An Open Letter To Jenna Bush Hager's Book Club

Dear Jenna,

I know that November is still several weeks away, but I would like to recommend a book for your #ReadWithJenna selection - Alone In The Light, by Benjamin W. Bass.

With November being the month of Veterans Day, I feel this book would be a particularly good choice. It was written by a veteran and tells the tale of two soldiers who meet in Kuwait and are painfully separated by the war.

Josh Carpenter is a National Guard soldier from Indiana who is injured in an IED explosion on Thanksgiving morning and he returns home, broken and unsure about his place in the world. Before his unfortunate incident, he meets, and falls in love with, Mary Fischer. She is an active duty solder from Fort Sam Houston who works in the Combat Support Hospital at Camp Wolf. After Josh's departure from her life she tries to go home and pick up the pieces of her life, leaving her overbearing mother and setting out on her own - which eventually leads her back to Josh on the campus of Indiana University.

The story is a very personal and real tale based partially on my own life and the experiences I had while in the military. The characters are very real and very relatable and the book itself is receiving great reviews.

I am an independent author. This book was thought up, written, and published by me and my wife. We have no backing of a publishing house, advertising group, or any other support outside of friends and family. It is this fact, as well as the book's overall message of hope and redemption, that I feel it is an excellent choice as your November pick.

Thank you for your time and, hopefully, your consideration. I am very proud of this book and I feel that many people will love it if they only knew about it.


All my best,
Benjamin W. Bass

My first book signing!

This Thursday will be my very first Book Signing/Meet The Author event! I am very excited about this.

This will be held at the Carnegie East Wing of the Shelby County Library - in Shelbyville, IN.

The event will be from 7:00PM until about 9:00PM when the library closes for the evening.

If I understand how this will go - I'll start with a general talk and discussion of the book and, once I've exhausted my speaking voice - in about 10-15 minutes, we will move on to the signing and handshaking portion.

Signed copies of Alone In The Light will be available for purchase for $15 - and you can bring a copy that you've already purchased and I'll sign those for free.

I am looking forward to this and I hope to see some people I'm NOT related to, but only time will tell on that front.

I am to understand there will be some sort of cookies... Those may just be for me, but I do like to share.

Come out, support your local library and a local author! It'll be a good time.

The AUDIOBOOK!

I am so freaking excited I can barely stand it.

I am moving forward with the Audiobook version of Alone In The Light and it is going to be AMAZING.


AMAZING!!!



I have been in discussion with two narrators who will both be adding their voices to this project and bringing my story to life in a way I couldn't imagine until I heard them reading it. I was just blown away. Like - WOW... It's one thing to hear a story in your head and VERY much a different thing to hear someone read it with their own take, their own emotion, their own delivery.

I was overwhelmed with how much emotion I felt at hearing my own words... I mean, it was surreal.

So, that being said, allow me to introduce the narrators...


The very talented Phil Thron will be reading the chapters/sub-chapters that are from Josh Carpenter's perspective.

Phil is an absolute DREAM to work with. His delivery is freaking AMAZING and he knows how to turn on the emotion when a scene calls for it. (You can visit his website here:  https://www.philthronvoice.com/)

He will be joined by award-winning narrator Natalie Naudus. She will be reading the chapters/sub-chapters from Mary Fischer's perspective. Her voice is SPOT-ON for how I pictured Mary. I am so excited to hear the finished product with her on this. (You can visit her website here: https://www.natalienaudus.com/)





So with this all in mind, I'm shifting gears into marketing and fundraising... yes, I know. THAT dreaded thing. But, it's true.

So, if you'd like to help out - I've organized a GoFundMe and you can help out if you'd like! Which would be AWESOME.

You can find the GoFundMe right HERE.

For your donation you will get one of the following:
$5 gets you a free bookmark.
$25 or more gets a free copy of the audiobook when it releases.
$50 gets you an audiobook and a free, signed, copy of the paperback.
$100... Well, let's just say I'll be VERY thankful... *wink*
$1,000 - I will come to your house, make you dinner, tuck you into bed, and read you Goodnight Moon

No such thing as bad press!

The saying goes, "There's no such thing as bad press." - Or so I've been told. I guess that's true, too. Today's local paper featured a front page story about me, my book, and my efforts to draw attention to PTSD, TBI, and veteran suicide...

The article itself is good, but... there's always a but, right? BUT they put the title of my book in the article incorrectly. Not once, but TWICE.

It's Alone In The Light... not Alone In The Night.

Oh well, it is what it is. And, like I said, it's mostly a good article and I hope people will see it and it will draw attention to my book.

In the meantime, the reporter said he would run a correction in tomorrow's edition. If I'm lucky - that, too, will be on the front page.

We can always hope, right?

RIGHT?!

Also - go check out ALONE IN THE LIGHT at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your local bookstore!

If you like it, put a ring on it? No, that's not right...

Ah, the world of publishing a book. It's all movie contracts and phone calls with Stephen King...

No. No, that's a lie. It might be real for SOME authors, but not for me. And not for many self-published authors who do everything out of pocket. For us, it's much more "spend your day online trying to promote your book in ways that make you almost uncomfortable."

Like right now.


Hi! I'm Benjamin W. Bass! Please buy my book.

It is also much more than that. It's trying to get your book noticed by more than just friends and family. It's trying to get your book to a point where it is bigger than your circle of friends. And that, unfortunately, is where the whole "Thanks for reading my book, would you please leave a review" comes in.

FREE BOOKMARKS!

Hello again, everyone! How are you today?

I'm doing quite well, having filled up on homemade tamales for lunch... You have no idea. They were delicious.

Anyway - I am writing today to inform you all of some free stuff!

I will be shipping out FREE bookmarks to anyone who reads and reviews Alone In The Light.

No catch. That's it.

Leave an honest review on Amazon, B&N, or Goodreads and I will send you this nifty bookmark for your future reading!

Front

Back 

The front features the cover of Alone In The Light and the reverse offers the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Fancy? I'm not sure.
Helpful? - We hope.

So - if you've already reviewed Alone In The Light drop me a link to your review at ben@benjaminwbass.com with an address and I will ship you a free bookmark!

Thank you for your time and your support.

Alone In The Light - A Visual Companion

While the events and characters of my book are fictional - Every place I've mentioned in Alone In The Light is a real place. You can visit all of them... I'd really recommend against F.O.B. Kalsu in Iraq though... And Camp Wolf no longer exists. But Fairland and Batesville, Indiana are both very real. As well as Indiana University in Bloomington. Some of the buildings have changed names since 2005, but the overall visuals are still the same I believe.

I've scoured  spent 30 seconds looking on the internet and found some lovely photos to help act as sort of a visual guide to the book if you'd be interested.

We'll start with Iraq and Kuwait.

Kuwait - Camp Wolf

A small tent city built near the Kuwait International Airport to serve as the APOD or Aerial Port Of Debarkation. This housed support personnel for the theater. Including the CSH or Combat Support Hospital - Mary Fischer's unit.

It was hot, dirty, and featured a pretty good dining facility - as well as access to Domino's Pizza via delivery. Just sayin...