REBELS & DESPERADOS -the 1st review

As an independent writer, I live for moments like this- the first review of REBELS & DESPERADOS.

By Jim Fraiser

It’s 1888, when a delicate peace exists between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America, the latter having been vanquished in 1863 after a Rebel victory at Gettysburg. CSA President James Longstreet manages a Confederacy that has freed its slaves, annexed California and taken north Mexico by force, calling it State of South Texas. Britain, still at war with France, controls Canada, except for a lawless region including Alberta, Montana and several other American and Canadian states. This area is called the Disputed Zone, or the Cauldron, a haven for outlaws, desperados, rebels and renegade Indians.
If this wildly creative setting is not enough to grab your attention (it certainly caught mine!) then the unique plot certainly will. It concerns the meanderings through the aforesaid hostile territories of CSA secret agent and train wrecker “Black” Judah Lee, his “dark angel” whore Bella, his compatriot Big Drake and Drake’s bigger wife Carmen, and Lee’s would be nemesis, soldier Lawrence Thorenson. Of course, the Mounties, Pinkertons as well as Confederate and American troops are hot on Lee’s trail, as he pursues a secret CSA mission. Along the way, there are shootouts, brothel sex (described once as “riding a wild bronco through a volcano”), elaborate duels, train and bank robberies, and much more wanton sex. Raunchy Western humor abounds, as with a character’s comment, “I’d f**# a snake if it had ears,” explaining that the ears would give him something to hang onto!
Injected into the fiction are historical characters such as Longstreet, his Vice President Nathan Bedford Forrest, and former CSA Generals Jubal Early and George Pickett, who wage one of this ebook’s most intriguing duels. And there’s the Confederate battleship, Jefferson Davis.
The body count and carnage are prominent characters in this wild shootout, and the dialogue is as salty as that of any other book ever written. But the action is non-stop, the story riveting, and the weird mixture of alternate history and western story such that I read the whole thing through in one sitting.
There are even accompanying maps and wanted posters to augment the wild men and often even wilder women. A few mis-steps occur to be sure, e.g., rare editorial lapses and the fact that Bedford Forrest was never such an elegant speaker. But this is fiction, after all, and alternative historical fiction to boot.
If you like a really wild west, a plot that moves like a nuclear locomotive, and well-drawn, bizarre characters mingling with real-life ex-Confederate generals, this is the story for you!


http://www.amazon.ca/REBELS-DESPERADOS-REBEL-EMPIRE-STUART-ebook/dp/B00FRKG91C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1387232829&sr=1-1&keywords=rebels+%26+desperados

An Indie writer- rants!!!

An Indie writer- rants!!!

There is no doubt that the advent of the internet has made self publishing for independent writers a new reality, however it's not always the easy and simple process its cracked up to be.

Publishing on Amazon Kindle direct- is very straight forward, as long as you've built your TOC- table of contents correctly. Amazon is more complicated if you have any images contained within the text.

My big hassle with Amazon was working out how to get paid. It was a nightmare that took weeks and dozens of emails to resolve. All the problems were related to electronic payments. Part of it was my fault, the rest I lay at Amazon's feet. These issues have now been resolved and I actually get paid for my work.

Smashwords is slightly more challenging and time consuming. I first uploaded my new ebook REBELS & DESPERADOS in early Oct. It sat in their queue for ten days, then was rejected for TOC problems. Funny the TOC worked fine at Amazon. They allow you to remove the TOC and their meatgrinder process will build one for you. OK, I did it again, and another two weeks for it to be reviewed and approved. Finally the book is approved and they begin to send it out to the vendors, such as Barnes & Noble, Apple, Sony and KOBO.

The book slowly begins to appear on the individual ebook vendors sites. After three weeks- while it had been sent to Kobo, it never actually appeared on KOBO for sale. Then I discover you can now self publish directly on Kobo and eliminate Smashwords as the middle man. Kobo uses a process called -Kobo Writing Life - very straight forward, my book was available within 24 hours of the upload, So why bother with Smashwords, hmmm, good question.

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/rebels-desperado

Next it's interesting to compare book sale numbers. My book sales on Amazon outsell all the other ebook vendors combined  by a 5 to 1 ratio. Pretty clear to see where the money and exposure  is.

Since Smashwords will only pay me via Paypal it creates a whole new problem. Since my Smashwords sales are low, the quarterly payment is always just under $15. Guess what. You cannot make a withdrawal from Paypal for less then $15. So in effect I can never get that money.

Guest Post at - ALTERNATE HISTORY WEEKLY UPDATE

I recently had the opportunity to write a guest post for the very interesting blog- ALTERNATE HISTORY WEEKLY UPDATE

Check it out:

http://alternatehistoryweeklyupdate.blogspot.ca/

REBELS & DESPERADOS is now available in the Amazon Kindle store

My new novel - REBELS & DESPERADOS is now available in the Amazon Kindle store.  This is book two in the series REBEL EMPIRE.

Here's a brief synopsis:

The year is 1888. Young Confederate secret agent and outlaw -“Black” Judah Lee is the most wanted man in all of North America. His alliance with the Métis warrior nation and his daring bank and train robberies in the Disputed Territories of Dakota and Assiniboia have brought him to the attention of the grim and bloodthirsty Mountie - Superintendent Thornton. Lee and his psychotic partner Drake Kensington have barely managed to avoid capture, but the Mounties and Pinkerton’s are closing in! He has fallen into a world populated by gamblers, rebels, renegade Indians, outlaws, murderers, desperados and whores; his crucial mission to aid the Confederacy hangs in the balance as he blazes a trail of blood and murder across the West.

Here's the link to Amazon

http://www.amazon.ca/REBELS-DESPERADOS-REBEL-EMPIRE-ebook/dp/B00FRKG91C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1382364366&sr=1-1&keywords=rebels+%26+desperados

Finishing an 18 year Writing Marathon

I just completed a comprehensive re-edit of my eBook GETTYSBURG REDUX in anticipation of re-publishing it simultaneously with the sequel - REBELS AND DESPERADOS. The editing was comprised nearly entirely with the correction of minor grammatical errors, words that had become joined and minor spelling errors.  I also took this opportunity to re-format the dialogue to make it easier to read. Perhaps it would be better to say I polished minor errors as opposed to re-editing.

When I look back at the journey that the publishing of this book represents I often wonder where I found the energy to get the book into a version that could be published. The novel was originally written during the 18 month period from 1994 to 1996.  Unable to secure an agent, editor or publisher the disks sat forgotten in a box in my basement for nearly 14 years.

Originally I thought the writing was the hard part, I was so wrong!

So here are the final steps to publication. In the spring of 2012 I realized that an agent, editor and publisher were no longer required.  Miracle of miracles you can self publish as an eBook. Once I found the box where the novel was stored I realized the book was written and filed by chapter on 48 separate 3 ½ inch floppy disks. The novel was written using Lotus 123 a spreadsheet program, which was the only program that was available to me at that time.  If I had known just how much trouble converting the files from Lotus to a usable Word program would be, I would have used a more suitable program back in 1994.

 Hind sight is easy!

The first hurdle that I encountered was that I didn't have a computer that could read the antiquated floppy disks, and I actually contemplated re-typing the entire book in word, a potentially daunting task considering the book contained approximately 245K words.  Then my son-in-law found me an old refurbished PC that had a drive that would accept 3 ½ inch floppy disks.  Ok, first hurdle resolved.

However, I now needed to find a way to convert from Lotus to Word.  There is a program called CNET which I ultimately used and I was able to convert the chapters into Excel files.  Then I had to convert from Excel to Word, however when the conversion was completed there had been problems with the formatting and instead of clean Words files, everything was corrupted.  The corruption took the form of the addition of lines inserted between the lines of text. Instead of approximately 450 Word pages I had nearly 5 thousand pages.  This meant I needed to sit and manually delete these lines; this took nearly three months of incredibly boring work. During this period the sheer size of the file was so large the file would continually freeze up the PC, OK another computer was required so I upgraded to another recycled Dell which resolved the problem.

Once I had a file that was workable I was able to actually edit the novel again to clean up all of the errors that had developed along the way and to polish the text etc.  Another two months of work ensued.  During this period I was able to secure the talents of the very creative Lan Medina and the cover was designed and drawn.

Finally with a product I was happy with, I set out to publish on Amazon, a reasonably easy task.  However, when I looked at the preview on Amazon I realized there was another serious formatting error.  Somehow through all of the conversions an error occurred which scrambled the text.  Another two months of work was required to correct.

Finally after six months of work and hundreds of hours of boredom I was able to publish on both Amazon and Smashwords.  The 18 year journey was completed and it was so gratifying to finally have it finished.  Previously I had always felt a huge sense of failure because the book was sitting unused in a box gathering dust.

GETTYSBURG REDUX IS AVAILABLE AT ALL EBOOK VENDORS

The sequel - REBELS AND DESPERADOS should be available by the end of 2013.

CUSTOMER REVIEW- MR. JABLOWSKI'S TREASURE

It was really nice to receive my first customer review for my short story- MR. JABLOWSKI’S TREASURE. There’s nothing more gratifying than getting feedback from a reader, especially if it’s positive feedback.

Here’s the review that was left on SMASHWORDS:

“John R. Stuart imaginatively explores an early memory treasured from a life once lived—I would like to believe—interwoven in a rich tapestry of soft hue and silky texture with a subtle naivety of innocence spilling through each page.”

MR. JABLOWSKI’S TREASURE is available at the following eBook vendors:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mr-jablowskis-treasure-john-r-stuart/1116057697?ean=2940044608344

http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000328907/Stuart-John-R.-Mr.-Jablowski-s-Treasure/1.html

https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/mr.-jablowskis-treasure/id667813706?mt=11

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/books/Mr-Jablowskis-Treasure/hzBvXl5BzUKLRv9OwL48k-

https://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/john-r-stuart/mr-jablowski-s-treasure/_/R-400000000000001077109

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/328907

Editing - The Tedious part of the creative writing process

I've just finished the third edit of my new novel- REBELS AND DESPERADOS which represents the second critical stage in my novel’s life.  I suspect there is nothing more tedious and boring in the entire world than this process, however, it is vital to producing a good- enjoyable story. Now I don’t pretend to be a professional editor, however a degree in English Literature from the University of Toronto is a good starting point.

My current process for editing is three fold:

Edit one consists of a fast re-read to insure the story flows, the character details are correct, the timelines are true and it basically makes sense for the reader.

Edit two consist of a detailed examination of the books formatting in word. This is a spell and grammar check as well as a review of the standard formatting. Formatting errors in an eBook will present the reader with a poor reading experience, and may cause trouble when the book is submitted to your eBook publisher. Tedious at its best.

Edit three is a page by page re-read of the entire novel, start to finish. At this point I again check spelling, grammar, and word selection. It’s an opportunity to polish and tweak the story as well. I edit every page twice and this process is a true time eater!

I finished the third stage on July 1^st and then it was time to send it off to my editor for his review. For REBELS AND DESPERADOS I’m very lucky to have a good editor, a friend who was an English teacher at a U.S. college, so the edit will be good!

Once he finishes his review it comes back to me for my re-work based upon his edits. Now I’m of the opinion that a good editor will fix any spelling or grammatical errors, identify story line issues and comment on the quality of the story. He may also decide to critique the way the story is written, basically what style do I write in. Is it suitable etc, etc?

I hope in this situation I will not require significant re-writes. Depending upon what the editor suggests I hope to be ready to correct and publish REBELS AND DESPERADOS by October 2013.

But ultimately I have the final decision as to what the story is and how it’s told. After all I am the writer.

So, where am I going with this? It’s like a lottery to get published.

I have probably read upwards of 1000 works of fiction during my life, but in order to find those 1000 truly worthy reads I've started to read many, many more books. It’s likely in the range of 5-10 thousand books.  Most look of these books have a great cover, look interesting and have promise, but after 50 pages or so I put them down- unfinished. Why?

Well, some are just plain terrible, others are well written but the subject matter is boring, it might be very well written but the subject matter isn't strong enough to keep my attention.  Where am I going with this, well the point I’m making is that there are thousands of stories available, as standard printed books or as eBooks- but they just weren't right for me, and the publishing business is much the same.

It’s like a lottery to get published. At some point every one of the books I've rejected has caught the attention of an agent or publisher.  Someone somewhere thought it was brilliant and spent the time and money to publish it. I suspect on any given day several hundred book proposals will arrive on a publisher’s desk.

Why are some accepted and others rejected? Good question?

When I originally tried to publish GETTYSBURG REDUX the old fashioned way, I sent my book proposal to approximately 100 publishers. Some had the courtesy to send me a reply, must did not. Universally their response was negative! Did this mean my novel was bad, not necessarily, they may have failed to see the potential in my work, or perhaps it wasn't the flavor of the day? They may have seen merit in the story but felt it wasn't commercially viable. Perhaps the subject matter and story-line were not something they were interested in. Maybe they had a bad day or had no interest in alternative fiction; never the less they declined my book proposal.

Here are some examples of successful authors that had trouble getting published:

Margaret Mitchell- GONE WITH THE WIND was rejected by dozens of publishers

J.K Rowling - HARRY POTTER

Louis L’Amour received approx. 200 rejections before his first work was published

C.S Lewis is reputed to have received in the range of 800 rejection letters

Agents and publishers get it wrong all the time. There are many successful authors, with millions of sales- and I won’t list any of them here, but these are books I found to be unreadable. They Just didn't meet my needs as a reader.

So getting a book published by a large publisher is akin to winning the lottery, the chances are significantly stacked against a new and unknown author.

Just keep trying - I know I will!

MR. JABLOWSKI’S TREASURE

I started this blog with the intention of chronicling my journey as a writer. Therefore it seems appropriate to report that I have just published a new short story.

MR. JABLOWSKI’S TREASURE

Available now as an eBook on Sony and KOBO, and via SMASHWORDS and soon to be available at other retailers.

https://ebookstore.sony.com/search?keyword=mr.+jablowski%27s+treasure

http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=MR.+JABLOWSKI%27S+TREASURE

Originally written as an entry for the Toronto Star short story contest many years ago, I didn't enter the story as it was too long to meet their requirements! When I edited it down to meet their word count I felt I had lost some of the important flavor of the tale and it simply wasn't good enough at the reduced version. I was going to enter the story for the 2013 contest, but discovered that as an employee of the Toronto Public Library I was not eligible, as the Library is a sponsor of the contest.

Here’s a brief synopsis and I’ve included a sample to whet your interests. If you decide to purchase and you enjoyed the story please let me know!

A young boy in 1966 is given too much freedom and while he works hard to escape the summertime blues, the bullies and boredom, he makes an amazing discovery. This discovery unfortunately leads to tragic consequences.

SAMPLE:

The passage of the subway train made a dull thundering sound as it squeezed down the tunnel from the Warden Ave. station into the final stop at Kennedy. My head snapped up, awoken from the sleep of the tired commuter. The black walls of the tunnel were in sharp contrast to the bright piercing signal lights that lined the dark dirty walls. My chin sank back down to my chest and I forced my eyes open, returning to the land of the living. It was a pressure induced, begrudging sleep, and I looked to each side to see if I had insulted either of the two fat women that I was sandwiched between, my head resting on one of their broad shoulders while I was in the embrace of the subway snooze, but both were still snoring away.

Then I saw Old Man Jablowski sitting directly across the car. I involuntarily gasped, but the train squealed, traversing a tight curve and my gasp was lost in the train’s scream. There he was, as large as life itself, a newspaper clasped in his large hairy hands. I closed my eyes, as if this would make him disappear, yet there he remained when I looked again. But it wasn’t Old Man Jablowski, just a look-alike! He wore the same dull gray fedora pushed back revealing his white hair and the checkered sports coat worn by all tired old men.

The white light of the station platform flooded the train as the subway train pulled to a shuddering stop. The Jablowski clone folded his paper carefully and slipped away into the crowd as commuters filed out of the subway car. Swallowed up, as if he he had never been there to awaken the memory of the real Mr. Jablowski. But he had been there, just long enough to dredge up those painful memories that I had prayed would stay buried forever!

I hadn’t thought about that old man for decades, thirty years to be precise; not since that long hot summer in 1966 when I was ten years old. Of course the reality was that I hadn’t given any thought to that entire summer, not since the day I walked back into the crisp, cool halls of the Crescent Road public school the day after Labor Day to begin grade five and let that summer slide away into oblivion! In the summer of 66 my parents let me run wild. I was old enough to be considered responsible and careful enough not to get caught. My father and mother trusted me and in the end that was just a little too much. After all they knew everyone in the neighborhood, if not by name then by face. It was a time when people expected the best from each other and from life and more often than not they were not disappointed. Our street was just like all the streets in our little world. Post Second World War Two bungalows laid out in neat geometric squares. Every house had a car parked in the driveway and although they weren’t new they were well kept. It was not quite the world portrayed in TV shows like “Leave it to Beaver” and the “Nelsons”, but close to it, an age of innocence.

TO ‘E’ OR NOT TO ‘E

TO ‘E’ OR NOT TO ‘E’

Now as a writer I’m about to make a confession. I am a horrible speller, not a very desirable trait in a person that has aspirations to be a writer. Ever since I can remember starting to read and write, nearly 55 years ago spelling has been a profound challenge for me. For many years a good dictionary was one of my best friends, so the creation of spell check is a true blessing!

Where am I going with this post? Well, when I started my second novel I had several titles in mind and as the book progressed one title just seemed perfect.

REBELS AND DESPERADOES

Short, simple, descriptive and it really summed up the story line well. Now when I had the cover produced and I showed it to friends, family and acquaintances - their first reaction wasn't wow, great cover, it was - hey you spelled DESPERADOES wrong!!!  Virtually everyone that saw it thought it should be spelled without the E, as DESPERADO.

OK, I’m not stupid and I checked several online dictionaries, pulled out my old book version. In every case it was correct to spell DESPERADOES with an E or without the E, it’s sort of a tomato- tomatoes sort of word, and either spelling was perfectly acceptable. I even went as far as asking my father Captain Stuart (a walking dictionary) if my spelling choice was correct, and after a long discussion - he agreed DESPERADOES was an acceptable version of the plural of desperado.

So to further delve into this challenging word I posed this question to the WRITERS HANGOUT GROUP on Linkedin. Several members responded and concurred that either was correct, however one Spanish writer pointed out that the word desperado is of Spanish origin and in Spanish the plural is spelled without the E.

But the most pertinent comment was that it didn't matter what was correct, it’s what’s perceived to be correct.  There cannot be a spelling error on the cover, no matter what!

So what it comes down to in the end is that it rally doesn't matter what I believe is the correct spelling, or what I prefer. What’s crucial is what do potential readers think is correct. If they see the book’s cover and immediately say, hmm - is that a spelling mistake, then - yes it’s a spelling mistake. It doesn't matter in any way shape or fashion that I know it’s correct, if they see it as a spelling error, that it’s an error.

Therefore, the title will be:   REBELS AND DESPERADOS

I’d be remiss if I didn't credit the bard- William Shakespeare for inspiring the title of this blog post.

But: ‘Would a desperado without the E be just as desperate?’

  Sorry, but I just couldn't resist!

REBELS AND DESPERADOS - MILESTONE ACHIEVED

REBEL EMPIRE- BOOK TWO- MILESTONE ACHIEVED

I started writing this blog to chronicle my journey as a writer and at the time of the first post on May 29- I had already completed my first rough draft of the second novel in the series REBEL EMPIRE -entitled REBELS AND DESPERADOS which is the sequel to GETTYSBURG REDUX. So today I completed my first re-read and edit of the novel and I consider this one of the first true milestones in this new writer’s journey. So, a milestone achieved, and I must admit I really like this story a lot. I felt I had much more creative freedom with this novel than I did with the first book. In this case there was little or no historical baggage to handle, I used just a few actual historical characters and had free reign to let the creative juices flow.

There was a great deal of trepidation and anxiety in my mind when I sat down on Jan 1, 2013 to begin the sequel, after all I had completed GETTYSBURG REDUX in 1996 and a period of nearly 17 years had passed where I had not written a single word of fiction. Could I do it again, was there a second novel rambling around in my poor old brain? All very valid questions, but fueled with a few great ideas and a new lap top PC, many thanks to the family for the Christmas gift and building on that kernel of an idea which had floated around in my mind for years I started to write. I must admit that this novel basically wrote itself and while I had set an ambitious goal of 200 pages and a completion date of mid July, I was incredibly pleased to be finished the first draft by May 9^th, way ahead of my own schedule!.  Like I said the novel basically wrote itself, and while I had a reasonably firm idea of where the first half of the story would go, the second half took off and went to unexpected exciting places.

So now the first true rough draft is completed. My goal is now to take a second look at the formatting to seek any strange formatting problems, and then do a final second detailed edit.  Once that is complete, hopefully by the middle of July it will then go to my editor.  With a little luck the proposed publishing date is mid September. Fingers crossed.

One of the challenges for a writer that takes the independent course and self publishes is the task of getting a cover, a decent cover.  For REBELS AND DESPERADOS I had a good idea of what I wanted as a cover and I produced a mock up image using excel. However, I knew it was nowhere good enough to be used as a finished cover.  This is where my talented son-in-law Pato Lahman took my primitive attempts and ideas and worked some magic.

Here are the two covers he produced.

Cover 1- wanted poster cover

Cover 2, flag only

I prefer cover 1 with the wanted poster, so I’d love to hear your opinion, please let me know which one is better.

Short & Sweet-but so important. The eBook Synopsis

Short & sweet-but so important. The eBook Synopsis

When I first published my eBook - Gettysburg Redux I was so excited to have reached the conclusion to my writing odyssey (more to follow on that journey in another blog post) that I gave little or no thought to the importance of the synopsis. The synopsis is that brief but so important description of your novel. It needs to concise and intriguing and capture the reader’s attention. It must say- WOW, this sounds interesting, - I must purchase this book.

So, why then do we tend to neglect this vital item? I suspect it’s largely due to the novice writer’s own ignorance. We’re so tied up in the actual nuts and bolts of our own stories that we fail to realize this 5 or 6 sentence blurb is of such vast importance. Most of us are making this journey on our own with little or no guidance so we just ignore the synopsis and then suddenly we need to write it (just before we publish) and we do a second rate or plain terrible job.

According to the Concise Oxford dictionary the synopsis is- “a summary or brief general survey”, and Merriam Webster defines it as  - “a condensed statement or outline”.  Sounds simple, but try it yourself- it’s far more difficult to write than it appears.

Recently I was looking for suggestions to increase my book sales and web based sites continually stressed the importance of a great synopsis. This really caught my attention and I took the time an effort to re-write the synopsis for my upcoming eBook.

I then took it a step farther and re-examined the original synopsis for Gettysburg Redux. Much to my grief I realized just how bad this original synopsis was. There was no excitement, little mystery; it had no pull on the buyer’s interest. I couldn't help but wonder how many potential buyers passed on my novel for this reason. So, I undertook to correct this with my published novel.

Here’s the first synopsis:

An alternative version of the American Civil War!
For three bloody days in July 1863 two great American Armies pounded each other to pieces in Gettysburg. This novel follows the exploits of the military elite of both the Confederate and Federal high command and chronicles the hell on earth that was experienced by seven common Rebel soldiers. Could a single bullet change the course of history?

Now the new and (hopefully) improved version:

Veteran Confederate Sergeant Ben Gallows has lived through the blood and terror of the first two years of the American Civil War, but nothing in that period could have prepared him for the madness and chaos of Gettysburg. Under attack by both the Yankees and enemies from within his own regiment will expose him to his greatest challenges.

Rebel General James Longstreet has spiraled down into madness and drunkenness and must now lead his Tattered Wolves into the most pivotal battle of the war. Can he overcome his own demons and military opponents to defeat the overwhelming Yankee army?

Gettysburg Redux presents an alternative version of the American Civil War.  Could a single sniper’s bullet change the course of history? This is book one of the series - REBEL EMPIRE, book two REBELS & DESPERADOS will be available in late 2013.

Now attached for your consideration the synopsis for the upcoming - REBELS & DESPERADOS:

The year is 1888. Young Confederate secret agent and outlaw -“Black” Judah Lee is the most wanted man in all of North America. His alliance with the Métis warrior nation and his daring bank and train robberies in the Disputed Territories of Dakota and Assiniboia have brought him to the attention of the grim and bloodthirsty Mountie - Superintendent Thornton. Lee and his psychotic partner Drake Kensington have barely managed to avoid capture, but the Mounties and Pinkerton’s are closing in! He has fallen into a world populated by gamblers, rebels, renegade Indians, outlaws, murderers, desperados and whores; his crucial mission to aid the Confederacy hangs in the balance as he blazes a trail of blood and murder across the West.

So there it is, short and sweet but so very important. I’ll report back later if my revised synopsis has lead to an increase in sales!

As always- would love to hear feedback etc, etc!

Gettysburg Redux is available at all eBook vendors including:

http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Gettysburg-Redux/book-EmJcfupXO0KokGsKVReurQ/page1.html?s=PbE0K2LerU6lpHHNMHEd-Q&r=1

and

http://www.amazon.com/GETTYSBURG-REDUX-ebook/dp/B009EBPNAS

I've finally been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Well, this is my initial post and I have to admit that it’s not without some trepidation that I've finally been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21^st century. With the creation of this blog I can no longer claim to be a Luddite!

Since this is my first blog a brief introduction is mandatory. My name is John R. Stuart and I’m a resident of Toronto. I’m officially retired now after a 32 year career with Bell Canada; however I’m keeping busy working as a “Page” at the Toronto Public Library and as a writer of fiction.

My goal with this blog is to chronicle my experiences with my writing career, with my published novel - Gettysburg Redux- and with the sequel - Rebels & Desperados. I’ll also likely share with you what I’m reading, watching on TV and good films as I see them.

Since this is the first blog post I’ll keep it brief today, but will expand my blogs as time progresses. The idea of the blog came from the book I’m currently reading- Publishing eBooks for Dummies. An excellent book to get first time and repeat writers on the correct path to fame and wealth, or so we can only hope.

My first eBook - GETTYSBURG REDUX is currently available at all eBook vendors, and is selling modestly.

GETTYSBURG REDUX is the first book in the series REBEL EMPIRE and it tells an alternative version of the battle of Gettysburg and twists the outcome of the battle and the subsequent ending of the American Civil war.  Let’s call it alternative history/fantasy. If anyone has read it would care to comment or review feedback would be greatly appreciated.