Jackson Lear's Blog, page 6
January 20, 2016
Goodreads Giveaway
Who doesn't love free shit?
If you are even remotely book-geeky then winning an autographed paperback is exactly what you need to make your day a little more awesome. You'll probably unwrap the mysterious packaging from Australia while still next to your front door. Then when you realise that you have a new book you can grab your phone and Instagram the shit out of your 'Look what came in the mail today?!' post. Couple it with some #bookporn #booklover hashtags and you'll be envy of everyone you've ever met.
Hell, you might even read the damn thing, all 308 pages of whimsical goodness about a smartarse industrial thief who escapes from Limbo. Along the way he even causes some mischief.
So, if you're a member of Goodreads and would like to win a free autographed paperback of Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper, then click here. It will end on the 27th of January.
Aaaaaaand if you also happen to send me a Goodreads friend request before the 27th I will happily send you the Grim Reaper ebook for free!
If you are even remotely book-geeky then winning an autographed paperback is exactly what you need to make your day a little more awesome. You'll probably unwrap the mysterious packaging from Australia while still next to your front door. Then when you realise that you have a new book you can grab your phone and Instagram the shit out of your 'Look what came in the mail today?!' post. Couple it with some #bookporn #booklover hashtags and you'll be envy of everyone you've ever met.
Hell, you might even read the damn thing, all 308 pages of whimsical goodness about a smartarse industrial thief who escapes from Limbo. Along the way he even causes some mischief.
So, if you're a member of Goodreads and would like to win a free autographed paperback of Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper, then click here. It will end on the 27th of January.
Aaaaaaand if you also happen to send me a Goodreads friend request before the 27th I will happily send you the Grim Reaper ebook for free!
December 16, 2015
Farewell to the year
It's almost time to farewell 2015. It's been a busy year, an overly ambitious year, and overall a not-too-bad year. So bring on 2016!
What will the new year involve? In all likelihood I will quit my job and be Batman ... an author ... for a year. Like, a proper author. One who can actually stick to a deadline. By the end of that year I'd really like to keep on being a proper author because working for someone else when the only motivation is a paycheque can be quite tedious.
Of course, it will mean that my entire career now rests on my shoulders. I will try to periodically off-load some of that burden onto you guys, so a nice review and a little word of mouth would really mean a lot to me. :)
I'm planning on publishing at least two books in 2016. One is called Last Words. In it, a British backpacker is caught in the middle of Spain just as the zombie apocalypse kicks off. Does he hide in a rickety country house and wait this thing out? No. What about hiding in a shopping mall? No. What about calling upon Milla Jovovich and asking for some help? … Maybe.
The other book geared for release in mid 2016 is Broken Toys. In a sleepy English town three young boys climb into the wrong backyard ... a twenty year old abduction sparks new interest among the locals ... and a shadowy figure known by everyone but rarely seen a second time seems to haunt the streets at all hours of the day.
So those books are kind of my plan. Any tips and feedback will be greatly appreciated. :)
What will the new year involve? In all likelihood I will quit my job and be Batman ... an author ... for a year. Like, a proper author. One who can actually stick to a deadline. By the end of that year I'd really like to keep on being a proper author because working for someone else when the only motivation is a paycheque can be quite tedious.
Of course, it will mean that my entire career now rests on my shoulders. I will try to periodically off-load some of that burden onto you guys, so a nice review and a little word of mouth would really mean a lot to me. :)
I'm planning on publishing at least two books in 2016. One is called Last Words. In it, a British backpacker is caught in the middle of Spain just as the zombie apocalypse kicks off. Does he hide in a rickety country house and wait this thing out? No. What about hiding in a shopping mall? No. What about calling upon Milla Jovovich and asking for some help? … Maybe.
The other book geared for release in mid 2016 is Broken Toys. In a sleepy English town three young boys climb into the wrong backyard ... a twenty year old abduction sparks new interest among the locals ... and a shadowy figure known by everyone but rarely seen a second time seems to haunt the streets at all hours of the day.
So those books are kind of my plan. Any tips and feedback will be greatly appreciated. :)
October 19, 2015
Upcoming Freebies
For all you Kindle fans out there, my first four books will be free for a very short and never again period of time. As I move onto other eBook platforms I will leave behind the exclusivity I have with Amazon which means no more freebies will ever be possible. So, really, this is your last chance.
Here are the dates:
Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper: Saturday 17th October and Sunday 18th October.
Kingston Raine and the Bank of Limbo: Saturday 24th October and Sunday 25th October.
Kingston Raine and the Arena of Chaos: Saturday 31st October and Sunday 1st November.
Kingston Raine and the Starlight Muse: Saturday 7th November and Sunday 8th November.
All dates are for Pacific Standard Time (don't live in the US? Just adjusted your daylight savings and you're not sure if you lost an hour of sleep or gained an hour? Just Google Los Angeles' time and you'll be set).
Here are the dates:
Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper: Saturday 17th October and Sunday 18th October.
Kingston Raine and the Bank of Limbo: Saturday 24th October and Sunday 25th October.
Kingston Raine and the Arena of Chaos: Saturday 31st October and Sunday 1st November.
Kingston Raine and the Starlight Muse: Saturday 7th November and Sunday 8th November.
All dates are for Pacific Standard Time (don't live in the US? Just adjusted your daylight savings and you're not sure if you lost an hour of sleep or gained an hour? Just Google Los Angeles' time and you'll be set).
October 2, 2015
No Books This Year :(
For the last month I've been quietly spreading the word that the fifth (and, hopefully, the last) book in the Kingston Raine series, 'the Lost Angel', will not be out this year. So, it's time to announce it officially. It might not even be out next year either.
I had planned on releasing another book this year as well. It's a horror story that I've already begun to caution people about because really bad things happen to undeserving people. I know that's common in horror stories and that bad things happening is kinda the point, but these are really bad things. That ain't gonna be out this year either.
If you're a reader who wonders why the hell author's embark on a series and then can't complete them on time, and you're pulling out your hair thinking, 'Well, just write more and faster, this is your job, damn it,' then you're a lot like me. After all, George RR Martin has been taking his sweet ass time with the final book and that won't be out this year either. Surely by now he knows exactly where the story is going and what needs to happen to get it moving along.
The worst part is that the Lost Angel is pretty much finished. People have begun to read it and have sent back some of their notes. The feedback seems to be, 'you're burnt out and it shows.' That's not really a good way to end a series. It reads like a stand up comic is just reciting his jokes instead of performing them.
I don't have writer's block. I'm just burnt out from being around the same characters for years. The book is almost twice the size as the first one. I spent the entirety of the first draft working full time for someone else doing weird shifts and not spending enough time writing. During that time the apartment I was renting was up for sale and there were three months of twice-weekly inspections when no one came except for the sales agent. That kind of disruption isn't great for a writer. Then I moved house (I got tired of inspections) so I became the inspectee! (The spell checker tells me 'inspectee' is not a word. It probably isn't, but you know exactly what I mean, right?) A month of me inspecting properties and then moving things back and forth, then setting up a new office so that it feels comfortable spending hours a day in there … life just got in the way.
So I'm shelving the book for a year. Maybe more. I need to recharge. I had originally planned on publishing it in November 2014, so to be here a year later and it still isn't ready eats away at me. Earlier this year I thought it might be possible to publish this book in June and another book around about now, but good old Kingston managed to take up so much of my time that the final draft to the horror story just kept getting pushed back. I've had to shelve that one for a few months as well. Why shelve a new story? Because it feels like I've done nothing but editing for the last couple of years. I need to write something fresh, from scratch, and recharge before going over an old project and finding out why I fell in love with it when I first wrote the story.
So that's the update. It might take me another six months to get something off my hard drive and into the real world.
By the way, I just finished reading The Martian. I actually stayed up until 4 in the morning to finish it.
I had planned on releasing another book this year as well. It's a horror story that I've already begun to caution people about because really bad things happen to undeserving people. I know that's common in horror stories and that bad things happening is kinda the point, but these are really bad things. That ain't gonna be out this year either.
If you're a reader who wonders why the hell author's embark on a series and then can't complete them on time, and you're pulling out your hair thinking, 'Well, just write more and faster, this is your job, damn it,' then you're a lot like me. After all, George RR Martin has been taking his sweet ass time with the final book and that won't be out this year either. Surely by now he knows exactly where the story is going and what needs to happen to get it moving along.
The worst part is that the Lost Angel is pretty much finished. People have begun to read it and have sent back some of their notes. The feedback seems to be, 'you're burnt out and it shows.' That's not really a good way to end a series. It reads like a stand up comic is just reciting his jokes instead of performing them.
I don't have writer's block. I'm just burnt out from being around the same characters for years. The book is almost twice the size as the first one. I spent the entirety of the first draft working full time for someone else doing weird shifts and not spending enough time writing. During that time the apartment I was renting was up for sale and there were three months of twice-weekly inspections when no one came except for the sales agent. That kind of disruption isn't great for a writer. Then I moved house (I got tired of inspections) so I became the inspectee! (The spell checker tells me 'inspectee' is not a word. It probably isn't, but you know exactly what I mean, right?) A month of me inspecting properties and then moving things back and forth, then setting up a new office so that it feels comfortable spending hours a day in there … life just got in the way.
So I'm shelving the book for a year. Maybe more. I need to recharge. I had originally planned on publishing it in November 2014, so to be here a year later and it still isn't ready eats away at me. Earlier this year I thought it might be possible to publish this book in June and another book around about now, but good old Kingston managed to take up so much of my time that the final draft to the horror story just kept getting pushed back. I've had to shelve that one for a few months as well. Why shelve a new story? Because it feels like I've done nothing but editing for the last couple of years. I need to write something fresh, from scratch, and recharge before going over an old project and finding out why I fell in love with it when I first wrote the story.
So that's the update. It might take me another six months to get something off my hard drive and into the real world.
By the way, I just finished reading The Martian. I actually stayed up until 4 in the morning to finish it.
June 4, 2015
Free Book!
It's my birthday! And to celebrate, here's a free book! Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper. Available from Amazon for free until the end of the Thursday Pacific Standard Time (I'm having a long birthday. Sue me.)
http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Raine-Grim-Reaper-Jackson-ebook/dp/B00MGJU5D0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1433250707
http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Raine-Grim-Reaper-Jackson-ebook/dp/B00MGJU5D0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1433250707
April 24, 2015
Photoshoot
A few months ago I met this awesome photographer, Nicola Bernardi. You know how you meet someone who claims to be 'a photographer' and when you see their photos you're pretty sure you could take a better shot? This was not one of those occasions. Nico is actually a photographer who really fucking delivers.
Straight out of high school I worked on a few film crews, from being a lighting monkey to a sound jockey (you might be wondering how a monkey lights or a jockey sounds …), so aside from being able to tell you what the best boy does (they are the primary assistant to either the key grip or the gaffer) I am quite comfortable sitting in a room crammed full of cameras and lights. This, however, was the first time I was the star of the shoot.
(You might also be wondering what a key grip and a gaffer do. Grips set up the camera dollies (the crane looking thing) and the key grip is their supervisor. A gaffer is the supervisor to the lighting department. Both jobs require moving heavy equipment millimetre by millimetre while giving the evil eye to the sound department, because the sound guys finished setting up half an hour ago and have been talking to the make-up girls with a fresh batch of coffee in their hands.)
I had a blast! The whole shoot took three hours in a great house (it isn't mine) in Melbourne. We began outside to take some portrait shots to loosen me up (posing can be a bit weird at times as sometimes you have to sit/stand in an awkward position and make it look comfortable). That took just five or ten minutes.
Then we moved inside, cluttered the fuck out of a table, and blinded me for the next hour or so with flashes just two feet from my eyes. Seriously. You see the laptop in the picture below? There's a flash sitting on the keyboard to light up my piercing blue eyes. Blinding.
We tried a few sexy lighting shots with an orange light coming from outside, then we changed it to blue and got an eerie, yet fantastic look. There was a lot of tweaking going on with everything that normally sits close to my computer at home and Nico laughed out loud that one of the props I brought along was a sandwich. Mostly the tweaking came from how I was sitting. Lean forward a bit, chin up, forehead down slightly, tilt your head this way, a centimetre more, focus on a dot on the far wall, give me a concentrating look, write something, now look back up again, lean back, head this way, deep in thought, stare into space …
It helped that Nico and I have been friends for six months already, but even so he had very good direction. To stop him from eye balling my sandwich I brought a bottle of wine to share. He's Italian, so that seemed to work. Then we moved onto the kitchen shot. 
Do you see all of that atmospheric clutter on the benches? None of that is mine. The household were furniture sitting (apparently that's a thing) and had to get rid of the bench and table the following day, so they were pulling everything out from storage and figuring out where to put it. And all the while we were there shooting some author pictures during a crazy time in their house. We managed to blind a few of them as they were in the red light room using the microwave just as one of the main flashes fired, blinding them and making them think the microwave had just exploded in their face (sorry!).
It was fun. It was relaxing. It actually made me feel like something of a professional. Have you seen some of the author photos on the internet? They look boring. They're either just a black and white head shot which offers no personality at all or it's a writer standing in a bookshop. I wanted something different, atmospheric, and good enough that wouldn't be replaced in six months with a nicer shirt against a new collection of books. I got the photos I wanted.
Then … it was a wrap! (Alas, there is no wrap picture, but imagine there were cheers and high fives all around) It was time to pack up, get dressed, and have a beer down the road to see what Nico is up to next. If you even remotely like these photos of me you'll loooove looking over Nico's portfolio on his website.
Straight out of high school I worked on a few film crews, from being a lighting monkey to a sound jockey (you might be wondering how a monkey lights or a jockey sounds …), so aside from being able to tell you what the best boy does (they are the primary assistant to either the key grip or the gaffer) I am quite comfortable sitting in a room crammed full of cameras and lights. This, however, was the first time I was the star of the shoot.(You might also be wondering what a key grip and a gaffer do. Grips set up the camera dollies (the crane looking thing) and the key grip is their supervisor. A gaffer is the supervisor to the lighting department. Both jobs require moving heavy equipment millimetre by millimetre while giving the evil eye to the sound department, because the sound guys finished setting up half an hour ago and have been talking to the make-up girls with a fresh batch of coffee in their hands.)
I had a blast! The whole shoot took three hours in a great house (it isn't mine) in Melbourne. We began outside to take some portrait shots to loosen me up (posing can be a bit weird at times as sometimes you have to sit/stand in an awkward position and make it look comfortable). That took just five or ten minutes.
Then we moved inside, cluttered the fuck out of a table, and blinded me for the next hour or so with flashes just two feet from my eyes. Seriously. You see the laptop in the picture below? There's a flash sitting on the keyboard to light up my piercing blue eyes. Blinding. We tried a few sexy lighting shots with an orange light coming from outside, then we changed it to blue and got an eerie, yet fantastic look. There was a lot of tweaking going on with everything that normally sits close to my computer at home and Nico laughed out loud that one of the props I brought along was a sandwich. Mostly the tweaking came from how I was sitting. Lean forward a bit, chin up, forehead down slightly, tilt your head this way, a centimetre more, focus on a dot on the far wall, give me a concentrating look, write something, now look back up again, lean back, head this way, deep in thought, stare into space … It helped that Nico and I have been friends for six months already, but even so he had very good direction. To stop him from eye balling my sandwich I brought a bottle of wine to share. He's Italian, so that seemed to work. Then we moved onto the kitchen shot. Do you see all of that atmospheric clutter on the benches? None of that is mine. The household were furniture sitting (apparently that's a thing) and had to get rid of the bench and table the following day, so they were pulling everything out from storage and figuring out where to put it. And all the while we were there shooting some author pictures during a crazy time in their house. We managed to blind a few of them as they were in the red light room using the microwave just as one of the main flashes fired, blinding them and making them think the microwave had just exploded in their face (sorry!).It was fun. It was relaxing. It actually made me feel like something of a professional. Have you seen some of the author photos on the internet? They look boring. They're either just a black and white head shot which offers no personality at all or it's a writer standing in a bookshop. I wanted something different, atmospheric, and good enough that wouldn't be replaced in six months with a nicer shirt against a new collection of books. I got the photos I wanted.
Then … it was a wrap! (Alas, there is no wrap picture, but imagine there were cheers and high fives all around) It was time to pack up, get dressed, and have a beer down the road to see what Nico is up to next. If you even remotely like these photos of me you'll loooove looking over Nico's portfolio on his website.
April 11, 2015
One Year On
One year ago I finally published a book!
I should mention that you all have my most sincere apologies for a complete lack of updates, posts, or feedback of any kind. My time management skills have been a disaster. Case in point: My actual anniversary was three weeks ago, so even this post is late. At least I'm consistent.
But what a year it's been! In the beginning I had no idea what to do. I still have barely any concept of how to make a living writing books, but I'm kinda getting there.
A slight back story:
The 'published author' tag began with Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper , a dark comedy set in the afterlife. For years I had no intention of ever going down the indie route. I went through agent after agent, getting rejected and ignored for years. I tried one book, then another, and I kept going until the Kingston Raine series popped up as a query letter to agents across the US, Canada, England, and Australia.
No takers.
By then I was used to having my hopes and pride punched out of me, so when I was rejected again I simply put Kingston Raine on the shelf and got to work on something else.
Then the whirlwind of mid-2013 struck: In the space of three months I went from having an apartment, having a job, and having money, to living on my own for the first time in years, having lost my job (much in the same way that you would lose your keys, I guess), and having spent just about every penny I had on practical needs like buying the cheapest second hand car that wasn't going to crap out on me in a couple of months.
There I was, pacing around my apartment with far too much time on my hands and nowhere near enough money to see me through to the end of the year. I had to get my act together.
I made the bold promise of publishing a series of five books in 2014. They were supposed to be out in March, May, July, September, and November. The first three went off without a hitch. The fourth was a month late. The fifth...? Well, it's April of a whole new year and not only has the book not been published, the first draft has only just been completed. Kinda. The ending is a little shabby, but at least I have an ending.
If anyone was hoping like hell to read that particular book before Christmas … sorry! It was easy being ambitious with publications when I had no idea how to actually get published, in the same way that selling a million copies should be fairly straight forward until you realise how agonising it is to even sell 20 books to complete strangers.
Believe me, I wish the final book was done. Nothing sucks quite like knowing that you've sailed passed a deadline that there is no way of catching. And here I am, five months past the publication date, and instead of finishing the last draft, I'm writing a blog to explain why I'm not celebrating with wine and take out.
In short: I crashed out. For two years straight I was working on the Kingston Raine series. Not every day, but more days than not. I've been juggling full time work as well, so the writing time has dwindled which meant the agony of not being as productive as I'd like has lengthened, but over all it has been a fantastic year!
… Getting back to the point of the blog:
I've connected with other writers. I've revamped my website which will inevitably require constant tweaking and updating but it's a hundred times better than what it was. I've met up with some awesome and inspiring people, I dug myself out of being a hermit, and got myself a social life. I've watched more comedy, read less and less, worked more and more, taken time off to recharge, drunk my share of shiraz, picked up the guitar once in a while, sat in the bath way too often, and actually made something of a business plan (which can be summed up as: be more productive, be less lazy).
So what's next?
I have a photo shoot with a remarkable photographer, Nicola Bernardi, that will put me alongside Heidi Klum. (I can't believe how much I'm actually looking forward to that.)
I've got a website overhaul in the next few weeks, - so if you have any awesome ideas, let me know!
I'm also planning an eBook give away in early June (for my birthday), so stay tuned if you are at all interested.
Anyway, take care folks, I hope you enjoy the wacky antics of Kingston and his band of merry smartarses.
Until next time!
JL
I should mention that you all have my most sincere apologies for a complete lack of updates, posts, or feedback of any kind. My time management skills have been a disaster. Case in point: My actual anniversary was three weeks ago, so even this post is late. At least I'm consistent.
But what a year it's been! In the beginning I had no idea what to do. I still have barely any concept of how to make a living writing books, but I'm kinda getting there.
A slight back story:
The 'published author' tag began with Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper , a dark comedy set in the afterlife. For years I had no intention of ever going down the indie route. I went through agent after agent, getting rejected and ignored for years. I tried one book, then another, and I kept going until the Kingston Raine series popped up as a query letter to agents across the US, Canada, England, and Australia.
No takers.
By then I was used to having my hopes and pride punched out of me, so when I was rejected again I simply put Kingston Raine on the shelf and got to work on something else.
Then the whirlwind of mid-2013 struck: In the space of three months I went from having an apartment, having a job, and having money, to living on my own for the first time in years, having lost my job (much in the same way that you would lose your keys, I guess), and having spent just about every penny I had on practical needs like buying the cheapest second hand car that wasn't going to crap out on me in a couple of months.
There I was, pacing around my apartment with far too much time on my hands and nowhere near enough money to see me through to the end of the year. I had to get my act together.
I made the bold promise of publishing a series of five books in 2014. They were supposed to be out in March, May, July, September, and November. The first three went off without a hitch. The fourth was a month late. The fifth...? Well, it's April of a whole new year and not only has the book not been published, the first draft has only just been completed. Kinda. The ending is a little shabby, but at least I have an ending.
If anyone was hoping like hell to read that particular book before Christmas … sorry! It was easy being ambitious with publications when I had no idea how to actually get published, in the same way that selling a million copies should be fairly straight forward until you realise how agonising it is to even sell 20 books to complete strangers.
Believe me, I wish the final book was done. Nothing sucks quite like knowing that you've sailed passed a deadline that there is no way of catching. And here I am, five months past the publication date, and instead of finishing the last draft, I'm writing a blog to explain why I'm not celebrating with wine and take out.
In short: I crashed out. For two years straight I was working on the Kingston Raine series. Not every day, but more days than not. I've been juggling full time work as well, so the writing time has dwindled which meant the agony of not being as productive as I'd like has lengthened, but over all it has been a fantastic year!
… Getting back to the point of the blog:
I've connected with other writers. I've revamped my website which will inevitably require constant tweaking and updating but it's a hundred times better than what it was. I've met up with some awesome and inspiring people, I dug myself out of being a hermit, and got myself a social life. I've watched more comedy, read less and less, worked more and more, taken time off to recharge, drunk my share of shiraz, picked up the guitar once in a while, sat in the bath way too often, and actually made something of a business plan (which can be summed up as: be more productive, be less lazy).
So what's next?
I have a photo shoot with a remarkable photographer, Nicola Bernardi, that will put me alongside Heidi Klum. (I can't believe how much I'm actually looking forward to that.)
I've got a website overhaul in the next few weeks, - so if you have any awesome ideas, let me know!
I'm also planning an eBook give away in early June (for my birthday), so stay tuned if you are at all interested.
Anyway, take care folks, I hope you enjoy the wacky antics of Kingston and his band of merry smartarses.
Until next time!
JL
January 7, 2015
Number 1, Take 2
It's done! The hours (and hours and hours) spent on this were worth it.
Let me introduce the revamped (and much sexier) cover for Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper ...
Let me introduce the revamped (and much sexier) cover for Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper ...
November 23, 2014
Kingston Raine and the Starlight Muse
Kingtston Raine and the Starlight Muse is OUT NOW! Happy Reading!
If you haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting Kingston Raine and his bizarre group of friends, I recommend you right this wrong immediately!
Catch up with the previous three adventures, then rush out and purchase your copy of the Starlight Muse, the penultimate book in the series.
If you haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting Kingston Raine and his bizarre group of friends, I recommend you right this wrong immediately!Catch up with the previous three adventures, then rush out and purchase your copy of the Starlight Muse, the penultimate book in the series.
July 26, 2014
Kingston Raine and the Arena of Chaos
Book 3 in the series - PUBLISHED!
