Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 137

GHOST IN THE HUNT audio underway!

I expected audiobooks to crash hard, but instead March was my best audiobook month to date, and April will probably be a little higher. I thought audiobook listening would fall off a cliff because of the recent drop in commuting, but evidently not.

Whatever the reason, thanks everyone!

THE GHOSTS OMNIBUS ONE was the big seller, so I’m hoping to have GHOST IN THE HUNT (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) available in a few months.

It will be fund because HUNT introduces two of Caina’s biggest enemies – Kalgri the Red Huntress and the Umbarian magus (and as we find out later, protege of Talmania Scorneus) Cassander Nilas. Kalrgi is possibly Caina’s archnemesis (and definitely Kylon’s) and Cassander is one of the bigger villains of the series, and temporarily seizes the role of Main Villain from Grand Master Callatas for a while.

On a related topic, a few people recently asked me how I think up character names. I usually draw them from ancient and medieval history. Cassander Nilas was named for King Cassander of Macedon (reigned 305 to 297 BC), who was one of the successors of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic monarchs were generally pretty ruthless, but Cassander stands out among them – he had Alexander the Great’s wife, son, and rumored illegitimate son all killed – and he had Alexander’s mother Olympias killed after rescinding a promise to spare her life.

The fictional Cassander Nilas would strongly approve of his real-life inspiration’s ruthlessness.

-JM

Ubuntu Beginner’s Guide & Musings On Kindle Unlimited

Last week I published the 13th edition of my UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE, now updated for version 20.04. I decided to go with a slightly new cover design this time around. Previously I usually had a person holding a laptop, but this time I went with a woman in futuristic scifi armor holding a laptop.

It will be interesting to see if that influences sales, because there aren’t many accepted genre conventions for computer book covers. Like, if you see a book cover with a man in a cowboy hat (possibly shirtless) standing next to a woman, you know you’re about to pick up a cowboy romance novel. Or if you see a dude with a burning sword, it’s probably a fantasy novel. A man walking with his back to the camera down a London street probably indicates a British thriller or mystery novel.

But there are a couple of different ways you can go for a computer book – a computer, someone holding a computer, some sort of abstract design, public domain art, etc. O’Reilly Media books always have line drawings on their covers, usually of something at least tangentially related to the topic of the book.

I also put the Ubuntu book into Kindle Unlimited. In turbulent economic times, it’s good for a business to diversify, which means I want some stuff in Kindle Unlimited, just not everything.

But I think it makes sense to try my Ubuntu book in KU. Like, for example, DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS would be a poor choice for Kindle Unlimited. In the 2 months it’s been out, only 69% of its sales have been on Amazon. So it definitely would not make any sense to put the book in KU.

Whereas my Ubuntu book, in the nine years it’s been out over 96% of its sales have been on Amazon. That clearly demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the potential market uses Amazon, so it definitely makes sense to try the Ubuntu book in Kindle Unlimited.

-JM

SOUL OF TYRANTS free today 5/1/2020!

I’m giving away some more ebooks, and SOUL OF TYRANTS is free today on Amazon US and Amazon UK!

SOUL OF TYRANTS is the first book of the seven book long DEMONSOULED series, and here’s the reading order of all of Mazael’s Cravenlock adventures:

DEMONSOULED SERIES:

1.) DEMONSOULED

2.) SOUL OF TYRANTS

3.) SOUL OF SERPENTS

4.) SOUL OF DRAGONS

5.) SOUL OF SORCERY

6.) SOUL OF SKULLS

7.) SOUL OF SWORDS

MASK OF THE DEMONSOULED SERIES

1. ) MASK OF SWORDS

2.) MASK OF DRAGONS

3.) MASK OF SPELLS

WRAITHSHARD SERIES

1.) WRAITHSHARD: SWORD & FLAME

2.) WRAITHSHARD: SIEGE & STORM

-JM

100k words of DRAGONTIARNA: LEGIONS!

Yesterday I wrote 10,000 words in a single day for the tenth time in 2020!

This puts me past the 100,000 word mark for DRAGONTIARNA: LEGIONS. I’m currently on Chapter 21 of 28, and I think it’s going to end up around 120,000 to 140,000 words long.

Hopefully if all goes well I will finish up the rough draft next week, or possibly the week after that.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 25: 9 Things That Have NOT Changed In 9 Years Of Self-Publishing

April 2020 marks my ninth anniversary of self-publishing. Last week I looked at nine things that have changed for self-publishing in the last nine years.

In this week’s episode, I took at nine things that have NOT changed in the last nine years of self-publishing.

-JM

DEMONSOULED free today 4/27!

I’m giving away some more ebooks, and DEMONSOULED is free today on Amazon US and Amazon UK!

DEMONSOULED is the first book of the seven book long DEMONSOULED series, and here’s the reading order of all of Mazael’s Cravenlock adventures:

DEMONSOULED SERIES:

1.) DEMONSOULED

2.) SOUL OF TYRANTS

3.) SOUL OF SERPENTS

4.) SOUL OF DRAGONS

5.) SOUL OF SORCERY

6.) SOUL OF SKULLS

7.) SOUL OF SWORDS

MASK OF THE DEMONSOULED SERIES

1. ) MASK OF SWORDS

2.) MASK OF DRAGONS

3.) MASK OF SPELLS

WRAITHSHARD SERIES

1.) WRAITHSHARD: SWORD & FLAME

2.) WRAITHSHARD: SIEGE & STORM

-JM

Nine Years Of Demonsouled Covers

I’ve been self-publishing for nine years now, and while I haven’t changed the cover image for DEMONSOULED every year, I’ve come close! So I thought it would be amusing to take a jaunt down memory lane and look at the old covers.

This was my first one from 2011, back when I didn’t know any cover designers and couldn’t afford stock photos. Everything from before 1924 is public domain in the US in terms of copyright, so I used a lot of old pictures and paintings for cover art at first. (This was/is fairly common in traditional publishing, which used a lot of public domain art for book covers.) This painting was by John William Waterhouse:

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Later I found another artist named Viktor Vasnetsov, and I used one of his paintings for the cover. (This became an in-joke in CLOAK OF DRAGONS when Nadia sees this painting while investigating Max Sarkany’s murder, and is mildly freaked out by it):

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Next, I discovered stock photos! (Another traditional source of cover images for traditional publishing.) This was the first cover for DEMONSOULED made from stock photos – I think this was from 2012 or so:

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Then in 2013, I started working with Clarissa Yeo for cover designs, and this is the excellent cover she made for DEMONSOULED:

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In 2015, I tried putting DEMONSOULED into Kindle Unlimited for the first time, which meant a new cover assembled from stock photos:

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In 2017, I switched to a new stock photo for the cover of DEMONSOUleD, and kept that one for a couple of years:

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Finally, in 2020 for DEMONSOULED’s latest run in Kindle Unlimited, I made a new cover with 3d rendering software:

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So, seven covers in nine years! But that’s one of the nice things about self-publishing – you can keep changing things and trying new things.

-JM

GHOSTS giveaway round-up!

THE GHOSTS giveaway after action report!

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been giving away ebook copies of the first ten books in the Caina series – CHILD OF THE GHOSTS through GHOST IN THE COWL. Kindle Unlimited makes it easy to give away an ebook for free for a few days, so I’ve gone through the first ten Caina books.

I’m pleased to report that I gave away 5,662 copies of the ebooks, and a couple dozen copies of the audiobooks. I wanted to give away some books so people would have a pleasant distraction, but it also had a nice side effect of generating a lot of Kindle Unlimited page reads.

The giveaway worked really well, and I’ll probably repeat it with the 1st seven DEMONSOULED books (which are also in Kindle Unlimited) starting next week.

-JM

Time To Play Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night!

Now that I’ve finished Super Metroid, I think the next game I finish will be Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night. It was designed by the guy who did the classic Castlevania games back in the 90s, and it’s always nice to see a successful game come out of a Kickstarter project. (It doesn’t happen all that often.)

That said, I wrote 30,000 words in the last three days. I don’t have much spare time to waste. Bloodstained has two important features that I need to avoid wasting time:

-It has a Suspend feature that lets you pick up exactly where you left off.

-I found a very detailed walkthrough guide on the Internet.

GHOST IN THE MAZE now in audio!

I am pleased to report that GHOST IN THE MAZE is now in audiobook, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can listen to it at Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon AU, and iTunes.

GHOST IN THE MAZE is probably the last self-published audio title I’m going to do for a while, so I’m glad that MAZE is one of my favorites. I always wanted to write a heist-type novel, and MAZE was the first heist book I wrote.

Also! Added bonus. One of my writing goals for 2020 was to reach 34 total audio titles on Audible, and with GHOST IN THE MAZE, I am now at thirty-four titles.

Thanks for listening, everyone!

-JM