Because the only thing more terrifying than velociraptors are velociraptors that can fly.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Who Doesn't Love Free Books?

Recently, I've been able to get my hands on free copies of Encounters of Sherlock Holmes and Ex-Heroes, and no, I didn't use the five-finger discount.

As you may or may not (but probably do) know, I've been writing reviews and articles for Geek Smash, which has been awesome. I get my name out there, get articles published, good times. What's even more cool is that people in the industry are starting to pay attention to me.

It began with my review on Ernest Cline's Ready Player One. Someone recommended it to me so I picked up a copy and enjoyed what I read. I published a review and then got an email from a PR firm that worked on RPO when it came out. They had another book coming out, Ex-Heroes, and they wanted to know if I'd be willing to write a review on it if they gave me a copy. My thoughts were as follows: "Free book? YAY!" So I wrote my review.

Around the same time my boss at Geek Smash gave me a press copy of Encounters of Sherlock Holmes, an anthology of new Sherlock Holmes stories. One that I liked in particular was called "Woman's Work," and was a re-imagining of the Watsonian narrative through the eyes of Mrs. Hudson, the famous duo's housekeeper. The guy who wrote that story, David Barnett (@davidmbarnett) tweeted about my review, and I got to talking/tweeting with him about how I liked the story.

It seems he has a new book coming out this year, so he gave me the contact info for his publisher to get a copy of it. Also, after my Ex-Heroes review, the PR company wanted to know if I'd be interested in doing another review for them later in the year.

So these people are willing to give me free books for writing, something I love to do already. My life is awesome. (Now if only I could figure out how to get paid to do all this...)