Josh Hilden's Blog, page 27
March 29, 2013
RED ALERT!
I just wanted to write a quick post to inform you guys of something awesome. Starting tomorrow and for five full days the first volume of the Shores of the Dead Series (The Rising) will be FREE on the Kindle.
(www.shoresofthedead.com)
I have been hard at work on the final rewrites of book three (The Final Stand) over the last week. It will be released on May 1st. I have also been working on the short story anthology (Interludes: Tales from the Shores of the Dead) which still needs to be edited and assembled for a tentative August release.
Hopefully before Gen Con.
That’s it kids just a quick update. Also don’t forget to check out this week’s Free Story Friday offering. It is a finished chapter from my next book “Summer Camp of the Dead”.
(www.freestoryfriday.com)
- Josh
(www.shoresofthedead.com)
I have been hard at work on the final rewrites of book three (The Final Stand) over the last week. It will be released on May 1st. I have also been working on the short story anthology (Interludes: Tales from the Shores of the Dead) which still needs to be edited and assembled for a tentative August release.
Hopefully before Gen Con.
That’s it kids just a quick update. Also don’t forget to check out this week’s Free Story Friday offering. It is a finished chapter from my next book “Summer Camp of the Dead”.
(www.freestoryfriday.com)
- Josh
March 26, 2013
Be sure you want to know
Earlier today I posted a graphic on Facebook instructing people on how they can best help their favorite indie authors on Amazon. The gist of the graphic was these six easy steps.
1. Buy the Book
2. Share “I Bought the Book”
3. Write a Review
4. Like it
5. Tag it
6. Share the Link
I thought, and still think, that it is a pretty cool graphic.
Then a friend asked the hypothetical question, “What if I don’t like the book?”
That made me scratch my head for a second and then I told him that if it’s one of my books I would prefer he not negatively review it but if he did I would hope that he would be fair. I have received more than a few negative reviews but I respect the ones that are fair and constructive as opposed to the …
YOU SUCK AND YOU SHOULD DIE AND YOUR LINE SHOULD BE ERASED FOR SEVEN GENERATIONS!!!
… type.
Reviews help, reviews make me happy, reviews are the Crack of my writing world. But in the immortal words of the amazing Will Wheaton, fuck you I love him, “Don’t be a Dick.”
- Josh
1. Buy the Book
2. Share “I Bought the Book”
3. Write a Review
4. Like it
5. Tag it
6. Share the Link
I thought, and still think, that it is a pretty cool graphic.
Then a friend asked the hypothetical question, “What if I don’t like the book?”
That made me scratch my head for a second and then I told him that if it’s one of my books I would prefer he not negatively review it but if he did I would hope that he would be fair. I have received more than a few negative reviews but I respect the ones that are fair and constructive as opposed to the …
YOU SUCK AND YOU SHOULD DIE AND YOUR LINE SHOULD BE ERASED FOR SEVEN GENERATIONS!!!
… type.
Reviews help, reviews make me happy, reviews are the Crack of my writing world. But in the immortal words of the amazing Will Wheaton, fuck you I love him, “Don’t be a Dick.”
- Josh
March 25, 2013
Lost Manuscripts and Vomit Pots
It has been a busy, and very stressful, weekend for Old Josh.
On Friday I nearly had a heart attack when I realized that I had accidentally deleted my only copy of the edited version of Book Three of the Shores of the Dead Series. Yes I know I am usually extremely anal about making multiple copies of everything but for some reason when I received the finished file last fall all I did was download it to my documents and then give it a read through. I never uploaded it to cloud storage and I never placed it on any external storage device. Then I deleted the email containing the file instead of saving it. That would be alright except about a month ago I did a massive purge of unneeded stuff on my computer … and the file was tossed out with the crap.
Yes … sometimes I am a complete dumbass.
In desperation I emailed my editor in hopes that she retained a copy. Needless to say since I have not killed myself or gone into seclusion on some far mountain peak that Marla had a copy and saved the fucking day. That woman is professional, organized, and efficient.
I left work on Friday feeling giddy with relief.
When I arrived home it was to find the baby sick and miserable. She was congested and had a slight fever and she was sleeping fitfully. We were woken at about three in the morning to her crying for mama and we brought her into bed with us, something we had not done in a very long time.
She woke up crying about forty minutes later and puked her way down the hall to the bathroom. She actually held most of it in and made it to toilet. She spent all day Saturday carrying around a little stainless steel pot to vomit in just in case but we never had another incident. But she was still miserable. She slept with us again on Saturday and in Sunday she was still feeling punky but she was a hundred times better.
Daddy on the other hand was not.
Friends and admires I spent all of Sunday night into the wee hours of Monday morning puking my proverbial guts out. I was miserable and you would think that all of the puke would mean I got a paid day off from work (which means they charge my accumulated personal time) to relax in. But alas this for me was a 12 hour bug and when it was time for me to make way to the acid mines I was feeling relatively decent.
Now for a bit of news on the publishing front, it looks like I will some relatively high profile advertising lined up in April. Not sure I should say too much about it but needless to say I am a bit nervous and excited.
That’s it for today my Survivors and Victims, remember to make sure they are dead and shoot them in the head.
- Josh
On Friday I nearly had a heart attack when I realized that I had accidentally deleted my only copy of the edited version of Book Three of the Shores of the Dead Series. Yes I know I am usually extremely anal about making multiple copies of everything but for some reason when I received the finished file last fall all I did was download it to my documents and then give it a read through. I never uploaded it to cloud storage and I never placed it on any external storage device. Then I deleted the email containing the file instead of saving it. That would be alright except about a month ago I did a massive purge of unneeded stuff on my computer … and the file was tossed out with the crap.
Yes … sometimes I am a complete dumbass.
In desperation I emailed my editor in hopes that she retained a copy. Needless to say since I have not killed myself or gone into seclusion on some far mountain peak that Marla had a copy and saved the fucking day. That woman is professional, organized, and efficient.
I left work on Friday feeling giddy with relief.
When I arrived home it was to find the baby sick and miserable. She was congested and had a slight fever and she was sleeping fitfully. We were woken at about three in the morning to her crying for mama and we brought her into bed with us, something we had not done in a very long time.
She woke up crying about forty minutes later and puked her way down the hall to the bathroom. She actually held most of it in and made it to toilet. She spent all day Saturday carrying around a little stainless steel pot to vomit in just in case but we never had another incident. But she was still miserable. She slept with us again on Saturday and in Sunday she was still feeling punky but she was a hundred times better.
Daddy on the other hand was not.
Friends and admires I spent all of Sunday night into the wee hours of Monday morning puking my proverbial guts out. I was miserable and you would think that all of the puke would mean I got a paid day off from work (which means they charge my accumulated personal time) to relax in. But alas this for me was a 12 hour bug and when it was time for me to make way to the acid mines I was feeling relatively decent.
Now for a bit of news on the publishing front, it looks like I will some relatively high profile advertising lined up in April. Not sure I should say too much about it but needless to say I am a bit nervous and excited.
That’s it for today my Survivors and Victims, remember to make sure they are dead and shoot them in the head.
- Josh
February 19, 2013
Welcome to Free Story Fridays!
I have decided that I need a kick in the slats, a type of writing workout every week if you will. Therefore starting this week I am going to start releasing a one short story (with a minimum of 500 to 5000 words) every week. I see this as treating my writing as a real job, I will be holding myself to this schedule by making it a promise to my readers.
The Story release will work like this. I will post the story on my personal website for free with a PayPal donation Link. You can donate as little or as much as you would like and I will be using these funds to support future self published works. Upon the release of the next free short story I will be migrating the previous story to Kindle for a flat $0.99 (that is as low as Amazon will allow me to charge).
This is not begging for money!
I am providing a FREE product for one week and then if you enjoy it a payment would be appreciated but not expected.
The first Free Story Friday selection will be released this week!
Please bookmark www.freestoryfriday.wordpress.com and check it every Friday afternoon if you are interested in sampling my work.
- Josh
The Story release will work like this. I will post the story on my personal website for free with a PayPal donation Link. You can donate as little or as much as you would like and I will be using these funds to support future self published works. Upon the release of the next free short story I will be migrating the previous story to Kindle for a flat $0.99 (that is as low as Amazon will allow me to charge).
This is not begging for money!
I am providing a FREE product for one week and then if you enjoy it a payment would be appreciated but not expected.
The first Free Story Friday selection will be released this week!
Please bookmark www.freestoryfriday.wordpress.com and check it every Friday afternoon if you are interested in sampling my work.
- Josh
January 16, 2013
A Brand New Day … well kind of
Today has been productive and frustrating.
I wrote about 600 words on the new project for Fat Goblin Games. It is nowhere near the 2000 words I shoot for whenever I sit down to write or the 1500 I settle for. But it was all solid writing and I don’t believe I will be trashing any of it in rewrites so there is that.
But I have made a big change to my online presence. I have migrated Joshhilden.com to a new host and have completely redesigned the site over the last week. It is now up and running and I am more than pleased with it. The redesigned site looks more professional and is easier to use in my opinion.
But the big thing I accomplished today is the cover for The Shores of the Dead Book Two: The Journey.
I am more than pleased with this cover and am hard at work with the formatting of the interior and preparing for the upload.
The book MAY be available before the end of the month!
Well that’s it, nothing more to see here, go home … NOW!!!
Josh
I wrote about 600 words on the new project for Fat Goblin Games. It is nowhere near the 2000 words I shoot for whenever I sit down to write or the 1500 I settle for. But it was all solid writing and I don’t believe I will be trashing any of it in rewrites so there is that.
But I have made a big change to my online presence. I have migrated Joshhilden.com to a new host and have completely redesigned the site over the last week. It is now up and running and I am more than pleased with it. The redesigned site looks more professional and is easier to use in my opinion.
But the big thing I accomplished today is the cover for The Shores of the Dead Book Two: The Journey.
I am more than pleased with this cover and am hard at work with the formatting of the interior and preparing for the upload.
The book MAY be available before the end of the month!
Well that’s it, nothing more to see here, go home … NOW!!!
Josh
January 15, 2013
And Now Cover Number Two Electric Boogaloo!!!
We now have a cover image for book two of the Shores of the Dead Series and it looks fantastic!
Some of you may have noticed that the artistic style of the new cover is very different form the art that graced the cover of Book One. The change has nothing to do with the quality and awesomeness of the first cover, I loved the original cover from the second I saw it and I still do. The original cover was done by the ever amazing Mike Mumah. Mike and I met when we were both working for Palladium Books, me as a writer and Mike as an artist, and even though I have long since severed my connection to the company we stayed in touch.
Mike has always been one of my favorite artists in the business. When my best friend got married several years ago I commissioned Mike to create the gift that I presented them. And last summer when I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and strike out on my own in the publishing game it was Mike that I turned to to create the covers for the Shores of the Dead trilogy.
Mike turned in the awesome first cover and was plowing hard into the second and third covers when the unthinkable happened. Just before Christmas Mike suffered a stroke and has since been fighting the effects coupled with a case of bacterial meningitis. He is a fighter and seems to making progress inch by inch but this calamity forced my hand when it became crystal clear that Mike would no longer be able to finish the covers for the series.
It was a crushing blow.
I put off the search for a new artist for weeks and I refused to believe that I would need one. But in the end I knew there was only one person that wanted to finish this project with.
I met Bradley McDevitt when we were both working on another project for a publisher that went turtle and allowed the project to whither. The disappointing experience did have the upside of introducing me to Brad. Brads style reminds me of Vince Locke (Deadworld, Sandman, and the album artist for Cannibal Corpse) who I have admired since I was a kid.
When I asked Brad if he would take on the project, he is an extremely prolific freelance artist, he jumped on it. In less than a full week he was finished and the end product blew me away. He saved my bacon and did it with style.
I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.
Some of you may have noticed that the artistic style of the new cover is very different form the art that graced the cover of Book One. The change has nothing to do with the quality and awesomeness of the first cover, I loved the original cover from the second I saw it and I still do. The original cover was done by the ever amazing Mike Mumah. Mike and I met when we were both working for Palladium Books, me as a writer and Mike as an artist, and even though I have long since severed my connection to the company we stayed in touch.
Mike has always been one of my favorite artists in the business. When my best friend got married several years ago I commissioned Mike to create the gift that I presented them. And last summer when I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and strike out on my own in the publishing game it was Mike that I turned to to create the covers for the Shores of the Dead trilogy.
Mike turned in the awesome first cover and was plowing hard into the second and third covers when the unthinkable happened. Just before Christmas Mike suffered a stroke and has since been fighting the effects coupled with a case of bacterial meningitis. He is a fighter and seems to making progress inch by inch but this calamity forced my hand when it became crystal clear that Mike would no longer be able to finish the covers for the series.
It was a crushing blow.
I put off the search for a new artist for weeks and I refused to believe that I would need one. But in the end I knew there was only one person that wanted to finish this project with.
I met Bradley McDevitt when we were both working on another project for a publisher that went turtle and allowed the project to whither. The disappointing experience did have the upside of introducing me to Brad. Brads style reminds me of Vince Locke (Deadworld, Sandman, and the album artist for Cannibal Corpse) who I have admired since I was a kid.
When I asked Brad if he would take on the project, he is an extremely prolific freelance artist, he jumped on it. In less than a full week he was finished and the end product blew me away. He saved my bacon and did it with style.
I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.
December 27, 2012
Learning As I Go
I never claimed to know what the hell I was doing when it came to assembling and publishing my own book but in the end I think I did OK with my first stab. I have received personal feedback that has been overwhelmingly positive but the first two reviews on Amazon were atrocious. They were both one star reviews and were confusing as hell. The first was from a guy who did not finish the first chapter, decided he was bored, and then decided that was enough to give a one star review. I have a serious problem with that but he did it and I moved on. The second was from a woman who claimed she had finished it and hated every second of it. The language she used and the things that she decided to bitch about did not lend themselves to a review it read more like the angry tirade of a child who enjoys trying to make people kill themselves. I really just need to ask this wonderful human being one question.
Where is your book that I can read and review?
Well?
I am fucking waiting?
That’s what I thought, moving on.
But that is not to say that serious critiques (I hate the word criticism) are not extremely helpful. A good friend of mine, who is also a writer I respect a lot, gave me some really good notes on the book and I have taken them to heart. There grammatical and structural things in the book that I will not tackling in any near future updates but there are quite a few layout problems that needed to be addressed.
But first the short back story.
My original editor flaked out on me less than three weeks before the release date of the book. I posted a plea and a wonderful woman (Marla) responded and powered through the book doing an amazing editing job. Seriously kids you should see the redline copy she sent me, she is a fantastic editor. But it is my job to proofread and layout the final copy.
I dropped the ball.
I did a rush skim, pasted the file into the Create Space template, and then gave one more quick skim. Then I uploaded the file, uploaded the converted Kindle Format file without even opening it, and called it good.
Like I said, I dropped the ball.
Tonight I finished a cleanup job on the files and re-uploaded them. It looks better and I can try to return my attention to other projects. So I am content with the new edition and think that others will be too. There are always going to be errors, I dare anyone to show me a book that does not have errors in it. Nothing is ever perfect and I am not going to lose sleep or think that my creation is “Pathetic and Unreadable” because there are some errors.
Life is too short.
But I do need to remember that critiques from trusted sources are necessary and useful. Without feedback it is infinitely harder to hone your craft, but there is a huge difference between critiquing and being an asshole.
That’s all.
Where is your book that I can read and review?
Well?
I am fucking waiting?
That’s what I thought, moving on.
But that is not to say that serious critiques (I hate the word criticism) are not extremely helpful. A good friend of mine, who is also a writer I respect a lot, gave me some really good notes on the book and I have taken them to heart. There grammatical and structural things in the book that I will not tackling in any near future updates but there are quite a few layout problems that needed to be addressed.
But first the short back story.
My original editor flaked out on me less than three weeks before the release date of the book. I posted a plea and a wonderful woman (Marla) responded and powered through the book doing an amazing editing job. Seriously kids you should see the redline copy she sent me, she is a fantastic editor. But it is my job to proofread and layout the final copy.
I dropped the ball.
I did a rush skim, pasted the file into the Create Space template, and then gave one more quick skim. Then I uploaded the file, uploaded the converted Kindle Format file without even opening it, and called it good.
Like I said, I dropped the ball.
Tonight I finished a cleanup job on the files and re-uploaded them. It looks better and I can try to return my attention to other projects. So I am content with the new edition and think that others will be too. There are always going to be errors, I dare anyone to show me a book that does not have errors in it. Nothing is ever perfect and I am not going to lose sleep or think that my creation is “Pathetic and Unreadable” because there are some errors.
Life is too short.
But I do need to remember that critiques from trusted sources are necessary and useful. Without feedback it is infinitely harder to hone your craft, but there is a huge difference between critiquing and being an asshole.
That’s all.
December 17, 2012
Fuck Me … I Guess I Can Cope!
What is this?
A new Blog?
But we thought that your fat ass had died and been left for the coyotes!
Nope Boils and Ghouls, I have just been really busy. Old Josh has published a novel, a novella, and a short story since my last Blog Post. I have been neglectful but productive. I have also been working on a really big project for Fat Goblin Games that I cannot talk about yet but that I am really excited about.
But I am not writing this to talk about the work I have been doing, I am writing about how I have been coping from the major changes that I made in my life at the beginning of the summer. As you may remember in early May my doctor put me on a regime of antidepressants and mood stabilizers she also told me that I if I was not going to see a therapist I should start journaling and allow people to read what I write. What resulted was over sixty thousand words and the complete alienation and in some cases out right hatred of a sizeable segment of my family. I have been shunned, I have been verbally assaulted, and I have been threatened with lawsuits by people that do not know their asshole from a hole in the ground. But then the most important person in my life (who is not my wife or one of my children) told me that they were proud of me.
Fuck everyone else if they can’t handle it.
Except for a few tugs of sadness I have been handling it and feeling a 100 times better about myself. In the last few weeks there have been trials, the ceiling in my kitchen collapsed due to leaks and we were without a toilet for three days, my car broke down in Michigan and I will not be able to fix it till tax returns at this point, my cell phone is turned off, and we have little money for Christmas and no presents bought.
I am not freaking out.
I am not happy about any of this but I a handling it. I am seeing the perspective and recognizing the good things in my life. The ceiling and toilet are fixed, my car is at my Brother Bill’s house, my wife and kids still have phone service, and we do have some money for Christmas. I have in no way lost my Christmas spirit and am looking forward to our annual get together with my kids and baby brother.
That’s right, Josh has learned to fucking cope.
But … there is one thing.
Christmas was always me and my dad’s holiday. As a teenager my favorite thing was going out on Christmas Eve Morning and shopping with my dad. Dad always had the Christmas spirit there was always Christmas music and a lot of fucking cheer in the house despite the presence of the Step Monster. Dad knew how to do Christmas and understood that stopping to enjoy the lights before we opened the presents was important.
I have not talked to Dad since the unpleasantness began. I am not sure why he is mad or what he is mad about, oh I have my suspicions but when the only person that has spoken to me is my angry mom I tend to reserve speculation. I called him on Father’s Day and he dodged my call, he sent me a birthday card but did not call. I have just mailed him a card today for Christmas but I won’t be calling him on Christmas Day. I have no desire to have a fight on Christmas Day when I am with MY kids.
I have no idea how long this will continue, like I said I have an idea what it’s about and if I am right it may be years. But I truly do miss my dad.
But I am coping and I will never apologize just to make things easier and grease the squeaky wheels.
A new Blog?
But we thought that your fat ass had died and been left for the coyotes!
Nope Boils and Ghouls, I have just been really busy. Old Josh has published a novel, a novella, and a short story since my last Blog Post. I have been neglectful but productive. I have also been working on a really big project for Fat Goblin Games that I cannot talk about yet but that I am really excited about.
But I am not writing this to talk about the work I have been doing, I am writing about how I have been coping from the major changes that I made in my life at the beginning of the summer. As you may remember in early May my doctor put me on a regime of antidepressants and mood stabilizers she also told me that I if I was not going to see a therapist I should start journaling and allow people to read what I write. What resulted was over sixty thousand words and the complete alienation and in some cases out right hatred of a sizeable segment of my family. I have been shunned, I have been verbally assaulted, and I have been threatened with lawsuits by people that do not know their asshole from a hole in the ground. But then the most important person in my life (who is not my wife or one of my children) told me that they were proud of me.
Fuck everyone else if they can’t handle it.
Except for a few tugs of sadness I have been handling it and feeling a 100 times better about myself. In the last few weeks there have been trials, the ceiling in my kitchen collapsed due to leaks and we were without a toilet for three days, my car broke down in Michigan and I will not be able to fix it till tax returns at this point, my cell phone is turned off, and we have little money for Christmas and no presents bought.
I am not freaking out.
I am not happy about any of this but I a handling it. I am seeing the perspective and recognizing the good things in my life. The ceiling and toilet are fixed, my car is at my Brother Bill’s house, my wife and kids still have phone service, and we do have some money for Christmas. I have in no way lost my Christmas spirit and am looking forward to our annual get together with my kids and baby brother.
That’s right, Josh has learned to fucking cope.
But … there is one thing.
Christmas was always me and my dad’s holiday. As a teenager my favorite thing was going out on Christmas Eve Morning and shopping with my dad. Dad always had the Christmas spirit there was always Christmas music and a lot of fucking cheer in the house despite the presence of the Step Monster. Dad knew how to do Christmas and understood that stopping to enjoy the lights before we opened the presents was important.
I have not talked to Dad since the unpleasantness began. I am not sure why he is mad or what he is mad about, oh I have my suspicions but when the only person that has spoken to me is my angry mom I tend to reserve speculation. I called him on Father’s Day and he dodged my call, he sent me a birthday card but did not call. I have just mailed him a card today for Christmas but I won’t be calling him on Christmas Day. I have no desire to have a fight on Christmas Day when I am with MY kids.
I have no idea how long this will continue, like I said I have an idea what it’s about and if I am right it may be years. But I truly do miss my dad.
But I am coping and I will never apologize just to make things easier and grease the squeaky wheels.
November 22, 2012
The "Dead Tree" Edition is here!
Don't own a Kindle but still desire a good zombie yarn for the holidays?
Well fear not, now on Thanksgiving Day (in the states) the paperback edition of The Shores of the Dead Book One: The Rising is available!
$12.85 on Amazon (the lowest price I was allowed to post it for) for 358 pages of Zombie awesomeness!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shores-Dead...
Well fear not, now on Thanksgiving Day (in the states) the paperback edition of The Shores of the Dead Book One: The Rising is available!
$12.85 on Amazon (the lowest price I was allowed to post it for) for 358 pages of Zombie awesomeness!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shores-Dead...
November 21, 2012
Big Announcement!!!
IT'S HERE!!!
The Kindle edition of the fist book of The Shores of the Dead Trilogy is available for purchase! The paperback edition will be available in a few days but this one is only $0.99!
That's right kids just $0.99!
Read it! Love it! It will change your life!!!
:P
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shores-Dead...
The Kindle edition of the fist book of The Shores of the Dead Trilogy is available for purchase! The paperback edition will be available in a few days but this one is only $0.99!
That's right kids just $0.99!
Read it! Love it! It will change your life!!!
:P
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shores-Dead...
