Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 47

Cover & Description For SHIELD OF STORMS

It’s time to share the cover image for SHIELD OF STORMS, which you can see below!

As for what SHIELD OF STORMS will be about, let’s see the book description. If all goes well, the book will be ready the last week of January or the first week of February.

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As two bitter foes prepare for battle, neither sees the dark power pulling their strings.

Ridmark Arban is the Shield Knight, defender of the realm of Andomhaim.

Andomhaim has defeated one invasion of the deadly Heptarchy and its spider-priestesses, but so long as the legions of the Heptarchy hold the Isle of Kordain, Ridmark knows another war is coming.

And the Exarch of the Isle wants another war, hoping to conquer Andomhaim for the glory of the Heptarchy.

But neither the Shield Knight nor the Exarch realizes that the true lord of the Isle of Kordain desires this war to begin.

For the war will be the instrument to achieve his dark designs…

-JM

SHIELD OF STORMS rough draft done!

I am pleased to report that the rough draft of SHIELD OF STORMS is done at 103,000 words!

I have also written a short story called HARVESTER, which is the origin story of one of the new characters in the book. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of HARVESTER when SHIELD OF STORMS comes out.

Editing is underway, and if all goes well I hope the book will be out in either the last week of January or the first week of February.

Check back in a few days to see the book cover and description!

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 183: How To Make A Bad Book Cover

In this week’s episode, I take a look at how to avoid making a bad book cover. You can listen to the entire episode, complete with transcript, at the official Pulp Writer Show site!

-JM

Coupon of the Week – 1/15/2024

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This week’s coupon is for the audiobook of CHILD OF THE GHOSTS as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of CHILD OF THE GHOSTS for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code:

JANGHOSTS

The coupon code is valid through January 31st, 2024, so if you find yourself needing an audiobook to break up the winter doldrums, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

2023: The Complete Short Stories now available!

I am pleased to report that 2023: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES, the collection containing all 11 short stories I published in 2023, is now available!

You can get it at  Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Payhip, and Smashwords.

The collection is $0.99 until the end of January.

-JM

The Top 10 Books And Audiobooks Of 2023

It’s time to start figuring out taxes for 2023, which means checking paperwork, filing for 1099s, and so forth. It also means finding out the top ten bestselling books of 2023.

Here are my top ten bestselling ebooks of 2023. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that 2023 was the Year of Dragonskull:

1.) DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER

2.) DRAGONSKULL: WRATH OF THE WARLOCK

3.) DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS

4.) DRAGONSKULL: CROWN OF THE GODS

5.) CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE

6.) DRAGONSKULL: FURY OF THE BARBARIANS

7.) DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE

8.) DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT

9.) DRAGONSKULL: BLADE OF THE ELVES

10.) DRAGONSKULL: CURSE OF THE ORCS

So basically my bestselling books of 2023 were the DRAGONSKULL series, plus CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE. This bodes well for both SHIELD OF STORMS and CLOAK OF TITANS later this year.

Audio, of course, has become an increasingly important format, so here are my top 10 bestselling audiobooks across all platforms for 2023:

1.) THE GHOSTS OMNIBUS ONE

2.) FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON

3.) FROSTBORN: THE WORLD GATE

4.) FROSTBORN: THE HIGH LORDS

5.) FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE

6.) FROSTBORN: THE DRAGON KNIGHT

7.) FROSTBORN: EXCALIBUR

8.) FROSTBORN: THE GORGON SPIRIT

9.) FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING

10.) FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN

So for audio, 2023 was almost the Year of FROSTBORN…but people still really like the big omnibus audiobooks like THE GHOSTS OMNIBUS ONE.

Paperbacks are a much smaller sales channel than either ebooks or audiobooks. But as it turns out, it’s really easy to run that report, so here are my top ten bestselling paperbacks of 2023.

1.) THE WINDOWS COMMAND LINE BEGINNERS GUIDE

2.) THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNERS GUIDE

3.) THE UBUNTU BEGINNERS GUIDE

4.) FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT

5.) FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE

6.) SEVENFOLD SWORD: CHAMPION

7.) DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT

8.) DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS

9.) MALISON: THE COMPLETE SERIES

10.) DRAGONSKULL: CURSE OF THE ORCS

I don’t really write about technology very much any more. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but there are only so many hours in the day, and the money is just a lot better for epic fantasy fiction. That said, I’m glad that people are still finding my tech books helpful enough to buy. My favorite review of THE WINDOWS COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE came from a math professor who said he hated the book, but he couldn’t find a better introduction to the Windows command line environment so he still recommended it to his students.

Thanks for reading, everyone! I’m still grinding away on SHIELD OF STORMS so hopefully we shall have a new book soon!

-JM

Podcast Outtakes

As you might have observed if you visited my official podcast site, The Pulp Writer Show, recently I have employed a transcriptionist to generate transcripts for the show.

She uploads the MP3 of the episode into an AI transcription service, and then listen to the episode while reading over the AI-generated transcript to fix any mistakes the AI might have made.

As it turns out, there are a LOT of mistakes. (This is a good reminder that if you rely on AI transcription without having a human look at it first, you might be in a lot of trouble down the road.) The bald fact is that while AI transcription has come a long way, it still isn’t terribly good.

Here’s one significant example. My podcast is called the “Pulp Writer Show,” and so at the start of every episode, I saw “welcome to the Pulp Writer Show.” The AI sometimes interprets this in creative ways.

Here are just some of the other things the transcription AI thinks the show is called:

Pallbearer Show
Pulp Rider Show
Polite Show/Politer Show
Pulp Burning Show
The Paul Brenner
Paul Brother Show
The Paul printer show
The Pulp Murder Show
Pop writer show
Pulp Runner Show
The Whole writer Show
pup Orator show
pulp Better show
pulp Reader show
The bull rider. Show
pulse reader show
The pope here now
They’ll pop ride share

I have to admit while “The Bull Rider Show” does sound more entertaining than what I actually do, and getting The Pope as an interview guest would be quite a coup, I’m afraid the transcription AI has a ways to go.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 182: My 10 Favorite Scenes Of 2023

In this week’s episode, I take a look back at my ten favorite scenes to write in 2023. I also discuss how my advertising efforts fared in December 2023. You can listen to the episode with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show website!

-JM

10,000 words of SHIELD OF STORMS!

I am pleased to report that I had my first 10,000 word day of 2024 while working on SHIELD OF STORMS, which puts the book at 70,000 words. It also puts me at Chapter 12 of 21, which means I am now over halfway through the rough draft!

Here’s where the current writing projects currently stand.

SHIELD OF STORMS: 70,000 words

SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: LEVELING: 55,000 words

WIZARD-THIEF: 8,500 words

-JM

ad results December 2023

Advertising in December is always tricky, because every consumer-facing business in the world is dumping a ton of money into ads for Christmas, and so the cost gets all screwy. But I’m pleased to report some good results for December.

First, let’s see how the Facebook ads did:

GHOSTS: $4.82 for every $1 spent, with 16.7% of the profit coming from the audiobooks.

CLOAK GAMES/MAGE: $6.42 for every $1 spent, with 6% of the profit coming from the audiobooks.

MALISON/DRAGONTIARNA: $1.82 for every dollar spent.

SILENT ORDER: $1.98 for every dollar spent.

I think I will shut off the Facebook ads for MALISON/DRAGONTIARNA and SILENT ORDER once we come into the new year and let them rest until the next time I can get a Bookbub for one of them.

Next up, let’s see how my Bookbub ads did. As before, I advertised FROSTBORN on Bookbub.

FROSTBORN: $6.52 for every dollar spent, with 37% of the profit coming from the audiobooks.

A complete series with audiobooks seems to do really well on Bookbub. I need to expand my targeting data for the platform so I can advertise GHOSTS there as well.

Finally, let’s look at my Amazon ads. This month I advertised DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE and CLOAK GAMES: OMNIBUS ONE on Amazon ads. I also advertised SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: CREATION and I think I doubled my money, but I’m not entirely sure until I see exactly how much the audiobook brings in at the end of the month.

DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE: $3.06 for every dollar spent, with 18% of the profit coming from the audiobook.

CLOAK GAMES: OMNIBUS ONE: $3.63 for every dollar spent, with 22% of the profit coming from the audiobook.

So overall the campaigns went pretty well.

Thanks for reading the books, everyone! Hopefully more to come soon.

-JM