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Excerpts from SEVENFOLD SWORD and CLOAK GAMES

Editing is going well on SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS, and I’m on Chapter 11 of 14 of the rough draft of CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL. So let’s have some spoiler-free excerpts!

A short excerpt from SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS:

“Greetings,” said Ridmark, switching to the orcish tongue. “We are simply passing through this land.”

“Human!” barked the toad-creature.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Ridmark. Well, in Third’s case, half-right.

“Humans not come to swamp!” said the toad-thing. “That very sad!”

“Is it, now?” said Ridmark, holding his staff before him.

Something in the creature’s posture made Third reach for the hilts of her swords.

“Yes, very sad,” said the toad-creature. “Do you know why?”

“Why is that?” said Ridmark.

“Humans taste good!” said the toad-creature, and it moved in a blur.

And here’s an excerpt from CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL:

“My lord, I have an idea,” said Russell.

Morvilind glared at him. Russell remained calm. Not even the grim attention of the Magebreaker could make Russell’s poise waver.

“Well, we’ve heard from the Shadow Hunter,” said Morvilind. “So why not hear from the youth? Please, Mr. Moran, regale us with your opinion.”

“I think results matter to you more than methods,” said Russell. “I get that, I really do. People can be unreliable. But, if I can make an observation to you, my lord, your methods have left you stuck on Earth for three hundred years. So if one method isn’t working, perhaps it’s time to try another. The result is more important than the intention anyway.”

“How fitting,” said Morvilind, though his tone was less harsh than before. “The fate of Kalvarion and Earth hangs in the balance, and I must stop my work to explain things to my inferiors.”

“If the fate of Earth and Kalvarion are really in the balance,” said Russell, voice quiet, “and you have the chance to save them, I doubt you would flinch from any method. Including explaining your work to your inferiors.”

Morvilind gazed at him without expression for a moment.

“Strange that you are wiser than your sister,” he said.

-JM

SILENT ORDER: IMAGE HAND now available

I am pleased to report that SILENT ORDER: IMAGE 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 ancient relics of dead races can unleash catastrophe.

When Jack March finds the crew of a space station killed by mysterious radiation, he soon finds himself on the trail of a deadly superweapon.

And unless he finds the weapon, he will be its next victim…

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-JM

First In Series Blues, Part II

Reader Scott has an insightful comment about writing the first book in a series:

“Okay, Gray Knight purchased on 30th Jan 2016, Child Of the Ghosts 10 Feb 2016. John Schettler’s Kirov series wasn’t found until about book 15. Keep at it. As a reader I want to know that a new author is a stayer not a dabbler. Time helps build up review counts as well. No longer do new authors have to make it in the first quarter or be banished from store shelves. New readers can happily binge on a digital backlist that is stil available.”

That is an excellent point.

See, in the Bad Old Days of traditional publishing, a book had to do well during its first 90 days or so, otherwise it would get pulled from shelves and the excess books would be sent back to the publisher and pulped. (The “returns system” that lets booksellers return books to publisher at no cost is in my opinion an obsolete and wasteful legacy of the Great Depression that should be eliminated. Fortunately, Amazon is doing that by default.)

And if the book did well, that might be the kiss of death for the sequel. Let’s say the first book had a print run of 10,000 copies, and 8,000 of them sold. Yay! But for the second book, the publisher will only print 8,000 copies, because that’s what sold. This time, only 6,000 might sell. So the publisher might cancel the series or give up after the third book, because projected sales of only 6,000 copies? Can’t hack it, so the series gets cancelled. If in the old days if you had a favorite series that got canceled when there was obviously still gas in the tank, that was probably what happened. (And this doesn’t even account for Unexpected Events that could screw things up – like the price of gasoline spiking, or a truckers’ strike, a natural disaster that closes a major freeway, the publisher turns out to be embezzling, that kind of problem.)

A good account of that kind of process is here, though it’s good to see that the writer in question landed on her feet afterward.

To break out of that death spiral, you needed major bestsellerdom – like Nora Roberts/JD Robb or Sue Grafton or John Sandford or Lee Child, or for fantasy and science fiction, like Jim Butcher or Terry Brooks or Robert Jordan. Think “household name” level of bestseller, or for SF/F, a name that everyone’s heard of within the genre.

Nowadays, of course, that isn’t a problem. You can self-publish whatever you want, so long as the rights to your series aren’t tangled up with a legacy publisher. If it doesn’t sell at first, so what? It’s not like it costs anything to keep the ebook available. You can write sequels and start advertising the first book, and then the series might start selling.

So, when a writer feels pressure for the first book of his series to do well in its first 90 days, that’s a legacy of the Bad Old Days, when a book had to do well in that timespan or it was done. Nowadays, thanks to self-publishing and ebooks, a series can take as long as its writer wants to build up an audience.

-JM

First In Series Blues

I recently saw a post from a young writer wondering if he should abandon his planned series because the first book hadn’t sold as well as he had hoped.

Well, no. The reading public really seems to expect series these days, and books can take some time to find their audience. You can’t judge a series by how well the first book does, especially before any of the other books are published.

Advertising isn’t instantaneous, either, and there’s really no point to advertising a book until it has sequels. Someone can see a book, decided to buy it, and not get around to finishing it until weeks later. So you might not see a sale on the second book until weeks after someone buys the first one.

For example, FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT came out in August of 2013, and the final book of the FROSTBORN series, FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON came out in May of 2017. FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON sold 18 times more copies in its first month than FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT did.

So it’s good to keep at it.

Interesting Links #20: Let’s Market Books And Stay Away From Agents!

This week’s Interesting Links deal with the art of book marketing, and on the dangerous of hiring an agent.

(Seriously. Self-publish. Don’t look for a literary agent.)

-This is a good summary of the pros and cons of a writer using Kindle Unlimited: Going Wide Or Going Exclusive To Amazon.

-I have to admit that I don’t work nearly as hard as this to promote my books. How To Write 12 Books In 6 Months To Grow Sales & Populate A Backlist.

-In my opinion, Kobo has an excellent internal promotions system, and I use it religiously. That said, they don’t accept all submissions, so this might be helpful: My Title Was Rejected From A Kobo Promotion – Why?

–If you read to the end of this post, the anecdote about editing is hilarious.

-People who say “reading is dying” are obviously ignoring indie, which is growing in leaps and bounds: Traditional publishers’ ebook sales drop as indie authors and Amazon take off.

-Here is a good post about writing a book with multiple POVs, which I do all the time. Generally, I find that every POV character needs his or her own arc: A Change in Perspective: Tips for Writing from Multiple Points of View.

–This is a really good Facebook post from Jim Butcher on the importance of doing small things well.

-Here’s a good post on ebook marketing: Marketing Uncovered: How To Sell Books.

-A textbook example of wishful thinking. PG’s analysis at the end, in my opinion, is spot-on. There Is A Growing Negative Sentiment Towards E-Readers.

-From now on, if a newish writer asks me if they should try to get an agent or not, I’m going to direct them to this article. Accountant Embezzled $3.4 Million From Famed Literary Agency.

-As bad as the previous article makes agent embezzling sound, the reality is actually much worse. Don’t get an agent! An Agent Nightmare Revealed.

-Here’s another good post on dishonest agents: The Agent Theft News Has Me Thinking…

-JM

Ghost In The Amulet?

A few people were concerned that I didn’t mention GHOST IN THE AMULET in my last project update post.

Never fear – I will be starting GHOST IN THE AMULET soon. Once CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL and its accompanying short story are finished, then I’m going to start cracking on GHOST IN THE AMULET. If all goes well, I think AMULET will be my book for October.

-JM

SEVENFOLD SWORD, CLOAK GAMES, and SILENT ORDER updates

Since it’s the weekend, let’s have a general update on where I’m at with various writing projects.

-SILENT ORDER: IMAGE HAND is just about done. That’s going to come out next week if all goes well.

-Editing for SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS is underway and going well. I think that’s going to come out shortly after the Fourth of July.

-I’m 28,000 words into CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL, the unexpected twelfth book of the CLOAK GAMES series.

-I’m 12,300 words into SILENT ORDER #9.

-JM

CLOAK GAMES descriptions

Back in March, I had the bright idea of changing all the CLOAK GAMES book descriptions from third-person to first-person. I thought this was a good idea because 1.) Most urban fantasy descriptions seem to be first-person, 2.) the first-person descriptions could be written in Nadia’s generally belligerent/snarky voice, and 3.) the third-person descriptions relied too much on the worldbuilding for CLOAK GAMES, which is somewhat unusual and hard to explain. (Elves! In the future! Surface technological stasis!)

So, was it a good idea? Did it work?

I now have the sales data for February and April. In February, I published CLOAK GAMES: BLOOD CAST in February, in March I changed the descriptions, and in April I published CLOAK GAMES: LAST JUDGE. Both times, I did exactly the same advertising for the books – an ad campaign for CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP since it’s the 1st book in the series and it’s free, and then my new-release newsletter for the new book.

The sales of the first 8 books in the series increased 38% in April over February, all from the new 1st-person descriptions.

38 percent! Thanks everyone!

You hear about the power of positive thinking, but I guess this was the power of positive description.

Excerpt Thursday! FROSTBORN: THE UNDYING WIZARD

It’s Excerpt Thursday! This week’s excerpt is from FROSTBORN: THE UNDYING WIZARD, which is available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook.

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Then Gavin approached with a lit torch, and Ridmark shook aside his dark musings.

“Stand back,” he warned the others, gesturing with the torch. “This might get loud.”

“Loud?” said Calliande.

“Like this,” said Ridmark, and he threw the torch. It spun end over and end and struck the bubbling pool of water. The torch went out with a faint hiss and sank.

“Well,” said Caius, “that was…”

A blue fireball erupted from the water with a plume of steam and an angry hiss. Kharlacht and Caius yelled and drew their weapons, while Calliande raised her hands, white light flaring around her fingers. But the fireball vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving only burning grass and moss in its wake.

“What did you do?” said Gavin. “You…you aren’t really a wizard, are you?”

“Marsh gas,” said Ridmark. “Dead plants and animals get buried in the marsh, and when they decay, they give off a flammable gas. Since they are buried, there is no place for the gas to go. Eventually it leaks to the surface, and a single spark will set it alight.”

“I’ve heard the fur traders who visit…who used to visit Aranaeus speak of ghosts in the swamp,” said Gavin. “Blue lights at night.”

“There may be restless spirits in the swamp,” said Ridmark, “but those blue flames are marsh gases, catching flame and burning away.”

“I’d never heard of such a thing,” said Kharlacht.

“I thought were you were from Vhaluusk,” said Caius.

“The northern hills, near the mountains,” said Kharlacht. “Not the swamps. Even Qazarl thought the orcs of the swamps were mad.”

“This has been an enlightening demonstration,” said Calliande, “but why risk it? The light and noise will have drawn attention, if anyone is nearby.”

“Because,” said Ridmark, “I wanted to see if any swamp drakes were near.”

Her eyes widened. “Swamp drakes?”

“The metallic scent,” said Ridmark. “Swamp drake scales. They nest near patches of marsh gas, use their breath to set it afire and kill prey. They can’t fly the way fire drakes can, but they still breathe flame upon their prey.”

“Then why draw their attention?” said Calliande.

“They’re hard to see,” said Ridmark. “Brown and gray scales. Blends perfectly with the marsh. If one’s hunting you, you might not see it until it rips out your throat or sets your head on fire. But since the explosion hasn’t drawn any attention,” he shrugged, “we ought to be safe enough.”

“A sound stratagem,” said Caius.

“It was,” said Calliande, “but I wish you would explain these things. You have a deep and subtle mind, Ridmark, but my heart almost stopped when the water caught fire.”

Ridmark opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it.

She had a point.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I have spent years traveling in my own company, and I…have grown unused to explaining myself at times.”

Caius smiled. “At times, Gray Knight?”

-JM

SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS cover image!

Now that editing is underway for SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS, it’s time to share the cover image!

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If all goes well, the book will come out sometime in July.

-JM