Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 160

non-English language translations?

A few people have asked this week if I plan to do non-English language translations of my books.

I’m not opposed to the idea, but probably not, mostly because it would be too expensive and too impractical. The Trackerbox software program lets me track my ebook sales very closely, and typically 80 to 90% of my book sales are in the biggest four Anglosphere countries – the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. Of the remaining 10 to 20%, most of that is in various European Union countries where English is a pretty common second language. So, generally speaking, I don’t think there’s enough demand to make a non-English language translation practical.

Additionally, translations are seriously expensive. A good translation can wind up costing over $10,000 USD, and sometimes quite a bit more. That is a lot of money to spend on spec.

Finally, I only have so much discretionary budget to go around, and I think English-language audiobooks are a better bet than non-English language translations. The audiobook market keeps growing, and May was my best month ever for audiobooks, and June has a goodish chance of being even better. So I’d rather do more audiobooks than translations.

To sum up, I’m not opposed to non-English language translations, but I don’t think they would be practical to do at this time.

-JM

MALISON: DRAGON WAR Table of Contents

Almost done with MALISON: DRAGON WAR, and if all goes well it will come out next week.

Until then, here is the Table of Contents for the final book of the MALISON series.

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-JM

GHOSTS audiobook giveaway

I have a few fun things to announce about the GHOSTS series, which is currently 22 novels long (and I’m working on the 23rd one).

First, THE GHOSTS OMNIBUS ONE is on sale for $0.99 USD for the next few weeks. It contains the first three Caina novels, along with the bonus book BLADE OF THE GHOSTS. You can get it at your preferred store at this link.

Second, ACX recently redid the way it does promo codes for audiobooks. I suddenly have a whole bunch of new audiobook codes for CHILD OF THE GHOSTS listeners in the US or the UK. (Unfortunately I only have codes for those two countries.) That means I’m giving away a bunch of download codes in exchange for honest reviews. If you would like a download code for a free copy of CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, here’s what you do:

1.) Email me at jmcontact@jonathanmoeller.com.

2.) Specify whether you want a US or a UK code.

3.) Share a link or a screenshot of an audiobook review you’ve left in the past year.

4.) Promise to leave an honest review for CHILD OF THE GHOSTS that includes this sentence: “I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.” (The Federal Trade Commission insists on that.)

I have 10 codes for US downloads and 10 codes for UK downloads, so first-come, first-serve.

-JM

Jonathan Moeller Novel Excerpt Tuesday: GHOST IN THE FORGE

It’s time for Jonathan Moeller Novel Excerpt Tuesday! Since the audiobook version came out, like, yesterday, these seems like a good time to have an excerpt from GHOST IN THE FORGE.

GHOST IN THE FORGE was one of the books where I learned an important writing lesson – if you write a really, really long series, you can usually get five books in before the readers start demanding a love interest for the main character.

GHOST IN THE FORGE now available in audiobook!

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

This means the first six GHOSTS books are in audio, for a combined total of over 72 hours of listening enjoyment. Don’t miss CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, GHOST IN THE FLAMES, GHOST IN THE BLOOD, GHOST IN THE STORM, and GHOST IN THE STONE at Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.

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-JM

 

thanks everyone!

SEVENFOLD SWORD: SOVEREIGN has had an excellent first two weeks, as you can see from the attached chart.

Thanks for reading! And thanks for coming along to the end of the series, through all twelve books and all 1.27 million words of SEVENFOLD SWORD.

That averages out to writing 1,700 words of SEVENFOLD SWORD every day for like two years straight.

DRAGONTIARNA: question and answer time!

Reader Kris makes a prediction about the plot of DRAGONTIARNA: KNIGHTS:

“Ridmark Arban rode west along the coast of the southern sea (he is listed without his family – interesting) only Third is also a main character, so they are going probably fishing, when (The door must never be opened) they are transported to Malison World (by Five Heralds of Ruin or by a woman most people believe doesn’t exist.). There they met Tyrcamber and together try to stop Warden plan and Dark Dragon Cult (Mankind shall become dragon gods). And we have a man imprisoned for stealing a pig with magic that was never meant to be used in that way.”

That’s about 25% correct. But it would be cheating to tell you which 25%.

Joy asks:

“Sooo is Calliande to become a stay at home mum?”

One of the things that kicks off the main plot is that Ridmark basically forces Calliande to hire more servants to help her so she doesn’t run herself ragged both looking after small children and performing the duties of the Keeper.

Scott says:

“I hope Selene gets page time. She’s funny in a crazy sort of way. Especially when she’s insulting the villain of the entry.”

Selene won’t be in the first book but she will be in later ones.

Kelen asks:

“That’s awesome but what happened to Caina?”

GHOST IN THE VAULT is also underway. If all goes well, we’ll have DRAGONTIARNA: KNIGHTS in August and GHOST IN THE VAULT in September.

Andrew asks:

“How many books will be in this series and will there be a companion series like Shield Knight?”

Either 10 or 12, depending on how long some of the middle books are. I don’t think I’m going to write any new short stories for a while. Real Life has been busy lately, so I’ve cut back on side projects so I can focus on novels.

Juana suggests:

“Yay! More Ridmark! I’d buy it chapter by chapter, if you sent it to my in-box.”

Nah, serializations are one of those things that looks good on paper but are always too much bother in Real Life.

Matthew observes:

“Look the original dragons were supreme masters of magic. The REMNANTS off their abilities gave birth to a sword that stops time and can create wormholes. Where did they go?”

Now that’s a good question!

what will DRAGONTIARNA be about?

I am now underway with DRAGONTIARNA: KNIGHTS, the first book of my new epic fantasy series.

The first sentence:

“The day before it began, the day before the sky ripped open and the dragons returned in the Year of Our Lord 1491, Ridmark Arban rode west along the coast of the southern sea.”

What will it be about? I’m fond of arc words, so here are some of the arc words for the new series:

-The door must never be opened.

-Mankind shall become dragon gods.

-Five Heralds of Ruin.

-The magic was never meant to be used.

DRAGONTIARNA will also have five main characters. The main protagonists:

1.) Ridmark Arban.

2.) Tyrcamber Rigamond.

3.) Third of Nightmane Forest. (She had to be third on this list, obviously.)

4.) A new character. A woman most people believe doesn’t exist.

5.) A new character. A man imprisoned for stealing a pig.

When will the book come out? August, if all goes well.

-JM

CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP now in audiobook!

I am very pleased to report that CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP, the first book of the CLOAK GAMES series, is now available in audiobook at Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes, Google Play, Kobo, Nook, and Scribd as excellently narrated by Meghan Kelly. It is also available through the Bibliotheca library audiobook service, so if your local library has the option to check out audiobooks, you might be able to listen to it there.

And, of course, you can always get the ebook for free at your preferred store here.

It’s now been just over four years since I wrote CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP. When I listened to the audiobook to approve it, in hindsight I was very impressed by the amount of foreshadowing I managed to cram into the book.

are you an indie author?

A reader emails to ask:

“Sorry quick question. Are you an Indie writer? I assumed you were no idea why just did. A friend was pretty sure you are not. So I just had to ask, sorry if it is offensive question.”

Nah, it’s not an offensive question. It’s just the truth!

All my ebooks and all of my paperback books are self-published. As of right now, 8 of my 17 audiobook titles are self-published, and 9 are through the publishers Podium and Tantor. If all goes well the numbers of both self-published and traditionally published audio titles will rise before 2019 is over. I admit that I am very hard on publishers (much more on that below), but I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Podium and Tantor, and the money always arrives on time, which is something of a rare condition among publishers.

I’m not embarrassed to be self-published. I own it proudly. I spent most of the 2000s trying to get traditionally published, and while I had two books traditionally published (DEMONSOULED and what would become THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS) I got mostly nowhere and made very little money. In fact, I made more from tech blogging and Google Adsense in 2010 than I did from everything I had traditionally published in the entirely of 2000 to 2010. By contrast, in the eight years I’ve been self-publishing, I’ve sold 1.32 million copies of my ebooks.

Bit of a difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing, yeah?

I will concede that indie publishing is not for every writer. However, I am quite convinced that traditional publishing isn’t good for any writer. Sure, traditional publishers will talk about all the good they do for writers, marketing support and editing and cover design and so forth. However, the nasty truth is that 1.) it’s nearly impossible for a new writer to become traditionally published unless they have connections or are somehow trendy, or 2.) and even then, new writers don’t get all that stuff that trad publishers promise. The big sellers like Stephen King and James Patterson and Nora Roberts and their peers get the marketing support and all that because their books is where the money is. What new writers or mid-level writers are likely to get is an editor who either mauls their manuscript or ignores them entirely, and royalty payments that either never show up or somehow go missing. There are many, many, many documented cases of publishers stealing from writers, and that doesn’t even get into agents. (Check out my last Interesting Links post for links to a few of the most recent examples.)

However, many writers still want to be traditionally published. This will sound mean, but I think that desire for traditional publishing comes from insecurity, a need for validation. If you look at the Twitter or Facebook pages of many traditional writers, many of them talk frequently about how MY agent or MY editor or MY publisher just LOVES my book. I get that attitude – I used to think that way until my growing disgust with publishers in general almost led me to quit writing novels at the end of 2010. Then in 2011, I discovered the Kindle, and I realized a writer no longer needed to waste time attempting to impress the obsolete gatekeepers – it was now possible to reach the readers directly.

So, it is my strong and firm opinion that self-publishing is now better than traditional publishing in every aspect. I’m sure there are people who disagree with me, but I’m even more sure that I’m right.