Martin Hill Announces New Release

Author Martin Hill is pleased to announce the release of his new military mystery thriller, The Killing Depths.

Special Agent Linus Schag, an “agent-afloat” for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is sent aboard the USS Encinitas, the Navy’s first attack submarine crewed by both men and women, to investigate the apparent suicide of a female sailor. But Schag knows the death was no suicide. It was murder. And his investigation soon discovers it’s only the first was several homicides aboard the submarine. With the Encinitas engaged in a life-or-death struggle with a renegade Iranian sub, Schag must discover the culprit’s identity before the killer’s murderous rampage destroys the Encinitas itself.

The Killing Depths was released on November 24, 2012 and is available through Amazon.com, Amazon UK, and Barnes & Noble.


Pitching 101

Guest post
by Alesha Escobar

When you’re writing a screenplay, especially as an indie writer, you’ll agree that pitching your story to a potential audience or buyer can be nerve-wracking. The pitch ties into your marketing, your image, and needs to be engaging to open doors of opportunity.

Some writers hate hearing that. They want to just be put in front of the right audience, or right producer, and let their story shine on its own merits. No gimmicks, and no marketing voodoo. Continue reading “Pitching 101”

Paying it Forward Into the New Year

This time last year I was flailing around, trying everything I could think of to find readers for my newly self-published novel. I did the usual Facebook events and .99 cent sales and joined every online group I could find. I was active in Amazon Author Discussion boards, Kindleboards, Yahoo groups, and anywhere else I thought readers might be. The reviews I was receiving on the book were really positive but I couldn’t reach that next level in terms of finding more readers. My background is sales and marketing and I know my way around the internet, but even with all my efforts I couldn’t hit the big numbers that other Indie authors were achieving. In the first six weeks I sold about two hundred books but I knew many of those were friends and family, and other authors who were kind enough to buy it and support me. I was happy to get my work out there but I wanted to find random readers who didn’t know me, and when I checked the Kindleboard monthly listings and saw there were Indie authors selling thousands of ebooks a month I knew that either I had a book that wasn’t going to sell or I was doing something wrong. So, I contacted Robert Bidinotto, and that’s when I learned about “paying it forward”. Continue reading “Paying it Forward Into the New Year”

2013 in Preview

2012 is over and thank goodness—not exactly a prosperous year for many of us. For Christmas this year, I gave the grand-kids a couple of plastic scoops and told them the cat’s litter box was a buried treasure game. Not only were they disappointed, but it looks like I wasted a lot of time making the cat swallow all those nickels. Sigh.

But now it is time to look forward to the new year with my proprietary blend of hopeful optimism and innate revulsion at change. I have fired up the old crystal ball. Remember, I’m 90% right 50% of the time. Here is my list of predictions for the coming year: Continue reading “2013 in Preview”