Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 108
July 13, 2021
Episode 85: Direct Ebook Sales Experiment
In this week’s episode, I look at the advantages and pitfalls of selling ebooks direct, and answer reader questions about CLOAK MAGE and ereader devices.
In a darkly amusing twist, the entire Amazon website stopped working for a while on Sunday night, which sort of bolsters one of my arguments in the show about backup sales channels. 
As always, you can listen to the show on Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Amazon Music.
-JM
July 12, 2021
Sign up for my newsletter and get a free short story!
Sign up for my new-release newsletter, and you’ll get a free copy of the short story JUNKYARD WOLVES via Bookfunnel link or Smashwords coupon code when CLOAK OF BLADES comes out.
If all goes well, CLOAK OF BLADES should be out either the last week of July or the first week of August.
-JM
July 10, 2021
CLOAK OF BLADES rough draft done!
I am pleased to report that the rough draft of CLOAK OF BLADES is done!
You can see the cover image below.
It is an interesting milestone. The last CLOAK MAGE book, CLOAK OF ASHES, came out when The Virus was really ramping up and everything was falling apart. Now we seemed to have reached the “muddling along and learning to live with it” phase, so it’s odd to reflect how books can reflect different segments of one’s life.
Anyway! Next up is the short story JUNKYARD WOLVES, which newsletter subscribers will get for free when CLOAK OF BLADES comes out. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter!
-JM
July 9, 2021
CLOAK OF BLADES progress update
Now on Chapter 18 of 20 of CLOAK OF BLADES, so I should be able to finish up the rough draft soon.
A few people have asked if there will be a bonus short story for newsletter subscribers.
Indeed there will! It will be called JUNKYARD WOLVES, and take place between CLOAK OF ASHES and CLOAK OF BLADES. Nadia spends most of the time between ASHES and BLADES helping the Shadow Hunters track down monsters, and JUNKYARD WOLVES will describe one such incident.
-JM
July 8, 2021
Nadia Moran, Powerful Characters, and Cultivation Fantasy
Ben writes to say:
“I just love the Nadia moran books. I don’t know what it is about them but this series is in my top three and I read ALOT. This is one of those series that is so cool because you can go back and reread them later on and their just as good. Also the books just have a great “flow” to them. One of the things I love about these books is the lore consistency. Nadia’s power level for example doesn’t wildly change for no reason in order to add tension. It’s amazing how many authors do that in books.”
Thanks, Ben! Glad you are enjoying the books!
I get emails about Nadia and the “power level” thing quite a lot. Apparently the power scale problem happens rather frequently in contemporary fantasy.
I suspect that has something to do with the way Chinese fantasy has been strongly influencing Western fantasy over the last few years, especially with the new “LitRPG” and “webnovel” genres that are becoming more popular.
In particular, I think this is the influence of “cultivation” fantasy showing.
If you’re not familiar with it, “cultivation” fantasy is a subset of a Chinese fantasy genre called xianxia. Xianxia centers around the efforts of protagonists to become immortal beings called “xian”, and along the way they develop supernatural powers and super strength and super speed. The protagonists attain these remarkable abilities through a process called “cultivation”, which from what I understand is a form of meditation that lets them attune themselves to the universe, though evil cultivators can steal energy from others rather than gaining their powers through virtuous meditation. (I am probably oversimplifying here.) You can see how this would map well into a LitRPG structure, where the genre convention is that the characters advance in power and increase their stats. Of course, genres hardly exist in a vacuum, and ideas from one frequently cross-pollinate into others. So I suspect we will see xianxia conventions – powerful characters seeking to become more power – appearing more and more in Western fantasy. (If you doubt that this style of storytelling is becoming more popular in the US, then look at Kindle Vella, which Amazon is clearly starting to compete in that space.)
But let us return to the original point! Nadia’s power level doesn’t “wildly change for no reason in order to add tension.” There is a simple secret to creating dramatic tension for a powerful character, and I will share it with you now.
Not every kind of power is useful in every situation.
Simple examples will demonstrate the point. A man who can bench press 350 lbs is powerful, but that won’t be helpful when he’s calculating his quarterly taxes. A man who can figure out his quarterly taxes in his head is intellectually powerful, but that won’t be helpful when he needs to get a couch up a narrow apartment stairwell. An extroverted woman with a lot of friends is socially powerful, but that won’t do her any good if she’s in a plane crash and finds herself alone in the wilderness. A lot of dramatic tension can be generated from these situations, where the characters will have to apply lateral thinking to solve the conflict. Like, maybe the smart man offers to do the strong man’s taxes in exchange for help getting the couch up the stairs.
You can see how this can apply in a fantasy story. A powerful wizard might find himself in trouble because he is so tactless that he offends people easily. (Morvilind had this problem.) A mighty swordsman could hew his way through any number of goblins and orcs, but find himself tongue-tied and outmaneuvered by a beautiful queen who befriends all his enemies. An elderly king might be too decrepit to lift a sword, but that wouldn’t matter if he snaps his fingers and a dozen knights rush to cut down someone who annoys him.
For that matter, one of the general tropes of xianxia is that the protagonists wish to acquire more power. In the Western imagination, that generally equates to someone like Sauron or Thanos. But what if a powerful character isn’t interested in political power or the trappings of authority? Delaxsicoria in CLOAK OF DRAGONS is powerful enough to conquer a small nation on her own, but she doesn’t want to do that. She wants to make music, collect pretty things, and generally be admired by humans. Ruling a nation would take time away from her songwriting! The quest for additional power doesn’t interest her, which makes her a more interesting character.
Nadia can turn invisible, shoot fireballs, read minds, and impersonate almost anyone. But she frequently finds herself in situations where those things would not be helpful, or actively counterproductive to achieving her goals.
That, in the end, is the key to creating dramatic tension for powerful characters without randomly changing their power level – put them in situations where their power will not be particularly useful and maybe even counterproductive, forcing them to work harder to resolve their conflicts.
-JM
July 6, 2021
Episode 84: Are Facebook Ads Worth The Hassle?
July 5, 2021
CLOAK OF BLADES progress update
Starting the week at 62,000 words of CLOAK OF BLADES, which puts me on Chapter 13 of 20. Hoping to reach 85,000 words by Friday.
Let’s have a brief excerpt!
###
“I didn’t recognize you in the hallway outside. But once I did…I realized that I had survived an encounter with the Worldburner.”
“I really wish they didn’t call me that,” I said.
“Imagine, for a moment, that you were running through the jungle,” she said, voice distant as she gazed at the street. “Then you found yourself face to face with a tiger. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, you could to defend yourself. But the tiger turned and walked away. That’s what meeting you was like.”
“You know, I have a friend who likes to call me a tigress,” I said. “It’s really annoying.”
She arched a single eyebrow. “Do you always make jokes during serious conversations?”
-JM
July 3, 2021
Recently Viewed
I recently watched THE TOMORROW WAR and CLARKSON’S FARM (both on Amazon Prime), and I have thoughts!
THE TOMORROW WAR: This isn’t The Iliad, but I would give it a solid B. It’s basically a cross between ALIEN, TERMINATOR, and LIVE, DIE, REPEAT. The idea is that thirty years from now, aliens called the Whitespikes almost wipe out humanity. The survivors manage to figure out time travel, and and go back in time thirty years to ask for help. People are drafted for seven days at a time to fight the war, and if they survived the experience, are automatically zapped back to their present. Admittedly, this isn’t a great way to fight a war, which is probably why humanity is losing. But the protagonist is pulled into the orbit of a scientist from the future who has a last-ditch plan to wipe out the aliens.
This is a well-done popcorn movie – an action hero shooting space monsters and setting out on a quest to save humanity. Enjoyable, especially since no new movies like this have been made for a while because of the virus.
CLARKSON’S FARM: My grandfather was a farm inspector, and before that he owned a dairy farm that he eventually sold. He would frequently lecture me on 1.) the difficulties of farm life, and 2.) how fortunate I was not to grow up on a farm. Grandpa did enjoy a good lecture, but here’s the thing – he was right. Farming is a really hard profession, the kind of thing where you can do absolutely everything right and to the best of your ability, and still get screwed because of the weather or events beyond your control.
So when I saw that Jeremy Clarkson was going to have a show where he farms for a year, I thought to myself: I gotta see this.
What resulted was a show both funny and educational about the realities of farming. Apparently Clarkson owned a 700 acre farm that he leased out to a farmer, who then retired. So Clarkson decided to farm it for a year and see what happens. He contends with the weather, rebellious sheep, water problems, vast amounts of government red tape, angry locals, insects, still more government red tape, crop prices, chicken-killing foxes, and myriad other problems, and then in the middle of all this the virus strikes. Definitely worth a watch!
So if you’re looking for something to watch over Independence Day weekend, these will serve you pretty well.
-JM
July 2, 2021
CLOAK OF BLADES – halfway there!
I am now on Chapter 11 of 20, which means I am over halfway through the rough draft of CLOAK OF BLADES.
I gotta say, the mental energy of starting a new month when I’m halfway through a new book is a lot better than beginning a new month when I haven’t finished the previous book yet.
Meanwhile, let’s have a short excerpt:
“Um. Okay,” I said. “This isn’t weird or anything.”
She turned a bright smile towards me, though her eyes were still haunted.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s about to get a lot weirder.”
-JM
June 30, 2021
10k words of CLOAK OF BLADES!
Wrote 10,000 words of CLOAK OF BLADES yesterday!
This is my 5th 10k word day of 2021.
-JM
