Do you want to buy an Elf Mastery T-Shirt? Well, now you can! Not only am I an author, but I've recently become a fashion baron. Here is the link to my Elf Mastery shirt. If you are in the US you can order it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Elf-Mastery-T-Shirt-Representation-Cover/dp/B07G7FQQ5W/ref=sr_1_1?s=apparel&ie=UTF8&qid=1533695383&sr=1-1&nodeID=7141123011&psd=1&keywords=elf+mastery

In Canada, you can order it from Zazzle:
https://www.zazzle.ca/elf_mastery_t_shirt-235184322308069504

I have a bunch of other designs as well. Check them out! The more you buy, the richer I become!

​Bryant

I have 5 days/wuarter with KDP select to give away free ebooks as promotions, though I have not yet taken much effort into advertising these days. I have just posted a promotion for August 5 for free copies of the ebook version of Elf Mastery, if anyone is interested! The link to the book is on a button on the right side of the page.

​Bryant

I just learned about a new tool to analyze reviews!

So, lately I've been trying to market both Elf Doubt and my new Amazon merch page and have been trying to understand how to do this more effectively. I am determined, however, to be as honest as possible in my approach (ie. not using fake reviews, etc).

I just learned about a web site where you can input a url to an item's page on Amazon and it will analyze the quality of the reviews. It then grades the product relative to the quality of the reviews. Well, it turns out despite my small number of reviews on Amazon for Elf Mastery, I got an A! Which means my score on Amazon, however humble might be my number of reviews, is based on honest comments. (link to my analysis is here: https://www.fakespot.com/product/elf-mastery)

I was disappointed to find that other authors seem to cheat a lot. I ran another author's book through and was disappointed that she got an F, with many of her reviews perceived as being from bots or too exaggerated on the positive. I'm not going to name names, but as I am confident she has decent sales, and I still struggle, it begs the question as whether honesty is worth it in sales.

I'm not debating or lamenting my determination to keep my advertising honest, but it is a bitter pill to work hard and do your best to be honest, only to see yourself passed along the road by those willing to cheat.

I guess, at the end of the day, I am still proud of myself and my books, despite being left in the dust.

​Bryant

Piers Anthony once again agreed to read my book! Here is what he had to say:

I read Elf Doubt by Bryant Reil. I read the author's first novel in this series, Elf Mastery, in 2016. My aging memory is not what it once was, and the details of the first book have faded, but I remember liking Kyla, the perky and sometimes headstrong tree-dwelling elf girl. In this sequel Kyla quickly gets on a new mission and into serious trouble. It is a restless time, politically, with threats against the existing order, and she discovers that it's hard to trust anyone else, including the queen herself. Details are complicated, with many intertwining threads, and violence and death strike all around her. She seems to have been selected for some special purpose, but she doesn't know what it might be, and her friends may not really be her friends. By the end the king and queen have been dispatched, and Kyla is chief of one group and queen of another, without much notion what she should be doing or whether she is likely to survive long enough to find out. In fact the story becomes grim, and it is not yet done, as this book ends in the middle of the action. So this is no sweet gentle innocent girl story. I suspect that much anguish remains before it ends.



Piers Anthony

Amazon.ca has the ebook but not the paperback. If you live in Canada and would like to order the paperback, I have listed Elf Doubt on Blurb.ca
http://www.blurb.ca/b/8799577-elf-doubt

​Bryant

The Paperback version of Elf Doubt is now ready at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1987624890/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1529254840&sr=8-2&keywords=elf+doubt.

​Bryant

The paperback has been submitted and is awaiting review, so should be available within a few days. In the meantime, I will post the picture of the full cover.

That's Kyla falling with the flying city of Aeolis in the background on the back cover.

​Bryant

The ebook is now available through Amazon!



Paperback should be up and ready over the weekend.

Bryant

Everything is still looking good for a June 15 release. I thought I might as well post the new front cover here (the ebook cover). 

I've committed to a release date of June 15, which means I have until June 11 to get the final manuscript and artwork uploaded to Amazon. I have a few changes to make to the text and we are still working on the cover, but expect to be done by then.

Can't remember if I mentioned it earlier, but I did contact the original artist from Book 1 to redo the picture for Book 2. I think the original art for Book 2 looked fine but was getting a lot of comments that Kyla didn't look like Kyla from the first cover.

​Bryant