Michael J. Allen's Blog, page 8

Best Seller?

#NewRelease Scion of Conquered Earth a #1 Amazon Best Seller? That can’t be right…

Apparently, it is.  Thanks to countless people pitching in, pre-ordering and promoting the book which comes out June 7th 2016, the YA Science Fiction novel has reached best seller rank in several categories on Amazon.com.

Frankly, I’m flabbergasted. You people are AWESOME. There’s no other way to put it. except perhaps for:

Over night the novel, featured here, has climbed to heights I never expected. Here are some of the screen shots, but first.

THANK YOU!

 

 

Weekend of Firsts

This last weekend marked a huge number of firsts for me. I enjoyed my first trip to #JordanCon with, as many of you know, pre-release copies of Scion of Conquered Earth. My convention experience up until this was limited to very few huge cons. JordanCon offered what was later described to me as  Deep South Fandom convention feel.

The weekend started with an enormously helpful conversation with author Jana Oliver and a gift of her book: Socially Engaged: The Author’s Guide to Social Media. I never cease to be amazed by the wonderful people senior authors are, especially to the up and coming.  In that same vein, when I told Brandon Sanderson how honored I’d be if he accepted a gift in thanks for writing instruction, inspiration and a lot of good stories, he insisted he was the one honored. He even asked that I autograph (my very first) the first edition hardback of Scion of Conquered Earth. The Sword & Sorcery track director, Tiffany Franklin, took pictures of what for me will always be a historic event.

(Special thanks to Tiffany Franklin for taking these)

As if the first day weren’t good enough, Saturday brought me back into the presence of esteemed author and publisher Debra Dixon. Deb gave permission for me to advertise the Anthony Francis’s The Skindancer Series in my upcoming novel. When I tried to thank her, she expressed an interest in that status of my western-style fantasy Fey West. Her apparent interest was noticed by the Writing Track director, apparently qualifying me for a possible shot at guest status at next years JordanCon.

*Short pause for dance of joy*

Sunday trumped its predecessors. After a humbling attempt in a pitch critique workshop, I got the chance to approach a real New York literary agent (fingers crossed for yet another first) about possible representation. Miss Franklin then invited me to take a seat on my very first panel as a published author along side Kaitlin Bevis, author of Persephone, The Daughter of Zeus  Series. No one threw chairs or rotten vegetables, so I think I did okay.

All three days were filled without incredible fans, authors and other professionals. I never knew how wonderful small conventions like JordanCon were, but you can bet I’ll be hunting them down from now on.

 

JordonCon 2016

JordonCon is back in Atlanta celebrating the works of Robert Jordan and other incredible authors. I’m heading up, excited to see a few writers and editors I’ve gotten to know over the years. I just plain thrilled to be attending with pre-release copies of Scion of Conquered Earth and the very first hardback copy (complete with not-quite-nefarious plan.)

Hope to see you there!

Release Delay: Scion of Conquered Earth

I’m sorry to say the May 2016 release of Scion of Conquered Earth has been delayed until June due to issues at the printer.  Essentially the cover is too dark – not entirely unlike my writing – and we’re losing a lot of detail on the physical copy. So far the printer has been a lot of help, and we hope to have a compromise soon that looks as amazing as readers would want it. I’ll include the original and the current proposed compromise (which should look darker after printed) so you can see the differences.

Original

Proposed

 

 

First ARCs are on their way

For the last two weeks I’ve learned, screwed up, relearned and corrected the various elements of being an independent publisher. It’s a pain. I’ve no doubt I have more things to learn and screw up. So it is with no small amount of pleasure I announce the first Advance Review Copies are in the mail.

Now I’m going to take a nap and then curl up around someone else’s novel.

Life in Revision

It’s been quiet here for the last year, and I felt an explanation was warranted.

What if…

Two little words that delight and torment me on a regular basis. What if a teen demon summoned a human who didn’t know she was a witch to enact revenge on a cheating boyfriend? What if a fallen angel hid his efforts as a guardian angel from hell while trying to get the Big Guy to notice and offer him a relocation package? What if my day job pager goes off so often because it’s lonely? What if questions have fueled dozens of plot ripples sometimes so big they forced major revisions.

A little more than a year ago, I what if’d my life and found it in need of revision. Here’s how it came about….

My last major post saw me on a book research trip in Savannah, Georgia. I’d gotten a recent raise to support the trip. I had two novels out on requested review for major publishers. Life was looking up. I probably even said so out loud.  If you’re a fervent reader, you know what happens when a character tempts worse – PLOT: One Damned Thing After Another.

That’s what happened to me. Two authors who’d I’d had the pleasure of learning from passed away. My beloved dream car died on the research trip. Bad choices, both mine and others’, resulted in a brand new car that ate up the raise with interest. Okay, I’m used to rolling with the punches, so I just kept slogging forward. After all, if you strive long enough it has to get better, right?

A major science fiction author ended up at a tiny convention near me. I went hoping to ask a few questions that I hadn’t managed to ask at Dragon*Con the month before. What I got was several generous hours worth of education and truth be told, internal panic. He kindly gave me a look at the reality about publisher/writer finances. There I sat, barely able to squeeze together enough money to buy a book off his table as thanks for all he’d taught me, facing the possibility that either of those two submitted books could get a contract.  That should be good, but it donned on me that my lifestyle was about to ruin my dreams of writing professionally, all because I couldn’t afford to do my part as the author.  PANIC – the quiet internal kind.

A friend of mine had been pushing some money book for the previous year, but I wanted a novel for a little escape from my troubles, not some non-fiction lecture. Of course, someone broke into my new car. They took my laptop, voice writing rig, and my kindle. They also taught me that I didn’t understand insurance, because none of it was covered. If I didn’t want to punch the thief on pure principle, I’d have hugged them. Thank God, I had nothing to read at work except The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  Once started, I couldn’t put it down. Ramsey took rather obscene pleasure in explaining to me exactly how stupid I was when it came to money. For all my vaunted common sense, I had none when it came to dollars or cents.

I was already in the process of buying a house, so I honored that contract, but otherwise I started employing Ramsey’s simple techniques – with a vengeance. The What If and revision in my financial life quickly spilled over into other areas. I picked up several side jobs, working all three available shifts as much as I could manage – burning the candle with a flamethrower.  Between the deaths of two of my heroes and the increased activity, I revised my exercise and eating habits.  In between all the shifts, I squeezed in all the writing and editing I could, appreciating that time more than I had in some time.  I increased my non-fiction reading to what it’d been years ago when I was a sponge for any crumb of superfluous minutia I could gobble.

Ramsey recommended another book, Start by Jon Acuff. Once more I stared myself straight in the reflection and recognized a flaw in my habits. Many of you are aware I’ve completed sixteen novels. I can only hope none of you ever get a look at the first few, but the others ranged from amateur crap to the stuff sitting on publishers’ desks.  Some of it was pretty good, especially after I finally got my head around GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction by Debra Dixon. Yet it just sat on my shelf instead of out in the world in your hands. Acuff forced me to re-evaluate the excuses I used to avoid the risk that I’d put something out into the world. His book forced me to accept I was afraid to face not the private rejection letters of a publisher, but the jeering hatred of readers angry that my work failed to meet expectations.

I’ve written, edited and worked three or more jobs for the last year. I’ve worked out. I’ve eaten better. I’ve lost weight and faced some of my fears. I’m still working my way through debt and improving my health – not mention still in boxes after a year in the new house. I’ve come far enough to drop the side jobs and focus on putting out my first self-published novels – fear be damned.

Life’s not perfect, but as usual the revisions are making all the difference. There’s still a lot to do, plenty of revisions left to make. I’m not just involved in a living anthology anymore, I’m living a life in revision for my benefit and for my readers.

What If? Changes are coming. Get ready for some noise.

Metahistorical Chronicler

Greetings Infophiles,

Let this letter serve as formal introduction appropriate to customs observed by your varied chronospheres.  I, Irving Aloysius Hobb – no relation, serve as chronicler of metahistorical personages for, heh heh, well, for an organization in the employ of the notorious Scribbler. For the foreseeable future I shall employ the services of Arbiter Möbius to interview the characters from the various universes recorded on this data portal. Should questions of metahistorical clarification obsess, heh heh, your waking thoughts, either leave them as comments or email them to iahobb at this data portal domain.

–Irving Aloysius Hobb

Superheroes are dying…

The Hero Support Taskforce is beating down the door.

Everyone blames the Nexus – Nicolas Farious’s upscale boutique for hero and villain supplies.

Could a villain have infiltrated his staff? Is someone murdering the elite with his capes, thigh-high boots or gadgetry?

Find out on Kindle.

Go to In League page

 

Slaving Away on Book Research!

Research for novels can be so tedious on occasion, but just the same if can prove an excuse for childish indulgence.  Here are a couple photographs from the research trip for the Kissing Coven books.

Highway 21 Drive-in set piece:

I’d also like to extend genuine thanks to the staff of Highway 21 Drive-in, Beaufort, SC. They were very nice people and quite understanding about the photographer (my daughter.) The concession prices and portions were unbelievable. Anyone in the area should go take in a good movie and some of their southern hospitality.

We had a great time

Ann Crispin, a personal note

This is one of my saddest moments. Some time ago Ann Crispin announced she was sick, but I heard nothing after and hoped no news meant good news. Today, I read this.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

I didn’t know Ann Crispin very well, but she impacted my life long before I knew who she was. She’s well celebrated, but her good works are personal for me. As a young man, hers were the Star Trek books I loved most at an age where author names meant nothing to me. They took my favorite characters down incredible journeys and fired my imagination.

Years later I attended a DragonCon writing panel taught by someone named A. C. Crispin. I was shocked when I looked up the name to find books on my shelf like Sarek and Yesterday’s Son with her name on it. I attended the class with awe, eager to show off my first novel which was without a doubt going to be one of the great fantasy saga’s of all time. I submitted the excerpt for her critique, but through a series of misadventures or perhaps in hindsight a desire on Ann’s part not to crush my hopes, the critique kept getting pushed off.

She invited me to attend her advanced workshop too as a last minute entry though it was full and I gratefully borrowed some money to learn more from her while I awaited my critique. That Sunday in 2003, she took me up to a guest suite with complimentary foods and drinks, impressing an awed kid in a thirty-something’s body even more.

There, Ann Crispin eviscerated my first novel, painting the walls in blood and ichor. It was just that bad. It hurt, like hell. I held my expression with all my strength and thanked her for her knife work. After I left her, I sat in a hallway for the rest of the day in shock. My first novel, my premiere series, the books that would redefine fantasy for decades was overly ambitious, filled with cardboard and clichés, sounded like a D&D campaign gone wrong and was an atrocious pile of dreck.  She told me to keep trying, that thirties was young and I had plenty of time.

She was right on all counts.

I cleaned the blood from my barely thick enough  skin and took her advice. I put my baby on a crucifix and moved on. By time I saw her once more many years later I’d written several new novels – still dreck but better. I took my boyhood copy of Yesterday’s Son for a signature, swallowing my pride and awe to face her again.

She remembered me on sight.

Ann Crispin, this great author, turned to her personal onlookers and told them that I’d taken the worst critique she’d ever had to give, taken it well and was back, still writing. You might think being remembered for such a notorious critique should be horrible, but it’s been a badge of honor ever since.

I’ve written eleven complete novels since that critique. Each one gets better, in part because Ann Crispin challenged me to forge on, strive and never give up on making miracles happen. She’s got more friends and fans than I can imagine, and will probably never see this, but I want anyone who does to know what a wonderful woman she is.

Ann,

You challenged me to chase miracles – preferably while not driving a horse like a car. I hope you get a miracle, whatever miracle is perfect for you. I’m indebted to you forever.

With love and best wishes,

Michael, eviscerated newbie and dedicated novelist