The Year of IMMORTAL: a prehistory

We’re looking back at the first year in the life of the indie published book Immortal.  Join us, as we reminisce and speak in first person plural for no reason.

Before the beginning

The official publication date for Immortal was 10-1-10, which was a perfect binary day despite actually being a Friday and thus a very bad day to release a book.  But so many things had to happen before we even got to that day.

ARC’s and Blurbs

Books need blurbs!  Collecting nice words and pre-publication reviews with quotable parts was a major concern, especially since I didn’t really have many industry contacts, I knew no reviewers or how to contact them, and I was barely competent when it came to social networking.

I had a few long shots.  Back in 2006 when an earlier iteration of Immortal was in my agent’s hands and we were trying to line up some names for it, I went nuts looking up authors and sending them emails to ask if they would be interested in reading an advance copy.  The two most notable positive responses I got were Christopher Moore and Eric Garcia.  Unfortunately between 2006 and 2010 Moore hired a publicist I couldn’t get past, but Eric was still around, still remembered me, and was still happy to help.

In creating the ageless Adam, Gene Doucette has conjured up a character as witty as he is old, and as charming as he is depraved. IMMORTAL is by turns thrilling, moving, and deeply, darkly funny.

–Eric Garcia

Twitter, Goodreads

I did have some success meeting reviewers and other authors on both Goodreads and Twitter.  One of my first reviews came from Lori Hettler of The Next Best Book blog who I met through Goodreads.  I met Lori in person at the 2011 Indie Book Event where I also had a chance to hear her describe the things authors do online, when talking to reviewers, that she hates.  She then described half a dozen things I’d done myself.

Part science fiction fantasy, part action adventure and thriller, Gene Doucette creates the perfect balance of humor and edge-of-your-seat anticipation in this genre-defying story of an immortal man named Adam, who finds himself battling demons and bounty hunters in his eternal search for Eve, the red haired mystery woman of his dreams. Witty and wonderful, with a bite of sarcasm, Immortal is a five star read for any fiction lover… 

–Lori Hettler

Other great early blurbs came from blogger Sue London, author Vincent Zandri, WritersNewsWeekly, author Jonathan Vos Post and The Pigeon Post.

And then came 10-1-10

Wednesday: stumbling toward the publication date, and the importance of having an e-book version ready to go.

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