Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 122

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 58: Can Traditional Publishers Do Anything Better Than Self-Publishers?

Time for another episode of the podcast!

In this week’s episode, we discuss whether or not traditional publishers have any advantages over self-publishers in the modern marketplace.

If you’ve been reading and listening for a while, you can probably guess my answer.

DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY update 12/14/2020

I’m starting this week at 58,000 words of DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY, and I’d like to be at 90,000 by the end of Friday. Let’s see how close I get!

Also currently at 2,000 words of GHOST IN THE TALISMAN.

-JM

Don’t Forget To Level Grind

If you’re familiar with computer games, particularly RPGs, you’ll know that “level grinding” refers to building up your character’s levels before you face a boss. Like, in the LEGEND OF ZELDA games, it’s a bad idea to face certain bosses without first getting the Master Sword and the Magic Shield and a sufficient number of Heart Containers and so forth.

In Real Life, we call this “upskilling.”

Because of The Virus, I had a bunch more time, so I decided to put that time into upgrading my cover design skills. This led me to changing the cover for WRAITHSHARD: SWORD & FLAME four times over the last nine months. You can see the progression below, and there was definite improvement by the final one.

Sadly, WRAITHSHARD is only available on Kindle Unlimited right now, but once it’s available on all the other stores next year, readers on those platforms will get the best covers right away rather than suffering through three or four iterations.

DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY progress update

Making good progress on DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY – currently on Chapter 12 of 24. Almost halfway through!

Let’s share a short excerpt.

If you have any experience of large organizations – especially academic and government ones – you will know that “CYA” is the standard operating procedure. Indeed, it often exceeds the organization’s actual mission as the chief priority.

SOUL OF DRAGONS, nine years on

This December marks nine years since I finished writing SOUL OF DRAGONS.

I very clearly remember writing SOUL OF SERPENTS, since that was the first book I ever wrote to self-publish without trying to submit it to tradpub. But I only have a minimal memory of writing SOUL OF DRAGONS, because at the time I was working a full-time job and a part-time job. From September 2011 through December 2011 I would write over lunch, and then from 10 PM to 11 PM before I went to bed, though often that slipped to 11 PM to 12 PM, depending on how much work I had from the part-time job. Then I would get up at 5:45 to go to the gym before my main job.

You can burn the candle from both ends for a surprisingly long time, but you can’t do it forever. This was not a sustainable schedule in the long term, and consequently my memory of writing that book is kind of a blur. I remember writing Lucan’s final battle scenes in the dream sequence, and I remember writing the scene where Mazael and Romaria were cold in the mountains because it had been below zero that day, which inspired the scene. I can recall writing a few other bits, but most of the time when I look at something in SOUL OF DRAGONS to check continuity, it’s like “Huh! Guess I wrote that!”

But! Since then SOUL OF DRAGONS has sold 22,000 copies and had 450,000 page reads from its various stints in Kindle Unlimited. Thanks for reading, everyone!

Once of the nice things about indie publishing is that you can still get paid for work you did at 11:30 PM nine years ago when you really wanted to go to bed instead.

DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY progress and GHOST IN THE TALISMAN underway!

Now on Chapter 9 of 24 of the rough draft of DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY. Over 1/3 of the way there!

I have also started the rough draft of GHOST IN THE TALISMAN and am 1,000 words into it. As you might have guessed if you read GHOST IN THE VISION, in TALISMAN Caina will team up with the mysterious Countess Kalthane for a heist.

If all goes well, VISIONARY will be out January, and TALISMAN in February.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 57: My Favorite Scenes Of 2020

In this week’s episode, I look back at the favorite scenes I wrote in 2020.

I also answer reader emails and talk a little more about Facebook Ads.

-JM

DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY underway!

Now that WRAITHSHARD: WRATH & BATTLE is out, it’s full speed ahead on DRAGONTIARNA: VISIONARY!

I am currently on Chapter 7 of 24, and if all goes well, it will be out sometime in January 2021.

Unlike most of the previous DRAGONTIARNA books, this one will focus almost entirely on Ridmark, for reasons which will be clear once you read the book.

Favorite scenes of 2020

It’s December, and as 2020 proceeds (okay, staggers exhausted like John McClane at the end of DIE HARD) towards the end of the year, it’s natural to look back at the past twelve months.

Here are my favorite scenes of the books I’ve published in 2020. Note that this post has mild SPOILERS!!! for everything I’ve published in 2020 except for WRAITHSHARD: WRATH & BATTLE, which is new enough that I don’t want to mention any details since not many people would have been able to finish it yet.

So, it that in mind, here are my favorite scenes from 2020!

-Nadia vs. Mr. Hood in CLOAK OF ASHES. In CLOAK MAGE, Nadia is in a weird position in terms of magical strength. She’s stronger than most wizards she encounters, but outclassed by archmages like Tarlia and Morvilind and Prince Valcander, who are practically armies in their own right. But Mr. Hood is about her match in strength and slightly exceeds her skill in some areas, so that was a fun fight to write.

-Rzarn Malvaxon’s last scene in DRAGONTIARNA: CROWNS. Malvaxon, like all the dvargir nobles, is extremely good at keeping the letter of his agreements while weaseling out of them, a skill that serves him very well right up until he encounters Warlord Agravhask.

-Lucan realizing that Tymaen is still alive in WRAITHSHARD: SIEGE & STORM. Poor Lucan! The WRAITHSHARD series is basically Lucan’s second chance after he screwed up everything back in DEMONSOULED, but he’s going to have to earn it.

-Mazael’s and Lucan’s meeting in WRAITHSHARD: MAGE & KNIGHT. Mazael is still really, really angry at Lucan after he screwed up everything back in DEMONSOULED, and he wants to kill Lucan (again) for it. Indeed, it seems like killing Lucan is both the sensible course of action and the morally correct thing to do.

-Niall and Moriah’s long escape in DRAGONTIARNA: CROWNS. It combined a chase sequence and a dungeon crawl, two of my favorite kinds of scenes to write. And they’ve both been through the wringer in the DRAGONTIARNA series, so it was nice to give them a win.

-Caina meeting “Countess Kalthane” for the first time in GHOST IN THE VISION. The meeting between Caina and the Countess has been building up ever since Caina met Sebastian Scorneus for the first time back in GHOST IN THE RING, and later Caina found out that Kalthane has been essentially bankrolling the Empire’s war effort against the Umbarian Order. But why? All is revealed in GHOST IN THE VISION, and Kalthane is what Caina might have been if her life had taken a different turn.

-The final sequence of WRAITHSHARD: WRATH & BATTLE. No spoilers here!

Now, for my favorite scene of 2020:

-The Battle of Shadow Crown Hill in DRAGONTIARNA: DEFENDERS. That was a fun battle to write, since it was basically a climax of a lot of subplots since the second book in the DRAGONTIARNA series.  The “fog of war” is both a concept in real life, and a very useful tool in fiction, and the Battle of Shadow Crown Hill was shrouded in that fog. Ridmark went into the battle with a plan. Accolon had a plan. Merovech had a plan. The Theophract had a plan…and all their plans crashed into each other like trucks ignoring the stoplights at a four-way intersection.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and looking forward to writing more scenes in 2021!

-JM

WRAITHSHARD: WRATH & BATTLE now available!

I am pleased to report that WRAITHSHARD: WRATH & BATTLE, the fifth and final book of the WRAITHSHARD series, is now available on Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, and Kindle Unlimited.

Currently it’s only available on Amazon, but once WRAITHSHARD’s Kindle Unlimited term expires around late spring 2021, the entire series will be available on all the other ebook platforms.

-JM