Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 120

GHOST IN THE TALISMAN underway

Now that DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY is out, it’s full speed ahead on GHOST IN THE TALISMAN.

Currently I am on Chapter 5 of 21, which puts me at 20,000 words of the book. Like the last couple of GHOST NIGHT books, I think it will end up around 90k to 100k words.

The main point of view characters will be Caina, Calvia Scorneus, and Antonin Crailov.

What will the book be about? A three sentence preview:

-Caina vs. Antonin Crailov. The rematch!

-Temnuzash would like a word with Caina.

If all goes well I hope to have it out in February, but it might slip to March depending on how much time I have to spend on tax prep and other Real Life mandatory fun activities (fun-tivities!) in February.

-JM

fun with continuing education

I signed up for another online course this year, specifically the Self Publishing Formula Ads For Authors course. I went through some of their free courses in 2020 and was impressed, so I signed up for the paid one.

Last year I took the Neo-Stock Photoshop Core Skills course, and I had considerable benefit from it, as you can see through the evolution of my WRAITHSHARD covers below.

I have to admit online courses are still quite new to me. Prior to Photoshop Core, the last time I was in any kind of class at all was graduate school, which predates the whole “online course” thing by a considerable number of years. I disliked graduate school considerably and didn’t finish (and I doubt graduate school has improved in the decades since), and I disliked it enough that I didn’t take a course on anything else for any reason for years. If I wanted to learn to do something, I bought the book or watched the YouTube video and did it myself. It wasn’t until I realized I had a reached a ceiling in terms of what I could teach myself in graphic design that I decided to try a course. In hindsight, I also realized that I had gaps in my knowledge – things that I didn’t know that I wasn’t aware that I didn’t even know.

So why do I like these online courses more than graduate school?

I think the difference is relevancy – I knew I could make more money with better Photoshop knowledge, so I really committed to it. Like, in addition to book covers, I can make much better ad graphics for Facebook and Bookbub ads now. I expect it will be the same thing with the Ads For Authors course.

So perhaps that is the key to enjoying education of any kind – the knowledge that 1.) you will make more money from it, or 2.) derive practical benefit from the information.

-JM

2021 Writing Goals – One Additional Goal

Previously I talked about my 10 writing goals for 2020, but I’ve decided to add one more, an experimental one:

11.) PROJECT UPGRADE.

This was an idea suggested to me by a reader, and if all goes well it will be ready to go in February. Watch this space for coming details!

I’m not sure how it will perform, but it will nonetheless be an interesting experiment.

-JM

DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY now available!

I am pleased to report that DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY, the 8th book of the DRAGONTIARNA series, is now available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Scribd, and Smashwords.

The legions of the Heptarchy have invaded Andomhaim, and Ridmark Arban stands in their way.

But without aid, Andomhaim cannot defeat the Heralds of Ruin. To seek out the weaknesses of his foes, Ridmark must travel into the depths of the Heptarchy to seek out the mysterious wizard called the Master of Keys.

But the brutal rulers of the Heptarchy will not allow Ridmark to escape their grasp…

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 62: Ten Writing Goals For 2021

It’s time for a new podcast episode! In this week’s episode, I discuss my ten writing goals for 2021, and look ahead at new projects.

-JM

a brief DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY excerpt

Let’s close out the week with a brief, spoiler-free excerpt from DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY!

“I have responsibilities here,” said Ridmark. “We’re about to march against Cintarra. I do not delude myself that the battle hangs upon my presence or absence…”

Kharlacht snorted. “It doesn’t? It has before.”

“Several times,” added Caius.

Ridmark decided to ignore that.

-JM

DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY table of contents

I am finally far enough along to share the Table of Contents for DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY!

If all goes well, I hope to have the book out sometime next week.

-JM

DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY editing update

Still editing DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY. It’s hard to make pithy status updates on that.

Like, if I say “I wrote 7,000 words today”, that sounds cool.

But saying “I deleted like 30 adverbs and decided that this one line of dialogue should come from Selene instead of Calliande” sounds much less snappy.

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 61: Did I Meet 2020’s Writing Goals?

Time for the first episode of 2021!

In this week’s episode, I look back at my writing goals for 2020 and see how many of them I achieved.

I also answer reader questions about the CLOAK GAMES series and Kindle Unlimited.

-JM

Writing Goals For 2021

Now that 2020 is behind us, and 2021 looms before us like a mountain in a cloudbank, it’s time to set some writing goals for the New Year!

God willing, this is what I hope to do writing-wise in 2021.

1.) Finish DRAGONTIARNA.

The DRAGONTIARNA series will be ten books long, and I’m editing #8 right now. If all goes well, I will finish all ten books sometime around the midpoint of 2021.

2.) Finish GHOST NIGHT.

I’m working on the eighth book of GHOST NIGHT right now, and like DRAGONTIARNA, GHOST NIGHT will be a total of ten books. I am hoping to finish the series in mid-2021 around the time that DRAGONTIARNA wraps up.

3.) Continue CLOAK MAGE.

The next CLOAK MAGE book will be called CLOAK OF BLADES, and once DRAGONTIARNA and GHOST NIGHT are finished, I will write more CLOAK MAGE books.

4.) Write a million words of new fiction, preferably more.

Once again, I want to write a million words (or more) of new fiction in 2020. Meeting the above goals will definitely help with that! But barring any major health issues or other problems, I should be able to do that.

5.) Update paperbacks.

I want to update my paperback books so they have nicer interiors, and the covers are consistent with the ebooks. When I started doing paperbacks seven years ago, I used the default Createspace templates, which were good enough. But Createspace doesn’t exist any more, and I can now use Vellum to make much nicer interiors for the ebooks than what the standard Createspace templates allowed. Additionally, I’ve updated the covers for many of my ebooks, some of them several times, and I would like them to match the paperbacks.

I would like to have updated the paperbacks of the FROSTBORN series by the end of 2021, with more as time permits.

6.) Two hardbacks.

I would like to have at least two of my books available in hardback. This goal was originally one, but MALISON: THE COMPLETE SERIES is now available in hardback, though just on Amazon at the moment. I’ve just started doing hardbacks, so hopefully I will have more hardcover books available by the end of 2021.

7.) Two more self-published audiobooks.

I want to have at least two more self-published audiobooks by the end of 2021, bringing me to a total for 46 audio titles.

I haven’t decided how to proceed with audio after that. Previously, I was happy to go exclusive with Audible/Amazon/Apple, but ACX has been struggling all year. Additionally, there are a lot more sales opportunities for audio outside of ACX than there were even two years ago. So I will need to give it some thought.

8.) Healthier lifestyle and fitness.

I gained too much weight in 2020, and I’m feeling it in my back and knees, especially my back. So I need some healthier lifestyle choices. I’m counting this as a writing goal because it’s a lot easier to write when I can sit comfortably.

People making ridiculous health resolutions for New Year’s and failing spectacularly is a cliché, so I will set a more modest and achievable goal. If I am one pound lighter on January 1, 2022 than I am on January 1, 2021, I will count this goal as successfully achieved.

9.) Write a book about how to write a novel.

This isn’t a stretch goal, it’s going to happen. I’m already about halfway through it. I think the book will be called STORYTELLING: HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL, and will focus on story structure in novels. This way when people ask me for writing advice, I can point them to this book.

I’ve already written about five of the ten chapters. It won’t be terribly long, about 25,000 or 30,000 to words, but that will cover the topic. That’s one of the nice things about self-publishing – you can write a book about a nonfiction topic that a publisher wouldn’t touch because it’s too short. Like, have you ever read a nonfiction book that could have covered the topic in half the pages, but the author obviously needed to pad the length? My LINUX COMMAND LINE guide is only 30,000 words, but it covers the topic and it’s a frequent bestseller in its category.

The book about writing a novel will also include CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP. Before every chapter of THIEF TRAP, I’ll have annotations explaining how I followed story structure in the specific chapter and why I made some of the storytelling choices that I did.

10.) Start a new series.

DRAGONTIARNA and GHOST NIGHT should conclude within a month of one another, and after that, I haven’t 100% decided what I’m going to do next.

I’m coming to a sort of crossroads, I think. When April comes around, I will have been self-publishing for ten years, and I will have self-published around 120 novels. So what do I want to do next? I don’t mean that in a “reevaluate my life” sort of way, but in that I want to seriously think about what I want to work on next before I commit to writing it.

I will definitely continue CLOAK MAGE. I might do a new Caina series – ever since she married Kylon, Kylon’s spent a lot of time watching her back and reacting to what Caina does, so it might be fun to flip that on its head and have Caina have to watch Kylon’s back and react to what he does. Or I might continue SILENT ORDER. Or I might decide to try something completely different – a new scifi series, or maybe even a straight up modern mystery book.

All that said, I suspect I will probably start a new epic fantasy series set in the world of Andomhaim. It’s a big complicated setting, with room for lots of stories beyond the protagonists we’ve already met.

No crossovers, though.