Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 90

CLOAK OF SHARDS rough draft done!

I am pleased to report that the rough draft of CLOAK OF SHARDS is now done at 96,000 words!

(I’m posting this today instead of tomorrow, because if I posted it on April 1st many people would assume it was a joke.)

Next up, I’m going to write…something! A CLOAK MAGE short story that newsletter subscribers will get for free when CLOAK OF SHARDS comes out. However, I have to first decide what the story’s actually going to be about. So I will start thinking about that immediately after I post this.

Meanwhile, you can see the cover image for CLOAK OF SHARDS below. If all goes well, the book will be out in the 2nd half of April.

-JM

How To Think Up Fantasy Names

William asks:

Is there any particular method to the madness when you pick names? Like Tarlion, Nighmar or Milwaukee?

Well, for Milwaukee, I didn’t make that one up. If you go to the Milwaukee County Historical Society and museum in downtown Milwaukee, you can see an excellent little video that will tell youthe name Milwaukee came from words in two different Native American languages – in Algonquian “millioke” apparently meant “pleasant land”, and in Potawatomi “minwaking” meant “gathering place by the water.”

But that’s real life. Fantasy is a bit different.

Basically, for fantasy names I try to pick something that sounds right. Sometimes what sounds right can come by accident, and I go through several different iterations before I get there. For example, the chief villain of the DRAGONSKULL series, Azalmora, was originally named Azermera. I wasn’t quite happy with that when I was writing THE FIRST SORCERESS, but I happened to try to type “Azermera” only to totally button mash the keyboard and came out with Azalmora instead. I liked that a lot better, and so that’s how I came up with the name Azalmora.

However, one cannot rely upon typos for creating fantasy names.

Usually, what I do instead is pick a base language or culture to use as a source of names. Like, Andomhaim in FROSTBORN/DRAGONSKULL was founded by the survivors of King Arthur’s court fleeing to a new world. That meant they came from the historical period known as sub-Roman Britain, so I can use Latin-sounding or Celtic-sounding names for anyone in Andomhaim, or take any name from Arthurian mythology. For example, the name “Gareth” features prominently in Arthurian legend, and so does “Accolon”, and both of those names went to major characters in the Andomhaim books. By contrast, Owyllain sort of chose the Aeneid as their founding myth – just as Aeneas led the survivors of Troy to found Rome, so did Connmar Pendragon believe himself leading the survivors of Andomhaim to found the new realm of Owyllain. (Of course, his descendants would find out five centuries later that Andomhaim didn’t fall to the urdmordar.) So in Owyllain, I used a mixture of Latin-sounding and Greek-sounding names, like Hektor, Justin, Zenobia, Krastikon, and Parmenio, though some Celtic ones like Tamlin were still in there.

Andomhaim and Owyllain are supposed to be descendants of ancient Earth cultures, though, so it makes sense they would use names from those cultures. But what about completely invented cultures like the orcs of Andomhaim? For the orcs in the FROSTBORN setting, I basically thought up a list of the name of their old blood gods – Kha, Mhor, Qazalask, Shalask, and so forth – and then most of the orcs had names based around one or more of their old gods. Even the baptized orcish kingdoms still use the that naming convention, which may sound strange, until you remember that many contemporary Christians celebrate Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, on a day named in honor of the Germanic/Norse god Wotan or Odin. However, since Odin is unlikely to charge licensing fees, demand royalties, or issue DMCA takedowns, there’s no harm in naming things after him.

Though if you use the version of Odin from the Thor movies, you’ll get used by Disney Corporation.

Names can even have a stranger origin, and we can often see that names have a very tenuous relationship to the thing they end up naming. “America’s” name is derived from an Italian guy named Amerigo Vespucci, who died like 275 years before the Revolutionary War. Despite the fact he has practically nothing to do with American history, the United States of America is still named after him today. “England” gets its name from “Land of the Angles”, since the Angles happened to be one of the barbarian tribes that conquered Britain after the collapse of the Roman Empire, and their name stuck. The name of “Spain” came from the Roman term “Hispania”, which apparently came from a Phoenician term that meant either “land where metals are forged” or “land of rabbits.”

Which leads to the surreal possibility that one of the reasons that about 600 million people speak a language called “Spanish” today is because three thousand years ago a Phoenician dude happened to see a rabbit the first time he visited Spain.

When things and people get named in Real Life, there’s a lot of that kind of linguistic drift – Milwaukee’s name being a mishmash of two Native American languages, the Christian festival of Ash Wednesday getting part of its name from Odin, half of Western Europe getting its place names from the Romans, people getting their surnames from clerical errors at Ellis Island in the 19th century – and so forth. So when I think up names for fantasy novels, I try to use that sort of linguistic drift whenever possible – the original name for Tarlion was Cathair Tarlias. However, from a writing point of view, too much of that sort of thing can be the equivalent of brushing the cat and a distraction from writing the story, so it’s important to only use it in the service of advancing the story or providing just enough verisimilitude to the worldbuilding.

Sometimes you just come across a name that feels right for the character. I first came across the name “Caina” in Dante’s INFERNO, where it describes the portion of hell where traitors reside. It sounds both hard and feminine, making it a good name for the character of Caina. Tyrcamber came about when I was playing with syllables, and decided it would be a good name for Tyrcamber Rigamond in MALISON and DRAGONTIARNA.

I sometimes change around a few letters or vowels to make a name sound better or more “fantastical.”

A couple more things – don’t dump a bunch of random apostrophes in a name and decide it sounds like a fantasy name. Like, Philadelphia does not become the name of a fantasy Elven city when you call it Ph’ilad’elphia. It just looks stupid and is annoying to spell, like Ph’ilad’elphia isn’t the home of the High Elves or the Dark Elves but the Poseur Elves.

Also, if you plan to do an audiobook, think about how the name sounds when spoken aloud. I never used to do this before 2017 when I started with audio, but you’ll probably want to avoid names that sound similar. Two names can look different on the page but sound the same. Additionally, you might want to avoid really long names – and I say this as someone who’s had literally three different narrators have to use the name “Agrimnalazur” in multiple books.

Finally, before I commit to a character name, I always Google it first. This is partly to avoid the risk of litigation in case I stumbled onto someone’s real name, though that’s a small risk. The bigger danger for fantasy writers is that you might find a word that sounds cool only to realize it means something offensive in a foreign language, like the famous stories of people who get Chinese character tattoos only to realize it means something different than what they were told, usually something unflattering. You don’t want to be four books into your fantasy epic when you realize that your main character’s name is also the term in a foreign language for “he who has unnatural knowledge of sheep.”

So, to sum up, ancient and medieval history are good sources for names, avoid apostrophes, and always Google first!

-JM

The 10,000th Download!

March was the best-ever month for downloads for The Pulp Writer Show, and I’m pleased to report that the show passed its 10,000th download in may as well.

Thanks for listening, everyone! I’m pleased that so many people have been finding the show helpful.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 114: Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter & When To Start Advertising Your Books

In this week’s episode, we talk about Brandon Sanderson’s epic Kickstarter, and discuss when to start advertising your books using CPC (cost per click) ads.

As always, you can listen to the show on Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Amazon Music.

-JM

CLOAK OF SHARDS progress update

Starting the week at 77,000 words of CLOAK OF SHARDS.

If all goes well, I would really like to be past the 100,000 word point by the end of the week. Either 100,000 words or the ending, but I suspect the book is going to be just slightly over 100,000 words when all is said and done.

-JM

The Magistri vs. the Arcanius Knights

After reading DRAGONSKULL: BLADE OF THE ELVES, Edward writes in to ask:

Now that they have fought a war together Andomhaim and Owyllian, are those who can wield elemental magic still illegal in Andomhaim? Obviously not Arcanius knights but people born in Andomhaim like Morigna (I think her name was) would they still be arrested?

Note that the answer to this question will have SPOILERS! through the end of SEVENFOLD SWORD, but it won’t have any spoilers for DRAGONTIARNA or DRAGONSKULL. (Though, of course, I should mention that DRAGONTIARNA: KNIGHTS is free on Apple through the end of March, and that the audiobook of DRAGONTIARNA: KNIGHTS & THIEVES is available to listen to free for Audible members.)

Anyway, after the end of the War of the Seven Swords and the opening of the Guardian’s Gate in SEVENFOLD SWORD: SOVEREIGN, Andomhaim and Owyllain have a friendly relationship since there’s a lot of basis for trade. Andomhaim has iron and horses, while Owyllain has silk, spices, peppers, and a variety of other trade goods that aren’t available in Andomhaim.

To keep things friendly, Arandar Pendragon and Kothlaric Pendragon signed a treaty to recognize both the Order of the Magistri and the Order of the Arcanii in each other’s realms. Traditionally, anyone in Andomhaim who manifested magic had to join the Magistri (assuming the locals didn’t kill them first), and anyone in Owyllain who manifested magic had to join the Arcanii. For that matter, anyone in Andomhaim who used elemental magic had to abandon it and learn the magic of the Well, whereas the Arcanii always used elemental magic since they didn’t have access to a Well. Now, if someone in either Andomhaim or Owyllain develops magical ability, they have the choice between joining the Magistri or the Arcanii, depending on preference and family ties.

Magic is generally held in much higher suspicion among the commoners of Andomhaim than those of Owyllain. This is partly because when Magistri go bad, they tend to go very bad and cause civil wars – like the Eternalists and the Enlightened of Incariel. Ironically, a higher number of Arcanii have gone bad than Magistri (like the Dark Arcanii in SEVENFOLD SWORD: WARLORD), but because individual Arcanii tend to be less powerful and less thoroughly trained than the Magistri, their impact is reduced. Also, the people of Owyllain tend to be a bit more fatalistic than those of Andomhaim, so they expect that of course some Arcanii will turn bad, just as they expect that of course some knights will turn robber, some officials will be corrupt, and some harvests will be lost.

So to sum up, if someone in Andomhaim wants to use elemental magic, they can, but they have to join the Arcanii if they don’t want to be declared an outlaw.

-JM

Don’t Spend Money On Ads Unless You Have A Lot Of Books

I got a few questions this month from new-ish writers asking when they should start advertising. I told them all that, in my opinion, they should wait until they have written more books to start advertising, especially for CPC (cost per click) platforms like Facebook. Especially if you have one book, you shouldn’t try to advertise it.

First, some context. Here’s how my ads did in February 2022. This is what I got back for every $1 I spent on advertising a particular series.

Frostborn, $3.57

Ghosts, $6.92

Cloak, $11.83

Demonsouled, $10.92

I gotta admit those are pretty good results. That said, there were some unusual circumstances. I didn’t spend that much on DEMONSOULED, just Amazon Ads with a low bid rate, and so while DEMONSOULED didn’t make all that much, I didn’t spend all that much. CLOAK GAMES/MAGE really benefited from releasing CLOAK OF IRON in February, and GHOSTS was still going strong from GHOST IN THE SUN back in November.

But this is the important point – my ads were targeted only at four specific books. FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT, CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP, and DEMONSOULED. However, between those four books, they mark the entry point to a combined SEVENTY-FOUR books with their subsequent series. And that is where I can glean a profit. I can afford to advertise a free book because if, for example, someone reads FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT and likes it enough to buy the rest of the series, that will more than pay for the number of clicks required to get someone to download the book and read.

So when someone tells me that they have just one book, or one or two books and they want to start advertising, I wince when I hear that. It’s possible to make a profit advertising just one book, but it’s really, really hard. It’s like playing Diablo III on Inferno Mode and the buttons randomly reassign their functions every so often. I know of people who’ve done it, but it’s really hard.

For that matter, the snarky part of my brain wants to point out that I had 50+ novels when I started using CPC ads. I started experimenting intermittently with CPC ads in 2017, and didn’t get really competent with them until 2019.

I think it’s important to emphasize that there are more effective ways of selling books than CPC ads. For me, I’ve found the most effective way of selling books is to give away a lot of stuff for free in the form of first-in-series books and short stories, to cultivate an email newsletter list (and to induce people to sign up my giving them free stuff when they do), and to publish regularly in the same series over time. If all those things are true, then CPC ads can work as a sort of force multiplier. However, if you’re not doing those things, and your books have other problems – like the covers are bad or the blurb is just this wall of text – then CPC ads will do nothing and you’ll just waste money on them.

Now, if you want to learn how to use CPC ads, there are four sources I would recommend:

-A book called HELP! MY FACEBOOK ADS SUCK! by Mal & Jill Cooper. This was my introduction to Facebook ads, and it taught me to effectively use the platform to advertise books. I don’t 100% agree with everything in the book (specifically about the use of affiliate links), but it is an excellent introduction to Facebook ads.

–BOOKBUB ADS EXPERT by David Gaughran. My Bookbub ads got way more effective when I read this book, and the advice is solid and comprehensive. True story – I was talking with someone at Bookbub a couple of months ago and mentioned that I followed the advice in Mr. Gaughran’s book, and the Bookbub people said they heard that a lot and agreed with the advice.

-Bryan Cohen does a quarterly Amazon Ads Profit Challenge that teaches the basics of turning a profit on Amazon Ads. It is an excellent introduction to Amazon CPC Ads.

-Finally, the Self Publishing Formula has a comprehensive course called Ads For Authors. It is a bit on the pricey side, but it is both comprehensive and exhaustive. I’ve gone through (most) of it myself, and I recommend it.

So if you’re really serious about learning CPC ads for your books, those sources should be able to get you started.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 113: 10,000 Self-Published Audiobooks & 20,000 Traditionally Published Audiobooks

In this week’s episode, I discuss reaching the sales milestones of 10,000 self-published audiobooks and 20,000 traditionally published audiobooks. We also discuss the value of improvement in self-publishing, and answer reader questions about the CLOAK MAGE and DRAGONSKULL series.

As always, you can listen to the show on Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Amazon Music.

-JM

GHOST EXILE OMNIBUS TWO now available in audio!

I am pleased to report that GHOST EXILE OMNIBUS TWO is now available, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy.

You can listen to it at Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon AU, and Apple.

GHOST EXILE OMNIBUS TWO is a bundle that combines GHOST IN THE RAZOR, GHOST IN THE INFERNO, and GHOST IN THE SEAL for over 37 hours of epic fantasy adventure!

-JM

Kickstarter & Platform Redundancy

The big news in the fantasy book world for the last month has been Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter, which at $30 million dollars is the biggest Kickstarter project in the history of the platform.

I haven’t really had anything to say about it because I’ve been busy (DRAGONSKULL: BLADE OF THE ELVES and CLOAK OF SHARDS aren’t gonna write themselves!), and I don’t have any opinions about it other than “general approval”, being pleased that people are willing to spend that much on books, and amazement about the amount of work that went into the campaign. Additionally, I don’t know all that much about Kickstarter, and I don’t like to offer opinions on topics I don’t know enough about. However, I did back the campaign, making it the first Kickstarter I’ve backed in like ten years, simply because the launch video was highly entertaining and I’m fascinated to see how it will all work out.

Sanderson wrote a FAQ about the Kickstarter, which is well worth the read if you’re interested in the mechanics of a Kickstarter project on this scale, and the thinking that went it to it.

Admittedly, his picture of indie publishing isn’t 100% accurate, but that’s fairly common among people who’ve been at a high level in tradpub for a long time.  It’s not necessary to use Amazon Ads (I barely do), especially if your book isn’t exclusive to Amazon. Honestly, while cost-per-click ads work if done properly, they’re less effective in generating sales than other methods like giving away free books, maintaining an email newsletter, and writing consistently in the same series.

Also, I think the difference in viewpoint is one of scale. What I would consider “good sales” and what Sanderson would consider “good sales” is probably different by several orders of magnitude. CLOAK OF IRON and the CLOAK GAMES/MAGE series did really well for me in February, but I doubt it would have covered a month’s worth of salary for Sanderson’s company. To be fair, though, Sanderson’s picture of indie publishing is a lot more accurate than many tradpub people, and it’s a massively more accurate than most journalists. It’s always painful when you encounter an article from a journalist who clearly has no idea about self-publishing – they start talking about “basements full of books,” how difficult it is to buy ISBNs, and how most authors just “want to write” and don’t want to have to think about business details. (To express an off-topic opinion, the ineptitude of the media in reporting a topic about which you are knowledgeable is a good reminder to take all media reports on any topic with a healthy grain of salt.)

What caught my eye was that Sanderson said one of the reasons for pursuing the Kickstarter was that about 85% of both his ebook and physical book sales were through Amazon, and he wanted to set up an alternative sales channel in case something goes wrong with Amazon.

The reason that caught my eye because in my case only about 55% of my ebook sales are through Amazon, with the other 45% coming from Apple, Google, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and various smaller stores. It varies a few percentage points from month to month, but it’s usually around there. I definitely get the concern about having alternative sales channels, which is why most of my books have always been on all platforms, various Kindle Unlimited experiments notwithstanding. If Amazon blipped out of existence tomorrow, losing 55% of sales would be Very Bad, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Less seriously, the benefit of having multiple sales platforms is that if one has a bad month, the others can help balance it out.

That said, it occurs to me there is another good reason to have multiple sales platforms.

Cybersecurity.

It’s no secret that the international situation isn’t great at the moment, and isn’t likely to improve for some time. In the 21st century, cyberattacks and information (and misinformation) warfare have gone mainstream, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they become much more common in the immediate future. A big e-commerce platform like Amazon is a big fat target. Granted, Amazon has excellent cybersecurity and isn’t likely to get hacked in a big way. But Facebook also has excellent cybersecurity, and they still managed to lock themselves out of their DNS servers for a day last year, losing millions of dollars worth of ad revenue.

I don’t think it’s very likely that Amazon will get knocked offline for days or even weeks, but then I bet the big brains at Facebook didn’t think they would accidentally lock themselves out of their own DNS servers, either.

And, of course, there is a spectrum to these things, with international cyberwar on the highest and least likely end, but a whole range of less catastrophic and more likely possibilities further down the scale. You might recall that in October 2020, Barnes & Noble suffered a ransomware attack and couldn’t intake material for a couple of weeks. That was about when I published GHOST IN THE VISION, so B&N readers didn’t get the book for a couple of weeks until B&N was able to take in new material again. That wasn’t international cyberwar, that was just bad luck with a ransomware infection, but it still delayed GHOST IN THE VISION on Barnes & Noble for nearly a month.

So I think it is definitely advantageous to keep as many books as on many platforms as possible. And, of course, the advantage of pessimistic preparation is that it’s a pleasant surprise to be wrong.

That said, Sanderson’s FAQ is an interesting read about the current state of the book industry, and worth reading if you’re curious about that topic.

-JM