Spotlight Saturday: Guest Post and Giveaway with David Estes, author of The Moon Dwellers

Hi, everyone!

Welcome to another edition of Spotlight Saturday at Darlene's Book Nook, where we feature authors and their books!

We will be joined today by David Estes.

David Estes was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was very young. He grew up in Pittsburgh and then went to Penn State for college. Eventually he moved to Sydney, Australia where he met his wife and soul mate, Adele, who he’s now been happily married to for more than two years.

A reader all his life, David began writing novels for the children's and YA markets in 2010, and has completed 13 novels, 11 of which have been published.  In June of 2012, David became a fulltime writer and is now travelling the world with his wife while he writes books, and she writes and takes photographs.

David gleans inspiration from all sorts of crazy places, like watching random people do entertaining things, dreams (which he jots copious notes about immediately after waking up), and even from thin air sometimes! Recently he’s been inspired by some of his favorite authors, like Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth, and Maggie Stiefvater.

David’s a writer with OCD, a love of dancing and singing (but only when no one is looking or listening), a mad-skilled ping-pong player, an obsessive Goodreads group member, and prefers writing at the swimming pool to writing at a table.  He loves responding to e-mails, Facebook messages, Tweets, blog comments, and Goodreads comments from his readers, all of whom he considers to be his friends.

Where you can find David Estes hanging out: 
David Estes Fans and YA Book Lovers Unite

Blog/website

Facebook page

Goodreads author page

Twitter

 

Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, David!

David has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to him!

My Favorite Worst Review
by David Estes

As an author, you’ve got to have pretty thick skin. The moment you click on that “Publish Now” button on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, or any one of a number of popular publishing sites, all your hard work, long days and nights, frustrations and triumphs are available for anyone and everyone to critique. So you hold your breath, close your eyes, and click the button, praying that you’ve caught all the typos, developed your characters, added the right twists, the perfect touch of romance, etc etc.

Then you wait.

When that first review comes in, you once again hold your breath as you click on it, looking for lots of bright, shining stars. Sometimes you get what you hoped for—a gushing fan who you kept up late into the wee hours of the night with your suspenseful plotlines—and other times not. Sometimes it’s a scathing review from someone who got 10% in and was bored out of their mind and just couldn’t finish your novel, providing a laundry list of reasons why your book sucked and was unfinishable.

That’s the life of an author, for better or worse. Personally, I crave reviews. The good ones because they motivate me and make me smile and justify all the hard work. And the bad ones when they’re constructive and make me a better writer in the future. Three of my team of twelve beta readers wrote not-so-glowing reviews of my earlier books, but their reviews were so well-written and honest that I formed a relationship with them and they agreed to help critique my future manuscripts, and now they’re my lifelong readers and friends. These were definitely some of my favorite worst reviews, because they gave me a greater chance of success with my future novels. All I had to do was learn from my mistakes and not get offended because of someone else’s opinion (who might actually be right!).

With the explosion of self-publishing, these days I keep seeing controversies about writers who stalk negative reviewers all over the internet, demanding their reviews be removed or edited to reflect “the truth.” But what is the truth? For each of us it’s different, which is what makes books so awesome. We each have the chance to interpret for ourselves. That’s the fun of reading and discussing books and one of the reasons I love Goodreads so much.

So, although some of my worst reviews resulted in friendships and additions to my beta reading team, my favorite worst review was actually something very short and simple and I don’t think the writer of it will ever touch another of my books. But it did make me laugh, and that’s a rare thing in a 1-star review. It said simply “I should have saved my money and bought a bag of crisps.” Hey, I can’t fault this person’s honesty! And clearly they’re not my target audience, which is OK. Not everyone who picks up one of my books will be.

The important thing for both readers and writers to remember is that there’s a person on the other side of the review, so be honest but not cruel. It’s all about readers reading and writers writing and each loving what they do. I know I do! And even though my newer books are getting much higher ratings than my older books, I love all 15 books I’ve written the same, because they’re all part of my journey to becoming to a better writer, living my dreams. I thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way, I couldn’t do what I love without you!

Thanks so much for joining us today, David!


About the Book:

TITLE: The Moon Dwellers

SERIES: The Dwellers, Book #1
AUTHOR: David Estes

PUBLISHER: David Estes

PUBLICATION DATE: June 30, 2012

FORMAT: E-book, 369 pages

GENRE: Science Fiction/Dystopia
ASIN: B008FJV8SQ 

 

In a desperate attempt to escape destruction decades earlier, humankind was forced underground, into the depths of the earth, creating a new society called the Tri-Realms.

After her parents and sister are abducted by the Enforcers, seventeen-year-old Adele, a member of the middle-class moon dwellers, is unjustly sentenced to life in prison for her parents' crimes of treason.

Against all odds, Adele must escape from the Pen and find her family, while being hunted by a deranged, killing machine named Rivet, who works for the President. She is helped by two other inmates, Tawni and Cole, each of whom have dark secrets that are better left undiscovered. Other than her friends, the only thing she has going for her is a wicked roundhouse kick and two fists that have been well-trained for combat by her father.

At the other end of the social spectrum is Tristan, the son of the President and a sun dweller. His mother is gone. He hates his father. Backed by only his servant and best friend, Roc, he leaves his lavish lifestyle in the Sun Realm, seeking to make something good out of his troubled life.

When a war breaks out within the Tri-Realms, Tristan is thrust into the middle of a conflict that seems to mysteriously follow Adele as she seeks to find her family and uncover her parents true past.

In their world, someone must die.

Buy Links:

Amazon Kindle / Amazon Paperback

Tomorrow, The Moon Dwellers by David Estes turns 1 year old! To celebrate, he is giving away free copies of his e-books to everyone!

I will be posting the official birthday announcement tomorrow, so please return so that you can grab the coupon code to download The Moon Dwellers from Smashwords.