Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 180

One Million Words

I am pleased to report that as of finishing CLOAK & GHOST: LOST GATE, I have officially written one million words of new fiction for 2018.

Of course, 2018 isn’t over quite yet!

The Mindset Problem Of Traditional Publishing

No Interesting Links post this week, since I’ve been too busy with GHOST IN THE AMULET and various Business Of Writing tasks.

That said, I want to link to this excellent article from The Passive Voice. Passive Guy analyzes some of the root causes of traditional publishing’s problems, and in my opinion he just nails it. Definitely worth a read, especially if (like me) you’ve had negative experiences with traditional publishing.

Indie pub is SO much better than tradpub!

-JM

CLOAK & GHOST: LOST GATE cover and description

I’m working on edits for CLOAK & GHOST: LOST GATE, a Caina/Nadia crossover novel I will give away to newsletter subscribers for free when GHOST IN THE AMULET comes out in October.

So you’ll really want to sign up for my newsletter!

You can see the cover image below. Here’s the book description!

Most of the world knows Caina Amalas as the director of private security contractor Ghost Securities. In truth, she’s a shadow agent of the High Queen of the Elves.

But while the Elves rule the Earth, there are still many wealthy and powerful humans…and Andromache Kardamnos is one of the richest and most cunning. When she needs a favor, it’s hard to say no.

But Andromache’s favor involves stopping a nightmare creature from the Shadowlands.

And to stop the creature, Caina will need the help of one of the most dangerous and unpredictable wizards she’s ever met – her fellow shadow agent Nadia Moran…

[image error]

-JM

GHOST IN THE AMULET book description

What’s GHOST IN THE AMULET going to be about? I’m glad you asked!

Book description:

For all her life, Caina has run from the memory of her cruel mother.

But her mother was merely the weakest member of a family of powerful and ruthless sorcerers.

Now Caina has the Ring of the ancient necromancer-king Rasarion Yagar, and her aunt Talmania Scorneus is hunting for her.

And to take the Ring, Talmania is willing to kill Caina and everyone close to her…

-JM

more SILENT ORDER?

Reader SZ has nice things to say about SILENT ORDER, and a question:

“Just wanted to say that I am really enjoying this series! I was wondering if you have an idea of how many books long it will be? I’m on the more the merrier side, but I know you like to close out extended story arcs.”

Thanks! I honestly haven’t decided – I think ARK HAND might be the last one for a while.

I am always grateful for any book sale, but I have to admit that SILENT ORDER never sold particularly well. Thanks to the excellent Trackerbox program, I can keep track of how many books I’ve sold with a few clicks of a mouse.

With Trackerbox’s convenient data handling capabilities, I can tell you that from January 2018 to the end of August 2018, the CLOAK GAMES series sold three times as many copies as SILENT ORDER did. (GHOSTS sold two and a half times as many copies as SILENT ORDER in the same time span, and I haven’t published anything new with Caina or done anything to promote the series since December 2017.) More specifically, CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL sold twice as many copies in its first month as SILENT ORDER: IMAGE HAND did in its first month. In fact, CLOAK & GHOST: BLOOD RING sold more copies in its first month than IMAGE HAND did in its first TWO months, and that is even considering 1.) I gave BLOOD RING away for free with my newsletter, and 2.) BLOOD RING was a Caina/Nadia crossover, and a lot of people don’t care for crossovers.

I did have a feeling when I was writing ARK HAND that it might be the last one, so I tried to leave things in a satisfactory place at the end.

It’s been a year since IRON HAND came out, and I’ve come to suspect SILENT ORDER isn’t exactly what science fiction readers are looking for, and I know it definitely isn’t what the readers of my fantasy books are looking for. (I’ve had SEVENFOLD SWORD/GHOSTS/CLOAK GAMES readers flat-out tell me they don’t like stuff with spaceships.) I suspect what the SF market really wants right now is strongly military-themed action SF in Kindle Unlimited, since that market segment was seriously under-served for so long in the Bad Old Days of traditional publishing. (Books like DUEL IN THE DARK, STARSHIP LIBERATOR, and GALAXY’S EDGE, all of which I read and liked.) And while I definitely enjoy strongly military-themed action SF, that isn’t exactly SILENT ORDER, which is more of a spy thriller set in space.

But we’ll see how ARK HAND does over September and October. If it sells more copies in that time period than CLOAK & GHOST: BLOOD RING did in its first month, I’ll revisit it. Maybe the recent Bookbub will perk up the series. Or maybe I’ll put SILENT ORDER back in Kindle Unlimited and try some marketing that way.

If not, that’s probably a sign it’s time to focus more on fantasy instead of science fiction!

-JM

a map of Caina’s world

At long last, a map of Caina’s world!

Well, the eastern half of the Empire of Nighmar, anyway.

GHOST IN THE AMULET cover image!

Editing is underway on GHOST IN THE AMULET, so let’s see the cover image!

If all goes well, the book should be out in October.

Tune in tomorrow for something from the Caina books that people have been asking to see since 2011.

[image error]

-JM

 

SILENT ORDER: ARK HAND now available!

I am pleased to report that SILENT ORDER: ARK HAND is now available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords.

The galaxy is at war, and the shadows of human history might destroy the present.

When Jack March agrees to help Dr. Adelaide Taren track down a tip about an archaeological find, he doesn’t expect to be drawn into a deadly Machinist plot.

Because the secrets of the find are rooted in the past, but they might change the course of the future…

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-JM

film rights, part II

I have to admit when I wrote my post about film rights, I was thinking about it entirely from the writer’s point of view, and not the point of view of the reader/viewer.

The #1 response to my previous post was this – people hate it when a favorite book gets mangled in a film adaptation. Like, really hate it.

This is a common problem, I think. I suspect a lot of people who make films and TV shows have this urge to “fix” or “improve” the things they adapt, but that defeats the point of making the adaptation! Something essential always gets mangled in the process.

It’s like buying the rights to make a pizza, but in your “adaptation” of the pizza, you’re going to leave out the crust, the cheese, and the topping.

That’s not a pizza, that’s a bowl of lukewarm tomato paste!

I think the only movie I ever saw that improved on the book was GOLDFINGER, but that’s definitely a rare occurrence.

-JM

Reader question: film rights?

Reader MS has a nice comment about my books and film rights:

“I have pretty much read all of your books to date and am up to date with most of the various saga’s. I was having a discussion with a friend regarding the rubbish and re-vamps the Hollywood is churning out these days and how there needs to be something new. I think the cloak games books would make a brilliant film series, have you ever thought to send some scripts to Film directors or netflix or Amazon prime. Would love to see a film version of one of your series.”

Thanks! Glad you think the books would work on film.

That said, I am unlikely to send scripts to film directors for three reasons:

1.) A book has to be really popular for a long time before someone wants to make a film version of it. Like, in the cultural mainstream or sitting in the Amazon Top 20 for a while kind of popularity. The last two books Amazon optioned to become film series were the Lord of the Rings and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, both of which have been famous for years.

While I wouldn’t mind if my books were that popular, it is unlikely.