Good lord! Was it really seven years ago, that I was writing The Silver Trumpet? How many years ahead will it be, the next time I wake up in the morning?
The people of Obann dread the sea. They don’t even like to look at it from the safety of the shore. And I didn’t know why. I never sat down to hash it out. I waited for God to make it clear to me.
Which He did!
I’m not the only writer who’s had this experience. We’ll all tell you–it’s positively great when it happens.
Yes–this is indeed your last chance to buy my books in the year 2018! If you wait till tomorrow, it’ll be 2019.
So get onto amazon.com and order a couple of ’em, or click “Books” and then the little shopping cart icon and order direct from the publisher. It’s easy! Even I could do it, and I stink at computers.
The saga begins with Bell Mountain and now consists of ten books, with No. 11, The Temptation, just about ready to come off the press. Thrill to wars, miracles, treachery, conversions, really strange and menacing beasts, weird barbaric customs, love, friendship, faithfulness, barbarian invasions, an avalanche–everything that makes life worth living! It’s all in here.
Buy ’em for your kids, and by the time they reach No. 10, The Silver Trumpet, they’ll be old enough to read ’em all over again.
And I have heard, but cannot confirm, that every time anybody buys one of my books, somewhere in the world, a leftid cries “Ouch!”
Currently we have a little more than 32,000 comments here–so let’s shoot for 35,000. And to encourage reader participation, let’s make it a contest. Be the one to post Comment No. 35,000 and win an autographed copy of one of my books. Like The Silver Trumpet, for instance: Bell Mountain No. 10. Or any of its predecessors–although I ought to warn you that I’m just about out of copies of No. 1, Bell Mountain. But heck, there are nine others to choose from.
The contest is open to all, and all comments are eligible, with only the following exceptions: comments abusive to anyone else on this site, comments containing blasphemy or profanity, comments simply too fat-headed to publish, and ads disguised as comments (I still get one of those from time to time).
We’re talking about piling up another 3,000 comments, which might take a while, but it just didn’t seem right to offer a prize for No. 34,000. What kind of number is that? But 35,000 has a nice ring to it.
If you’ve already won a comment contest–and quite a few of you have–I don’t mind if you win another. It will impress your friends.
I thank Newswithviews for letting me talk about my own books from time to time. Advertising is hard to come by.
https://newswithviews.com/the-silver-trumpet/
I hope I haven’t put the rest of you off by doing this. If any of you out there enjoys a close personal friendship with Rush Limbaugh, and can get him to talk about Bell Mountain to his 20 million listeners, I’d appreciate it.
I thought it was a terrific fun idea–draw up a cast for a Bell Mountain movie, and whoever has the best cast, wins a prize.
Well, so far I’ve only got four entrants in the contest, and that’s not much of a contest. Obviously the prize, an autographed copy of The Silver Trumpet, failed to inspire a competitive spirit.
All right, all right, so I’ll change the prize.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you win the Bell Mountain Movie prize… you win the Stanley Cup! Somebody talked to the National Hockey League and they say it’s okay, they won’t use the Stanley Cup this year.
Hey, this huge trophy is solid silver, has beaucoup historical value, and ought to fetch a great prize on eBay. And all you’ve got to do is name actors for at least six roles in a Bell Mountain movie that’ll be made as soon as I’ve got $100 million. The actors don’t even have to be alive anymore. In fact, they don’t even have to be actors! That’s how laissez-faire I’ve got, trying to pump up this contest.
Gee, that’s two French expressions in one paragraph. Either I’m turning into Hercule Poirot, or this Stanley Cup idea’s a winner.
Recently I announced a fun contest for readers. Cast the Bell Mountain movie, using actors living or dead to play at least six characters, and whoever comes up with the coolest cast wins a copy of The Silver Trumpet.
A lot of people have read that announcement, but so far only three have entered. What kind of contest has only three people in it? Are many of you just waiting around to see what others say? Crikey, I could get three entries into “Name That Tent Caterpillar”contest.
C,mon now, folks–spread your wings and let your imaginations take flight. You can cast anyone you want for any part. If you want to cast Yul Brynner as Ellayne, fine–you won’t win, but you could do that.
This game will only work if a lot of readers play. ‘Nuff said?
![The Silver Trumpet (Bell Mountain Book 10) by [Duigon, Lee]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Hx7tDyuWL.jpg)
Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues, lovers of fantasy fiction: it gives me great pleasure to announce that The Silver Trumpet is available today as a Kindle book on amazon.com. In fact, if you’ve got Amazon Prime, it’s free. (Don’t ask me how I make any money out of that. I’m sure I don’t know.) And coming out of the starting gate, it’s in the Top Hundred for Fantasy and Science Fiction this morning.
It doesn’t appear that any paperbacks have been sold yet, although they’re now available, too.
Plus there’s a “Be the First to Review This Book” notice up, so I’ll be on tenterhooks to see what kind of customer reviews I get. It suddenly occurs to me that I don’t, in fact, know what “tenterhooks” are.
So there it is, boys and girls. (I promise not to stop with the microaggressions.)
What–you mean you haven’t ordered it already? Well, don’t just stand there–!
To celebrate the publication of Bell Mountain No. 10, The Silver Trumpet. and the long-awaited (by me) expansion of my market to Barnes & Noble Nook and Google Play, I has thunk up–stop! Too much Joe Collidge. I have devised a new contest for you, dear and faithful readers, new and old alike.
For years I’ve been pipe-dreaming about a Bell Mountain movie, and even trying my hand at assembling a cast for it. Last night I thought it might be much more fun to let all of you join in.
**So here’s the contest. Whoever can propose the best cast, at least half a dozen characters, for a Bell Mountain movie, wins an autographed copy of The Silver Trumpet. It’s okay if the actors you propose are dead. That will only slightly decrease the movie’s chance of ever being made.
@@Sample entry> Lord Reesh: Lou Costello; Helki the Rod: Sandy Becker; Jack: Mike Mazurki; Ellayne: Lee Remick; Obst: Hector Elizondo; the Baroness: Dame Judith Anderson. (Note: I purposely selected actors no one else would select. Do try to do better than this!)
Anyone can play, all are eligible–and I’ll keep the contest open for a while, so some of you can catch up on your reading. Entries will be judged by me and my wife, and if we can’t decide among two or three or four entries, they’ll all win.
Come on, now, join in–this should be a lot of fun. Enter as often as you like. Feel free to comment on other readers’ entries. The whole thing’ll fall flat, of course, if everybody just sits around waiting for someone else to play.
How to enter? Simple. Just “leave a comment” or “leave a reply” on any post, anytime.
I can hardly wait to see what you guys come up with.
P.S.–Everybody seems to enjoy reading about this, but so far, very few have actually participated. C’mon now, folks! I can’t run a contest with only half a dozen entrants–and I don’t have half a dozen yet.
No one works harder than the support staff at Chalcedon HQ. And they get it done, too.
I just heard from Jill that all my books are now on sale via Barnes & Noble Nook and Google Play. That would be ebook versions of the books: Chalcedon and amazon.com also sell the paperbacks. The latest, The Silver Trumpet (No. 10 in the Bell Mountain series), is still about a week away from being available as an ebook. That’s also Jill’s job.
Anyway, now ebooks of my books are available in two more markets, and they just got there so I haven’t sold any yet. But it can’t help but help–right?
Some of you will have already noticed I’m back from the eye doctor. I was there all morning, and the only excitement was when the lady at the desk read from the wrong piece of paper and announced a cost about eight times higher than it should have been. Other than that, no change. Except to confirm that my new glasses work really well.
Here, today, readership is low and I had to hustle to crank out a Newswithviews column. We still have a shot at 7,000 views for May, if the pace picks up a bit. And I hope everybody noticed The Silver Trumpet is at last on sale.
What I really want to do now is everything I can to boost readership of Chalcedon’s new/improved website, http://www.chalcedon.edu .That’s why I’ve been posting articles from that source. It’ll help us a lot if readers share those Chalcedon articles on the social media. To say nothing of enhancing my job security.
Anyway, if you like these posts, please take a couple of minutes to share them on whatever social media you use.