Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 151
November 4, 2019
CLOAK OF WOLVES now available!
I am pleased to report that CLOAK OF WOLVES is now available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords.
My name’s Nadia, and I do favors for the High Queen Tarlia of the Elves.
Tarlia is not the kind of woman who accepts no for an answer.
So when the High Queen orders me to help a top investigator solve a murder, I have to do it. Even though I’ve spent most of my life on the run from the law.
I don’t like the investigator, and he doesn’t like me.
But that doesn’t matter, because if we don’t work together, the creatures we’re hunting will kill us both…
-JM
November 1, 2019
CLOAK OF WOLVES Table of Contents!
It’s time to share the Table of Contents for CLOAK OF WOLVES!
The book is coming very soon to your favorite ebook store!
[image error]
-JM
October 31, 2019
DRAGONTIARNA: GATES rough draft done!
The rough draft of DRAGONTIARNA: GATES is finished!
129,000 words in 24 days, for an average of 5,375 words per day.
Next up is SHIELD KNIGHT: TWO THIEVES, which will be about Selene telling Moriah Rhosmor about the time she stole something in Owyllain.
I’ll start editing DRAGONTIARNA: GATES next week – check back to see the cover image for GATES then!
If all goes well, DRAGONTIARNA: GATES should be published sometime in December.
-JM
October 28, 2019
sign up for my newsletter and get a new free Nadia Moran story!
Just a few days out from publishing CLOAK OF WOLVES!
Be sure to sign up for my newsletter – when WOLVES comes out, newsletter subscribers will get a link to a brand-new free Nadia short story.
A preview of the short story: Nadia goes to the dollar store. Mayhem ensues!
-JM
October 26, 2019
I opine about STAR WARS!
I saw a poll a while back where people ranked all the STAR WARS movies. That seemed like a good topic for a blog post, so here is my opinion on the STAR WARS movies, listed from my favorite to my least favorite:
1.) Empire Strikes Back.
2.) Return of the Jedi.
3.) A New Hope.
4.) Rogue One.
5.) Solo.
6.) Force Awakens.
7.) Return of the Sith.
8.) Phantom Menace.
9.) Attack of the Clones.
10.) The Last Jedi.
I think both ROGUE ONE and SOLO sort of got raw deals. ROGUE ONE reminded me of a Chinese wuxia film where the heroes are bound by duty or perhaps fate and walk stoically to their destinies. Not to everyone’s taste, of course, but a good example of that kind of film. SOLO was a pretty good heist movie about double-crossing con men and thieves. It just had the bad luck to come out after THE LAST JEDI.
THE LAST JEDI, alas, in my opinion ranks with the final season of GAME OF THRONES and THE SOPRANOS as an example of spectacular failure in ambitious storytelling. (Film auteurs might like to sneer at AVENGERS: ENDGAME as popular trash, but that movie was a superb example how to satisfactorily end a story.)
Finally, I think Timothy Zahn’s THRAWN books are substantially better than any of the movies. But as a writer, I have a natural prejudice in favor of books over film. 
October 21, 2019
DRAGONTIARNA, CLOAK MAGE, and other updates
As we approach the end of October, here’s where I am at with my various writing projects:
-CLOAK OF WOLVES will be ready to go for the first week in November.
-I am 70,000 words into DRAGONTIARNA: GATES, which puts me at Chapter 16 of 28.
-I am 15,000 words into GHOST IN THE COUNCIL, which is Chapter 4 of 23.
-I am also 22,000 words into SILENT ORDER: ROYAL HAND.
-JM
October 20, 2019
magic in DRAGONTIARNA
“When Calliande and Antenora went through the portal to Tyrcamber’s world in Dragontiarna Knights, why do they immediately start to become dragons? The Malison from what little I understand should only affect people who use the magic of the Frankish world. Neither woman used magic on the Frankish world. Also can beings from Tyrcamber’s world use more magic on Ridmark’s world since there is no Malison to fear? Or is the Malison already inside of them and they will transform either way once they exhaust themselves with using magic.”
For Calliande and Antenora, it’s something like an immune system. Everyone who is born on Tyrcamber’s world is born with magical ability, and do develop at least some resistance to the Malison. Obviously, it’s possible to overcome that resistance and trigger the Dragon Curse (as many people in the MALISON series learned the hard way), but people born on Tyrcamber’s world do have some resistance to it. But for Calliande and Antenora, it was the first time they had encountered the Malison, so it was like they had been exposed to a new disease for the first time and their immune systems had no defenses for it.
By contrast, someone from Tyrcamber’s world who comes to Andomhaim would not be at risk from the Malison. However, they wouldn’t be able to use magic as effectively or as quickly, because the magic of Andomhaim is a lot weaker than that of Tyrcamber’s world. There’s also a subtle danger for wizards from Tyrcamber’s world who come to Andomhaim. Because the magic in Tyrcamber’s world is so much more powerful, wizards there tend to be “sloppier” with their spells, burning through more power than necessary to create the same effects. Trying to do that in Andomhaim means they’ll run through their power and stamina more quickly, and would need to rest before they recovered their power.
-JM
October 18, 2019
The Fantasy Writing Market
Recently I got a bunch of hits on my website from a discussion on Reddit in the r/fantasy forum. It centered around this question:
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I’m really curious how is the market for fantasy writers doing traditional short stories / books? Not the top 1%, they are doing fine….I mean the typical writer.
How the heck do they market their stuff in a social media (and extra visual) world?
I’m guessing after building up a following (somehow) then you have a support base for future work….but…. how many are actually achieving that?
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I don’t have a Reddit account and I have no interest in getting one, but this seems like a good topic for a blog post.
First, some history.
I traditionally published my first novel in 2005, and by the start of 2011 I was disgusted enough with traditional publishing to stop writing entirely. In that time span, I’d say I made about $3000 or so from traditionally publishing two novels and some short stories. To put that into context, in 2010 I made more from Google Adsense on a technology blog than I did from the entirety of my traditional publishing earnings. In fact, by the end of 2010, I had decided to stop writing fiction and focus that energy instead entirely on technology blogging.
However, I discovered the Kindle and started self-publishing in 2011, and by the end of August 2019 I have sold about 1.41 million copies of my ebooks.
How do I market my books? The simplest way is to write a long series and make the first book free. That usually generates a steady trickle of sales, and it is simplest to stack ads on a first free book. I will also sometimes bundle the first three books and a bonus short story into an omnibus edition and do a temporary sale for $0.99, and then stack ads on that.
I do spend between 8% and 12% of my monthly pre-tax gross on advertising (I did have one month at 19% this year), and I’m forever tinkering to get that as low as possible.
A newsletter is also important. I get people to sign up for my newsletter by giving away a free short story with every release.
I usually publish a book a month. I know that horrifies some writers, but that attitude reminds me of this Onion article: Pathetic, Washed-Up Rock Star On Fifth Decade Of Doing Exactly What He Always Wanted. I mean, I like writing books, and I like selling them. Why shouldn’t I write one a month? I know some writers will spend years polishing their manuscript and workshopping it to make it perfect, but there’s a term for that: the Nirvana Fallacy. New writers, in particular, tend to let the Perfect be the enemy of the Actually Achievable.
So, I’d say these are the three most important things I do for marketing, listed in order of importance:
1.) Write a book every month.
2.) Make the first book free.
3.) Build a newsletter.
Paid ads would come after all of those.
-JM
October 17, 2019
one year of self-published audiobooks
I’ve now had self-published (well, self-funded audiobooks) for one year. My bestselling title? CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, as narrated by Hollis McCarthy, with FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN, as narrated by Brad Wills coming in for a veeery close second (like, a difference of eight units or so).
Valuable lessons I have learned in this time:
-I recommend self-publishing ebooks or paperbacks for all writers. I don’t recommend self-publishing audiobooks for every writer because it’s very expensive, and difficult to turn a profit. However, if it doesn’t turn a profit in the first year the production cost makes an excellent business deduction. (Though you should consult with a qualified CPA for tax filing advice, not a self-published fantasy writer on the Internet.)
-If an audiobook is less than nine hours long, it’s really hard to sell. The general rule of thumb is that about 9300 words makes up a single hour of finished audio (this varies by narrator a little), so your book should probably be about 80,000 words or higher if you want to turn it into an audiobook. That said, if you have a bunch of shorter books, you can bundle them together into an omnibus edition, which will be easier to sell.
-It’s a really enjoyable experience to hear a good narrator read your book. Like, it provides a way of looking at the characters that you might not have considered before.
-If you put your audiobook in some of the library services like Bibliotheca, it can do very well.
-A small but substantial subset of audiobook listeners tend to email complaints to writers, like, a lot. And tech support requests related to audiobooks for some reason, because OBVIOUSLY I will know why your audiobook isn’t playing through your Bluetooth speaker from an obscure Chinese manufacturer. My favorite email was from someone who said he had pirated one of the audiobooks and hadn’t liked it that much, but he might change his mind if I gave him a free copy of the next book.
Do writers actually fall for that? I hope not.
(Though I did once get an email from a guy who read a pirated copy of my book, complained about the typos, and then suggested that I hire him as a proofreader. Naturally, I didn’t respond, but I suspect this guy’s natural sociopathy will take him to a lucrative career on corporate boards or maybe Congress.)
-If your ebooks are in Kindle Unlimited, that’s also a really good way to sell a bunch of audiobooks, though you’re limited to just Audible, Amazon, and Apple for that.
Audiobook publishing has been an interesting experience. Thanks to all my narrators for all their excellent work!
I hope you have enjoyed listening!
-JM
October 14, 2019
Master of Orion: Warpath!
I’m playing the 2016 remake of MASTER OF ORION. It got mixed reviews, but I don’t know why. I really enjoy it – it’s a good mix of the classic Master of Orion 1 & 2 from the 1990s, with some of the rough edges of the micromanagement sanded off.
(The less said of Master of Orion 3 from the early 2000s, alas, the better.)
This time I’m playing as the Terran Khanate, a militaristic, imperialistic version of humanity. That means I get to play as a warlike conqueror, which is a lot of fun. In this screenshot you can see my fleet blasting its way through the orbital defenses of a Gnolam planet in preparation for landing troops.
Naturally, my conquest will be firm but just.
