Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 275
February 10, 2015
cover art for FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT
Editing is now underway for FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT, so that means it’s time to share the cover image!
-JM
February 9, 2015
editing for FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT now underway
Editing for FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT is now underway! Tune in later this week to see the cover art. Meanwhile, a short excerpt:
After five and a half long years of searching, Ridmark Arban knew what he had to do.
Now it was just a matter of surviving long enough to do it.
Though as he looked around the forest, he conceded that survival might prove a challenge.
-JM
February 8, 2015
The Traitor’s Tale
Now writing THE TRAITOR’S TALE, the short story I’ll give away for free to newsletter subscribers when FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT comes out.
(The “traitor” in question is Antenora – if you’ve read FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN, you’ll know who she is.)
THE TRAITOR’S TALE will be the first story where one of the characters encounters a living, breathing Frostborn. After seven novels and short stories, it was time! Subscribe to my new-release newsletter to read the short story for free when it comes out.
-JM
a free GHOSTS story coming soon!
About five and a half years ago, before I was really aware of the Kindle and other ereaders, I wrote a GHOSTS short story for an anthology. The publisher of the anthology went out of business, and I meant to shop the story around elsewhere, but I never really got around to it, and soon I forgot the story existed entirely.
Then a few days ago I was digging around in my files and I came across the story once more. It held up pretty well, and after some editing and formatting it will be ready to go.
Look for GHOST LIGHT to appear in a few days. Newsletter subscribers will get the story for free via Smashwords coupon code. If you haven’t already subscribed to my new-release newsletter and want to get the story for free when it comes out, you can sign up here.
-JM
February 7, 2015
FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT (Frostborn #7) finished!
The rough draft of FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT is done! It came in at 106,500 words, which took me 28 days to write, at an average of about 3,800 words a day.
Next up: THE TRAITOR’S TALE, the FROSTBORN short story I’ll give away for free to my newsletter subscribers when THE GORGON SPIRIT comes out.
-JM
January 30, 2015
Are Science Fiction And Fantasy Dying?
This Publishers’ Weekly report claims that science fiction and fantasy readership is in the process of declining, with fewer books being purchased every year.
The problem with this report is that it only tracks sales of traditionally published books, and a small subset of traditionally published books at that. It doesn’t track self-published books like mine. Even then, the data sources in the report tend not to be 100% accurate. There are lots and lots of science fiction and fantasy books being written, bought, and read right now, but since they’re self-published the “official” sources don’t notice them. (A good explanation of the phenomenon is here.)
An example may illustrate the point.
In the early 1990s, if you walked into a Best Buy you would see rows and rows of shelves of PC games in colorful cardboard boxes. In 2015, if you walk into a Best Buy, you’ll see maybe one shelf of PC games (mostly various Blizzard titles) in small plastic boxes. The logical conclusion is that PC gaming is in the process of dying…but that overlooks Steam and GOG.com and other online platforms that handle most of the sales of computer games. Once you factor in Steam and GOG, you realize that PC gaming is exploding! And if you count tablets and smartphones as computers, then computer gaming has never been bigger.
The same thing is happening with science fiction and fantasy books. When I typed this post, I looked at the top 20 books for Epic Fantasy on Amazon and the top 20 books for Science Fiction on Amazon US. Of the top 20 Epic Fantasy books, nine of them were self-published, and of the top 20 Science Fiction books, ten of them were self-published. (And I suspect a bunch of the other publishers are actually LLCs or S-corporations created by self-publishers for tax reasons.)
So science fiction and fantasy are doing well, and they’re doing a lot better than they did in the care of traditional publishers. I don’t think the large publishers were actually in a conspiracy to eliminate reading as a form of recreation in the English-speaking world, but they certainly acted as if they were.
-JM
January 29, 2015
GHOST EXILE – Sicarion vs. the Red Huntress vs. the Balarigar
Note that today’s post has !!!SPOILERS!!! for the entirety of THE GHOSTS to date.
A couple of questions came up in email about GHOST IN THE RAZOR, so let’s answer them here!
“I really like Kalgri the Red Huntress as a villain and glad she is coming back. Who would win in a fight, her or Sicarion?”
Sicarion is an extremely capable and dangerous assassin, and not too proud to withdraw if a fight doesn’t look like it’s going to go his way. In addition, he is a sorcerer and a necromancer of middling skill, so he can both use sorcery in a fight, and then employ necromancy to repair wounds to himself after the battle.
The Red Huntress, by contrast, is an insane murder juggernaut.
In a straight fight, Kalgri would probably win. Sicarion would assume that she is a sorceress, and use his favorite tactic against sorcerers – a spell that produces a sphere of shadows around him that disrupts spells. Kalgri, however, is not a sorcerer, since all her superhuman abilities stem from the Voice, the nagataaru within her. The nagataaru would not be affected by the spell, and Kalgri would walk right through it.
This assumes that it’s a straight fight, and neither Kalgri nor Sicarion like straight fights. If Kalgri had time to prepare, she would almost certainly come with a plan to kill Sicarion. Her first plan to kill Caina, after all, failed only due to sheer dumb luck.
If Sicarion had time to prepare, he likely would come up with an effective trap or ambush for Kalgri. That said, it would still be an extremely risky venture, and Sicarion would try to avoid fighting her at all if possible, or (better yet) manipulate someone else into fighting her for him.
“Does Caina believe that she is really the Balarigar?”
She doesn’t. She thinks the entirety of it is a myth that as been misapplied to her and distorted by rumor, and doesn’t think that she has been chosen by gods, God, or destiny to kill demons and evil sorcerers. She thinks the “Balarigar” is a legend that started in Marsis and sort of accreted around her over the following years. In truth, she is rather irritated by it, since it makes it harder for her to disappear when necessary.
That said, she is completely willing to use the legend to her advantage when necessary.
-JM
January 28, 2015
Writing Goals For 2015
Now that it’s almost February, I suppose I should decide on what writing goals I want to accomplish in 2015!
-Write 800,000 to 900,000 new words.
I would like to do one million words in a year, but realistically I don’t think it’s possible at the moment. 800,000 to 900,000 a year seems to be the current sweet spot.
-Write three new GHOST EXILE books.
-Write three new FROSTBORN books.
-Write one new tech book: WINDOWS 10: 101 TIPS & TRICKS.
-Write MASK OF DRAGONS.
-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.
-Get up to at least 30 of my books available in print. Right now I’m at 19.
So those are my writing goals for 2015. It will be interesting to revisit in January 2016 and see how many of them I reached!
-JM
January 27, 2015
Bestselling Books Of 2014
I had a spare moment, so I tallied up my total books sold in 2014, and then worked out the percentages of the individual series.
The Ghosts & Ghost Exile: 36% of the total.
Computer Beginner’s Guides: 20% of the total.
Frostborn: 18% of the total.
Demonsouled: 12% of the total.
The Third Soul: 3% of the total.
The Tower of Endless Worlds: 1.5% of the total.
My bestselling fiction book was FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT, and my bestselling nonfiction book was THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE. My second-bestselling fiction book was GHOST IN THE FLAMES (exactly 101 fewer copies than FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT), and my second-bestselling nonfiction book was WINDOWS 8.1: 101 TIPS & TRICKS.
Thanks everyone! It is amusing in hindsight that in 2010 I decided to stop writing novels after CHILD OF THE GHOSTS. Clearly I cannot see the future. 
-JM
January 24, 2015
another FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT update (Frostborn #7)
Now on Chapter 10 of 24 of FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT, at about 46,000 words. I think the rough draft will wind up at about 100,000 to 120,000 words, but we’ll see. Gauging a book’s final length while you’re writing it is more of an art than a science.
Let’s have a short excerpt!
“We have a problem,” said Gavin.
No one seemed to notice. How would Ridmark have handled this? Gavin considered for a moment, then drew a deep breath.
“Shut up and stop talking!” he roared at the top of his lungs.
Morigna and Arandar both whirled to face him, Arandar lifting Heartwarden and Morigna her staff. The others looked astonished. Gavin supposed that he did not shout all that often, now that he thought about it.
“Shut up and stop talking?” said Jager. “That’s redundant, you know.”
-JM
