Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 189
June 4, 2018
announcing the unexpected twelfth CLOAK GAMES book – CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL!
When I started writing CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER a couple of months ago, I fully intended it to be the final book in the CLOAK GAMES series. I had planned for eleven total books since the end of 2016 or so.
But! As I wrote some scenes in Chapter 15, I realized that the plot demanded one more book.
So now I am working on CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL. I’m on Chapter 5 of 14, and if all goes well, I hope to have it out in August.
Since SKY HAMMER came out, a few people have asked when the next book in my different series is coming out, so here is what (I hope) the next few months will look like:
June: SILENT ORDER: IMAGE HAND.
July: SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS
August: CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL and SILENT ORDER #9 (SILENT ORDER #9 might get delayed to October, though.)
September: SEVENFOLD SWORD #8.
October: GHOST IN THE AMULET. I’m really looked forward to getting back to Caina’s world!
-JM
June 3, 2018
CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER now available!
I am pleased to report that CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER is now available on all ebook stores. You can get it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords.
Be sure to read all the way to the end of the book – there’s a surprise that I think you’ll like. 
June 2, 2018
SEVENFOLD SWORD: SHADOW is a Kindle Monthly Deal!
I am pleased to report that SEVENFOLD SWORD: SHADOW is a Kindle Monthly Deal for June on Amazon UK and Amazon AU.
[image error]
So if you’ve been meaning to check out the SEVENFOLD SWORD series and you live in the UK or Australia, now is an excellent time to do so!
Kindle Monthly Deals for Amazon UK.
Kindle Monthly Deals for Amazon AU.
-JM
May 31, 2018
Except Thursday: GHOST IN THE STORM
It’s Excerpt Thursday! This week’s excerpt is from GHOST IN THE STORM. Caina has a conversation that she doesn’t realize will follow her for years to come.
May 30, 2018
Jonathan Moeller vs. text-to-speech!
Recently I got an email from a reader informing me that because there were no audiobook editions of the SILENT ORDER books, he (I assume the correspondent was a he) was going to go ahead and use text-to-speech to listen to the book whether I liked it or not.
That was odd, because I certainly don’t object to it. I think text-to-speech software is great. I use it all the time on my Fire tablet. Both the Amazon Fire tablets and Google Play Books have a built-in feature to read aloud books to you, and I think iBooks does as well though I’ve never used it. Back in the last decade, a writers’ advocacy group called the Authors’ Guild was making a stink that text-to-speech was stealing a derivative licensing right from writers, but I think that’s misguided. Text-to-speech a welcome technological accommodation for the visually impaired, and anyway a computer-generated voice can’t match the performance aspect of a good audiobook narrator. Go listen to Steven Crossley read the sample text of FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT, and then listen to a text-to-speech program read the first chapter of the book aloud, and you’ll hear exactly what I mean.
So you want to use text-to-speech software to listen to my book? Go forth with my blessing and listen. Just don’t post the recording or try to sell it, because that would be illegal, and worse, just plain tacky.
As for why there aren’t audiobook editions of the SILENT ORDER series, it comes down to economics. To calculate how long an audiobook is going to be, narrators and producers use the “finished hour” – how many completed hours the finished audiobook will be. Like, a finished hour is usually around 9,000 words or so, and FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT came to 10 hours and 56 minutes. Narrators charge by the finished hour, and a good narrator, generally speaking, will charge $250 and up per finished hour. (In fact, I believe narrators who are part of the Screen Actors’ Guild are required to charge a minimum of $250 per hour.) A good narrator can charge more than $250, and $350 and higher isn’t all that uncommon.
I while back I read a blog post from a writer saying that he wasn’t going to do any audiobooks until the price of narrators came down, because he thought that narration rates were in a price bubble that was going to pop soon. I’m afraid that writer was fooling himself – a good narrator can charge $300 and up a finished hour because he can. It’s not a common skillset, and the narrator makes or breaks the audiobook. Also, narrating an audiobook is a lot harder than it looks (or sounds). Try reading aloud to yourself for 11 hours straight. It’s really hard! And you have to make it sound good, too, and maybe read in different timbres or accents for the various characters. (This link leads to a good interview with historian Dan Jones where he comments on how difficult it was to narrate his own book about the Knights Templar.) You can find cheaper narrators, but if the narrator isn’t any good, there’s no point in doing the audiobook.
Now, back to SILENT ORDER. The eighth book is coming out in the 2nd half of June, and based on my calculations, producing all eight books in the series as audiobooks would cost between $14,000 to $16,000 USD. Since the series started in September 2017, it hasn’t sold enough copies to meet the cost of producing all of them as audiobooks. It would take a lot of audiobook sales to make back that $16,000. To be honest, the cost of producing the SILENT ORDER series as audiobooks seems like more trouble, time, and effort than it’s worth. That might change in the future, but definitely not right now. (And SILENT ORDER is one of my shorter series – to do all twenty Caina books as audiobooks would cost upwards of $60,000, and probably more!)
The TLDR summary: I’m fine with text-to-speech, and it’s not presently feasible to do SILENT ORDER audiobooks. Fortunately, there’s text-to-speech.
May 29, 2018
SEVENFOLD SWORD & SILENT ORDER updates
I finished writing the rough drafts of SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS and SHIELD KNIGHT: GAVIN’S TALE sooner than I expected, so now I’m going to write a SILENT ORDER short story that I’ll give away for free to newsletter subscribers when SILENT ORDER: IMAGE HAND comes out later this month.
Next week, if all goes well, I’ll start editing SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS, and I’ll post the cover image.
And before you ask, CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER will be coming VERY soon.
May 26, 2018
SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS rough draft done
I am pleased to report that the rough draft of SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS is finished! 103,200 words in 23 days.
Next up is a short story called SHIELD KNIGHT: GAVIN’S TALE that I will give away for free to newsletter subscribers when SORCERESS comes out.
What’s SHIELD KNIGHT: GAVIN’S TALE going to be about?
The Maledicti have realized that Antenora has been hindering them…and they’ve decided to put a stop to it.
You can subscribe to my newsletter here.
-JM
May 25, 2018
CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER Table of Contents!
Let’s kick off the weekend by having a look at the Table of Contents for CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER!
If all goes well, the book will come out sometime late next week!
[image error]
-JM
May 24, 2018
Excerpt Thursday: THE BLACK PALADIN
It’s Excerpt Thursday! Today’s excerpt is from THE BLACK PALADIN.
###
Raelum broke into a run, heedless of the noise. Another sob echoed out, and the horrible voice laughed again. Raelum darted around a tree, vaulted over a weathered boulder, and landed in a small, crowded clearing.
A young woman in worn clothes stood in the center of the clearing, blue eyes wide, cheeks flushed with cold and terror. From her halting limp, Raelum guessed that she had sprained her ankle.
A half-dozen hunched, misshapen figures stood around in her. The stench of rotting meat rose from their grinning, fang-choked mouths. Gray skin hung from their twisted bodies, revealing rotten flesh and crumbled bone. Eyes like dying coals stared at the young woman, watching her with hunger and lust.
The creatures were ghouls, corpses inhabited by minor demons of the astral world. They hunted the countryside, feasting on human flesh, and cunning ones could hide themselves in cities for decades, even centuries, devouring the unwary.
But Raelum had faced their like before. He lifted the sword that Sir Oliver had carried and strode into the clearing, the familiar anger churning in him. He dropped his pack, unbuckled his sword belt so his scabbard would not tangle his legs, and set himself.
“You will be mine, pretty thing,” rasped the largest ghoul. She flinched away. “We feast on you, yes, and then you shall rise as one of us! No more will we hunt alone.”
“You shall not!” said Raelum, pointing the sword at the ghoul. For a moment he saw Red Philip’s sneering face once more. “Wretched thing, you shall not!”
The ghouls whirled, and the girl gaped at him. The sword shuddered in Raelum’s hand, the sigil of the rose and sword on the blade beginning to glow.
“And who are you, little man?” snarled the biggest ghoul. Even from thirty feet away, the creature’s rank breath made Raelum’s skin crawl.
“I am Raelum, once of Khauldun,” said Raelum, “and by the Divine, I swear that you wretched beasts will never see another night!”
The ghoul gibbered with laughter. “This shell was Morick, in life.” Sometimes the demons inside the ghouls claimed the memories and identities of their dead hosts. “Now I am strong! We shall feast on your flesh!”
“Try,” spat Raelum, sword gripped in both hands.
The ghouls glanced at each other. The girl stared at him, shaking with fear.
The sun disappeared beneath the trees.
“Night is my time!” roared Morick, shaking his talons. “Now, little man, you shall die!”
Two of the ghouls stood guard over the girl, but Morick and the remaining three charged towards Raelum, darting over the snowy ground on all fours like wolves.
May 23, 2018
CLOAK GAMES, SEVENFOLD SWORD, and SILENT ORDER updates
Here’s where I’m at with my various projects this week.
-I’m on Chapter 18 of 24 of the rough draft of SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS, and if all goes well I want to finish the rough draft by the end of May.
-The editing on CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER is nearly done. The book should be a lock for a release in the first week of June.
-Editing on SILENT ORDER: IMAGE HAND is going well, and I think that book will be out in the 2nd half of June.
-I finished Chapter 1 of 13 of SILENT ORDER #9. I’ll announce the title of that one when SILENT ORDER: IMAGE HAND comes out.
-I’m 17,000 words into an Untitled Project. I’ll announce what that’s going to be next month.
-JM
