Tag Archives: authors

Oct 15 2016

New Release – Sentient by Dr. Victor Acquista

Today, I’m excited to welcome – Dr. Victor Acquista 🙂 

Dr. Victor Acquista has become a successful international author and speaker following careers as a primary-care physician and medical executive. He previously helped to co-found The Collaborative for Community Health, a non-profit, is a founding member of River Valley Market, a food co-op, and authored a syndicated Health and Wellness column.

His non-fiction and his workshops focus on personal growth and transformation, especially as pertains to health and wellness. His fiction includes social messaging intended to get the reader engaged in thought provoking themes.

Dr. Acquista has a longstanding interest in consciousness studies, is a student of Integral Theory, and strives to do his part to make our planet a wee bit better. He lives with his wife in New Mexico.

Sentient is his debut fiction novel. More info can be found at www.victoracquista.com.

sentient-cover

————— Release day is today Occtober the 15th.

Sentient, an epic tale of humanity’s defeat and resurgence spanning 168,000 years of struggle is a science fiction debut from Dr. Victor Acquista…..

Synopsis

The Mind Warriors of T’rox, intent on being the supreme sentient race in the galaxy, annihilated the home world of Adden, a place where the people had lived telepathically connected in peace and harmony. The species slim chance to survive rests in a distant colony, genetically altered to block telepathy and evade detection by T’rox.

Anyeuros escaped the destruction of Adden, traveling disembodied for 168,000 years before arriving on New Adden, only to learn of the disastrous consequences of the genetic manipulation—violence, poverty, abuse, prejudice.

T’rox is on the verge of collapse, a result of social stagnation and infighting among the clans. Discovery of New Adden, the lost colony, provides a chance to reinvigorate their race with a fresh conquest.

However, discovering their past mission was incomplete, a resulting conflict ensues, but a troubled physicist, his young neighbor, and an artificial intelligence may be the key to defeating them. Heroic misfits and outcasts are woven into three intersecting story lines and will determine humanity’s fate.

Character Quotes

“When we bear triumph or failure alone, we remain alone. Our strength lies in our togetherness. Bonded together, we celebrate our triumphs and we endure our failings. This is the way of our people…this we must not forget.” – Janna, First Colonist, New Adden

“There are limits of acceptability. Weird and eccentric are tolerable but just barely. Once you cross over into crazy, no one wants to have anything to do with you. Sometimes, you don’t even want to deal with yourself.” –Professor Jeremy Strickland, Earth

“When you rise to power on the wings of fear you must depend on fear to remain aloft.”
– Ka ‘Stan, Ghal of T’rox, 5th Epoch

Praise for Sentient

“Sentient is a superb debut, a rollicking sci-fi saga that beautifully combines action and philosophy, visionary ideas, and prescient social critique. In creating an alien world with its own cosmology and rituals, Acquista sheds light on our own struggling little planet, and does so with humor and style. This is a work to be savored.” –JJ Amaworo Wilson, author of Damnificados

Purchase Links

http://mybook.to/Sent

Watch for more links to come!

Want to Feature Victor Acquista?

If you would like a copy of the book for review or to conduct an interview with Dr. Victor Acquista, please contact Erin Al-Mehairi, Marketing and Publicity at Mirror Matter Press and Hook of a Book Media: hookofabook@hotmail.com.

Mirror Matter Press

For more on Mirror Matter Press, publishers of science fiction and fantasy, go to www.mirrormatterpress.com. Immersing Readers in Other Worlds…

 

Oct 12 2016

Sci Fi Blog Hop – Author Interview – Ash Litton

Today’s Author Interview is with Ash Litton. And I love that there’s a unicorn on the cover!

appalachiandreamtalescovers

 

Do you have any advice for other authors on how to market their books?

Ash: I’m always an advocate for all things in moderation, but the reality of marketing is that you need to A: have a planned schedule, and B: prepare in advanced. Don’t be afraid to have a script – I’ve always written up a rotation of advertising blurbs and run the same blurbs across multiple platforms across multiple days, weeks, or months. I’ve included pictures, too – the cover art by itself, or sometimes a “promo card”, as I call it – to help give a visual incentive for potential buyers to follow the vendor links.

Did you make any marketing mistakes or is there anything you would avoid in future?

Ash: Starting out, I didn’t do any marketing, and I felt the results of that. I think I had the gratuitous buys from friends and family during the first month or two, but after that, I didn’t sell a single copy for at least six months. I switched up my behaviour, started marketing my work through Twitter, and saw the spike in sales. I’ve since found dedicated genre groups on Facebook and have extended my promotions there, and have seen an added increase in sales. It also helps that I’m putting out more material each year. The more you have to sell, the greater the chance you have of making sales.

Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?

Ash: To a degree, yes. There are groups dedicated to the analytics of covert art and sales projections, but in my own opinion: so long as the cover doesn’t look like a Hollywood “ransom note” with pieces cut and pasted together, I don’t think many buyers are going to care whether the author spent $5 or $500 for cover art services.

Did you do a press release, Goodreads book launch, or anything else to promote your work, and did it work?

Ash: Outside of a pre-sale promotion by my regular methods of advertising, I haven’t done anything so formal, no. I will be considering it with my larger works, though, but until I hammer out release dates for those, then I won’t be able to set up a formal game plan outside of “shop around, see what my options are, and put together a tentative outline of execution”.

Which writers inspire you?

Ash: Quite a few. I was first introduced to Neil Gaiman through the Illustrated Film Script of MirrorMask, when I got a copy of the book to read from the library. Through Neil Gaiman, I found my way to the late Sir Terry Pratchett. I started reading books by Laurell K. Hamilton back in high school, and the same with JK Rowling. I don’t remember how it was that I discovered Jim Butcher, but I was so glad I did.

***

ashauthorphoto

Ash Litton is a writer and lover of sci-fi, fantasy, and all things fictional. She is the author of No Signal, Thoroughbred, Evening Hallow, and Comeuppance, and works on other Appalachian Dream Tales between her ongoing novel projects.

When she’s not writing, she’s drawing, and when she’s not doing either of those, she’s dreaming up new projects to work on. Born and raised in rural West Virginia, Ash has always wondered what things lay hidden in the hills around her. She attended West Virginia University, where she studied the English language before returning home to her family in rural West Virginia.
You can follow her on her website, as well as Facebook and Twitter.