Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 264
October 27, 2015
GHOST IN THE THRONE rough draft done!
I am pleased to report that the rough draft of GHOST IN THE THRONE is finally done!
121,700 words in 30 days, which officially makes it the longest book I have written since SOUL OF SWORDS back in 2013.
I will start editing it next week, and will post the cover image then.
-JM
October 23, 2015
Is The CLOAK GAMES Series A Dystopia?
I had a high-school student email me this week and ask if I had intended to write the CLOAK GAMES series as a dystopian setting.
Not intentionally. Of course, the secret to writing a dystopia is to realize that every possible configuration of human society is a dystopia to someone. 
In the setting of CLOAK GAMES, it’s not that Earth is a dystopian police state so much as the High Queen of the Elves has trained her human subjects over the generations to police themselves without much interference from her. Governing Earth is way down on her list of priorities – she views Earth as sort of a factory farm for producing supplies and troops to further her main goals*, and she understands human psychology and group dynamics better than most humans do.
So from birth, people are trained to revere and admire the Elves, and the whole curriculum of the schools is written to emphasize every bad thing that happened in human history before the Conquest, and to highlight the peace and unity among human nations since the High Queen came (while overlooking things like the fact that the Elves wiped out two-thirds of the human population in the first stages of the Conquest). Popular culture and mass media are carefully designed to reinforce the message. Dramas always show heroic men-at-arms fighting for their lords in the Shadowlands, heroic servants protecting their noble Elven lords from treachery, or heroic Homeland Security officers tracking down Rebels guilty of the most appalling crimes. Characters who dislike the Elves are shown either as pathetic fools or as the blackest sort of villains who are utterly beyond redemption.
The flip side of this is that people who do offend the Elves are punished in the most public and humiliating way possible – floggings that are recorded and then uploaded on the Internet for mass viewing on Punishment Day every week. (In the CLOAK GAMES setting, there are entire websites devoted to making humorous remixes of Punishment Day videos designed to ridicule the victims.) Someone who winds up on a Punishment Day video becomes a social pariah unable to earn a living, and usually winds up having to sell himself in slavery to an Elven noble to keep from starving to death – social security-type things like pensions and disability support are only available to men-at-arms who honorably completed a term of service.
So there is gentle and pervasive persuasion on the one hand, and the other hand is an iron fist.
And the system works so well that most people are unaware it even exists, and police themselves without thinking about it. 90% of the US population in CLOAK GAMES will never meet an Inquisitor or talk to a Homeland Security agent, but if someone criticizes an Elf in their presence, they will call the emergency number to report it as fast as they can. For the 10% who are troublemakers, the Inquisition and Homeland Security are there to deal with them.
(At least that is the way it works in the English-speaking countries – other countries have their own power dynamics, and the High Queen has different systems for keeping them in line.)
Nadia is aware of most of this, but definitely not all, so one of the interesting things about writing the CLOAK GAMES book is how her extremely cynical perspective clashes with that of the people she meets – either idealistic supporters of the Elves, or the much darker idealists who join the Rebels.
And, of course, when Nadia learns of some of the darker secrets the Elves have.**
So, to sum up, I didn’t set out to write CLOAK GAMES as a dystopia, but the idea came from an inverse of my FROSTBORN series. In FROSTBORN, refugees from Earth travel to a magical world and build a civilization. In CLOAK GAMES, refugees from a magical world come to Earth and conquer it, and some of the practical problems that would pose led to the idea for CLOAK GAMES.
And if all this sounds interesting, CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP is on sale at Kobo this weekend!
-JM
*Her main goals, of course, will turn up in later books.
**Also to be explored in later books.
October 22, 2015
yet another GHOST IN THE THRONE progress update
I am now at 100,000 words of the GHOST IN THE THRONE rough draft.
Still not done yet, though – on chapter 22 of 27!
-JM
October 16, 2015
GHOST IN THE THRONE progress update
My goal was to reach 70,000 words of GHOST IN THE THRONE by today, and I made it to 76,000. Milestone reached!
I think this is going to be a long one. I’m 76,000 words into it, and I’m still on Chapter 16 of 27. GHOST IN THE INFERNO held the previous title for longest GHOSTS book at 105,000 words in the final draft, but I think GHOST IN THE THRONE might wind up beating it by a good ten to fifteen thousand words.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised. GHOST IN THE SEAL wasn’t a cliffhanger, but it was pretty clear that a lot of things were about to happen in the story, and those things are happening right now!
-JM
October 11, 2015
GHOST IN THE THRONE progress update
I’m now two weeks into writing the GHOST IN THE THRONE rough draft, which puts me at Chapter 13 of 27, with 56,000 words written.
-JM
October 9, 2015
additional thoughts on “a golden age of publishing”
Concerning the economics of writing, if you write novels, its seems that the math strongly favors self-publishing your novel over submitting it to traditional publishers. Over the last two years, the Author Earnings website started by indie author Hugh Howey and the anonymous Data Guy have been tracking ebook sales on Amazon US (and occasionally Barnes & Noble), and have concluded that self-published ebook writers generally sell more ebooks and make more money than their traditionally published peers. (Anecdotally, I can confirm I sell way more ebooks as a self-published writer than I ever did as a traditionally published one.) Veteran writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch had some mild criticisms of the Author Earnings (mostly its Amazon focus), but agreed that the math for self-published writers is vastly better than that for traditionally published ones.
Time is another factor with that. When I listened to the discussion, L. Jagi Lamplighter mentioned that it took her 17 years to get published the first time. Technical/SF writer Jeff Duntemann pointed out that he was 63 years old, and that he didn’t really have time to wait 17 years on the agent/publisher rejection treadmill. (Fortunately, he avoided it entirely to publish his novel.) A new writer could spend five (or 17) years trying to sell a book to a traditional publisher, or self-publish it to Amazon tomorrow. I spent from 2008 to 2011 trying to sell my book GHOST IN THE FLAMES to a traditional publisher, and self-published it in the summer of 2011. Since then, it has sold over 15,000 copies.
Truly, the math is just better for self-published writers.
One of the points of discussion was that the Kindle doesn’t handle custom fonts or images well. I can attest that this is true – I stopped doing screenshots with my tech books because handling the screenshots was a pain. In my opinion, custom fonts for ebooks are a waste of time. One one of the benefits of an ereader is that you can dial the font size up to whatever size your eyes require, which is really nice if you’re reading on a phone. The trouble with elaborate fonts is that they don’t always scale up well, and sometimes don’t scale up at all. I’ve read ebooks where you couldn’t adjust the font size because of the publisher’s font choices, and it was quite annoying. I think if a publisher wants to make a book that looks like a work of art, with beautiful illustrations and fonts and the like, that it would be better to focus on the print version.
Related to that is the idea of “enhanced” ebooks, which usually means ebooks with added multimedia content or capabilities – music, images, videos and the like. One of the criticisms of the Kindle is that it doesn’t exploit the potentials of enhanced ebooks. Apple has made some stabs in that direction with its iBooks Author application, but nothing much has come of it, and enhanced ebooks may be an untapped market. One of the panelists predicted that the age of the self-published author would come to an end as enhanced ebooks became the norm (since an enhanced ebook would take a team to produce), and publishers would reassert their dominance.
I have two thoughts on that.
First, I think enhanced ebooks don’t work for novels. An enhanced novel is basically just a clunky video game or movie, or kind of like the first live-video CD-ROM computer games from the early 1990s. A novel is a different experience than a movie or a video game, and I don’t think trying to blend the experience necessarily works well. Sometimes you just want to read a book, and sometimes you just want to play the game without watching yet another stupid cutscene. I have the feeling an enhanced ebook novel would combine the worst parts of reading and the worst parts of computer gaming.
So unless readers develop a sudden taste for novels interrupted by video clips or accompanied by a soundtrack you can’t shut off, I do not think enhanced ebooks will gain much traction with novels.
Second, I do think enhanced ebooks have potential for textbooks. Like, you could tap an equation in a math book and it would show you the steps to the solution, or you tap on the name of, say King Canute or John III Sobieski, and it shows you more information about the person in question. I do think it would be very difficult for an individual author to create something like that, which would require a publisher’s help.
The problem with writing textbooks, though, is that you then have to sell them to the school system, and selling to the school system manages to combine the worst parts of bureaucracy with the worst parts of publishing, both wrapped in a layer of political expediency and good old-fashioned cronyism. Consider the ongoing lawsuits and criminal investigations around the Los Angeles school district’s attempt to purchase iPads for every student in 2013. Calling it a billion dollar disaster would be generous. With a market that dysfunctional, it is not surprising that enhanced ebook textbooks have rather failed to catch fire.
I talk to a lot of teachers, and I suspect most of them would either prefer to make their own smartboard class lessons, or use the smartboard class lessons that are included with a paper textbook. Those that do use iPads tend to employ them for uses other than enhanced textbooks.
So I think that there is potential of some kind in enhanced ebooks, but that no one has yet realized it and no one is currently in a position to realize it. Enhanced ebooks may be a solution in search of a problem. But I have been wrong before – I though the first generation of Microsoft’s Surface computer was a bad idea, but three generations of the Surface later Apple and Google and HP and others are falling over each other to copy the design.
Finally, the discussion pointed out that many writers are unable or unwilling to find their own covers, upload their own ebooks, edit their own books, etc, and that publishers exist to provide these services for writers. I would argue that it is better to hire out those services for a one-time fee than a permanent percentage of the royalties, but not everyone might agree. I suppose it depends upon how entrepreneurial someone is willing to be. Some people are more comfortable being their own bosses, and some people are more comfortable being an employee.
There’s nothing wrong with that, though I still contend it is better to be one’s own publisher than to have a publisher.
-JM
October 6, 2015
a golden age of publishing? (UPDATED)
Let’s talk a bit about the business of writing today!
Recently SCI PHI JOURNAL hosted a roundtable discussion on whether or not this is a golden age for publishing, thanks to the Kindle and ebooks and the iPad and so on. L. Jagi Lamplighter, one of the writers on the roundtable, invited me to take part, but unfortunately I was traveling that day.
Nevertheless, I was able to contribute an essay on the topic “is this a golden age for publishing?”, which you can read at this link.
-JM
UPDATE:
Anthony M writes to say:
Hello! I would just like to point out that Superversive SF and the Sci Phi Journal overlap, but aren’t actually the same thing. Sci Phi is a journal that publishes science fiction with a philosophical bent, while superversive SF is about a particular literary movement. Jason Rennie is heavily involved/runs both, but they’re not exactly the same.
October 4, 2015
CLOAK GAMES: FROST FEVER now available!
I am pleased to report that CLOAK GAMES: FROST FEVER is now available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon Germany, Amazon Australia, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords.
Click here to read the first chapter of CLOAK GAMES: FROST FEVER.
In 2013, a gate to another world opened, and Elves used their magic to conquer Earth, crushing all resistance before them.
Three hundred years after the Conquest, the exiled Elven High Queen rules an orderly but stagnant Earth, with humanity forced to fight in the High Queen’s war against the traitors on the Elven homeworld.
Nadia Moran doesn’t care about that. She wants freedom, and she wants power. Unfortunately for her, she has little enough of either. To make matters worse, her baby brother Russell is dying of a rare magical disease, and the only one who can cure him is the cruel Elven archmage Morvilind.
If that were not enough, Morvilind demands a steep price for his cures.
Specifically, he wants Nadia to use her skill and magic to steal treasures for him, and this time he’s sent Nadia to steal a priceless relic from the ambassador of the frost giants.
And the frost giants never forget a grudge…
-JM
October 3, 2015
GHOST IN THE THRONE excerpt
Now working on Chapter 4 of GHOST IN THE THRONE. Time for an excerpt!
“What,” said Kalgri, “is so funny?”
“I was thinking about history,” said Cassander.
“History,” said Kalgri in a flat voice.
“Yes,” said Cassander. “Iramis had such a long history, did it not? Stretching back for all those centuries to the very dawn of ages. So many centuries, so many names, loremasters and Princes and valikarion, all them written into the pages of history. And yet Grand Master Callatas became the last name in Iramisian history on the day he held the Star of Iramis aloft and watched the city burn.”
“I know,” said Kalgri. “I was there. Long before you were born.”
Cassander smiled at her. “Perhaps I shall be the last name in Istarinmul’s history.”
-JM
September 28, 2015
GHOST IN THE THRONE now underway
GHOST IN THE THRONE is now underway. I had hoped to start before September was over, and September 28th still counts, so mission accomplished!
It will be the 7th book of the GHOST EXILE series, and the 16th overall book of THE GHOSTS. Sixteen books in seven years! Let’s see how it breaks down:
2008: GHOST IN THE FLAMES
2009: GHOST IN THE BLOOD
2010: CHILD OF THE GHOSTS
2011: Nothing
2012: GHOST IN THE STORM, GHOST IN THE STONE
2013: GHOST IN THE FORGE, GHOST IN THE ASHES, GHOST IN THE MASK, GHOST IN THE SEAL
2014: GHOST IN THE COWL, GHOST IN THE MAZE, GHOST IN THE HUNT
2015: GHOST IN THE RAZOR, GHOST IN THE INFERNO, GHOST IN THE SEAL, and (forthcoming) GHOST IN THE THRONE.
Caina’s had quite the long journey in seven years. Thanks, everyone, for coming along!
-JM
