Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 7

Coupon of the Week, 7/14/25

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves, Book #2 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store:

WOLVES50

The coupon code is valid through August 5th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

Fun & Games With Holiday Weekend Book Launches

A few astute readers noted that I published SHIELD OF POWER over July 2nd and July 3rd, but did not send out the newsletter until July 8th, and wanted to know why I did that.

Short answer: holiday weekend.

Longer answer follows!

Holiday weekends are a tricky time to launch a book because the best ways to let people know about that book are email and social media, but a lot fewer people are checking email and social media on a holiday weekend. So that presents me with two options.

1.) Publish the book and put out the newsletter and social media on the holiday weekend, accepting the lower reach and conversion.

2.) Wait until after the holiday weekend to publish the book.

The problem with the second option is that there are some people who really, really want to read the book over the long holiday weekend.

So I went with option three:

3.) Publish the book before the holiday weekend, and then do the social media and newsletter after the weekend.

I think the usual term for this is a “soft launch.” I think it worked out pretty well. The people who really wanted the book and were checking Amazon every day were able to get it and read it over the holiday weekend. Everyone who would not have seen an email or social media post over the weekend did see them on Monday and Tuesday after the weekend.

It also worked with recent algorithmic changes at Amazon. Amazon is changing things all the time and has been doing so for all fourteen years I’ve been self-publishing. The latest change is that sales ranks get updated much, much less frequently than before. They used to change once an hour, but now they change twice a day at most and for books that don’t sell that many copies, they might change once a day. So in general it’s better to spread the launch out a bit rather than announce everything all at once.

I did the same thing with SHIELD OF BATTLE back in Easter, and it worked out pretty well then, and SHIELD OF POWER has so far gotten a very strong response. So I’ll probably keep the same plan the next time I have a release around a holiday weekend.

Meanwhile, thanks for reading SHIELD OF POWER! Don’t forget that it’s THE SHIELD WAR series is now complete, so if you’re one of the numerous people who email to say they only read completed series, now is your chance!

-JM

Two audiobooks!

We’ve got not one but TWO new audiobooks this weekend!

First up is SHIELD OF BATTLE, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills. You can get it at at Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon AU, Google Play, Apple Books, and Payhip.

Second is GHOST IN THE CORRUPTION, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get it at  Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon AU, Google Play, Apple Books, and Payhip,

You’ll notice that not all the usual stores are in the mix. I’m in the process of changing audiobook distributors and the process hasn’t quite caught up yet, so hopefully the new audiobooks will be available on all the usual stores soon.

-JM

STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: FINAL QUEST cover image!

It’s Friday, and I’m far enough along in the editing to share the cover image of STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: FINAL QUEST, which you can see below.

Check in next week to see the table of contents!

-JM

What’s next?

SHIELD OF POWER is done, so the first third of my Super Summer Of Finishing Things is complete.

So, what’s next?

My next main project is STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: FINAL QUEST. It was originally going to be named REACTANT, but I changed the title to FINAL QUEST to emphasize, really and truly, that this is the final book in the trilogy.

And in fact I am already done with the rough draft!

You know how I always say that if you keep chipping away at a novel over a long enough time, sooner or later you’ll finish it? That is exactly what happened here. Since October 2024 I’ve been writing 500 words day on FINAL QUEST, and this piled up enough so that after SHIELD OF POWER came out, I only had to write 3,000 more words to finish the book, and I did that in an afternoon.

Editing is now underway for FINAL QUEST, and I very much want to have it out by the end of the month.

I am also 20,000 words into GHOST IN THE SIEGE, which will be my main project once FINAL QUEST is finished.

In audiobook news, GHOST IN THE CORRUPTION and SHIELD OF BATTLE should be arriving on Audible before too much longer.

-JM

SHIELD OF POWER now available!

I am pleased to report that SHIELD OF POWER, the sixth and final book in THE SHIELD WAR series, 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.

I should mention that every time I release a new book, I get at least a half-dozen emails from readers telling me they only read completed series.

Well, this is it! THE SHIELD WAR series is complete, and you can get all of the books at this link!

###

The final battle of the Shield War begins!

Ridmark Arban’s campaign to defeat the Heptarchy has at last taken his army to the gates of Teramis, chief city of the Isle of Kordain.

But the true dark master of the Isle has not yet shown himself.

For thousands of years he has waited in the shadows, preparing for the day when he can devour the world itself.

And the only thing that stands against his endless hunger is the sword of Ridmark Arban…

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 258: How Many Short Stories Have I Written, Redux?

In this week’s 4th of July episode, I take a look back at Episode 147 and try to figure out how many short stories I have actually written.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

 

Coupon of the Week, 7/7/25

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook version of Silent Order: Omnibus One at my Payhip store:

SILENTOMNI25

The coupon code is valid through July 28, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

Writers and music, a retrospective

A reader emailed to ask why I never post playlists.

Baffled, I emailed back to ask what she meant (I thought it was an audiobook problem at first), and she clarified that some of the other writers she follows post custom playlists of various songs they listen to while writing, and wondered if I did the same.

Short answer, no. My relationship with music has been somewhat difficult and has caused me some interpersonal difficulties in the past. I do listen to music as I write and edit, but my song choices tend to be so esoteric that I generally keep my musical opinions to myself.

Now here’s the long answer, broken down into four points and interspersed with amusing anecdotes:

1.) Music is only significant to someone if they connect to it emotionally, which usually happens in the formative years. I think there are actual psychological studies that say the “formation of musical taste” usually takes place when a person is between 13 to 15 years of age. That is why every generation thinks that the music they listened to in their adolescence is the best, with all the following music a pale imitation of the greatest music ever produced, which by astonishing coincidence happened during that generation’s teen years.

For me personally:

2.) I have a very hard time understanding song lyrics, which makes it hard to connect emotionally to a song.

3.) If I don’t connect to a song emotionally, it just sounds like random background noise to me, like it’s playing over the speakers at the gas station or something.

4.) I only tend to connect emotionally to a song if it’s in a movie, TV show, or computer game (especially computer game) that I really like.

I don’t think point one is at all controversial. We’ve all had the experience where someone shares a song that is deep and meaningful to them – it could be a friend, a romantic interest, a family member, a co-worker, or (possibly the most socially awkward of all) your immediate workplace supervisor – and you listen to the song and you think it’s just the dumbest thing ever. (More examples will follow.) So generally I don’t share my opinions about music except to note when it’s good in one of my movie roundups.

Ooh! I just remembered a previously awkward experience about music that ties into the “your supervisor finds this song meaningful and you don’t” experience that helped me to learn that I should keep my opinions about music to myself. A very, a very long time ago, I had to take an art class during my senior year of college so I could graduate. On the first day we all went outside to sketch rocks or trees or something. The professor came around to talk to all the students during this process, and I don’t remember why I did this, but I made a joke about The Beatles.

The professor spent the next five minutes, explaining in great detail, why The Beatles were so emotionally significant and important to him, and indeed some of the creators of the greatest music ever produced (which coincidentally took place during his teen years) and the entire time I thought “welp, I need this class to graduate, and I’m screwed.” So I put in a lot of work for that class, and I did end up staggering to a B, which was probably generous all things considered.

Anyway, let’s move past my youthful bad decisions!

For point two, it took me a long time to realize this, and I didn’t fully comprehend this until I was almost forty, but I have an extraordinarily hard time understanding sung lyrics. Songs with a vocal component often sound to me like either monotonous droning or incoherent warbling. Now, undoubtedly there are songs that really are monotonous droning or incoherent warbling, but my brain seems unable to tell the difference until after like 200 or 300 repetitions.

I’m not exaggerating about the repetitions. For a while a family member had the Taylor Swift song “Anti-Hero” on an exercise playlist, and it was only after I had heard it a couple hundred times that I could pick out some of the lyrics. Only some of them, admittedly. For the life of me I still couldn’t recognize all of them.

For point three, that is a logical progression of point two. If I can’t understand the song lyrics, the song means nothing to me, and then it become just a bunch of background noise that I tune out.

I’ve always had a hard time understanding hymns, choral pieces, and modern pop music, which is probably unfortunate because that was the music I encountered the most when I was a kid/teenager. Like, there have been times I’ve looked over to see tears streaming down someone’s face during a hymn or a choral piece, and while I acknowledge that the emotion is real and significant to the person experiencing it, it’s not one I understand because I’m not sure how the sound of a hymn or choral piece translates to an emotional experience. I’ve been in a state of strong emotion at funerals, but for the life of me I could not tell you what hymns were sung. Likewise with modern pop music – someone will tell me that a particular song is very meaningful to them, and I’ll nod and agree with them, but for 99% of the time the song sounds like incomprehensible noise combined with vocal screeching.

(One of the exceptions, oddly, is Johnny Cash – I never have any trouble understanding him.)

So the songs that I connect to emotionally tend to be ones I hear a lot while doing enjoyable activities, which usually boils down to songs I hear while playing computer games or watching TV show and movies that I like. I’m not sure why, but a switch will flip in my brain and I will find the song enjoyable.

Computer games especially – I think like half my hoard of MP3s I’ve collected over the last twenty-five years for my music collection come from various computer games I enjoyed.

Because of that, I tend to listen to the same songs over and over again. Sometimes if I’m writing and I think a particular song matches the scene I’m writing, I’ll listen to it 15 or 20 times in a row.

Let’s have some examples!

(The YouTube links to these songs are only to officially released versions, no rips or piracy.)

The song “Town In Chaos” from the DARKEST DUNGEON soundtrack (composed by Stuart Townsend) matches the mood I wanted in the final battle in CLOAK OF TITANS, so when I was writing CLOAK OF TITANS I probably listened to “Town In Chaos” a couple dozen times.

Another example: I really enjoy the game BATTLE BROTHERS and its soundtrack (longtime readers might recall occasional BATTLE BROTHERS posts over the years). One of the songs is “The Rise & Fall Of House Kaltenborn“, and I listened to that a couple dozen times while writing the Battle of Shadow Crown Hill sequence in DRAGONTIARNA: DEFENDERS.

Here’s an amusing example. I spent a lot of 2022 playing the free-to-play game ELDER SCROLLS: BLADES on Nintendo Switch. I enjoyed it, but I acknowledge it is not an objectively good game. It’s one of those “free” games with a lot of pay-to-play content, though it was a point of pride that I beat the main quest without ever paying a single cent for anything in it. 2022 was kind of a stress-intensive year on a personal level, so I played a lot of ELDER SCROLLS: BLADES to blow off some steam. That said, I did buy the soundtrack, which I like quite a bit, and I still listen to it. Sometimes I listen to the main theme to rev myself up before writing or exercising. (Some reviewers said the soundtrack was better than the game, which I think is fair.)

Naturally, since I spent a lot of 2024 playing STARFIELD and I enjoyed the game, I listen to its soundtrack a lot. It helps that the official soundtrack is like five and a half hours long, with some long atmosphere pieces intended for when you’re exploring alien planets. They make for good background music while I’m writing.

(Incidentally, both the STARFIELD and the ELDER SCROLLS: BLADES soundtracks were composed by Inon Zur.)

Speaking of Bethesda games, I have the soundtracks from MORROWIND, OBLIVION, and SKYRIM, and listen to them frequently.

The HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC soundtracks are likewise good. For once, I’m not the only one that thinks so. There’s a “Heroes Orchestra” that puts live performances of the soundtracks on YouTube.

I also have the soundtracks from the extended editions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies, which adds up to a lot of music, so those are in frequent rotation as well.

When I want to rev myself up to get to work in the morning, I like to listen to the song “Another Is Coming” from the soundtrack to the AHSOKA Star Wars show. I realize that to 99% of people this sounds objectively insane since that track is mostly bombastic organ music, but Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of my favorite fictional villains. In the scene with the track, Grand Admiral Thrawn learns that the renegade Jedi Ahsoka is coming to oppose his return, and starts making plans to defeat her and effect his escape from exile.

(Amusingly, by modern standards of employee management, even though he is a villain Thrawn acts in an exemplary way in this scene. When his female subordinates come to him with a problem, he doesn’t get angry at them, belittle them, punish the bearers of bad news, or accuse them of hysterics. Instead, he calmly assesses the situation, realizes that his female subordinates are right and their side faces a grave danger, and immediately begins preparations to handle the problem.)

I really liked season three of STAR TREK PICARD (I never bothered to watch the first two seasons) so I have the soundtrack. I frequently listen to the part from the last two episodes in one go.

The two video game soundtracks I’ve had the longest are ICEWIND DALE and QUEST FOR GLORY V: DRAGON FIRE. In fact the ICEWIND DALE soundtrack CD was the very first item I ever ordered online back in 2000, and I bought the QUEST FOR GLORY 1-4 collection just because it had the soundtrack CD included with it. I still have those CDs, though I long ago ripped them to MP3 files.

So, there we go. To return to the original question, I don’t typically post playlists because my musical preferences are too esoteric to make for good conversation or online discussion. Humorous memes and video game screenshots tend to do a lot better for engagement.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 257: Writing Obstacles

In this week’s episode, we take a look at five obstacles that can impact your writing, and offer tips and tricks for dealing with them.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM