It's here! It's live! It's wild!

INSECTLAND is now available nationwide! This week will be spent marketing and promoting. I have several hundred people on various websites and forums that are anticipating this book. Hopefully, it will reflect in the sales. If you're looking to read a story like no other, than this book is for you. Please check it out. Thanks.

INSECTLAND 

Be frightened! Be very frightened! Tiny, dragon-like creatures hiding in our homes are going to harm us. They will shrink us to the size of ants, enslave us, and turn our world into their own. But there is hope. Legions of insect robots intent on stopping them have recruited high school sophomore Dan Larson for help. Thrust into danger, Dan risks everything in a desperate attempt to thwart an attack and prevent the end of society as we know it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005P81J48

Is it worth it to even try to get an agent?

The year is 2005 and I just signed with my agent at Fineprint Literary. I was full of hope and excitement and dreams of hitting it big. Unfortunately, three and a half years later we ended our contract. Now, with six books available for sale and another four on the way I’m beginning to wonder if it is worth the effort to try and get signed again. Considering the average “good” agent receives over 100 email queries a day, what are my odds of getting discovered even if I’m the next Steven King? Are writers still trying to go the traditional route or are most writers taking their product into their own hands and self-publishing, then marketing and promoting on the web? Will there even be traditional publishing in the next five years? Will some really smart people develop websites that match writers to readers’ specific wants thereby cutting out the middlemen of big publishing houses? As an Indie writer who’s a bit off the mainstream, I hope so.

http://www.authorsden.com/neilostroff

I love publishing books that shake-up the mainstream

Yeah, I had a top agent once; Gary Heidt at Signature Lit. Yeah, at one time I was also signed to one of the best agencies in NY; Fineprint Lit. Yeah, I got phone calls that editors wanted to buy my books. Yeah, you guessed it, they all fell through in the end. But you know what? I don't care. Cause now, I can write, publish, and sell anything I want. When I was signed to these agencies I got dozens of rejections, not because my stuff was bad, the editors all said, but because my stories didn't fit the mainstream marketplace. How does anyone even really know what mainsteam is? Thank you Kindle for allowing me to publish my books the way I wrote them.

Exposure rules!

Got another interview posted. Please check it out.

http://anthonycardno.com/?p=264

Also, here's the cover to INSECTLAND due out soon.

Interviews, Interviews, Interviews

Lately, I've been getting into the interview thing. You'd be surprised how many bloggers are looking for material and are willing to give an interview with nothing in return. Of course, whenever I'm interviewed I promote it heavily throughout the web which drives traffic to their blog. It's a symbiotic partnership. Though I'm not sure how many sales these interviews generate, it does give me lots of exposure. And I have gotten some nice feedback by total strangers.

Here is a link to my latest interview.
http://motherofinsanityarewecrazyyet.blogspot.com/2011/09/today-i-welcome-neil-ostroff-interview.html

Free promo for Indie writers

Hey all,

There’s a new site that will promo your book for free. It’s called Indie snippets. They’ve listed two of my books so far and will do more in the coming weeks. Here are the links to the pages. Check it out!

http://www.indiesnippets.blogspot.com/

Will speech recognition programs make everyone a writer?

I’ve seen the commercials; a young child is telling a story as the computer automatically types it, fueling an imagination-laced story. The commercial makes it seem like anyone can be a writer. But by definition, what is a writer? I believe the term will soon be obsolete. Why? Because with speech recognition anyone can sit at a computer and talk into it, but it takes an artist to tell a story that fascinates. I do believe that soon millions of people will call themselves writers because they have talked into a microphone for a few hours and have a stack of neatly typed pages to prove it. But only the artist will have a stack of papers that can you where you’ve never been… in your mind.