Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 324
February 23, 2013
Reader Question Day #56 – where are the paperback DEMONSOULED books?
Anthony asks, concerning SOUL OF SKULLS:
But i have one question, why aren’t the books on paperback?
Actually, I do have a paperback edition of DEMONSOULED out, and there’s going to be a paperback version of CHILD OF THE GHOSTS before the end of the month. After that, I’ll do SOUL OF TYRANTS. My goal is to have at least six of my books available in paperback form by the 2013 holiday season – probably the first three books in DEMONSOULED and THE GHOSTS each.
Eventually, I would like to modify my workflow so that the paper book comes out roughly at the same time as the ebook, but I haven’t figured out a good way to do that yet. I might try it with SOUL OF SWORDS this summer.
The problem is that compared to the ebooks, there isn’t a huge lot of demand for paper books. Additionally, doing layout for print books isn’t difficult so much as it is time-consuming, and in the time it takes to lay out a print book, I could do 15,000 words of new writing. One of these activities is more productive than the other. 
That said, there is a demand for paper books, especially around the holidays. Ergo, my plan to have at least six out by November.
Many, many people wrote to ask:
When is GHOST IN THE FORGE coming out?
Soon! Which is why I am going to stop writing this post and go work on GHOST IN THE FORGE.
-JM
February 22, 2013
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The release of GHOST IN THE FORGE is imminent, and I urge you to sign up for my email newsletter. When the book is released, email subscribers will get a little free bonus to go with the book.
-JM
choose your own adventure, episode 3
You decide that the situation calls for some authority. Specifically, your own as a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade. It is within your rights, and you’ve seen your father adjudicate disputes before. You can do the same.
You think.
“What is the meaning of this?” you say.
Father Linus clears his throat. “Sir knight, this is…”
“Run along, boy,” growl Ulacht, pointing at you with his club. “This is none of your concern. Get out of my sight, or I’ll take your horse and send you barefoot back to your father.”
You decide more persuasion is necessary.
You draw Heartwarden, the blue crystal in the blade’s tang flashing, and the orcs flinch in alarm, while Linus’s eyes grow wide. They recognize the weapon for what it is.
“I am Ridmark Arban,” you say, “son of the Dux Leogrance of Taliand, and a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade. Now. You will answer my questions.”
Both the priest and the headman look at each other, and then at you.
“What is the meaning of this?” you say again. “And for the love of God, talk one at a time.”
“I am the priest of the village of Victrix, sir knight,” says Linus. “Five of our children have disappeared in the last fortnight, and we believe that some from the orcish village of Rzoldur,” he glares at Ulacht, “have turned to the worship of the orcish blood gods and slain the children in their black rites.”
“Foolishness!” roars Ulacht. “Ulacht is the headman of Rzoldur, sir knight, and he tells you that we are good subjects of the High King and followers of his God! We leave the humans of Victrix alone!” He points at Linus. “But the humans, yes, the humans think they are so brave, and boast about slaying terrible orcs! Seven our Rzoldur’s children have disappeared in the last fortnight, and Ulacht thinks the humans have slain them!”
“By God and his saints!” you say, exasperated. “Did it not occur to you that this is the Northerland? There are creatures of dark magic and worse things in these forest, and they prey upon man and orc alike.” You wave a hand at the trees. “It’s only the Lord’s mercy that all this shouting has not drawn their attention.”
“Your pardon, Sir Ridmark,” says Linus, “but we are not fools. We know what the devils of the forest do. Perhaps even better than a nobleman’s son from the south. An urvaalg or a shadowmorph would devour its victims, leave blood and bones and a trail of carnage. Our children have simply disappeared, and I have no doubt that the orcs crept in under cover of darkness and kidnapped them!”
“Villain!” says Ulacht.
Both Ulacht and Linus begin shouting at each other in Latin, while the orcs grumble to each other in their own tongue and lift their weapons. You take a deep breath to shout them down…
…and then the ghastly shriek cuts through your ears like a spike stabbed into your brain.
Your horse rears in alarm, and you try to keep your saddle, but the pain spiking through your skull slows your reflexes, and your fall backwards off your horse. You get to one knee, and see Linus and Ulacht and the orcs covering their ears, and many of the orcs have blood streaming from their noses and ears.
The air behind the orcs ripples, and the blur resolves into a hideous, misshapen creature, a ghastly combination of ape and wolf. The thing is called an urvaalg, and the dark elves created them through the use of sorcery to serve as guardians. Centuries of warfare shattered the dark elven kingdoms – but urvaalgs still haunt the northern forest, and their piercing wails can disable even the strongest man.
The urvaalg shrieks again, and the orcs collapse as a spike of pain shoots through your head. You stagger to your feet, and the urvaalg stoops over the nearest orc and begins raking at its chest.
It’s going to crack his ribs and devour his heart.
Heartwarden thrums in your fist, the sword’s power beginning to awaken.
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February 21, 2013
GHOST IN THE FORGE – the book description
I’m making good progress on GHOST IN THE FORGE, so I think it’s time I tell you what the book’s actually about. Here’s the description!
Caina Amalas is a Ghost nightfigher, a spy and agent of the Emperor, and time and time again she has overcome mighty foes through boldness and cunning.
But even her boldness might not be enough to stop the coming destruction.
A secretive cabal of sorcerers has created a weapon so powerful that its wielder will have dominion over the entire world – and the weapon is for sale to the highest bidder.
Unless Caina unravels the sorcerers’ secrets, uncounted millions will perish in the weapon’s wrath.
Starting with her…
-JM
February 20, 2013
choose your own adventure, episode 2
You give your horse a gentle tap with your spurs, ride around the bend in the road, and find yourself in the middle of an argument.
A dozen orcish men stand in the road, carrying clubs, pitchforks, and scythes. For a moment you reach for Heartwarden’s hilt, fearing that they are wild pagan orcs from the north, but to judge from their clothing, they’re farmers, which means they’re from Khaluusk and therefore subjects of the High King.
The orcs are confronting a man in the black robe of a village priest, a wooden cross hanging from a cord around his neck. The priest is stocky, with the thickset build of a man accustomed to hard labor, and his face is almost purple with anger.
The orcs themselves look equally furious.
“What is this?” snarls the largest of the orcish men in Latin. His hair is white, and most of his left ear is gone, with that side of his face marred by a scar that looks like it should have killed him. The right side of his face is marked with a pattern of tattoos that identifies him as a headman in an orcish clan. “You say these lies about us, Father Linus? You say these slanderous lies about us?”
“Say whatever you want,” says Linus, “but you cannot change the facts. Five children from the village of Victrix are missing.”
The orcish headman growls, his red eyes shining brighter in his leathery green face. “You say that Ulacht is a liar? You say this, Father Linus?” Orcs almost invariably refer to themselves in the third person, so you guess the headman’s name is Ulacht. “You think that we took your children? That we kidnapped them and sacrificed them to the old blood gods?” He thumps his chest with a fist. “Bah! We of Khaluusk are subjects of the High King and baptized sons of the Church!” He levels a finger at the priest. “And you have taken our children!”
“We have done nothing of the sort!” says Linus.
“Seven of our children have gone missing,” says Ulacht. “Ulacht is the headman of Rzoldur, and my kinsfolk tell me that seven of our children have disappeared. We orcs do not value our children so lightly that we fail to notice when they disappear.” He growls. “Ulacht thinks that cowardly men from Victrix slew our children to boast about how they slew terrible orcs in the wild.”
Linus’s face somehow gets darker. “That is preposterous! You will tell me what you have done with the children, or I shall make sure the Dux in Castra Marcaine hears…”
“Silence!” roars Ulacht. “You will return our children, or you will see what an orcish warband can do!” He growls. “We may have sworn to the High King and his God, but we have not forgotten the old ways!”
The priest lifts his fists, the orcish headman his club, and it looks as if they are about to come to blows.
Then one of the other orcs sees you and shouts something in the orcish tongue, and suddenly the entire mob is looking at you.
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February 19, 2013
GHOST IN THE FORGE – the table of contents
Cover image copyright JC_Design | istockphoto.com
Work is proceeding well on GHOST IN THE FORGE, so let’s have a look at the Table of Contents!
Chapter 1 – A Mask Of Jade
Chapter 2 – To The Highest Bidder
Chapter 3 – A Ghost Nightfighter
Chapter 4 – Stormdancer
Chapter 5 – Caravan
Chapter 6 – The City of the Artificers
Chapter 7 – Sorcerers
Chapter 8 – A Demonstration
Chapter 9 – Haggling
Chapter 10 – Old Blood
Chapter 11 – The Watcher
Chapter 12 – The First Magus
Chapter 13 – A Weeping Slave
Chapter 14 – Half-Brothers
Chapter 15 – Red Steel
Chapter 16 – Subterfuges
Chapter 17 – Grinning Scars
Chapter 18 – An Invitation
Chapter 19 – Remake the World
Chapter 20 – All In One Place
Chapter 21 – Blood and Steel
Chapter 22 – Stop Talking And Kill Her
Chapter 23 – Corrupted Air
Chapter 24 – The Stormdancer and the Assassin
Chapter 25 – Slaves and Chains
Chapter 26 – Weapons of Sorcery
Chapter 27 – Choices
Epilogue
-JM
February 18, 2013
choose your own adventure, episode 1
You are Ridmark Arban, eighteen years old and the youngest son of Leogrance Arban, Dux of Taliand. On the day of your eighteenth birthday, you took vows as a Knight of the Soulblade before the Well in the High King’s seat of Tarlion, and received the soulblade Heartwarden, which has been borne by seventeen Swordbearers before you.
As a new-sworn Swordbearer, the Master of your Order bestowed your first task. You are to travel to the seat of the Dux of the Northerland at Castra Marcaine and obey him in all things. For the Northerland is the northernmost march of the High King’s realm of Andomhaim, and in the wastes beyond the borders of Northerland wait tribes of pagan orcs, petty kingdoms of dark elves, holds of arrogant giants…and, perhaps, worse things yet.
But while you have just entered the Northerland, you are still a week’s ride away from Castra Marcaine. Currently you are riding on the narrow road that marks the border between the Northerland and Khaluusk, a small orcish kingdom that accepted both the High King and baptism after the defeat of the dread Frostborn. The thick forest crowds around you, and utter silence reigns over the trees.
Until you hear the shouting.
Through the trees you hear what sounds like a man frantically pleading his case, while several other men try to shout him down.
The first man sounds is speaking Latin…but the others, you think, are speaking orcish.
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GHOST IN THE FORGE – a second excerpt
Cover image copyright JC_Design | istockphoto.com
I’m making good progress on the revisions for GHOST IN THE FORGE, so let’s have a second excerpt!
Jadriga’s black eyes blazed. “But still it is not enough! Slay one tyrant and a dozen more take his place. The world is broken, Ghost, a prison of rot and decay that spawns monsters. The gods did this to us. They created this torture chamber of a world and left us to suffer in it! They will pay, Ghost! I will make them pay! I will see the gods themselves suffer as we have suffered, and repay them for all the agony their broken world ever wrought!”
Her voice rose to a scream of fury, and the mists howled around them like a storm. Caina lost her footing and fell into nothingness, the gray mist swallowing her whole.
-JM
February 17, 2013
ebook sales for January 2013
6,369.
That is both an amazing lot of books and a new record. Thanks, everyone! I can’t even visualize 6,369 people in one place.
A big part of that came from SOUL OF SKULLS, which sold 569 copies in January. Additionally, THE WANDERING KNIGHT did surprisingly well on its own. I gave away THE WANDERING KNIGHT for free via Smashwords coupon code to my newsletter subscribers (which is why you should subscribe to my newsletter right now, since you’ll get free stuff), but it still sold 65 copies on its own.
2013 will be my second full year of self-publishing, so I can now track sales from year-to-year. In January 2012 I sold 3,261 books, so 2013 saw a nice increase.
Again, thank you, everyone. Writing is a joy unto itself, which is why I essentially wrote novels without an audience from 2005 to 2011, but it’s a lot more fun when people read the books.
-JM
