by john | Apr 19, 2011 | Writing
So the vast majority of this post was taken directly from Derek Canyon’s blog post of yesterday. I asked him to send me over the copy because I’m lazy and I didn’t want to write a blog post of my own announcing this very excellent project. I am very proud to be part of Twelve Worlds, and hope that everyone who enjoys the Black Knight Chronicles will buy a copy to get the exclusive Black Knight story!
I’m pleased to announce that the science fiction and fantasy short story anthology, Twelve Worlds, is now available for $2.99 on Amazon.com. Buy it here!
I contributed a Black Knight Chronicles short story, Daddy Issues, to the anthology. The story takes place before the events in Hard Day’s Knight, so it should be a lot of fun for fans of the series. Admittedly it’s still a little surreal to me to think about having “fans,” but I think it’s actually starting to be true, so I’ll try not to make snide comments about the fact that I have fans. It’s kinda been a dream of mine, and is somewhat hard to believe that it’s happening, but that’s beside the point.
Daddy Issues was a challenge for me, because I don’t do many short stories. The shift from writing a 60,000-word story to a 4,000-word story was a tough thing for me, because I’ve kinda got my rhythm down for how the books go. In a novel, I take my time setting up the main fight, then there’s a red herring or two, a final plot twist then a resolution, usually with a big honkin’ fight at the end. In a short story, I had to strip away all the extra twists and dig right down to the plot and resolution. I think the story still works, and it’s pretty fun, so I hope you guys enjoy it. Plus the money goes to a great cause, so you should all buy it!
TwelveWorlds contains 14 short stories by new and aspiring authors. Genres include my own gritty cyberpunk as well as epic fantasy, romantic fantasy, paranormal detective mystery, star-faring scifi, and more. There’s around 80,000 words total, so that’s a great deal for $2.99.
Author royalties for Twelve Worlds will be donated to Reading is Fundamental, the nation’s largest nonprofit children’s literacy charity.
Here’s a full list of the stories in this anthology:
By a Whisker by Kevin O. McLaughlin (3500 words): Someone is siphoning magical energy from the powerful ley nexus at Northshield University in this urban fantasy. Ryan goes to investigate, and gets help from an unexpected quarter.
The Accidental Muse by Amy Rose Davis (6200 words): A girl with no memory, a grieving widower, and a sweet-natured boy with strange power live a quiet life in their sheltered Keep until the night a traveling musician arrives at the door. The power of the musician’s harp threatens to destroy their family unless one of them can stop it. A tale of gods, muses, mysterious spirits, and the power of love.
The Price of Vengeance by Derek J. Canyon (7400 words): In 22nd century Atlanta, Maggie hunts the genetically-engineered dwarf who killed her entire gang.
Insomnomancer by JE Medrick (3400 words): Witness life through the eyes of a predator. Kyle Hall, barely remarkable in a world of gray faces, is targeted by a very specialized hunter. To the target, it is night after sleepless night. To the Insomnomancer – a game of points and hungry satisfaction.
Thump by NB Kelly (4650 words): When a hitchhiker becomes part of an impromptu road trip, peace is the last thing that two young men will get out of it.
Iron in Shadow by Edward L. Cote (14900 words): The best thief in Rithmoor, the City of Dark Water, goes by the name Slip. He takes on a promising job, but it gets more complicated and dangerous the more he learns about what exactly it is he must do. To avoid certain death at the hands of the Great Magus Dibian, he must risk the wrath of the world’s hardest people.
Together They Die by Brian Drake (3220 words): A former cop helps a ghost solve her murder.
Incubators by Manley Peterson (3200 words): Lost in space, three astronauts struggle to accept their fate aboard a crippled ship. Could a last-minute rescue be all they hoped for?
Cube by Coral Russell (4150 words): Luke’s family isn’t perfect, but they’re worth saving. How far would you go to save your family?
The Star-Eater by K Gorman (6000 words): Karin wakes up one day on her starship, realizing her sister has been killed–but not before her sister cursed the murderer. Now she’s got a man to kill. And her boss is starting to suspect that she’s a little more than human…
Man-Maker by BC Woods (8050 words): A young boy in a society based entirely around defending itself against zombie-like demons refuses a sacred rite of passage.
Daddy Issues by John G. Hartness (4200 words): Vampires, voodoo, zombies and gold-diggers, it’s all in a day’s work for the boys at Black Knight Investigations. Vampire Private Investigators Jimmy Black and Greg Knightwood are called in to dispose of a zombie in the library, but there’s always more than meets the eye where these detectives are concerned. Takes place before the events in Hard Day’s Knight.
BONUS STORIES!
Weird and Wondeful by Tony Lavely (6000 words): Mailira and Marelsa together bring an old Scottish folk tale to life for a young musician.
The Light Stream by Jaylin Baer (3060 words): The transition between waking and sleeping, dreaded by some and enjoyed by others, becomes something altogether different for a very select few. Discover one woman’s journey into the Light Stream.
So, if want to read new stories from 14 talented new authors, you should definitely buy this ebook! Who knows, you might find a new author that you really enjoy!
After reading it, don’t forget to write up a review on Amazon. It really helps sales.
You can also visit the official Twelve Worlds website and discuss the stories.
by john | Apr 18, 2011 | Writing
Never let it be said that there isn’t any benefit to procrastination – the winner of the Kindle 3 giveaway posted her review of Back in Black right under the deadline wire, and got her trivia questions in with just a week to spare!
Our winner is Cat Lail!
Cat did all the stuff you could do to get extra entries – she bought books, reviewed books and answered a bunch of trivia questions. Well, it all paid off because her lucky number was drawn and now she’ll be the proud owner of a Kindle 3G!
Congratulations Cat, and thanks to everyone who stopped by and entered! Stay tuned tomorrow (or the next day, because sometimes I’m slow) for a big announcement about an upcoming promotion event!
by john | Apr 17, 2011 | Poker, Real Life, Writing
Not for me so much, but certainly for a bunch of my friends in the poker industry. For those of you new around here, I spent several years doing tournament coverage for major poker news and play sites. Before and during that time I made a little money, and made a lot of good friends. Due to a change in leadership at my major employer, a disagreement with an editor and a shift in focus in my life, I left all that pretty much behind me a couple years ago. Last summer was the first in several that I didn’t cover the World Series of Poker, and I haven’t stayed up late to watch an internet poker tournament in at least a year.
Turns out to be good timing on my part, since Friday the US Dept. of Justice laid out indictments against key figured in the operation of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and UltimateBet. What does this mean for yours truly? About $700 of my money is trapped in online poker accounts that I won’t be able to get to for the immediate future. I’m sure I’ll be able to get it eventually, and I’m not really sweating it.
What does it mean for some of my friends and acquaintances? Unemployment, major chunks of their life savings locked away in the poker sites’ accounts, uncertainty in their income stream for the foreseeable future, and a lot of other ugliness. I have the utmost faith that most of my friends will eventually come out okay, because they are very bright and talented people, and they also were pretty aware that they were riding a volatile vehicle and it could go KABOOM at any moment. So, with the exception of some denial that may have led some folks to leave more money in online poker accounts than they should have, they’ll be okay in the long term.
But for me, the events of the weekend did make me sit back and look around for a minute. Two years ago, I was counting on about a quarter of my income coming from writing about poker. When that went away, I tightened the belt a little (but not much, because it’s still a significant girth to go around), but I’ve never really replaced that revenue. Now I’m beginning to be in a place where that revenue is starting to trickle back in via book sales. This month will be my best month ever for sales (by a LONG shot), with over 500 e-books sold already. That’s more than triple the number of books I sold last month, and if I’m lucky, I’ll break 900 for the month. That’s a big help with the monthly finances, and with at least two more books to come this year, hopefully we can keep things on an upward trend.
But what happens in the future? Do I quit my job and try to write for a living? I could certainly be more prolific if all I had to do each day was write and promote. But will the money ever be there? I dunno. I honestly have no idea. I have hopes, and I have examples from other indie authors that I’m trying to follow, but who knows if I’ll ever get to David Dalglish numbers, or Michael Sullivan numbers, much less Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking numbers. I’m not looking for James Patterson money, just enough to pay my bills and live comfortably (and I could be very comfortable in a yacht, BTW). Right now I have a good job and my book sales are finally approaching enough money to be considered a nice side income. For now, I’ll live with that and keep writing. Book 3 of Black Knight Chronicles will drop this summer, with another book coming in the fall. I’m not sure if it will be book 1 of Return to Eden or this odd horror novel that’s been bugging me the past few days. But my point is, I have plenty of ideas, so I can keep writing for a while. And as long as people are buying books, I’ve got something going for me.
by john | Apr 9, 2011 | Writing
I’ve got a post up on Derek’s blog and he was kind enough to trade me one for here. Go check out his blog to read my drivel after you’ve read him here.
John and I (and a dozen other indie authors) have been collaborating on a science fiction and fantasy anthology titled Twelve Worlds. It will be available very soon for $2.99. It has fourteen different stories by different authors just starting out in the epublishing arena. It’s a great way for you to find great new worlds to explore. Plus, author royalties go the Reading is Fundamental charity.
While working on Twelve Worlds, John suggested that we swap excerpts for our novels in hopes of cross-pollinating our readership. Before I agreed, I read John’s novel, Hard Day’s Knight, to make sure that our genres were compatible. After all, my gritty, action-packed cyberpunk novel wouldn’t fit too well at the end of a Victorian romance or courtroom drama. I really enjoyed HDK, and I decided that John’s sarcastic, action-packed paranormal detective stories are a great accompaniment for Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance. I think that our styles complement each other nicely, and apparently so do our readers. We now show up on each other’s Customer Also Bought lists on Amazon.
Unfortunately, there is no way to know how many sales we are creating for each other. We can only hypothesize. I’m selling around 40 copies of Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance per day. Every one of those purchases also gets the excerpt from John’s novel. Since John’s excerpt is such a great hook into his world, I have to believe that at least a few of my readers also buy his book. Even if it’s only 5%, that’s still an extra 60 books a month for John. I’ve been seeing my numbers increase since we traded excerpts, so I’m guessing I also get an extra few a day from John’s readership.
Another great thing is that I’m also showing up on the Also Bought list for John’s other ebooks. My excerpt is in Back in Black, but my books also show up on the pages for Hard Day’s Knight and The Chosen. John’s books are also showing up on my other ebook page. So, even though our excerpts appear only in one other book, we’re both getting exposure on multiple book pages. What this tells me is that authors with multiple titles are very valuable for the excerpt trading strategy.
The Also Bought lists are a great advertising tool. Actually, the Also Bought lists are prime advertising real estate. But there’s no way for writers to show up on those lists except by selling our books to the same audience. Fortunately, trading excerpts is a great way to do that. Any additional exposure is a godsend for us small indies. For no cost at all I’m getting advertised on John’s Amazon book pages, and he’s getting advertised on mine! Win win!
What this means for me
I will continue to trade excerpts with authors writing in genres compatible with mine. I see no reason not to include multiple excerpts in the back of my novels. Maybe 3? So, if anyone else would like to trade excerpts, give me a shout and let’s talk about it.
What this means for you
If you’re an aspiring author, I recommend that you locate other authors to trade excerpts. There is absolutely no downside to it. At the very worst, you spend an hour or so adding their excerpt to your book and you get no additional sales. At best, you get free advertising in the other author’s book AND on their book pages AND you sell more books.
by john | Apr 7, 2011 | Poker, Real Life, Vegas, Writing
Ok, not as young as I once was, but as the song goes, I’m as good once as I ever was. I leave tomorrow night for Vegas. I’m going out to attend the National Association of Broadcasters show for the day job, but since the show starts Monday I thought I’d take the weekend and play a bit. Then I found out that the Venetian is having their Deep Stacks Extravaganza poker tournament series this month, so I’ll definitely be playing that on Saturday. My friend Hoyazo went deep in one of those last year for a very nice score, and since I’ve cashed in the Venetian daily tournament several times I thought I’d give it a shot. I get in around 8PM Vegas time Friday, and hopefully I’ll catch a couple hours sleep on the plane so I can stay up for a while when I get there. I don’t really care if I do anything tomorrow night, but I want to be able to go to bed and sleep until at least 8AM Saturday, so my sleep schedule will get right quickly. It’s usually not an issue for me in Vegas.
So if you’re in Vegas, and want to get together, email me. I’ll be at the Venetian Saturday, and hopefully Sunday, and at the Convention Center during the day Monday thru Wednesday. I fly home on the redeye Wednesday night and am participating in a writer’s panel Thursday afternoon. That should be entertaining for everyone!
Book sales are soaring, for some reason I’ve jumped from averaging 3 books a day in February to 20 or so per day in April. Hard Day’s Knight keeps creeping up and up in the Amazon rankings, finally breaking through the 3,000 mark today. Lower is better on those rankings, and all three books had been living in the 20-30,000 level. Now HDK and Back in Black are pretty much living under 10,000, and The Chosen is hanging out around 20,000. I’m thrilled with the progress, and with some recent reviews. Obviously I hope it keeps up, I’ve got truck payments to make :).
Volume 3 of The Black Knight Chronicles is coming right along, I’m probably about 10% finished with the first draft. I hope I’ll be able to get some work done on it while in Vegas, but I’m not holding my breath. NAB is a tough show, with long hours and a huge attendance, so I’ll be working pretty much non-stop the whole time I’m there. That’s okay, I’ve got this weekend to play!
