Category Archives: Evan Braun

By Colette Black and Evan Braun.

As I (Evan) mentioned in my post yesterday, we’ve got giveaways coming up. Lots and lots of giveaways. This is a writing blog, so it should surprise no one that we’re mostly giving away free books. But there’s more to it than that, of course! So how do you win all this great stuff? Well, that’s easy, and Colette is here to explain it to you.

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Starting today, we will have a new set of giveaways each week. They will last one week, until midnight EST of the following Sunday. Every week we’ll have new prizes, including but not limited to: eBooks, gift cards, signed paperback books, cash prizes, etc. We will have seven prizes to win each week. More details are available on our website’s right sidebar, under “Giveaway Celebration.” Just go to the sidebar and click on one of the entry forms, then follow the actions available (for example, leaving comments on our posts, sharing and talking about our posts on Facebook and Twitter, etc.). Some actions are worth more than one entry, and some actions can be done more than once during the week.

Winners will be notified within 48 hours of the end of each week and requested to rank prizes in their order of preference. The first-place winner will receive first choice, second-place will receive second choice of prizes still available, and so on. Because we’ll have seven winners, we hope that everyone will respond quickly so we can distribute the prizes as soon as possible. If someone doesn’t respond within forty-eight hours, we will be forced to withdraw them from the contest and award their prize to another entrant.

We have so many amazing gifts, and people can win more than once, so we look forward to a fun month of prizes and great posts as we celebrate the special occasion of our 1000th post next week on Wednesday, August 12. Good luck to all, and to all a good August!

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Thanks, Colette. Before I go, I wanted to give a rundown on the great prizes available during Week One. Check out the box in the right sidebar for more information on these books and authors:

Mary Pletsch: Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with the Gods (anthology)
Colette Black: Noble Ark
Evan Braun: The Book of Creation: Book One of The Watchers Chronicle
Nathan Barra: One Horn to Rule Them All (anthology). This very special prize comes with a crocheted purple unicorn!
Travis Heerman: Heart of the Ronin
Sam Knight: A Whiskey Jack in a Murder of Crows
Teyla Branton: The Change

Let the games begin!

We All Live in Community

August 2, 2015

Evan Braun

Evan Braun Giveaways Motivation Reflection The Writing Life 4 Comments

After a while, I think I start to sound like a broken record, returning to certain themes over and over again. These themes really motivate me and speak to me as a writer and as a person. One of them is the reality that we all exist in communities. Writing communities, yes, but also families large and small, towns and cities, countries, work environments, and professional groups. And these communities are important ingredients in shaping who we are—and we become. Though it may seem at times like we’re alone, cast adrift on the lonely frontiers of human experience, that’s usually not indicative of our reality.

Writing can feel especially lonely—and that’s one of the reasons we first started this blog four and a half years ago. Has it really been four and a half years? Sometimes it’s hard to believe. In fact, our blog is approaching a big milestone—next week!—which is why I’ve found myself ruminating on the theme of community once again (as I mentioned, I’ve done it before). The milestone in question? Our 1000th post. That’s right, folks. We’ve gone four digits, and there’s no looking back.

There’s going to be a lot going on this month. As you’ve noticed, we’ve got ourselves a new and improved website to make your Fictorians experience more enjoyable—and yes, hopefully more practical. And as usual, we’re going to bring you a wide range of bloggers, all with different perspectives and stories relating to the community theme.

But we’ve got something a little extra to bring you this month, and that’s free stuff. Lots and lots and lots of free stuff. In fact, we have seven prizes to give away every week. You read that correctly. More on that tomorrow, so hurry back for all those juicy details.

Check back all month to hear from the usual suspects as well as guests bloggers like Rachel Anne Nunes (believe me; she’s got a story to tell!), Sherry Peters, and Petra Klarbrunn. Together, our message will be clear: we’re not alone—and neither are you. Stick around, be inspired, and win some prizes. Does it get any better than this?

Evan Braun is an author and editor who has been writing books for more than ten years. He is the author of The Watchers Chronicle, whose third volume, The Law of Radiance, has just been released. He specializes in both hard and soft science fiction and lives in the vicinity of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Facelift!

August 1, 2015

Evan Braun

Evan Braun Giveaways Marketing No Comments

Whoa, what’s this? It’s the Fictorian blog, of course, though as you can see we’ve upgraded our look dramatically. Our goal through this redesign process has been to deliver all the same great content as before, but find some ways to improve the browsing experience.

The emphasis is a cleaner, simplified design that doesn’t sacrifice any of the functionality we had before—in fact, we think you’ll find the functionality is greatly improved. Take a few minutes to explore the new site! And then come back tomorrow for a fresh post introducing all the great things we have in store for the month of August. This is going to be a big month for us, including a big milestone (more on that tomorrow), and lots of free stuff. You read that right: we’re going to be giving away dozens of prizes throughout August.

Come back tomorrow (yup, that’s a Sunday, folks) for an introduction to August and our monthly theme: writing in community. On Monday, we’re going to have all the details about our giveaways this month, so you won’t want to miss that either.

Stay tuned!

Do Unto Others

July 17, 2015

Evan Braun

Author's Perspective Evan Braun Interacting With Fans Motivation Reflection Reviews The Writing Life The Writing Process No Comments

I’ve written on this subject before on the Fictorians, but I can’t help repeating myself every so often when it comes to the impact of fans. It wouldn’t be honest to say that I primarily write for my fans. Truth is, I write for me, because I love writing and creating. Stories drive me. But I find the energy to keep writing, to power through the really hard days and finish books, because my readers frequently find inspiring ways to remind me that what I’m doing matters to them. And isn’t that what we all want, at the end of the day? To matter?

A friend of a friend recently messaged me on Facebook to say that she had started reading my first book on a Monday and finished it at 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning. She then started the second book on Thursday night and finished on Saturday, and messaged to let me know that she thought it was better than the first. She didn’t want it to be over, so she hoped to take her time on the third book. We’ll see how that goes…

The point is not to toot my own horn. Here’s what I’m driving at: those two books took a minimum of four years to write (even longer to conceive) and boom, they are easily read in just four days. Which is a bit lopsided, but one hopes that great books will be consumed as quickly and voraciously as possible. In an ideal world, I want voracious readers to discover me right now, but I also long for the day when voracious readers will be discovering me and my backlist of thirty other books.

Hearing from fans means a lot to me. And I know it means a lot to other writers, too, which is why when I discover a book I really love, I follow the golden rule: do unto others what you’d have them do unto you. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I get in touch personally, but I leave reviews and try to spread the word. It seems to me that word of mouth and personal recommendations are among the most important (if not the most important) way that people discover new books.

So let’s not be stingy with praise and appreciation. Writers are often lonely, socially starved people sitting behind computers in quiet rooms at ungodly hours (unless it’s just me?), so words of appreciation tend to go a long way.