New Year: On "What I Want to be When I Grow Up"

Watch on YouTube here.

In Which... Oliver shares his desire to be a cute Tumblr boy when he grows up.

After sharing a look at his upcoming novel, "Lies," (more info at www.oliverdahl.com/lies) Oliver rants and gives you some cheesy inspiration about getting started now to accomplish what you want.

"Why do we have to 'grow up' to be what we want to be?"

"Buy the train tickets to your ideal future destination now, so you don't find yourself on the wrong train going the wrong direction, with not enough time to turn back."

Think those'll hit the quote books eventually? Yeah, probably not. Maybe that's a good thing. Cheese overload.


My website: www.oliverdahl.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorOliverDahl
Twitter: www.twitter.com/OliverWDahl
Tumblr (where I try to be cute): www.oliverwdahl.tumblr.com

An Abundance of Things

WOW, a lot has happened since my last post! I feel bad for falling so far behind. I hope you guys will forgive me! I'll just do my best to make up for it with an intense post. How does that sound? And to get you guys excited, there is going to be some REALLY AWESOME NEWS about a certain sale going on at the end of this post. And maybe a funny picture or two for you. Maybe.

First order of business: New author photos! I got a few pictures taken, that now are on the back cover of The Dreamers Second Edition, and The Nightmarers as well. New author photos on ALL the books!

 Next order of business: This little award! The Idaho Book Extravaganza, a program held every year to help educate and support authors, writers, publishers, readers, and books of Idaho, holds an awards ceremony every year. They award people who produce the best books, covers, interior design, and more in Idaho. These award categories are split into subsections for fiction and nonfiction. This year, The Dreamers Second Edition won an "Honorable Mention" for Idaho's TOP 10 FICTION BOOKS!

Many other extremely talented writers and inspiring people were awarded at the event. Lots of hard work went into the event, and it was a great success. Everybody in and out of this picture is fantastic. 

(And I'm not excluding you, dear reader).

Can you find me in the picture? Where's Waldo Oliver? :)

Earlier, I had the opportunity to speak at my local library for a few minutes on self-publishing, and how I published my books. It was pretty fun, and also inspiring to see young kids interested in how to accomplish something. (Back in June, I taught a week-long publishing course at CSU to kids of the same age group for the second time, which was also a LOT of fun!)

And on to more recent news, (as in, earlier TODAY news...)

I finished NaNoWriMo! 50,000 words in the month of November. This is my second consecutive win, third win overall, and fourth year participating! More information on the book I wrote for NaNo (and am continuing to write!) can be found here.

The moral of this post:

BONUS CONTENT: ("But wait, there's more!)

Do you know what this is? This is the schedule for my Kindle Countdown Deal! (Cyber Monday, Holla!) Next to the date, it has the price that the book will be on that date. This means that on December Second, you can get The Dreamers for just 99 CENTS! Each following day will add a dollar to the price until it's back to its normal price. (So hurry, before the price goes up!) Here's where the SPECIAL part comes in! The Nightmarers will have the same deal going on at the same time. So you could pick up the entire series so far for less than the price of ONE of them normally!

Just like last time, with great power savings, comes great responsibility. Well, not really. But it sure would be nice if you could leave a nice review of both books on Amazon, and share the deal with your friends! This helps lead to more sales later down the road, so I can afford to keep writing and entertaining and stuff. I don't want a deskjob. Or a job at McDonalds. Or Burger King. (Though Wendy's wouldn't be that bad, would it?) This promo helps you get a great deal, and if you help me out a little in return, helps me out a LOT!

Thanks, you guys are awesome! Stay sweet!

Dream on!

Oliver Dahl

&

Sam Kullen

Thank you, Imgur!

Thank you. These two words are the brunt of this entire post. Thank you, Imgur for being awesome and supporting me as a rising author. If you don't know what Imgur is, check it out. www.imgur.com. You're welcome. (I'm also only a little bit sorry for being the cause of you spending days of your time on there. Don't say I didn't warn you).  :)

Watch on YouTube

Check out this latest vlog of mine! I'd love if you subscribed to my YouTube channel, where I vlog about funny, cool, interesting things in my own really weird, quirky, sarcastic way. If you like this, there's more where that came from.


For a post with pictures, (ooh, aah!) visit www.oliverdahl.com/vlogs. Technical difficulties have been making picture uploading difficult. The issue should be fixed within 24 hours.

Thanks to your help, The Dreamers reached above #56 overall free--that's in the top 100 free books on Amazon!

It also became the #1 Bestselling title in both Children's and General Science Fiction Free books!

After the promo, over FOUR THOUSAND copies had been downloaded. To think that The Dreamers is in that many little Kindles (and Kindle apps) is astounding. That's a big number. That'd take a long time to count to.

Now that it's over, and sales have spiraled down again, I'm gonna press my luck and ask for some more help. I can express with words (even as a writer!!) how grateful I would be if you did ANY of these, let alone all of them.

1. WRITE A REVIEW ON AMAZON!
    People don't realize how much of a difference a positive Amazon review can make. Five minutes of your time and some kind words not only mean a LOT to me, they can help influence other potential readers to give it a try. New reviews honestly make my day, and help inspire me to write more. During the free promo, I got a few troll one-star reviews that brought my rating down significantly. Please, if you read "The Dreamers," just write something as short as an Imgur comment or a tweet as a positive Amazon review. That will help me out so much more in the long run. Here's a link to where you can review!

2. SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!
    I want this going viral, folks! Getting onto Bestselling charts is one of the best and most profitable ways to promote the book. But... It's also one of the hardest. A simple tweet, Facebook post or share, YouTube video, blog post... ANYTHING can help a LOT! If any of those results in ONE more download, that's one more satisfied reader, potential review, potential sale of "The Nightmarers," or even an Amazon review! Even just randomly sharing "www.oliverdahl.com" could help out. It might be a little weird to your friends/followers, but.... :)

Add "The Dreamers" to your GoodReads. Share it with your friends, there! It's super easy if you already have an account, and your friends will appreciate a quality free read. (Same goes with Facebook, Twitter... All of those!) Now that it isn't free anymore, now is the time for me to earn some of money that I'm going to need to publish my next book and get the word out about it.

3. GET THE SEQUEL!
    If you enjoy "The Dreamers," be sure to grab a copy of "The Nightmarers," too! I think, and from what I've heard from the first readers, it is BETTER than The Dreamers! (Can you imagine?? I didn't think that was possible, seeing as The Dreamers is so good! ;)) Oftentimes, sequels can be a let-down after the original book. I was worried this was going to be the case, but as I typed "The End" and heard back from beta readers, I knew that The Nightmarers was a new step in a better direction. Full of more mind-bending dreamstuff, gunfights, prison breaks, new worlds, new people, and new villains, "The Nightmarers" is a whole new kind of epic. Please be sure to check it out.


 For you other authors that may be reading this, look for an upcoming post highlighting the more fine details of how and by what means I accomplished this, along with what other promotion I did. I am proud to say, however, that Imgur was the BIGGEST help of all of the places I submitted by hundreds of times. Thank you guys over there. You guys rock.


Sincerely and thankfully,
Oliver Dahl

"The Dreamers" FREE on Amazon Kindle!!

Hey everybody! It's been a while since I've blogged over here. (Sorry about that/you're welcome, whichever ;))

If you read the title, and I'm assuming you have, or did just now, I hope you're as excited as I am!
This Thursday through Saturday, September 26-28, my first published novel, "The Dreamers" (Second Edition!) is going to be FREE to download on your Kindle, or Kindle reading app. Here's the rundown.

Between September 26-28, click RIGHT HERE and download "The Dreamers."

If you're new to my blog, or don't know anything about "The Dreamers," here's a Summary.

Sam is a Dreamer. This means that he can live inside of his dreams. In them, he must stop the evil Malfix from taking over not just the Dream Realm, but earth as well. Sam's adventures bring him through races, mazes, explosions, battles, and yes, the occasional cheesy knock-knock joke.

"The Dreamers" is Young Adult/Middle Grade Modern Science Fiction/ Fantasy/ Action/ Adventure. It's got a little bit of everything. It's been enjoyed by people from the 3rd grade on up, and currently has a 4 Star Average rating on Amazon.com.

"The Dreamers" was originally written when I was 12 years old back in November of 2011 for NaNoWriMo. Since then, it has been edited time and time again, published, awarded, and enjoyed by hundreds of people. On September 19th, "The Dreamers" got a Second Edition.

This second edition resolves past spelling, grammatical, and formatting errors that slipped through and may have hindered the reading experience.

The existing reviews on the Amazon page for "The Dreamers" are for the First, Original Edition. Any and all points made about grammatical mistakes, formatting errors, etc. are null and corrected!! :D

So why am I giving it away for free?!
I want to get The Dreamers in as many hands as I can. Knowing that my book has been read/downloaded thousands of times is already mind blowing for me to think about. I want as many people to join Sam in his adventures as I can. I want to share what was formerly trapped in my head with other people! Plus, these downloads can hugely impact sales afterward, by showing up on pages' "Readers who bought this book, also bought..." Sections. This will help the entire series out by getting it some further Amazon promotion.

How can I help?
Why, thank you for asking! ;)

1. WRITE A REVIEW ON AMAZON!

People don't realize how much of a difference a positive Amazon review can make. Five minutes of your time and some kind words not only mean a LOT to me, they can help influence other potential readers to give it a try. New reviews honestly make my day, and help inspire me to write more.

2. SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

I want this going viral, folks! Getting onto Bestselling charts is one of the best and most profitable ways to promote the book. But... It's also one of the hardest. A simple tweet, Facebook post or share, YouTube video, blog post... ANYTHING can help a LOT! If any of those results in ONE more download, that's one more satisfied reader, potential review, potential sale of "The Nightmarers," or even an Amazon review! 

Add "The Dreamers" to your GoodReads. Share it with your friends, there! It's super easy if you already have an account, and your friends will appreciate a quality free read. (Same goes with Facebook, Twitter... All of those!)

3. GET THE SEQUEL!

If you enjoy "The Dreamers," be sure to grab a copy of "The Nightmarers," too! I think, and from what I've heard from the first readers, it is BETTER than The Dreamers! (Can you imagine?? I didn't think that was possible, seeing as The Dreamers is so good! ;)) Oftentimes, sequels can be a let-down after the original book. I was worried this was going to be the case, but as I typed "The End" and heard back from beta readers, I knew that The Nightmarers was a new step in a better direction. Full of more mind-bending dreamstuff, gunfights, prison breaks, new worlds, new people, and new villains, "The Nightmarers" is a whole new kind of epic.

Thank you for helping my dreams come true!!
Oliver Dahl
&
Sam Kullen

Writing Extravaganza Post 7 - Staying Motivated

Kara Harris, author of "Omni: The Hunted" is visiting on the blog today! This is our 7th Writing Extravaganza Post, so to catch up on all the other great posts that fellow young writers have done, click here! Kara wrote about how to stay motivated while writing. Her tips are great, and should help everyone get through writers' block, and keep writing. My tip for overcoming writer's block is to imagine all of the possible success your work will have if you just press through this one tough spot. That has definitely helped me out, so maybe a few of you will find it helpful as well.

My tip aside, I'll let Kara introduce herself and share her tips!

My name is Kara Harris, I am 18 years old. I am now a self-published author. I have only written one book which is called “Omni: The Hunted”. It took me in total about 6 years to do write the book. A lot of people would say, “wow it took you that long!” I would say “yes” because school took up so much of my time. It can be a hassle for teen authors because writing takes so much time and it’s hard to stay motivated to write. So when Oliver asked me to write an article about staying motivated while writing I was very happy to give my point of view.

I will first start by saying writing isn’t easy and it’s not for everyone. I know many people who like to write, but just aren’t committed to any stories they write. Most have busy schedules or they just don’t like writing long stories. Sometimes you just have to have that one idea, that one simple inspiration to get you started. It’s just staying with it that can be the problem, but that is all you need to find your spark for an idea.

Staying motivated is a hard thing to do no matter how long the novel. For me when I start something I must finish it. Some people have the mind set, but some people don’t. Not every writer is the same. Some writers have a certain schedule to follow. Motivation can come in many shapes and sizes. Some people tend to keep motivated by hearing compliments about their writing, some are motivated by inspiration and some like me just have the love for their story. However, even with the best of writers have one thing they dread above all else, writers blocks. Writer blocks are stressful periods in writing any sort of book that you simply don’t know what to next in your story. Like motivation there are many ways of dealing with writers block. One way of avoiding writers block is making an outline of your story, but an outline won’t stop writers block entirely. I think the best way to handle writers block is to take a deep breath and take a break from writing. The block will only get worse if you keep thinking about it. You just need to step back and stop thinking about your writing. I would also recommend going outside and exploring new places. If you go to new places you may become inspired to write again. The key is not thinking about the story. A new idea will naturally come to you.