Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 293
February 16, 2014
a correction
Yesterday, I accidentally said the short story GHOST SWORD will come out at the same time as GHOST IN THE SURGE. This is incorrect – it will actually come out at the same time as GHOST IN THE COWL. Sorry for the confusion!
Alas, this is my fault for choosing similar book titles – GHOST IN THE STORM (#4), GHOST IN THE STONE (#5), and GHOST IN THE SURGE (#9). And in DEMONSOULED as well – we have SOUL OF SERPENTS, SOUL OF SORCERY, and SOUL OF SKULLS. (Try saying those titles five times quickly!) Apparently, I really like my sibilants. 
So for the rest of my days, I fear I shall regularly confuse my own book titles. Well, there are worse problems to have.
-JM
February 15, 2014
and the winner is…
…Kylon of House Kardamnos, coming in with 34% of the vote. He’ll be the main character in a short story called GHOST SWORD, which will come out at the same time as GHOST IN THE SURGE.
If you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can get the story for free when it comes out, thanks to Smashwords coupon codes.
-JM
February 14, 2014
GHOST IN THE COWL rough draft finished!
I am pleased to report that the rough draft of GHOST IN THE COWL is complete! 89,600 words, which puts it at about the length of GHOST IN THE BLOOD.
-JM
February 13, 2014
last day to vote!
Don’t forget today is the last day to vote on the main character for the next THE GHOSTS short story. Right now Kylon of House Kardamnos is in the lead, but it could still change.
-JM
February 12, 2014
FROSTBORN: THE UNDYING WIZARD now available on iTunes
Thanks for your patience, iBooks users – FROSTBORN: THE UNDYING WIZARD is now available on iTunes.
-JM
February 10, 2014
GHOST IN THE COWL progress update
Now 70,000 words into the rough draft of GHOST IN THE COWL! Let’s have a short excerpt:
“What happened to you?” said Caina.
“I…I do not remember,” said the old beggar. “The blood…the blood takes away the pain. I…I think…”
His strange eyes grew huge, and he shied against the wall.
“I can see you,” he whispered.
“Of course you can,” said Caina. “I am right here.”
“The shadows,” said the beggar. “I can…I can see all the shadows. So many shadows! They are following you! All the shadows!” He began to weep. “Don’t let them hurt me, please, don’t let them…”
-JM
February 6, 2014
Who should be the main character in the next GHOSTS short story? Vote now!
As many of you know, I use an email newsletter to announce when new books are available, and newsletter subscribers usually get short stories for free via Smashwords coupon codes when I announce a new book. For GHOST IN THE COWL, I think I will try something different – I have idea for several short stories, but I have not been able to choose one.
So I decided to put it up for a vote! Use the form below to vote for who should be the main character in the next GHOSTS short story. The poll is open through 2/15, and I will announce who the winner is on the day after that.
(And be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you get the story for free!)
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
beware the one who names himself a rancher of men
A fairly prominent literary agent, perhaps accidentally, revealed his opinion of writers in a recent post. I will not link to it, but if you are sufficiently curious Google the phrase below, since it captures the crux of his post:
Better still, because some authors are now—voluntarily!—willing to bear the expense and undertake the effort of building an audience by themselves, print publishers have the luxury of culling the prize cattle from the herd.
If you want to be a writer and are just starting out, you are really infinitely better off self-publishing ebooks than attempting to query agents or publishers. Yes, you’ll make mistakes, or screw something up with the formatting or the cover, get a bad review or two, and (most likely) not sell many copies. But so what? You’ll learn from these mistakes and become better and stronger (and you will learn infinitely more from a paying reader’s bad review than a rejection letter from an agent that says the book “just didn’t work for me”). Perhaps you’ll decide writing is not for you, and that is fine, or you will double down and become a better writer. But either way is more productive than querying agents, which is a waste of time.
Now, you might argue I have an unfair advantage – I submitted my first story to a magazine in 2000 and DEMONSOULED was originally published in 2005, so by the time I discovered the Kindle and ebooks in 2011, I had something like ten unpublished novels ready to go. But if in some parallel universe the Kindle and the Nook and the iPad had been available in 2000, and if I had a time machine and the option to do it over again, I would definitely self-publish. Certainly I have put that advice into practice – everything I have written since 2011 has been geared toward self-publication, and I do not regret it in the slightest.
Besides, publishing is a business relationship, and you don’t want to get into a business relationship (or any kind of relationship, really) with someone who thinks you are the prize cattle from the herd. Because we all know what happens to prize cattle:
Image credit PDPhoto | WikiMedia Commons
-JM
February 5, 2014
February 4, 2014
two excerpts from GHOST IN THE COWL
Let’s have two brief (spoiler-free) excerpts from GHOST IN THE COWL:
“The coffeehouse?” said the merchant. “Over there, across the Bazaar. Are you drunk? This is clearly not the coffeehouse.”
“No,” said Caina, turning away.
“And you will buy nothing?” shouted the merchant. “Your mother was a diseased whore!”
“That,” said Caina without looking back, “would have been an improvement.”
###
“Oh!” said Strake, slapping one hand against her forehead. “Oh, I forgot again.”
“Forgot what?” said Caina.
“The necessary social mores,” said Strake. “It is considered rude to discuss mathematics before offering greetings.” She sighed. “I always forget.”
“I see,” said Caina again, unsure if she ought to be alarmed or amused.
“Social mores, social mores,” said Strake, closing her eyes as if trying to remember a list. “Ah…yes, introduction first…”
-JM
