Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 240
November 1, 2016
FROSTBORN & CLOAK GAMES updates
Did a brisk 5k run, now it’s time to dig into THE DAGGER JAWS, which will be the free short story to accompany FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE for newsletter subscribers.
I also finished Chapter 5 of CLOAK GAMES: SHATTER STONE this morning. Once FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE comes out, I’ll be able to hit the ground running with SHATTER STONE.
-JM
October 31, 2016
FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE rough draft done!
I am very pleased to report that the rough draft for FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE is finished!
102,500 words in twenty days.
Next up is THE DAGGER JAWS, a FROSTBORN short story I’ll give away for free to newsletter subscribers when FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE comes out late next month.
Later this week I’ll share the cover image for FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE.
-JM
scary scene
It’s Halloween!
What’s the scariest scene that I think I’ve written?
I think in GHOST IN THE BLOOD when Caina is exploring the tunnels under Black Angel Tower in Marsis for the first time. Or in CHILD OF THE GHOSTS when she falls into Maglarion’s hands – I still occasionally get WTF!? emails about that.
And, of course, if the reader does not like spiders or serpents (or moths) both the FROSTBORN and DEMONSOULED books will be frightening. 
October 28, 2016
FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE update
Now on chapter 19 of 24. Three quarters of the way there! Should finish the rough draft sometime next week if all goes well.
And I’m definitely finishing the FROSTBORN series next year. I can prove it, because I just bought the covers for the last three books.
October 27, 2016
obsolete technology
I was reading an Agatha Christie book, and a key portion of the mystery revolves around a wind-up clock set to the wrong time.
It’s always fascinating to read a book that revolves around obsolete technology, or a book with a conflict that would be easily solved with a cell phone.
Romeo & Juliet would have ended very differently if they had access to text messages.
October 26, 2016
CLOAK GAMES: SHATTER STONE excerpt
I’m working on CLOAK GAMES: SHATTER STONE on the side, and I’ll finish it once FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE is out. Here’s a short excerpt!
“I think,” I said, “that you’d better stay out of sight. Let me do the talking.”
Riordan raised an eyebrow. “I might scare them, you mean?”
“If he knows what a Shadow Hunter is, yeah,” I said. “Also, I’m a girl, and I’m short. People usually aren’t scared of me.”
“Until you shoot them in the head a few times.”
“That does change their minds. Briefly.”
-JM
James Bond vs the obsolescence of libraries
Recently I heard a librarian talk about fears that libraries would become obsolete.
As you might expect, that got me thinking about James Bond.
Specifically, Bond movie THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. It’s considered to be one of the weaker Bond films, but I like it, and I do like the music, especially from the scene when Bond uses a jetski to chase an assassin down the Thames. When I bought the soundtrack, all the metadata for the tracks was set as “Music From The MGM Motion Picture The World Is Not Enough”. So when I want to listen to it, I don’t scroll through my music library looking for “James Bond” or “The World Is Not Enough”, I have to scroll until I find “Music From The MGM Motion Picture.”
Which is really odd, because the phrase “motion picture” is kind of an archaism, isn’t it? Like calling a car a horseless carriage or referring to the radio as wireless telegraphy. A movie made in 2016 is still technically a motion picture, but it has very little in common in the way that the original “moving pictures” were made.
That’s true of my books as well. According to the data I have, most people who have read the FROSTBORN series did so on Kindles, Kindle Fires, iPads, and various Android tablets. Ten years ago none of that stuff existed, and twenty-five years ago, the act of reading on a tablet would not have been recognizable as actually reading something. Nonetheless, it is still the same thing. Vastly different, but still essentially the same activity.
So I doubt libraries are going to become obsolete. They’re going to change dramatically, in much the same way that a movie like THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is vastly different than a “moving picture” from the 1920s, in much the same way that reading the FROSTBORN series now is different than the way you would have read it if I had written it in the 1980s. The library of the future will be different, but it won’t go away.
If you like libraries, you should read my FROSTBORN books because the characters talk about books.
-JM
October 25, 2016
can you make a monthly income writing?
Let’s talk about the business of writing today! Bradford emails to ask:
I am a new author with my first book out this week on amazon. I have read your frostborn series, Demonsouled series and the Ghost series. I have enjoyed them all so far and looking forward to reading the Ghost Exile series next.
Was hoping you might have a few tips on marketing. Do you have any recommended places to put my money for advertising.Also very curious at what book number did you finally start seeing a steady income? I have read many a authors tale and some say 3 books others 5 books.
It’s important to remember that there are no guarantees of anything with writing or publishing, and especially with marketing. I’ve tried things that I thought were good ideas, but nothing happened. I’ve tried things on a whim that took five minutes, and it turned out to be wildly successful.
That said, I started seeing (relatively) steady income after eight books – the 1st three Demonsouled books, the 1st three Ghosts books, my Ubuntu Beginner’s Guide, and my Windows Command Line Beginner’s Guide. I had also made the first Demonsouled book free and the first Ghost book free. That especially did the trick, since it’s five years later and there are now ten Demonsouled books and eighteen Ghosts books (nineteen if you count Blade of the Ghosts).
I should also mention that I was something of an anomalous case because I was able to do all of that in four months. I had written the novels over the previous ten years and was unable to get them traditionally published, so I could self-publish them pretty swiftly. Additionally, my Ubuntu books was originally a long series of blog posts for one of my older websites, so I combined them together in a single book.
If I was starting now, I wouldn’t spend any money on advertising until I’ve got at least three or four books in the series. (I won’t really do anything to advertise CLOAK GAMES until after the fifth book SHATTER STONE comes out, hopefully in December.) I’ve had good results with BargainBooksy, BookGorilla, and BookSends. Bookbub is the best, but you need a certain minimum number of reviews first, and they reject about 90 percent of their submissions, so persistence helps.
Of course, that is true of all things in life!
-JM
October 22, 2016
halfway through FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE
Now on Chapter 13 of 24 of FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE. Over halfway there!
(And the book is FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE, not THE DWARVEN KING or THE FALSE PRINCE of any of the other things I’ve accidentally typed into my phone while doing Facebook updates.
October 21, 2016
title mistakes
Yesterday I posted that I was working on FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING. That was a mistake – I’m actually working on FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE.
I don’t usually mix up the FROSTBORN titles like that.
That said, I’m the one who wrote GHOST IN THE STORM, GHOST IN THE STONE, GHOST IN THE SURGE, and GHOST IN THE SEAL, so I have lots of practice working with similar-sounding titles.
