After what’s been a long wait, at least for me, The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok is finally released today and it’s being advertised at KindleBoards and Kindle Nation Daily. Right now there are no reviews, but hopefully some will start trickling in…
In Four Days
So, I’m getting a little excited. In four days, The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok will be officially released. It’s the first time that I’ve written (well, co-written) a book with the intention of releasing it as an ebook. It’s the first time that I’ve planned on the publishing date well in advance and have had time to send out review copies and set up advertising. All in all, this feels very new and exciting. I’ve been waiting for this moment for several months, and I feel that I’ve done what I can as a unknown author.
In terms of advertising, I have The Redemption… set to the the Kindle Nation Daily daily sponsor on April 30th, I have a banner ad scheduled at KindleBoards for both the 30th as well as May 4th, and I’ve been experimenting with some facebook ads (to some limited success) and have a couple of facebook ads scheduled to start running from Saturday onwards. So, with all these things at once, I won’t know what is affecting what, but hopefully things will move fast.
And, again, to anyone who used the Smashwords coupon for the free complete edition, it would be great if you could leave a review at the Amazon site at anytime.
One Week
The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok is officially being released in one week, but the Amazon page is set up and ready. It used to take several days for a book to go live from being published, but this time it only took a matter of hours. To anyone who used the Smashwords coupon (which has expired), you can download the final version from Smashwords at your leisure…
Review for “The Year We Finally Solved Everything”
A double day for The Year We Finally Solved Everything. It’s the KindleBoards book of the day, and it just so happened to be reviewed on Big Al’s Books’s and Pal’s site as well.
Here’s the review:
Description:
Shan Won: It’s a country. It’s an internet rumor. It’s a hoax. It’s paradise.
The economy is crashing, the government is unstable, rebellions and wars are erupting everywhere. If there were, maybe, a place you could go, a place where They Have Solved Everything – would you try to get there? What would you offer? What would you risk? What would you leave behind you?
Appraisal:
I mentioned to Al the other day that I was having a hard time writing this review. “This book is so good!”, I said, “I’m not sure what to write except, Everyone go read it. I’ll wait”. He suggested I might want to say something about the book, so here goes.
There’s a joke told in Canadian Literature classes: Americans tell stories about people going out and conquering the west. Canadians tell stories about people who go out to conquer the west and get stuck in Manitoba.
The Year We Finally Solved Everything is a very Canadian book. It’s ironic that I, the Canadian reviewer of this team of ‘Pals’ unknowingly selected it. And that’s perfect, because the irony doesn’t stop there. Take Richard, the narrator and protagonist of the story. Richard is a graphics designer who likes music better than pictures. He’s a pessimist who hopes to find an island paradise. He speaks when he knows he should be silent, and stays quiet when there are things he desperately wants to say. He’s complex, for all these reasons, yet in the end he’s simple: You (and he) know that given the choice, Richard will choose not to act, not to take responsibility even for himself.
Kerkovian’s writing is flawless, his dialogue exact. The book’s pace is wavelike: Richard drifts tidally between each breaking moment. All characters and events are described through his distancing eyes. He notes everything, participates in nothing. You know the characters in the book as Richard knows them, precisely, accurately, but not intimately. The tension between the action – and a lot of stuff happens – and Richard’s dissociated description of it makes for a fraught atmosphere. By the latter part of the book I was feeling physically tense as I turned pages, waiting anxiously for “the next thing” – I knew it was coming, and I had no idea at all what it might turn out to be. And readers, you’ll have no choice but to go through that tension. Trying to ‘cheat’ and turn to the last page won’t help you a bit. You’ll go through it just as I did – as Richard does – step by indeterminate step. And, when you get to the end – well, just go read the book. I’ll wait.
FYI:
You needn’t be Canadian to enjoy this book by any means, but you will likely enjoy it best if you can approach it with an open-minded appreciation of the pervasiveness of irony in the world.
Format/Typo Issues:
No Significant Issues
Rating: ***** Five stars
Publish
Well, I clicked publish for The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok today. This way, if for some reason there is something wrong with it, or something about it doesn’t pass Amazon’s review screening, I still have time to make changes before the release and advertisements on the 30th.
It’s a strangely thrilling and yet anti-climactic thing, just clicking a button to publish. Still feels a little momentous to me.
Anyone who used the Smashwords coupon earlier, you can download the updated version on the Smashwords site, which is free (I believe) of any hyperlink errors, as well as with a few changes to the manuscript.
And last night, for the first time in several months, I sat down and wrote a few pages for something that had nothing to do with Sturlubok. It was kind of liberating, actually…
Glitches
To anyone who used the Smashwords coupon for the preview edition of The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok, I’ve found a couple of non-functioning links, which have now been resolved. If you wish, you can download the updated version from Smashwords (I just uploaded the new document, and it should be available by Sunday, April 17th).
Speaking of the book, I will be uploading the final version and clicking publish on the Amazon site next Saturday, which will give Amazon a week to set up the book’s page, descriptions, and so on, before it’s official release on April 30th (on which it is the Kindle Nation Daily book of the day, as well as having a Kindleboards banner ad). So, the title should start appearing on the Amazon.com site by the 26th or so.
FREE MR. STURLUBOK!
So, for the next few weeks, you can download the complete preview edition of The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok at Smashwords using this coupon code: BF35E . The link to site is here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/39933
Although not the final version (there is still a tiny bit of polishing being finished up), it’s 98% of the final version. And in some ways, it’s even more. The preview editions include ‘cheats’ to 10 different plots, in case you tire of looking for things on your own. This will not be part of the official release on April 30th.
So, feel free to download the preview copy. But, I’ll be honest: I’m offering the coupon code on my blog because I’m hoping that anyone who downloads it will be willing to write an honest review for the book on the Amazon site at some point. I’ll be sending out the same copy to various review blogs that have already reviewed The Adventures of Whatley Tupper in the weekend, and hopefully by the time the book is released, there will be at least one or two reviews ready. Do you want to help me out?
BookSprung
I just stumbled upon a post on the blog BookSprung.com where The Adventures of Whatley Tupper is their bargain book of the day:
The Sell…
Mr. Leroy Sturlubok—a high-strung, loose cannon, take-no-prisoners kind of guy—has recently risen to the lofty echelons of society. He’s become a public elementary school vice principal. But when it seems that someone has broken through the defenses of his beloved workplace, a single decision leads to a labyrinthine world of possibilities.
Will he solve the mystery of his predecessor’s sudden (although beneficial) demise? Will he foil a terrorist plot from the afterlife? Will he team up with a telepathic elderly Japanese man who looks strangely similar to Sulu from the original Star Trek? Will he allow Tony Danza to film his new reality television show in his school? Will he find out just who the hell is taking all the damn photocopy paper? Will he return to his native Norway and lead a life fit for the mighty Norse god Odin, himself? Will he start a new life among those rude and wretched Canadians? Or will he learn the insidious secret about his ex-wife’s French fiancé, Andre Cartier? The choice, as always, is up to you: the reader.
With more than 100 choices, 46 different endings, as well as dozens of hyperlinked footnotes, The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok contains enough twists and surprises to keep even the most hyperactive adult entertained. You won’t be able to help yourself from smiling—like a Kindergarten class during flu season, The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok is infectious.
A note from the authors:
Rudolf Kerkhoven and Daniel Pitts have more than 20 years of teaching experience between the two of them. The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok does not in any way reflect anything they have learned or witnessed.
In Exactly a Month…
In exactly a month, The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok will be released, the culmination of an intense 8 months of writing between Daniel Pitts and myself. The book is in the polishing the polishing stage, but it’s time for a preview.
A 16 000 word preview can be downloaded for free from Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/50487
The complete book has over 100 000 words and 46 different endings. It’s longer, darker, and overall a better and funnier than The Adventures of Whatley Tupper. I’ve also uploaded a new version of The Adventures of Whatley Tupper which includes the same preview.
Enjoy!
The Most Boring Blog Ever Written 