The Martian Marauders, the first of three novels in my Jack Commer science fiction series, has just been published by Double Dragon Publishing as an eBook, in a variety of formats including EPUB (for most eReaders including Nook), PDF, Mobi Pocket (for Kindle), and Rocket eBook.  In addition it’s available through the iTunes store.  All these formats can be downloaded from the product page at Double Dragon.

The book sells for $5.99, but as long as it remains “new” the price is $5.09.

I’m excited to be participating in the e-publishing revolution (which has a curious, synergistic tie to my duties as Technology Librarian at McKinney Public Library) with this book and with my earlier experiments with self-publishing my novella The First Twenty Steps on Barnes and Noble’s PubIt and amazon.com’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

Double Dragon also has the second and third novels in the Jack Commer series in the pipeline: Jack Commer, Supreme Commander, and Nonprofit Chronowar, and I’m working on final edits for these now.

The Martian Marauders – Synopsis

A series of inexplicable solar system disasters in the near future, including exploding gas giants and asteroids hurled into the sun, forces a panicky acceleration of space technology and weaponry.  But humanity has not learned much from Mars exploration and the discovery of Star Drive, and by 2033 the United System Space Force has not only wrecked the earth with the planet-destabilizing Xon bomb, but in evacuating the remnants of Earth’s population to Mars, has also somehow overlooked an indigenous, intelligent race which is quite displeased by the arrival of two billion shellshocked humans.

By June 2034 the native Martians have risen in rebellion, led by their new human emperor, the traitor Sam Hergs. Amid family squabbles arising from the presence of four Commer brothers aboard his ship, Captain Jack Commer finds himself in the deep Martian desert battling Martian insurgents armed with shatterguns that crack their victims into millions of jagged pieces of glass.

How to purchase

At the top of the purchase page, the links for US (United States) and CA (Canada) take you to the iTunes store for either country.

Otherwise, to get to the formats for Adobe PDF, Rocket eBook, MS Reader, Palm, HieBook, iSilo, Mobi Pocket (This is the format for the Kindle), HTML, and EPUB (This last is the new standard and will work for most eReaders including the Nook), click the Add to Cart button.

You will need to create a free Double Dragon account or log into an existing one before you complete a purchase.  The process is similar to ordering a book through amazon.com (add to cart, then check out, then pay, then download), but the site does direct you to a third-party e-commerce site and then returns you to Double Dragon for the actual download.  You can use credit or debit card, or PayPal.

Once your purchase has been completed, the eBook title will automatically be moved to your eBook Shelf.  From there you’ll see the option to download in the above formats.  Choose EPUB for most eReaders.

(By the way, you can rate the novel with the links to the left–but you don’t need to do that before reading it!  The novel will persist on your eBook Shelf and you can download it again in different formats if you wish, as well as eventually rate anything on your shelf.)

When you get the dialog box that asks whether you want to Open or Save, I recommend clicking “Save” and just downloading it to the place of your choice on your computer.  That’s how I got the EPUB version. (”Open” may work, but didn’t seem to want to for me.)

Using the EPUB as an example: when you open your newly-saved file (9781554049189.epub), Adobe Digital Editions opens and from there you can drag it to your eReader in Library View.  Or you can read it in Adobe Digital Editions.

If you do not yet have the free Adobe Digital Editions software, I am positive some dialog box will pop up and offer this to you!  It should also prompt you to create an Adobe ID.

The Mobi Pocket format (file name 1-55404-918-0.prc) should open in your Kindle (You can simply copy it from your computer to the Kindle via USB) or your Kindle emulator on your PC.

The book is also available from Barnes and Noble and amazon.com.

Any and all comments you might care to make, positive or negative, are welcome!  I’ve learned a lot about e-publishing and writing in the last year but there is always more to grasp.

copyright 2012 by Michael D. Smith