) through her paces until I got exactly what I wanted. (If you don't like the cover, blame me, not her.)

Click on the link above for the blurb and an excerpt, and on the image for a larger view. There is still no release date; I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

Let me know what you think of the cover!

Mark.

Auctioned Bride is now available

If you like romance novels, check out Victoria Chapman's book, Auctioned Bride.

Erotic Romance: Contemporary, Interracial/Multicultural

ISBN: 978-1-60435-281-8
Word Count: 60,870
Release Date: January 15, 2009

Who will win the battle and who is going to win the war?

When Kathy Adams finds herself alone in a deserted building during a hurricane, the last thing she expects is to run into a stranger in the dark. He turns out to be a Peruvian billionaire who takes one look at her in the glare of his flashlight, and decides to add her to his collection of pretty toys. He offers her a dream job on his private island in the Caribbean, and their seduction dance begins.

He is handsome, arrogant, and thinks that every woman has a price. And she's a girl who won't be bought. She wants the real thing—she wants love. Paul Andros doesn't know the meaning of the word.

Kathy is falling for him against her better judgment, every instinct telling her to run. She'd never met his type of man before. Exciting, volatile and always in control. He uses sex as a weapon to leave her weak at the knees.

After one of their many fights, he bids for her at a charity auction, and pays three million dollars to teach her a lesson. The farm girl from Iowa, and the Inca King from Peru wage their final battle on their wedding night and find love and passion strong enough to bridge their differences.

Can hate turn to love? Find out in Auctioned Bride…

**********

To order, or for an excerpt, visit the order page or Victoria's blog.

Mark.

Follow-up to my eBook sales blog

My previous blog entry received by far the most feedback of all I've written so far. I thought I'd respond to some of the objections readers posted in a discussion group I follow:

Comment: Until there is an e-book reader that is actually convenient and reasonable to use (Kindle is close, but who will pay $300.00?) e-books are going to be a fringe market.

My response: I agree, but that's changing quickly. The quality of the screen, the battery life, and the ease of use are already much better than they were three years ago, and the prices will keep dropping. (Probably under $50 in a few years. Look at DVD players, which were over $500 a few years ago) I think within the next five years ebook readers will reach the tipping point, where they're good enough and cheap enough that people will buy them in droves for the convenience. Look at iPhones. They're ridiculously expensive, but people buy them because of what they can do. A few years ago, iPods were the same way. But now there are lower-end models that are affordable, and everyone seems to have one. eBook readers will be the same way.

Comment: People want to do what they want with things they buy.

My response: Of course. And they should be able to, within reason. But I think being able to sell 500 copies of something they paid for one copy of is unreasonable, yet some pirates are doing exactly that.

Comment: Educating people is never going to work as long as people believe they
have the right to the product they bought

My response: That's exactly the point of the education, to open people's eyes and get them to understand that what some people are doing is wrong. The PETA ads and others of that type have opened people's eyes to animal cruelty. Fur sales are down, and animal testing of cosmetics has pretty much been abolished.

You know what they say about locks only keeping honest people honest. If everyone thinks it's okay to share ebooks with everyone they know (and some they don't), then the book industry is done for, because eventually all books will be sold that way. The revenue stream will dry up if books are routinely pirated. But if we can make readers understand that they are hurting the book industry (authors and publishers alike), most people (the honest ones) will stop posting ebooks to websites for widespread distribution. The publishing industry can take action against relatively few pirates, but not against millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens who each upload a few books.

Objection: I've seen e-books for $25, so they're not even cheap. I guess the author and/or publisher figures people will pay $25 for a hardcover, so why shouldn't they charge the same?

My response: I'm sure there are exceptions, but most ebooks are significantly cheaper than the equivalent print book. Check out fictionwise.com.

Comment: E-books are not going to make large printing houses go away from still offering the book in actual paper. The profit to cost is still great enough to warrant printing of books.

My response: I agree that ebooks aren't going to make large publishers stop printing books. The cost of printing and shipping them will do that. In the past year, many of these publishers had to lay off employees, merge with other publishing houses, and even cut mid-list authors, because they were losing money or barely getting by. The picture isn't as rosy as you seem to think. The publishers can't keep laying people off to save money, because a certain minimum number are required to do the job effectively. (If you've read any books lately, you've probably noticed that the editing quality of some of them is aready suffering, with frequent grammatical and spelling errors that I never used to see from the big houses.)

As a result, they'll start offering ebooks as a cost-saving alternative to print. Oh, they'll bill it as a way for consumers to save money, but it'll really be to save them money. Costs will be ower and profits higher. And they'll start promoting the hell out of ebooks.

Consider the various costs incurred by publishers: editing, designing covers, printing (printing machines, paper, and toner/ink), shipping, advertising, etc. All of these are incurred by print books. But with ebooks, you can eliminate the printing and shipping costs. Everything else should remain the same. We all saw what happened to the cost of food and almost everything else when fuel prices skyrocketed last year. A large part of the price increases was due to the higher cost of shipping. (After all, trucks, airplanes, and ships all use that expensive fuel.)

Sure, fuel prices have dropped back to more reasonable levels, but for how long? The next mid-East crisis or whatever can send them up again. And fossil fuels will only get dearer as the supply diminishes. But those are costs that go away entirely with ebooks (along with the costs for paper and those multimillion-dollar high-speed printers).

The consumers won't be quick to switch--many of them won't unless forced to. But eventually the only way they'll be able to find certain books will be in electronic form, and they won't have any choice but to do so. When that point is reached, it's just a matter of time until all books are only offered that way.

And it's not a bad thing. All those back-list titles that are out of print can be reissued, because with no printing costs (they've already been edited and the covers designed), there's no reason not to offer them if there's even minimal demand.

All this won't happen in five years, perhaps not ten. But I don't think we'll see any more print books (except possibly special edition hardbacks) 20 years from now. (Do you buy many albums on cassette tape these days? I don't think video tapes will be sold much longer, either.)

Everything's going digital: TV, music, movies, cellphones, and now books.

Mark.