If you didn't notice, I tweaked the cover again. I'm happy with it now. I think it fits the genre better, but you are the judge for that.

If you have a moment I would really appreciate if you would go to the voting site and place a vote for Effacement under the Science fiction section.

I recently moved to Lafayette, Indiana and have just this past week finally finished unpacking. It was quite the endeavor, but it's done. The weather was so nice yesterday and after getting some errands completed, my girlfriend and I went to visit Second Flight Books over next to Columbia Park. I visited Second Flight Books back before COVID hit, to see about finding a writing group and checked on the possibility of doing something with them once I was published. A lot has happened since then. They moved to a new location and I published my book, among many other things. Their store is very cool, with lots of rooms filled with books, old and new, in every genre. They have a place to sit and read and an area for kids. They are also very welcoming to writers.

The incredible thing was how busy they were. It warmed my heart so see so many people out buying books. And they were buying them by the armload.

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While I was there, arranging to sell my book, I ran into another local writer, whom I had known about for some time. He is a prolific horror writer with 13 books published and more on the way. He was gracious and humble and very cool. His name? Jonathan Janz

This pic is of both of us signing our books inhouse. If you want to get a signed addition of our books you can get them at Second Flight Books.

It was a wonderful day all around, and meeting Jonathan was the icing on the cake.

Effacement is live on Reedsy Discover! The most upvoted books will be considered for their weekly newsletter. So I would really appreciate it if you could take a few moments and upvote Effacement. Their newsletter goes out to thousands of readers.

The Kirkus Review just came out, and it's a good one. You can read it here!

"Hawkes superbly extrapolates what our technology-dependent and pandemic-stricken world might be like a dozen years from now." — Kirkus Reviews

Also, the book is discounted for the next week and will be a Featured Deal on BookBub.

In a future marked by widespread surveillance, Dr. Cole Westbay has made a name for himself with the creation of a neurochip that records everything about a person. But after he’s framed for murder, Cole has no choice if he wants to survive: He’ll have to go off the grid.

I sent Effacement out for reviews with the major review sites. Got the first two back yesterday. The Clarion Review is up now! They gave the book 4/5 Stars.

Effacement is an action-packed, genre-bending thriller that introduces a white-collar superhero whose braininess and ethical behavior save the day.

Some of the highlights:

In Hieronymus Hawkes’s intense, chilling psychological thriller Effacement, technology invades personal privacy in a twenty-four-seven connected world where Big Brother is watching.

[The MCs] contrasting viewpoints play against each other well, heightening the story’s sense of conflict and increasing its psychological tension. The focused narrative also makes use of crisp, to-the-point writing.

The narrative is clever at integrating real-world events, including the 2020 elections, the Covid-19 pandemic, and racial strife, into its own origin story, using them as believable justifications for lifelogging and the eventual dystopian environment.

You can buy your own copy online pretty much everywhere now.

Sign up here to win one of ten signed copies of Effacement!

The signup opened yesterday and goes until March 12th. I hope you win!

As hard as I worked for this book release I still wasn't really ready. I think I rushed it a bit, simply because I was so excited to have a book out in the real world!

I should have developed a team to review the book out of the gate. I still don't have a single review on Amazon yet. That was a mistake. I have broken the top 500 in one category, but gains are fleeting unless you keep selling. I did get one 5 star review on Goodreads from a professional reviewer, so that was incredible and affirming.

I am still recruiting people to do book reviews. I've opened an account on Bookfunnel and StoryOrigin. If you contact me on my Facebook page you could get a free book to review that way even. Reviews actually carry weight in the algorithms on Amazon, so it's pretty important to grab those as quick as possible. I've read that 50 seems to be the magic number but that isn't verified, if that is even possible.

I learned a lot about Facebook ads, and Amazon ads and Bookbub ads. I should've prepared sooner to do a build up on Bookbub prior to my book release. They have a decent book launch program, but it all costs money.

I learned about building a mailing list and how to grow it using list sharing and giveaways. I don't have a lot to give away quite yet, but that will come as I write more books. I'm several thousand dollars in the hole at this point, with editing costs and ad costs, and ISBN costs, and distribution costs at Ingram, but these are all up front and the book is alive now and will be forever. I'm proud of what I put out and hopefully this will be something that will pay me back for a long time to come. But if not, it was certainly worth lessons in cover design, formatting, distribution, and marketing that I will take with me for the next book.

I am going to work on creating a how to self publish guide while it is all still fresh in my mind.

This part of the journey is almost over. Just pump the ads occasionally and do a couple of promos. Speaking of which, there will be one coming up next month where the book will go on sale for $0.99 on Amazon. It will run from March 8th to the 15th. Hopefully, I can arrange for a Bookbub promotion at the same time.

I am pursuing an audiobook version on ACX, which will be available on audible at some point. More on that as it develops. I did send out my first newsletter today, so that is a milestone. If you aren't a subscriber there is a link on the top right. And here.

In the meantime I work on the next book, Vim Dicaré, Book One of the Mészárosa Trilogy. I would love to have you onboard as part of my street team for the next launch!

I beg your indulgence for this first time author.

I received a 5-star review from Paul Goat Allen, a professional book critic who has worked with Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and BlueInk Reviews, to name a few, and he was kind enough to reach out to me with some suggestions to make it even better. He thought the title and cover were not making it clear who I was marketing this book to. He thought it was going to be a police procedural based on the title and cover.

I took his advice to heart and have relaunched the book with a new name and a new cover. Otherwise it is basically the same book.

Those of you who bought the first edition have a collectors edition now. The story is the same.

Check out the book at Amazon here!

If you missed the first link to the review you can see it on Goodreads here.

The Kindle addition is now available on Amazon! I hope you enjoy it!