Evan Bond's Blog, page 16

You're Missing Out!

If you're not reading my blog novel, The Truth You Seek, then you're missing out. As I continue to write this, I get more excited about where the story and characters will lead us. Right now, it's only available on Patreon but the first part of The Truth You Seek will come out on 8/17. But the posts will all be a month behind the live version over on Patreon. 

Please consider checking me out on Patreon and becoming a patron so you can read this exciting story live! If you can't support me on Patreon, that's OK. But please consider sharing my Patreon page with your friends. It's the best way for me to get my name out there. It will allow me to create more content for you all and help me advertise and expand my reach, which will allow me to spend more time creating the content you all love! Click here to head over there. 

But I am very excited about this blog novel and I feel like it's going in the right direction and I sincerely hope you all enjoy it. Brandon Smalls is an interesting character and there is so much more coming his way! 

Music and Writing

Everyone loves music, right? Well, I know I do. In fact, I like to listen to music while I write. Plenty of authors do this. Hell, people doing their jobs or even school work do this. For most, it helps them concentrate. Other times, it helps while doing a mundane and boring task. Today, I thought I would share with you all what I like to listen to while I write. 

Recently, I discovered the wonder that is Amazon Music Unlimited. It's an amazing service with tens of millions of songs in a digital library. Naturally, I signed up and went about creating a writing playlist. First, let me tell you I have over 1,500 songs in this playlist. That's over 82 hours of music! That's about two average work weeks! I probably won't hear the same song twice very often. 

But what type of music is in this library? I'm glad you asked. When I was younger I would listen to rock music while I wrote and would occasionally listen to orchestral music. A little over a year ago, I was only listening to 50's rock and roll. Don't judge me. That's good music! Now, I like to listen to orchestral music almost exclusively. But not just any orchestral music. Movie soundtracks, television scores, and even OST from video games. I have many different things from scores from James Bond movies to the entire score of Assassins Creed games. Can you even imagine 82 hours of that? It's pretty ridiculous. 

What about you? What do you listen to while you write or work or whatever you do? Let me know in the comments below! As always, thanks for reading! 

I've Got 99 likes and I Just Need 1

My Facebook page is on the verge of 100 likes. This is a pretty cool milestone and I wanted to celebrate it appropriately but I'm at a loss. I figured, I should ask you guys. What should I do once I hit 100 likes to say "Thank you". Should I reduce the price of my e-books? Should I share a previously unpublished short story to my Facebook page? What about a drawing for a free paperback? Let me know in the comments below what you think I should do! 

Free Paperback

Wanted to give everyone an update. If you head over to Goodreads, you can enter a giveaway for my first novel, To the Wolves. Two autographed paperbacks will be given away at random on 8/21. Click here to enter. Good luck! 

Contractions

Question for you all. What do you think about contractions? No, I don't mean the kind that follow pregnancy, I mean the type in literature. You know, like this- don't, won't shouldn't, it's, I'm. Those kinds of things. 
When you're reading, what do you prefer? Do you prefer reading shortened words or would you prefer them to look more formal like this- do not, will not, should not, it is, I am? 
In school we learned not to professionally write with contractions but in works of creativity there is a lot of "rule bending" we do that is acceptable, yet there still seems to be a bit of controversy surrounding the subject. Some people claim writing with full words can make it sound bland and boring while others say contractions can sound sloppy. 
So, what do you prefer? Do you like formal or do you like loose? Let me know in the comments below! And if you head over to my Twitter page, @EvanBondAuthor, you can take part in a poll and see who is right! 

The Truth You Seek

Good news everyone, I finally have plot information to share with you regarding my special project. You know, that blog novel I've been talking so much about? If you're interested in knowing what it will be about, continue reading. If you'd like to follow the blog live and not know anything about what's coming? Then stop right here. 

Still with me? Alright. Here's the synopsis:
      Brandon Smalls has always indulged in conspiracy theories. He runs the very popular blog series The Truth You Seek. Thousands of people flock to his site to read the latest anti-government rants and theories. When rumors spread through the conspiracy threads about a small, rural town in the middle of Nebraska, Brandon decides to check it out. What he finds there is bigger than anything he could ever imagine and he's determined to keep the readers of his blog well informed to his findings, even if his life is in danger. 

Excited? I know I am. I'll be working on the first installment this week. It will be live next month on this very website. Remember, if you want to read it the moment it comes out, head over to Patreon.com/EvanBond. For a small patronage, you will be able to enjoy reading the blog novel the day I write it, as well as many other cool rewards. Please, consider supporting me on Patreon. It's a huge help and will allow me to continue creating content like this. Thanks for your continued support and thanks for reading! 

A Bunch of Random Thoughts

I just finished my first edit through my horror novella and I'm excited about the direction it's headed. When it's finally available, I know you will love it too. Like I've said before, it will be available this October but I guess it's time to give you and exact date. I can think of no better day in October than Friday, the 13th! Maybe we can have a horror themed launch party as well. More on that to come! 

If you want a copy of Getaway, my horror novella, you will be able to preorder it soon. Everyone who is currently signed up for my monthly newsletter will be getting a copy for free! If you didn't sign up for the newsletter in time, there's other ways of getting the book. If you become a Patron at any level on my Patreon page, you will get every single novella that I release yearly. It only takes a $1 a month to help me out. It really does make a huge difference. 

There's also a little more news regarding my blog novel. I've got a main character and plot picked out. However, I don't have a release date for the first installment just yet. There will be more information on that in the future. I can tell you the name of the project, though. I will be calling it The Truth You Seek. 

Also, Sins of the Mother is available as an eBook now. Paperback and hardcover will be coming soon. Head over to your favorite e-retailer to pick up your copy. I hope you enjoy reading Ethan's second adventure as much as I loved writing it. 

Last, but not least, I've been thinking about starting an advanced reader program. Essentially, I would be wanting people to proof read my final copy before the book is published to help catch any spelling or grammatical mistakes. As well as give feedback. If you're interested in this, please let me know in the comments below. I would only ask that you leave an honest review for the book on Amazon after it has been published. In return for your services, I would personally thank you in the book's acknowledgment section. Please let me know if you're interested!

Well, those are the updates I had for you today. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to give this a read. Hopefully you're as excited about everything as I am. As always, thanks for reading everyone!  

5 Things You Didn't Know

If you haven't heard yet, my latest book published on Friday. It's titled Sins of the Mother and is book two in the Ethan McCormick series. I'm sorry there wasn't a book launch party. Life's been a little busy lately and I didn't have time to do one. Hopefully in the future things will work out better. 
In the meantime, I thought I would give a little info on the Ethan McCormick character and the series as well. So, I present to you, five things you didn't know about the Ethan McCormick series. 

5. Valerie McCormick's name has musical inspiration
I've mentioned before that the Ethan McCormick character came about when I was in high school as part of a writing project in my English class. What you might not know is the inspiration for the name of Ethan's sister. I got the name Valerie from a song by a little band called The Monkees. Maybe you've heard of them? If not, they're the one's to originally perform the song I'm a Believer, well before Smash Mouth. Their song Valerie was one of my favorites as a kid. 

4. There are unpublished short stories with Ethan
Total, there are about 4 short stories featuring the character Ethan McCormick. The first being Miami Hostage where I created him. I wrote two sequels and one prequel story. In the third story, Ethan fakes his death to catch a dangerous criminal. In my book To the Wolves there is a mention of something like that taking place in Ethan's past. The short stories will never be published, save for the first. I might release that one with a special edition of the Ethan McCormick series one day. 

3. Ethan as a teenager
In the prequel short story I wrote, Ethan McCormick is a teenager living in Michigan with his family. There's a deadly shooting at his school that he gets mixed in the middle of. In this story his name is not Ethan McCormick but Brian Balk. His family changes their name at the end and enter witness protection. This idea was scraped long before the novel was written. 

2. Ethan almost never made it to print 
I started writing the first Ethan McCormick novel in high school. I would come home and sit at my computer for hours trying to figure out a plot and how to actually write a book. About four chapters in I deleted everything because I was so unsatisfied with the work. Starting over, I deleted that one too. When I gave up on yet another version of the book, I almost scrapped the idea all together. Luckily, I waited a few years and developed a plot I really loved and looked into self publishing! 

1. Ethan's Death
I had written several short stories based on Ethan McCormick that I almost killed off the character, thinking it was the only place left to go with him. I wrote the story, had him die, and changed my mind a while later. That's how he ended up faking his death instead.


Those are some things about my character Ethan McCormick that you may not have known about. If you did know about any of these, let me know down in the comments. Oh, and that also means you must be a stalker because most of these are unknown facts, so....yeah. Anyway, thanks for reading! 

You can pick up the latest Ethan McCormick adventure as an ebook at most major retailers. The paperback and hardcover coming soon!  

I will be writing a book live

Got something pretty cool to talk to you guys about today. There's been a few ideas I've rolled around in my mind for quite some time. One of them was a "found journal" style of writing. Basically, something along the lines of Bram Stoker's Dracula. For those who haven't read that amazing book, it's done as a journal entry from main character Jonathan Harker. He chronicles his adventures in Transylvania and with Dracula himself. When I first read the book I thought it was fantastic and loved the original idea. 
This brings me to my point. I want to do something similar to that. After much deliberation, I came up with an idea that I find to be pretty cool and will, hopefully, be a lot of fun. My plan is to write a book in a sort of "blog style" where each chapter will be a new blog entry. Sort of a modern day Harker's journal. But what's the catch? 
Here it is. I will be writing the book "live", for lack of a better word. What I mean is, each chapter, or blog post, will be submitted online as they are finished. When it comes to an end, I will put it all together and publish it as a final book. 
Where can you read it live? you ask? Here's how it's going to work. You will be able to read each post (chapter) first on Patreon. A month later it will be posted right here on my blog and possibly even my newsletter. If you want to read it first you'll have to be a patron. Any denomination will get you access to the posts. It will also get you a copy of the book when it is eventually published. If you don't want to become a patron, no worries. You'll have to wait a month for the post to drop. Of course, I would encourage you to become a patron because you never know what fun little things I will do with these posts which will only be available on Patreon. If you'd like to become a patron to get first access to this new project and everything else, head over to Patreon.com/EvanBond. 
I'm excited for this project and I hope you are too. I don't have a plot outline for this story just yet but I will be sharing the details with you soon. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Thanks for reading everyone! 

New Novel Release

We're on the final countdown everyone! This Friday my new novel, Sins of the Mother, comes out. This is the second Ethan McCormick novel and I know a lot of you have been asking for this since the first one came out. I'm really excited to share this one with you. I think you're going to love it. 
I've also decided to extend out the preorder price through the weekend. Now, you can get it for only $.99 through July 9th without having to preorder. Isn't that exciting? 
I sincerely hope you enjoy this book. It's been a lot of fun writing it and I can't wait to bring you more Ethan McCormick adventures. There's a lot planned for him in the future but I also have a lot of other projects I will be working on soon. Can't wait to give you more on that soon! 

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