Voyage After the Collapse (Book III of The Pulse Series)

This is a quick note to let all my readers of Bug Out Survival know that the third installment of the ongoing series that began with The Pulse is my next book coming down the pipeline. Voyage After the Collapse is available for preorder on Amazon now (Kindle Edition only, at this point). There will be a paperback edition as well, of course, and it will probably be available sometime in November or early December when the ebook is actually released.

BOOK III OF THE PULSE SERIES—A STORY OF SURVIVAL IN THE AFTERMATH OF MASSIVE SOLAR FLARES THAT DESTROY THE POWER, COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSPORTATION GRIDS, BRINGING ABOUT A DESCENT INTO LAWLESS CHAOS AND UNBRIDLED SAVAGERY.

The crew of the sailing vessel, Casey Nicole has endured a harrowing ordeal on the dark waterways of the coastal swamps near New Orleans, but Artie Drager has escaped with what he came for—his only daughter, Casey.

They are free of the mainland but still too close for comfort. Now the crew of six aboard the big catamaran must plot a course and set sail into the unknown, hoping to find a place where the impact of the electromagnetic pulse was not so severe. Where that will be, they have no way of knowing. Did the solar flares impact the whole planet, or just the parts of the Western Hemisphere they have seen?

Voyage After the Collapse is a passage of hope into an uncertain future, leaving the terror of the U.S. mainland astern in the wake.

You can reserve your Kindle copy by preordering at the Amazon link below, where it is listed for $3.99 from now until release. You won't be charged until the release date when the book is delivered to your reading device. (Good know in case a real pulse hits first, rendering your ereaders useless!)

Preorder Voyage After the Collapse (Book III of The Pulse Series)

As I've mentioned before, you can get these book updates faster and before anyone else if you sign up for my newsletter by simply entering your email address here:

http://scottbwilliams.com/blog/newslettersignup/

Book Giveaway Winners

This is a repost from my main website:

Just an update to announce that the winners have been selected  for the ten  signed copies of Refuge that I offered to those signing up for my author newsletter.  If your email address was chosen, you should have received a notification through the newsletter.  Of the ten winners, I have received a reply back from eight and books have been mailed out to those eight winners.  I'm still waiting to hear back from the other two, so check your spam folders and inboxes carefully to make sure you didn't overlook the notification, which should show up as an email from my address: scott (at) scottbwilliams.com

The eight winners who should receive their books soon are:

Khris - St. Petersburg, FL, David - Southport, FL, Gary - Mohnton, PA, Beverly - Kosiusko, MS, Kathryn - Canton, MO, Vivian - Mill Creek, WA, Devon - Ludington, MI and John - Kirksville, MO.

I will send out another direct email to the other two chosen winners soon and if no response after a few days, will select two alternate winners.

For the rest of you who have signed up for my newsletter, thank you for subscribing, and I want to make sure you have another chance at winning a copy of Refuge.  To that end, I will be giving away one free copy at random every Friday of this month from among my subscriber list.  Stay tuned as well to the newsletter updates for an announcement of my next book, which is in progress now and coming soon.

Refuge is available on Amazon and in bookstores now and I've gotten great feedback on it, including hearing back from some of the giveaway winners that they've already purchased and read it before learning they had won.  Review copies from the publisher are late going out as has happened upon the release of my last two books, so if you're on one of those lists to receive one, I apologize for the delay and have word that they will be shipped out this week if not already.

Book Giveaway Signup Link

Yesterday I posted an announcement of a book giveaway for ten copies of Refuge After the Collapse (the sequel to The Pulse).  Many of you who follow this blog have signed up for the giveaway using the embedded signup form I included at the bottom of yesterday's post.

Some other readers brought it to my attention though, that this form did not work for them if they received updates to this blog through an RSS feed or email subscription.  If you tried to sign up for the giveaway and didn't get a confirmation notice and an email from my newsletter service verifying that you indeed wanted to be added to the list, you were not added.  I apologize for the confusion but the newsletter service (hosted by MailChimp) is new to me and I should have posted a link rather than an embedded from so that those of you who subscribe to the blog rather than visit Bug Out Survival directly would be able to enter.  So if you didn't get a confirmation, here is a link to the signup form:

Scott B. Williams Newsletter Signup

You can also enter by visiting the signup page on my main website here:

http://scottbwilliams.com/blog/newslettersignup/

After you enter your email address and click 'submit', be sure and check you inbox and SPAM folders for the verification email.  If you do not respond to it to verify that you wanted to subscribe, you won't be added to the list.  This is a good thing as it keeps you from getting unwanted junk mail.

I also want to point out that this signup is for my newsletter and is not a subscription to updates here at Bug Out Survival.  The purpose of the newsletter is to let subscribers be the first to know about the next book giveaways and releases, and will also provide me a way of contacting you directly through email if you are a winner in one of these giveaways.  As mentioned in yesterday's post, you will only get an occasional email from me through the newsletter and your email address will never be shared.  Remember too that you can unsubscribe at anytime.

Thanks again for all the interest in my new book and good luck with winning one of those free copies.  I look forward to staying in touch with my readers through the newsletter, and will soon have some news to share regarding the next books after Refuge.  

Book Giveaway: Refuge After the Collapse

I have word from the publisher that copies of Refuge have shipped from the printer to the warehouse, so the book should be showing up for sale soon, though the official release date is still posted on Amazon and other sites as September 23.

I should have my author's copies sometime before then, and I want to announce a giveaway of ten (10) signed copies that I will personally mail out to the winners, who will be chosen from the email entrants to the giveaway once I have books in hand.

To enter for a chance to win a copy in this giveaway, all you have to do is enter your email address and first name in the form below.  If you are selected I'll contact you by email to get your mailing address.

The sign-up will also add you to my newsletter mailing list, so you will be the first to know about my next books (two projects currently in the works) and other giveaways, previews and occasional recommendations of other books I've recently read.  This newsletter list is new and will be my go-to method of keeping readers informed in lieu of social networks like Facebook and Twitter with their ever-changing policies and restrictions.  You'll only get an occasional newsletter email, certainly less than one a month and most of the time even less, and you can be sure your email address will never be shared and that you can opt out of the list at anytime, including right after this giveaway, if you choose.

If you chose to enter, thanks for your interest in the sequel to The Pulse and good luck!

(Update Notice:  If you are reading this blog post from an email or RSS subscription feed, the signup field below will not work.  I posted an update about this after publishing this post.  Use the signup form at this link instead: Scott B. Williams Newsletter

If you are reading this on the web at www.bugoutsurvival.com, the form below should work.  Either way, you won't be entered unless after clicking subscribe you get a notification saying that an email has been sent for verification.  You must opt-in to the list after receiving that email.)

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First Name

Refuge (Book II of The Pulse Series)

Just a quick update on the expected availability of Refuge which I finished up in June.  My publisher has shipped the finalized files to the printer and I got word yesterday that copies will ship from the printer on August 21, which should put them in the warehouses of Amazon and other distributors and retailers about a week later.  So hopefully the book will be available to buy around the 1st of September instead of the 9th as posted on Amazon now.

Here's a view of the back cover, which I did not have at the time of my last update here:

As with all these books done through my publisher, the printed price on the cover is the list price only.  The selling price on Amazon and other online retailers will be significantly lower.  It's currently listed on Amazon for $11.26, but I expect that price to go lower upon release, but final selling price is up to Amazon.  The Kindle Edition will also be available at the time of the print release and should be under $10.

I want to thank all the readers of this blog and especially those of you who have purchased and enjoyed The Pulse and The Darkness After, making it possible for me to continue exploring the concepts presented here on Bug Out Survival through works of fiction.  I think fiction can in many ways be more thought-provoking than nonfiction when it comes to considering just what one might do in the event of a catastrophic disaster like the solar flare scenario explored in these novels.  I try to make the stories as realistic as possible, but at the same time, the goal is to entertain more so than to teach.  I look forward to continuing these stories as well as beginning new ones.  More to come soon with the announcement of the next project...

Sequel to THE PULSE Finished

   Days have turned into weeks with no contact from anyone outside of North America, where the power, communication and transportation grid has been completely destroyed by massive solar flares. In the ensuing chaos, grocery store shelves have been stripped bare and panicked survivors have fled the cities and towns, sweeping across the countryside in a desperate attempt to find sustenance and avoid the violence. 
   Artie Drager has risked everything to sail from the West Indies to New Orleans, where his daughter Casey was attending college. Finally catching up with her after discovering she had long since evacuated the city with her friends, Artie’s plan to get her to safe refuge on his brother’s sailboat begins to fall apart. Artie and his daughter must fight to survive, and hard choices must be made when part of their crew fails to return before they must set sail.
   This sequel to The Pulse explores the descent into anarchy that occurs when everything familiar in modern life is suddenly stripped away and survivors must adapt to a harsh new reality or die.

I have been working hard at wrapping up the manuscript for Refuge, the sequel to my first novel: The Pulse and it is now in the hands of the editors and hopefully on track for release later this summer in July or August.  Refuge picks up right where The Pulse left off, after a series of strong solar flares has shut down the grid over the southern U.S. and maybe even worldwide, as far as the characters in the story know.

My intention all along while writing The Pulse in late 2011-early 2012 was that there would be one or  more sequels, as there were so many possibilities for this unlikely group of characters thrown into such a life-altering event.  I wanted to move forward on the first sequel immediately after the release of The Pulse in the summer of 2012, but at the suggestion of my publisher,  I agreed to first write the parallel story for young adults, The Darkness After.  Response to that book has been extremely positive as well and I also plan one or more sequels to it, although they will likely be independently published so that I can get them out there sooner.

Hopefully, readers of The Pulse will not have forgotten too much of the story and will be able to pick up Refuge and move forward with ongoing dilemma that Larry, Artie, Casey, Jessica, Grant and Scully have gotten themselves into.  Things certainly get even more complicated for them in Book II, but setbacks and disappointments are to be expected in a major SHTF event like the one in this series.

I will post updates here as the publishing process moves forward, and there will almost certainly be a GoodReads Giveaway that you can sign up for as well.  As with all my books, review copies will be available for other bloggers and writers with related sites who wish to receive one.