Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 261

Print Book Catalog Now Available!

20 of my novels are now available as trade paperbacks, and you can find the complete list of them here!

One of my goals for 2016 is to get better organized with print books, and this page is the start.On the page linked above you can find links to each of the major sites that carries my paperback books. If you would prefer to order a book from your local bookseller instead of Amazon or Barnes & Noble, the ISBN numbers are listed for each book. Simply provide the bookseller with the ISBN-13 number, and they can order the book for you.

I hope to expand the number of print books soon. I’ll start with BLADE OF THE GHOSTS, then finish the CLOAK GAMES series, and move on to FROSTBORN and GHOST EXILE.

-JM

The Frostborn Fixup

My experiment with creating a fix-up novel from THE GHOSTS short stories (CHAMPION OF THE GHOSTS) and releasing it on Kindle Unlimited is going pretty well and I’m seeing good results. Better than I had hoped for, to be honest. (A longer explanation is here.)

So I’m going to do the same thing with the FROSTBORN short stories. The plan is to combine THE SOULBLADE’S TALE, THE ORC’S TALE, THE MAGE’S TALE, THE SOLDIER’S TALE, THE PALADIN’S TALE, THE THIEF’S TALE, THE ASSASSIN’S TALE, and THE KNIGHT’S TALE into a fix-up novel called FROSTBORN: THE KNIGHT QUESTS.

The frame story around the short stories will be the Warden of Urd Morlemoch preparing his big plan in FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN. THE DARK WARDEN always had my favorite prologue of the FROSTBORN series anyway, so it is fun to expand on that a little.

Anyway, FROSTBORN: THE KNIGHT QUESTS should be out a few weeks before FROSTBORN: THE HIGH LORDS. Watch this space!

-JM

a note on the end of GHOST EXILE

After my writing goals post, some readers expressed dismay that I planned to end the GHOST EXILE series in 2016.

I should mention that I have notes for a new series called GHOST SOMETHING. It’s not actually called GHOST SOMETHING, but to say what “SOMETHING” actually is would be a massive spoiler.

GHOST EXILE will be a grand total of nine books, and GHOST IN THE THRONE was #7. I know no one ever actually believes me when I say this, but I planned for GHOST EXILE to be nine books. I wrote out a rough outline for the entire series, figured it would be about six to nine books, and decided on nine after GHOST IN THE MAZE. Granted, there have been some improvisations along the way, but I planned on nine books.

The biggest unplanned change I made to GHOST EXILE was the return of Kylon. I planned to write him out after the end of GHOST IN THE SURGE, and all the stuff he’s done in the last few books was originally intended for another character entirely. But halfway through writing GHOST IN THE HUNT, it became pretty clear that reader opinion very strongly favored bringing Kylon back. Fortunately, (though not for Kylon) the sheer spiteful malevolence of Kalgri and the cold calculations of Cassander Nilas offered an expedient way to return him to the series.

So, anyway: after GHOST EXILE, we shall have GHOST SOMETHING, with “SOMETHING” to be revealed in late 2016 or early 2017.

-JM

2016’s writing goals

It’s time to lay out my writing goals for 2016. Of course, before making any kind of long-term plan, it’s good to consider this bit from the book of James:

‘Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”’

That’s good advice. (I’ve been in some planning meetings where the management should have read that first!) So, if it is the Lord’s will, here is what I will do in 2016:

-800,000 to 900,000 words of new fiction

I’ve done this over the last four years, so barring unexpected developments, I should be able to repeat it in 2016. One of the really useful things I taught myself how to do in 2015 was how to work on two fiction books simultaneously. I’ve never been able to do that before, which I think is why I was able to write over a million new words in 2015.

-Three new FROSTBORN books.

-Finish the GHOST EXILE series!

GHOST EXILE has only two books left to go after GHOST IN THE THRONE. So if all goes well, I should be able to bring GHOST EXILE to its conclusion in 2016.

-Finish the MASK OF THE DEMONSOULED trilogy at last!

I’m into the second book, MASK OF DRAGONS, right now, and hopefully I can finish the third book in the second half of 2016.

-Two new CLOAK GAMES books.

-A systematic approach to print books.

I’ve got 20 of my books available in print, but I’ve taken a very scattershot approach to it, and most people don’t even know the print books exist. So I want to do it more systematically. The first step is to make a central page for print books on my website, with links and ISBNs in case people want to order the books from their friendly local bookstore.

-More Kindle Unlimited Fix-Up Novels.

My experiment with turning the short stories into fix-up novels worked pretty well in CHAMPION OF THE GHOSTS, so I’ll be doing more of that in 2016.

-A 101 TIPS & TRICKS tech book on Linux Mint.

So, if all goes well, this is what I hope to do in 2016.

-JM

the Latin language of Frostborn

Reader Brendan asks:

Just found your Frostborn series. Very well done, from what I’ve read so far.

I do have a question: is the “Latin” spoken in that universe actually something more like Brithenig? I’d think so, given how it had a thousand years to evolve, and it was spoken by British Celts/Romans.

The Latin spoken in Andomhaim would originally be the Latin of Late Antiquity mixed with numerous Celtic words, since the founders of Andomhaim came out of sub-Roman Britain. In the thousand years since, it has changed, mostly by addition of quite a lot of loanwords from orcish, dwarven, and dark elven. Especially orcish, since the humans of Andomhaim had the most contact with orcs so far. Like, a lot of the common curse words are actually orcish, since orcish is a more satisfying language in which to curse.

That said, when the founders of Andomhaim arrived from Earth, they had a complete library of Roman and Greek authors (including some now lost on Earth), so Andomhaim has preserved what they call “proper” Latin, or the Latin as written down in the Roman authors they brought from Earth. So an educated noble would be expected to converse in proper Latin without any orcish or dwarven loanwords turning up, and there would be a difference between the Latin of a noble and a commoner, since a commoner would simply use whatever word he had learned, whether Latin, orcish, or dwarven. That was why Morigna’s speech always sounded so archaic to everyone she met – she learned most of her Latin from Coriolus, who spoke “proper” Latin, and she learned orcish as a separate language, and she never mixed the two.

-JM

MASK OF DRAGONS preview

Finally, let us close out 2015 with a preview of a book coming in 2016:
 
“A good plan,” said Riothamus.
 
Molly snorted. “Something will go wrong.”
 
“Something always does,” said Mazael.
 
His daughter rolled her eyes. “Profound as ever, father.”

-JM

Did I reach 2015’s writing goals?

Back in January I laid out the Writing Goals I would like to accomplish in 2015.

2015 was kind of a weird year, and a lot of unexpected things happened (I thought I would have to move, twice, but it didn’t happen either time), so let’s see how I did with my Writing Goals. The original Writing Goals are in parentheses below:

-(Write 800,000 to 900,000 new words.)

And how! I actually wrote over a million words in 2015.

-(Write three new GHOST EXILE books.)

I did this one. I wrote GHOST IN THE INFERNO, GHOST IN THE SEAL, and GHOST IN THE THRONE. Also BLADE OF THE GHOSTS, which isn’t a GHOST EXILE book, but close enough.

-(Write three new FROSTBORN books.)

I did this one as well. I wrote FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT, FROSTBORN: THE BROKEN MAGE, and FROSTBORN: THE WORLD GATE.

-(Write one new tech book: WINDOWS 10: 101 TIPS  & TRICKS.)

I did that, too!

(-Write MASK OF DRAGONS.)

I didn’t get to that one, alas. I started MASK OF DRAGONS, and am currently on Chapter 2. I also wrote THE SERPENT KNIGHT, a novella to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the original hardcover release of DEMONSOULED back in 2005. So I only did that one partially.

(-Start bundling short stories into four-pack omnibus editions. For a while I dithered about doing omnibus editions of short stories, but I could never get the covers right. Then I saw that some other writers were doing omnibus editions by shrinking the covers of four books down to 400 x 600 pixel images and then combining them to form the usual 1600 x 2400 image. When I saw that, a light went on. So I’ll start making omnibus short story editions later in this year.)

I did that one with WORLD OF THE GHOSTS volumes one and two. However, I’ve since discarded that idea in favor of creating fix-up novels out of the short stories and releasing them on Kindle Unlimited. It’s working, so far – CHAMPION OF THE GHOSTS had sold more copies and made more money from KU page reads than the WORLD OF THE GHOSTS volumes ever did. So we can say this goal was met, and I’ll be assembling more fix-up novels in 2016.

(-Get up to at least 30 of my books available in print. Right now I’m at 19.)

I definitely didn’t get to this one. I fell off the Print Books Wagon in 2015. I only made a print version of CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP, and that was all. So I definitely didn’t come anywhere near this one.

Some unexpected things happened as well. I was planning to stick exclusively to FROSTBORN, GHOST EXILE, and MASK OF THE DEMONSOULED in 2015, but around the time of Potential Move #1 I was writing down some ideas as a mental break, and I sort of went with it. Five months later we have three CLOAK GAMES books, so it’s funny how things work out.

So I met most of my writing goals in 2015! In a few days I’ll lay out writing goals for 2016.

-JM

I Literally Wrote A Million Words In 2015

I was hoping to get to 800,000 or 900,000 words in 2015. Instead, as the following chart demonstrates, I actually wrote slightly over one million words in 2015:

It was actually more than that, since of the finished books on this list, the word count came from the final draft, and I typically cut between two and five percent between drafts.

So while I didn’t make all of my writing goals for 2015, it nonetheless turned to be a productive year!

-JM

CHAMPION OF THE GHOSTS now available!

If you remember my post about experimenting with Kindle Unlimited and fix-up novels from last week, CHAMPION OF THE GHOSTS is now available for purchase at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Canada, and Amazon Australia and for borrowing through Kindle Unlimited. It was originally the novellas GHOST DAGGER and GHOST THORNS, and the short stories GHOST ARIA, GHOST LIGHT, and GHOST CLAWS.

Here’s the book description!

Sixteen years old, Caina is a student of the Ghosts, the spies and agents of the Emperor of Nighmar, and from them she learns the arts of stealth and infiltration, of disguise and intrigue. If she survives, she will become a nightfighter, one of the elite agents of the Ghosts.

For the Empire is in deadly danger, and needs the nightfighters of the Ghosts.

Either Caina will become a nightfighter, or the enemies of the Empire will kill her…

Originally published as the novellas GHOST DAGGER and GHOST THORNS, and the short stories GHOST CLAWS, GHOST LIGHT, and GHOST ARIA.

-JM

a short excerpt from FROSTBORN: THE HIGH LORDS

It’s Friday! Let’s close out the week with a short excerpt from FROSTBORN: THE HIGH LORDS.

“You ought to come.” 

“Why?” said Arandar.

“Well, you are a Swordbearer,” said Jager. “That counts for something. Also, my wife likes you.” He let out a theatrical sigh. “Though for all her virtues, her taste is, alas, sometimes questionable.”

Arandar laughed despite himself. “You are an offensive little man, my lord Prince.”

“One tries,” said Jager. “Shall we?”

He gestured, and Arandar fell in besides him. He ought to find Jager appalling, he knew, but they had been through too much danger together. Arandar had seen halflings as servants all his life, but it was hard to give orders to a man who had gone with you into places like Urd Morlemoch and Khald Azalar. Besides, Jager was the Prince Consort of the strange new kingdom that Mara was forging. Technically, Arandar supposed, that gave Jager rank on par with that of a Dux.

Now that was a strange thought.

-JM