Welcome to Jeremy Robinson’s Great Kindle Giveaway and Blog Tour.
“Hurray for free Kindles!” you say, but who the hell is Jeremy Robinson? Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the author of eleven mixed genre novels, published in ten languages, including the popular fantasy YA series, THE LAST HUNTER, and the fast-paced Jack Sigler series (also known as Chess Team—not nearly as nerdy as it sounds), PULSE, INSTINCT and THRESHOLD from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. I’m the co-author of an expanding series of novellas deemed the Chesspocalypse, which take place in the Chess Team universe. If that doesn’t wet your whistle, I’m also known as Jeremy Bishop, the #1 Amazon.com horror author of THE SENTINEL and the controversial novel, TORMENT. For more about me, or my books, visit www.jeremyrobinsononline.com.
I have watched for years as my fellow authors held online events called blog tours. Some would visit ten blogs. Others, as many as ninety. And every day they would bring something different, waxing eloquent about a multitude of topics. When I finally decided to have a blog tour of my own, and settled on doing each and every weekday in October, my first thought was, “This will be cool,” which was immediately followed up by, “Holy crap, I can’t think of something interesting to say twenty times in one month!” I can barely think of something worthwhile for my own blog just once a month. The solution is what follows; each blog participating in the tour could ask me ANY three questions. That means, if the subject matter bores you, I’m not to blame! Huzzah!
But fear not. There are other rewards for sloughing through the questions and answers. I’ll be giving away two Kindles to two randomly selected readers who sign up for my newsletter. Details on the giveaway can be found below. On to the Q&A! 
Your career as a writer is an interesting one: you started out self-publishing, got enough attention you were signed by a major publisher, and are now back to self-publishing which you find brings in a lot more money and readers. Do you plan on working with a major publisher again, and if so why?
Technically, I never stopped self-publishing. Most publishers only want one novel per year from authors, and that’s all some authors write. But I tend to write four novels a year. Sometime five. And while Thomas Dunne has published one hard cover novel per year, I have consistently published 3 – 4 on my own, including THE LAST HUNTER series, the Jeremy Bishop horror novels and the “Chesspocalypse” novellas. And yeah, those books earn me a lot more money annually than the books from the major publisher. BUT, I haven’t given up on big publishing. After the first three hardcover novels came out, I signed on for two more. The next one, SECONDWORLD comes out in Spring 2012, and after that comes ISLAND 731 in spring 2013. So I’m on both sides of the fence and find that that’s how I can pay the bills.
Obviously self-publishing ebooks are more lucrative than “back in the day” as the distribution is there and anybody with an ereader can download your work. What was it like “back in the day” when you were just self-publishing paperback books — how did you get your books to readers?
It actually wasn’t too different. I wrote the books, had them edited, made the covers myself, laid out the interiors myself and loaded them up to Lightning Source (a print-on-demand printer/distributor) to sell on Amazon.com and BN.com. I do all those same steps now, except that there are several additional steps as I format them for Kindle, Nook and Smashwords.com (the hardest of the three). The distribution for me has always been online, print book or e-book. So marketing and reaching out to readers is the same for me as it was six years ago. The only major difference, as you noted, is that e-books are far more lucrative. My e-book income is roughly five times higher than my print income five years ago.
You and I share the same literary agent, who really gets the marketplace and understands the need for some of his clients to start self-publishing their own work. But not all agents feel this way. Some will part ways with their clients for doing this. Where do you see the writer/agent relationship going in the next few years?
Since we share the same agent, you probably recently saw the announcement that our agency is going to start partnering with clients who choose to self-publish via e-books. I have no idea how that’s going to play out for the agency, or the authors involved. I suspect I’ll continue to self-publish on my own unless the agency commits to flexing some marketing muscle, or can do things better than I can for a percentage. For me, an author making a great living from DIY publishing, they have a lot to prove, but for other authors who don’t have an editor, know-how to design a cover, or format an e-book, I think it will be a great service. I suspect this service will be reserved for clients whose books didn’t sell to publishers for some reason or another, but who knows, maybe we’ll see agents fighting to keep e-book rights so they can publish e-copies themselves. Could get messy. Happily, I can watch from the sidelines and see how it plays out. Basically, as e-books take over the market and more big name authors shift to self-publishing e-books, agents are going to have to find more ways to serve their clients. If they don’t, things could get rough for them. I’m happy that our agency is showing some initiative. Means they’ll probably succeed while others go out of business.
Hope that was as good for you as it was for me. Now how about that kindle giveaway? 
Here’s the deal: to be entered to win one of two free kindles all you have to do is visit my website—www.jeremyrobinsononline.com—and sign up for the newsletter. That’s it. The first kindle will go to a randomly chosen newsletter signup on October 31. For the second kindle, there’s a catch. The second giveaway will only be triggered if one of my kindle books hits the Amazon.com bestseller list (top 100). So pick up some books (most are just $2.99 a pop) and spread the word! If one of the books squeaks up to #100 for just a single hour, the second kindle will be given away to another randomly chosen newsletter sign up on October 31.
*When you sign up for the newsletter, be sure to include the name of the blog that referred you in the field provided. I’ll be giving away two $50 Amazon.com gift certificates to the blog that refers the most sign-ups and another to the blog who referred the first kindle winner.
** I will announce winners via Twitter, Facebook, my blog, and newsletter (which you will be signed up for!) but I’ll also e-mail the winners directly—I’ll need to know where to ship those kindles!
Thanks for spending some time with me today. Hope you enjoyed the Q&A, and good luck with the kindle giveaway!
– Jeremy Robinson
