Sorry folks, this deal is over! However, you can still get a free copy of Divided We Fall by joining my newsletter, The Underground.
Propaganda by the author
Black Friday is all about great deals, so in that spirit I’m giving away my dystopian novel Divided We Fall on Story Cartel!
That’s right, you can get the eBook version of this dystopian love story about surveillanceright here without spending a single [insert your favorite unit of currency here]! And Divided We Fall will continue to be free for the next three weeks!
All I ask in return is that you write an honest review of the novel on Amazon, Goodreads, your blog or any other place you see fit. You can submit the review to Story Cartel for Amazon gift cards and other great prizes.
As an indie author, I have a smaller marketing budget and word of mouth is very important. One of the best ways to convince readers to give my books a try is to show them reviews by other readers like them. I’m not just talking about super-glowing reviews (though these are nice). I’m talking about honest, objective customer reviews that clearly lay out the good and bad elements of a given novel.
What are you waiting for? Get this book for free on Story Cartel!
If you have already read Divided We Fall, I’d of course still love to hear what you think. Please leave a review on the website of the store you bought it, as well as Goodreads if you are a member. Please also spread the word about this giveaway to your friends.
As an indie author trying to expand his audience, I really appreciate all your help!
It’s been a big year with the release of my second novel, Divided We Fall. But as they say in journalism, you’re only as good as your next story! So here’s a quick update on my current projects.
Short story
“Fire Eyes” is an upcoming short story by Adam Bender. Art by Belinda Pepper.
I’ve just finished a new short story called “Fire Eyes,” set in the same world as my novels We, The Watchedand Divided We Fall.
Taking place before the events of either of those stories, “Fire Eyes” follows an underground street artist called Ignatius who for years has dodged surveillance cameras to spray paint a dissident symbol: a dark visage with fiery eyes. Dissatisfied with the impact of his work, Iggy sets his sights on tagging the most important government building in the nation.
I have just submitted this story to a sci-fi short story magazine. I’m hoping to show it to you one way or the other by early next year.
Screenplay
I began work a while back on a screenplay of We, The Watched. It’s about two-thirds finished and looking pretty solid, but I have to admit it’s taken the back burner to my other projects. I hope to get back to work on this in the near future with a view to finishing it next year.
New novel
This is where I’ve been spending the bulk of my time. My next novel is a completely new and original story, unrelated to any of my past work. It mixes elements of several genres, including western, adventure and speculative fiction. Like my previous novels, there is a political twist. Whereas the We, The Watched stories focus on government surveillance, my new novel takes on gun issues in America.
The working title is: The Wanderer and the New West
Dystopian love story DIVIDED WE FALL has just received a four-star review from Readers’ Favorite. Reviewer Nichole Moser writes about the new novel:
In Adam Bender’s Divided We Fall, we follow the story of Eve Parker and Jon Wyle. They are members of the Elite Guard: a special task force dedicated to finding and arresting those who resist the Church. After meeting during a stake-out, Eve and Jon quickly form a relationship, a relationship which is tested when Jon accepts a special mission. He is to infiltrate the rebel heretic group known as the Underground, and bring them down from the inside. But it means forgetting who he is, and who he loves. It is up to Eve to bring him back, but she finds that not is all as it seems. She questions who the true Enemy is, and the teachings she followed her entire life. She must make the decision to follow God and country, or the love of her life at the risk of losing her own.
There are few novels I can read in one sitting, but Adam Bender’s Divided We Fall was one of them. It is fast-paced, intriguing, and had me wondering what was coming just around the corner. It had me not only wanting, but needing more. Eve and Jon are both relatable characters, as relatable as possible in a dystopian setting. But is it? The idea of government surveillance has been in the news for years, and Divided We Fall goes into detail about a very real and very current issue. Eve’s revelation of the world as a mix of colours rather than black and white was beautifully written and a lesson for all. Jon’s transformation into Seven was well-written and shows us the true potential of humanity – if we strip away the bias and focus solely on the good of all, we see what Seven knew all along: united, we are stronger. But divided, we fall.
Divided We Fall by Adam Bender
DIVIDED WE FALL has also been acclaimed by a Publishers Weekly reviewer who said “the novel raises interesting questions about the influence of propaganda on the construction of the self, the idea of true tabula rasa and the power of memory.”
Find out whether the government is watching you with this handy quiz. Then see if you can separate the Patriots from Heretics in the online game Watched Sweeper.
It’s always good to know if you’re suspicious to the government. For a quick diagnosis, take this handy quiz based on my novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall.
Guy Kawasaki talks to media in Sydney. Credit: Canva
I’ve always been envious of traditionally published authors.
I am the self-published author of two dystopian novels and I know there are advantages to my way, including greater control over the final product and more revenue per sale… but marketing is not easy and it’s certainly not cheap.
So, while self-publishing is going OK for me, there’s always been a voice in the back of my head saying, “This would be so much easier with a New York publisher!”
I have to admit I was a bit surprised when Guy Kawasaki said that’s all a myth.
Guy, the former chief evangelist of Apple, is the author of 12 books and recently self-published one all about this topic called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. At a recent media breakfast in Sydney, he said self-publishers can find just as much success as authors with New York publishers–if not more.
“The publishing industry is a very interesting place because it used to be an oligopoly where a few dozen firms in New York controlled the whole world. That is no longer true because of self-publishing and Amazon.”
It can take a year to release a book under the traditional publishing model, he said. “As a self-publisher, from the time manuscript is done–which I can determine–8 hours later it’s for sale on Kindle.”
That all sounded good, but I couldn’t help but feel that Guy might be forgetting that getting initial sales depends on marketing. Maybe Guy is famous enough to sell his own book to thousands of people, but what about the rest of us? I had to ask, wouldn’t a relatively unknown author still get better marketing from a big New York firm?
Guy said no.
“The fact is that they only do those kind of things if you are Hillary Clinton or you’re David Beckham. They don’t do it for the other 10,000 authors every year because frankly they can’t call the New York Times 10,000 times every year.”
In many cases, even traditionally published authors end up doing their own marketing, he said.
“The irony is, if you are lucky enough to garner interest from a New York publisher, one of the first questions they are going to ask you is, ‘What’s your marketing platform?’ Which is kind of ass-backwards because the reason why you’re going to them is for their marketing platform.”
If the publisher actually took care of marketing, Guy said the 90-10 revenue split between publisher and author might make sense. But if that’s not going to happen, it makes little sense for the author to give up 90% of the sales, he said.
With self-publishing through Amazon, the author keeps 70% of each sale. “That’s five times better than what you would get from a publisher,” he said.
The good news, he said, is that self-published authors today have a free marketing platform to get the word out to their audience: social media.
“I’m not saying everyone is guaranteed a bestseller, but at least everybody has a shot and you’re not at the whim of someone in New York.”
Adam Bender is the self-published author of two dystopian novels about surveillance: We, The Watched and Divided We Fall.
