Matthew Cesca's Blog, page 4

Another Solid Liftoff

When I released ,The Miranda Project a little over a month ago, I wasn't sure what the response would be. My first four books had all been fantasy after all, and this was a leap into sci-fi. There's definitely some crossover audience there (that's why they're usually in the same section of the bookstore), but there are also staunch readers of one or the other.

Well, it looks like I needn't have worries much, because the launch went pretty well. Overall, April was my fifth best month for book sales since I first released ,The Stairs in the Woods back in 2018. The book has also been well received, as it's averaging a 4.6/5 on ,Amazon, and a 4.67/5 on ,Goodreads. And while not nearly everyone who buys a book reviews it, it's always nice to get feedback from your readers, positive or negative.

Now while April was pretty good, it was nothing like the launch of ,The Last Sorcerers. To be fair, that was also the third book of the ,Forbidden Scrolls Trilogy. I got a pretty solid bump in sales there from people not just picking up the last book, but some were buying all three. I also had a somewhat tongue-in-cheek ,TikTok about writing women like human beings unlike some male authors that went fairly viral right around the same time.

Overall, I'm really happy with the response to ,The Miranda Project. I try to make my books have a broader appeal than just fantasy and sci-fi fans, and I hope that comes across in the writing and storytelling. My books are about people first and foremost. And I hope you connected with Alex, Hannah, and the rest of the cast of characters. I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes, as well as what's in store for them. I hope to see you all along for the ride.

BookTok for Beginners

One of the things I enjoy most about being a self-published author is getting to talk to other authors and helping them grow. A big percentage of the connections I've made on social media sites like ,Twitter have been fellow authors, and we're often passing tips back and forth or helping each other polish up each other's writing.

Well a couple of days ago I got to sit down with ,D.C. Wright-Hammer on his YouTube show ,Writer's Row to discuss marketing books on ,TikTok. D.C. is a fellow sci-fi and fantasy author and I quite enjoyed both of he books in his ,Between Two Minds series. I definitely recommend you check them out, just as soon as you finish giving this video a watch. And make sure you click through and follow the show on YouTube. There's a lot of great content there to help out fellow authors trying to make their way through in the business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq9hQREdYIg&t=3s

Taking Over the Airwaves

Last November I had the opportunity to sit down with Clay and Travis Vermulm of the ,Sinister Soup Podcast to talk about my ,Forbidden Scrolls Trilogy. It's a weekly podcast where they talk about books, movies, TV shows, etc, and they do a featured indie author interview every month. At the time we touched base with each other to set up the interview, ,The Last Sorcerers was still fresh off its late September launch. So with us sitting down when we did, I was able to delve into some details about the series as a whole while it was still fresh in my mind.

Fast Forward to late March and the launch of ,The Miranda Project was fast approaching just as my episode aired. I had known it wasn't going to air until 2022 at the time I recorded it, and the timing couldn't have been better I had a great time talking all things fantasy, as well as some D&D as both brothers are writers and into table top RPG's. It's fair to say there was a lot of common ground.

Anyway, here's the podcast episode linked below. I had a great time and it's a pretty quick half hour listen. And stick through to the end when they do a reading of an excerpt of ,The Forbidden Scrolls.

Accepting the End

Four years ago when I started writing ,The Forbidden Scrolls, it's fair to say I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It turned out to be the largest undertaking of my life, outside of raising my son. And much like having a child, I quickly discovered that whatever expectations I had going in meant absolutely nothing once I took to the task.

In the case of ,The Forbidden Scrolls, when I started writing it I assumed it would all be one neat and tidy book. Roughly a third of the way into the first draft I realized I was fooling myself by clinging to any such delusions. I knew from the moment I introduced the idea of the "paladins of the gods" that I was in way over my head. Lucky it turned out I was pretty adept at treading water. I knew as soon as I pushed my laptop away that fateful day that I had a trilogy on my hands. I immediately started brainstorming the next steps in Juliya's journey, and I believe I have a story I would love as a reader out there for all of you to enjoy.

As one might expect, as a fantasy and sci-fi author, it wasn't exactly a surprise that I might someday write a series of books. If you look around those sections of your local bookstore, you'll find the shelves full of epic thousand page novels that are only part one of twelve. It's fair to say that trilogies are almost an expectation in my chosen genres, and that may only be the first of a number of trilogies set in that same world. But I had never set out to write those kinds of stories. I wanted to keep my books accessible to a larger audience, not just to those of us that read the Robert Jordans and George R.R. Martins of the world. Those are without a doubt fantastic novels, yet it's hard to argue that there isn't a barrier to entry for the average reader when you're talking about such a large time commitment in an age where we're all expected to be constantly on the go.

I knew I had a new challenge in front of me. I liked where I was going with my story, but I also knew it went against the types of books I had set out to write. Part of me wanted to cut the entire chapter I'd just poured out and write something else because the concept of committing to an entire trilogy seemed so daunting. But the discovery writer in me took over and off I went, weaving my way across Teren'vei.

And I'm glad I did. The feeling of accomplishment I had the first time I held all three books in my hand at once was one best things I've ever felt in my life.

Juliya's story had been one which had been kicking around in my head for roughly fifteen years before I got serious about writing it down, so I really should not have been surprised at the scope it ended up growing to. When I finished writing my first novel, ,The Stairs in the Woods, this tale felt like the natural place to begin with for my next book. And I truly did pour my heart and soul into this story over all three volumes--which is probably why it felt like such a weight was lifted off my shoulders when I typed "The End" on the Last Sorcerers."

Additionally, I can see how much I have progressed as a writer since I began putting this adventure into words nearly four years ago. I may never be the wordsmith Ursula LeGuinn was. I find my own style to be more workman-like with the occasional turn of phrase that grabs me. as a reader, the most important thing to me is that I find the characters believable and interesting, so that's where I think my own strengths as a writer lie. As writers, we tend to gravitate to the things we enjoy ourselves. But I can see the difference in my prose and how it evolved as the trilogy took shape. My latest book ,The Miranda Project has a completely different voice than this trilogy did, and I believe that's the result of my own growth as a writer in the four years I poured into this series.

This trilogy tackles some heavy subject matter even if it is cloaked in the guise of a fantasy tale. It touches on the dehumanizing effect of racism and how it ties directly to fascism, the desperation of poverty and what one young girl will learn in order to survive, self medication of depression through substance abuse, and so much more. Trying to wrap all that up in the middle of a global pandemic was difficult to say the least. On some days it was impossible to put myself into the chair and write about things that were so horrifyingly relevant to the real world in real time. These events led directly to a larger gap than normal between my books for ,Redemption & Ruin and ,The Last Sorcerers.

Meanwhile Brandon Sanderson was out here writing four whole extra books. To have that kind of superpower. My God.

For now, it's time to say goodbye to the world of Virandia--which is not an easy thing to do. There's so much more to explore, as Teren'vei is just one small isolated continent on the world. I hope someday to come back to this magical place. Between the writing and publishing process, putting this entire trilogy out took four years. And yet I've spent so much of the last twenty years with my head lost in this world. I'm not sure I'm ready to give it up completely. So maybe this is just "goodbye for now." You never know.

In the meantime, I have other tales to tell, such as the rest of the recently released ,The Miranda Project. I've gone and done it again--I started writing another trilogy. I'm hoping to get started on Book Two of The Miranda Project soon, because I've already promised you all two more books in the series. There is also a new fantasy story I've been working on lately. I expect to talk to you all about that a bit more in the not so distant future. I'm looking forward to bringing these stories and more to you, so stay tuned.

The Miranda Project: Available Now!

Somewhere back in 2020, between the launch of ,Redemption & Ruin and when I began working on ,The Last Sorcerers, I began working on a little side project. I intended to finish up my ,Forbidden Scrolls Trilogy before I moved onto anything else, but I was also waiting for book 2 to go through the editing process before I started working on book 3--you know, just in case things were going to have to change. That little side project became ,The Miranda Project. And as of today, it's out and available for the world to see.

And as usual when I start "a little side project," it tends to blossom into oh so much more. In the case of both ,The Forbidden Scrolls and ,The Miranda Project, both began as what I expected to be solo outings and very quickly morphed into trilogies. Though with The Miranda Project, I saw the change happening much, much quicker this time around. In fact, it was long before I finished the 4th or 5th chapter this time that I realized I had far too much material to work with for just one book, but I also knew exactly how I wanted this book to go and how I wanted it to end.

This is also the shortest window between book launches for me, in part because I busted out the first twelve or thirteen chapters of this book before I started working on the last book in my fantasy trilogy and was able to dive right into finishing this up once book book 3 was complete. For the first time ever, I didn't feel rushed to put the finishing touches on a book in the days before it came out, having everything complete nearly a month before launch. Such a strange feeling to be so organized for once.

As usual, I have an entire village of people to thank for getting ,The Miranda Project ready on time, most of whom I address in the book's Acknowledgements. But I'd like to take a second to thank two people in particular: my cover artist and my editor. As usual, Richard Chapman did some amazing work on my cover art. I might even say he's outdone himself this time. From the cover, you feel like you're actually standing on the moon of Miranda and looking up at Uranus. And Vanessa Redmon did a phenomenal job not just in editing this book, but in getting it back to me quick enough that I could actually relax through some of the process for a change.

As for what's next, I'm working on another fantasy tale and am already in the planning stages of TMP2. I also have a short story that I've written that I still need to edit. So here's hoping I have something new for you to read soon. In the meantime, enjoy ,The Miranda Project. You may need to hold o for dear life with this one...

New Merch Shop Items Are Here!

If you're as excited about the upcoming release of ,The Miranda Project as I am, you'll want to get your hands on some of the new items in my ,RedBubble Merch shop! I've got two new designs in there to show off. One with the logo for the book, the other of the cover. Both designs are available on a variety of products, from t-shirts, to phone cases, to stickers.

I may have already ordered myself a few items, the shirt above included. And as I do with every book I release, I picked up the canvas print to hang on my wall. It's a great way to celebrate the big win that is putting a new novel out into the world.

In addition to the new stuff, there's plenty of gear for my ,Forbidden Scrolls Trilogy, as Well as my first book, ,The Stairs in the Woods. There's also plenty of gear that's themed for my fellow authors, as well as some table top gaming merch as well.

As for myself, I'm putting the finishing touches on ,The Miranda Project before it releases on April 5th. I received my proof copy yesterday and have already been thumbing through it to make sure it's one hundred percent ready to go! I have to say, it looks great up on the shelf next to my other novels. And the old Autumn Nights anthology I was in is only a few books down.

For those of you who don't already know, my mother is also a published author. And that's her book The ,Oathing Stone right between Ray Bradbury and myself. I still need to read her second book, ,Napoyca Awakened, so it's in my massive "to be read" pile. I look forward to to it sharing that space up there with mine fairly soon.

As for my latest release, the eBook of ,The Miranda Project is available for preorder now, and the paperback and hardback will be available on the day of release. I hope you enjoy this fresh foray into science fiction along with me.

The Miranda Project: Coming April 5th

Just because I've been quiet on the old blogosphere doesn't mean I haven't been hard at work on my latest project. And now I'm please to announce that The Miranda Project will be available on eBook, Paperback, and Hardback on April 5th, 2022! In fact, you can already ,preorder the eBook here! Thanks to the way Amazon does things, the Paperback and Hardback can't be set up for preorder, but will be available on the day of release.

On top of that, I've got the cover reveal for you! Take a look below:

My artist, Richard at ,@FantasyMapInk on Instagram, has outdone himself this time. In the cover above, you can see the planet Uranus in the sky from the surface of one of its moons, Miranda. Needless to say, this place plays an important part in the tale. To say much more would be to swerve into spoiler territory, and I wouldn't do that to you.

As for the story itself, T he Miranda Project started to take shape on the page between when I finished ,Redemption & Ruin and when I started on ,The Last Sorcerers. I didn't want to start on part three of my ,Forbidden Scrolls Trilogy while part two was still in editing, lest I have to change a bunch of things in two books instead of just the one.

As it turned out, I'd already had the main character for The Miranda Project floating around in the back of my head for a while. I tend to start with creating a character and a situation first and then weaving the tale around that. As such, it seemed like the right thing to start on.

I shelved this manuscript for a while as I worked on finishing up The Last Sorcerers, but that meant I had a head start on this book when my fantasy trilogy was complete. That's how I was able to get The Miranda Project out much sooner than my normal pace.

The concept behind The Miranda Project takes a little bit from a handful of influences and jams them together into a story all its own. When the story begins, Alex is hiding out on Mars and on the run from The Agency. Like Alex, all agents have psionic powers of some sort. Most are telepaths or telekinetics. Alex, on the other hand, is a teleporter.

Basically, he's Nightcrawler from the X-Men with the training of Jason Bourne.

The process of writing The Miranda Project was drastically different than writing my previous fantasy novels. Because the entire story is set in real places in our solar system, I had to do a ton of research in order to get the world-building just right. I had to learn about things like terraforming, the distance between asteroids in the asteroid belt, and the landscape of various moons throughout the solar system. Even still, I would consider this more of an Action/Adventure story set in space than a hard sci-fi tale. The science is important, but it takes a back seat to the characters and the story.

This book is also a bit more fast-paced than my previous works. It's also a little shorter than the 100K word average of my fantasy tales, clocking in at about 75K. That being said, I'm very proud of this story and am look forward to bringing you the rest of the tale.

As far as when the rest of the tale is coming, that I cannot say. Yet. I'm hard at work on something right now, but I'm waiting on starting on part two of The Miranda Project until I get a little bit closer to the release date. In the meantime, I'm working on another fantasy tale. This time it's something a little bit darker...

In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy ,The Miranda Project. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks when it comes out on April 5th!

And yes, I may have scheduled the release date right at the beginning of Indie April on purpose...

Coming Soon: The Miranda Project

Last night I got to type every writers two favorite words on my latest book, The Miranda Project. Those two words are of course, "The End." This is the fifth book I've finished now, and that feeling never gets old. The only thing better as an author is holding the final product in your hands.

For those of you who are used to a certain type of book from me, The Miranda Project is a bit of a deviation. Rather than fantasy, this story is sci-fi. And while the two genres are usually crammed together into the same section of the book store, they do have some significant differences as well. Luckily, they often have a very similar audience. So I'm hoping those of you who have enjoyed my other books are willing to give this one the old college try. As usual, I've tried to keep the story as accessible to new audiences as I can, while still keeping it rooted in the genre it calls home.

Much like ,The Forbidden Scrolls, The Miranda Project is the first entry in a larger narrative. My expectation is this will also be a trilogy of books. It takes place in the future and follows the tale of a man named Alex who is on the run from the shadowy government agency he used to work for. Each member of this agency has psionic powers like telepathy, telekinesis, etc. Alex's power is teleportation, and it's extremely rare.

Alex's journey in The Miranda Project begins on Mars, hiding out among the workers trying to terraform the Red Planet. Throughout the story, readers will learn what turned him against the organization he used to work for and why he's on the run. They'll get a look inside of his broken mind and learn why he has flashback-like dreams that keep him up at night.

All told, I'm extremely exited to bring the first chapter of this trilogy to you all as soon as I can. While the first draft is done, there are still countless revisions, edits, beta reads, and more edits to do before I'll be comfortable enough to release it out into the world. I'm also looking forward to working with my cover artist and seeing what kind of vision we can put together for you all to see.

In the meantime, I hope you're all doing well and riding out the storm of this pandemic as safely as possible.

Until next time...

The Last Sorcerers Now Available!

It's officially September 21st, and ,The Last Sorcerers is officially out and into the world! Sort of. I've still got a long night ahead of me, but by the time you read this it'll be tomorrow. I'll still be up at midnight to great the new day and to watch the preorders fly out to a Kindle near you. Time is one of the great illusions though, so let's play pretend and ignore the clock on the wall.

,The Last Sorcerers is the final chapter of my ,Forbidden Scrolls Trilogy. When I first started writing the first book in the series, I had no idea that it was going to be a trilogy. I fully intended ,The Forbidden Scrolls to be a stand alone novel when I began writing it. Instead, I discovered around chapter 21 that I was in for a much longer haul.

Having never considered writing a trilogy before, I had no idea what I was in for. All I knew was that I couldn't do the story the proper justice by forcing it into one book. Nor was I willing to put out a thousand page monster of a book for my second outing. Instead, I decided to write like acts of a larger play, each with its own beginning, middle, and end.

,The Forbidden Scrolls was all about introducing the characters and the stakes of the story. It was also primarily about Juliya's journey home to the city of Felbreach. This was the place where she was raised, and where she became the person who we meet at the beginning of the book. It's a place that is unkind to people like Juliya. The city's nobility place a premium on purity of blood, and Juliya is a half-elf. Through no fault of her own, simply the happenstance of her birth, Juliya was forced to live in the city's slums and to fend for herself at a young age. She had sworn never to return to this place, and yet the events of the story bring her back home.

,Redemption & Ruin is a true middle act, and middle acts are hard. I'm pretty proud of this one though. It's the chase scene that picks where the first act ends, as well as the book where all of the major characters come together as one group. We learn a number of secrets in this book, and go to some magical places. And as the title implies, things go poorly for our heroes.

,The Last Sorcerers is the book that brings is all home. It's the thrilling climax to the story, yet it teases a larger world that exists beyond the shores the characters know. I can't wait for you all to find out how it ends.

Now just because this book is now officially available, that doesn't mean that I'm by any means done with all of you. I have a new project in the works that I'm already about 22,500 words deep into my next project. And I hope to take you to more strange new worlds in the future.

Thank you all for helping me make this dream come true.

Introducing The Last Sorcerers

It's been quite some time since I posted a blog. I keep telling myself that I need to get better at this part of the author gig, but always find myself prioritizing other things. Specifically the writing, revising, and editing process.

Thankfully, prioritizing those things allows me to bring you new books! And Hopefully that's the content you came here looking for anyway. And luckily for you, I've been hard at work on finishing off my epic sword and sorcery Forbidden Scrolls trilogy.

As such, I'm pleased to announce that the final chapter of the saga, ,The Last Sorcerers, will be available on September 21st! The eBook is already available for ,preorder on Amazon, so go ahead and snatch it up!

But that's not the only big news related to my books. With the launch of ,The Last Sorcerers, I'll also be releasing second editions of both ,The Forbidden Scrolls and ,Redemption & Ruin. Both books will be reformatted for a cleaner interior look. They're all also getting a once over from my new editor Vanessa Redmon to clean up any typos or other mistakes that may have slipped through the cracks. Additionally, all three books in the Forbidden Scrolls Trilogy will be available in hardback for the first time on Sept 21st, meaning that those of you that love hardbacks can finally pick up those physical copies for that bookshelf bling.

But wait, there's more!

In addition to being available on Amazon, I'll be going wide and taking the trilogy to Barnes & Noble as well. Having the eBooks anywhere other than Amazon of course means that they will no longer be eligible for Kindle Unlimited, but I feel like having my books available on more outlets outweighs that negative. I'd like to also get them available on a number of other platforms, but I'll be taking it one new place at a time for the sake of my own sanity.

As for ,The Stairs in the Woods, I do expect that in the long run, I will also take it wide to other distributors. But for now, I will be leaving it as an Amazon exclusive and keeping it enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

All in all, it's a lot going on. But I'm extremely excited to bring it all to you in just over three weeks!