Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 97

Did I meet 2021’s writing goals? Mostly!

So as the New Year approaches, it’s time to look back at the past year and see if I met my writing goals for 2021.

I’m pleased to say that that the answer is “mostly.” Let’s have a closer look! I don’t think I did as well as I did in 2020, but I still hit most of my writing goals.

1.) Finish DRAGONTIARNA.

I wanted to finish DRAGONTIARNA by the midpoint of 2021, and I did! DRAGONTIARNA: WARDEN came out in June, and it was quite well received. Thanks for reading the series, everyone!

2.) Finish GHOST NIGHT.

I had hoped to finish GHOST NIGHT in mid-2021, and while there were still some delays, I’m pleased to report that GHOST IN THE SUN came out in November. Another series is finished! I am once again grateful that so many people enjoyed the series.

3.) Continue CLOAK MAGE.

CLOAK OF ASHES came out in April 2020, and I was disappointed that I didn’t get back to CLOAK MAGE again in 2020. But I’m pleased to say that CLOAK OF BLADES came out this summer, continuing the series. If all goes well, CLOAK OF IRON will come out in February 2022. I also hope to actually do more than one CLOAK MAGE book in 2022.

4.) Write a million words of new fiction, preferably more.

Didn’t quite get there. I made it to 976,000 words of new fiction, which was close to one million, but not quite. So we missed this goal.

5.) Update paperbacks.

I wanted to update my paperback books so they have nicer interiors, and the covers are consistent with the ebooks. When I started doing paperbacks seven years ago (eight now), I used the default Createspace templates, which were good enough. But Createspace doesn’t exist any more, and I can now use Vellum to make much nicer interiors for the ebooks than what the standard Createspace templates allowed. Additionally, I’ve updated the covers for many of my ebooks, some of them several times, and I would like them to match the paperbacks.

I wanted to update the paperbacks of the FROSTBORN series by the end of 2021, with more as time permits. I am pleased to report that I did. All the FROSTBORN, and several of my other series, are now updated.

6.) Two hardbacks.

I wanted to have at least two of my books available in hardback. I did quite a bunch of them, and several of my series are now in hardback.

7.) Two more self-published audiobooks.

I wanted to have at least two more self-published audiobooks by the end of 2021, bringing me to a total for 46 audio titles. But I went a bit overboard, and combined with my Podium titles, I’m now at 54 audio titles.

I haven’t decided how to proceed with audio after that. Previously, I was happy to go exclusive with Audible/Amazon/Apple, but ACX has been struggling all year. Additionally, there are a lot more sales opportunities for audio outside of ACX than there were even two years ago. This was proven this year with a Chirp deal in November, which moved a lot of copies of CHILD OF THE GHOSTS and the rest of the series off Chirp.

8.) Healthier lifestyle and fitness.

I gained too much weight in 2020. So I needed some healthier lifestyle choices. I’m counting this as a writing goal because it’s a lot easier to write when I can sit comfortably.

People making ridiculous health resolutions for New Year’s and failing spectacularly is a cliché, so I set a more modest and achievable goal. If I am one pound lighter on January 1, 2022 than I am on January 1, 2021, I will count this goal as successfully achieved.

Sadly, it was not. I ended up 2 pounds heavier, but it could have been worse. If 2021 had ended a few months earlier, I would have been 15 pounds heavier than 2. So we’ll .

9.) Write a book about how to write a novel.

Did that!

The book was called STORYTELLING: HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL, and it focused on story structure in novels. This way when people ask me for writing advice, I can point them to this book.

It was about 30,000 words long. That’s one of the nice things about self-publishing – you can write a book about a nonfiction topic that a publisher wouldn’t touch because it’s too short. Like, have you ever read a nonfiction book that could have covered the topic in half the pages, but the author obviously needed to pad the length? My LINUX COMMAND LINE guide is only 30,000 words, but it covers the topic and it’s a frequent bestseller in its category.

The book also included SILENT ORDER: IRON HAND. Before every chapter of IRON HAND, I had annotations explaining how I followed story structure in the specific chapter and why I made some of the storytelling choices that I did.

10.) Start a new series.

I did that as well! I published DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE in October, and DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT will be out in January.

11.) AVENGING FIRE

he idea came from regular reader William, who asked:

“I just read Share the Pain and I enjoyed it. It seems like a shame that it is left orphaned on Kindle with no link on your website. Anyway, I was curious if you have ever considered incorporating it into your greater body of fantasy novels by using it as the basis for a prequel to Cloak Games? It struck me early on that the year and the tone of the story would fit the tidbits about the last days of the US government and the elven invasion that were revealed in Last Judge. Also the familiar-sounding Irish names like Cormac.”

First, what was SHARE THE PAIN?

SHARE THE PAIN was originally a mystery novel I wrote fifteen or sixteen years ago. I self-published it back in 2011 when I started with self-publishing, but it never really took off because I didn’t know how to market it. (To be fair, when I started in 2011, I didn’t know how to market anything.) Eventually I made DEMONSOULED permafree, and that took off, so fantasy became my focus. SHARE THE PAIN just sort of sat there while I wrote other things, and my focus was on fantasy. It sold one or two copies a year, and that was that.

In answer to William’s question about CLOAK GAMES, I don’t really like doing prequels. It feels a bit like procrastinating instead of getting on with the main story, you know? Like, imagine that you have to mow the lawn, and you set out to do it, but first you decide to organize the contents of your garage, and the lawn remains unmowed. Writing prequels feels a bit like organizing the garage when the lawn needs mowing. I suppose some of my short stories are prequels, but I view those more like “bonus scenes” on the DVD, extra material that my newsletter subscribers get for free.

But one of the positive things to come out of 2020 (there were some!) was that I really upped my cover design skills. I started to wonder how SHARE THE PAIN would do if I renamed it and republished it with a new cover and modern formatting. It seemed like a worthwhile experiment, so I unpublished SHARE THE PAIN, renamed it AVENGING FIRE, and made the cover you can see in the graphic above. On February 1st, I republished it and sent it out to my newsletter.

How did it do?

I am pleased to report that in one month, AVENGING FIRE sold two and a half times as many copies as it did over the previous ten years. And it did well enough that I wrote a sequel called COVERING FIRE, and hopefully the third book CORRUPTING FIRE will come out in mid 2022.

Thanks again for reading! I hope my books proved enjoyable distractions in 2021. I hope they will do the same in 2022, though hopefully with less serious distractions!

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT book description

We’re on track to have DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT out in the first week of January!

Meanwhile, here is the book description:

Dark magic hunts a young knight.

Gareth Arban is now a knight of the Northerland, riding to escort his friend Prince Tywall to the High King’s seat of Tarlion.

But the spider priestesses who rule the Heptarchy have not forgotten their hatred towards Tywall and will stop at nothing to assassinate him.

It will take all of Gareth’s courage and skill to protect his friend.

But what Gareth hasn’t realized is that the dark power is coming for him…

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 101: Backlist vs Frontlist For Indie Authors

In this week’s episode, I talk about backlist books vs frontlist books, and consider which are better for indie authors.

I also discuss NFTs and my favorite Nintendo Switch games of 2021.

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

-JM

Caina Christmas Sale!

Christmas is coming, and the GHOST NIGHT series is done, so time for a Christmas sale!

You can get GHOST NIGHT OMNIBUS ONE, containing the first three GHOST NIGHT books and the bonus short story GHOST EYE, for $0.99 USD at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Google Play.

It will stay on sale through 12/31/2021.

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT excerpts!

Let’s have two short excerpts from DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT!

One is about thievery. In the other, a familiar face returns from DRAGONTIARNA.

###

Gareth nodded. “Dux Constantine says that it’s a threat.”

“It’s more of a threat than the Dux understands,” said Moriah. “The urdmordar are immortal, and the priestesses of the Seven Temples live for centuries. The Exarch can’t mount an invasion with the forces on the Isle of Kordain, so she needs to wait. It might be fifty or a hundred years before the Heptarchy returns, maybe longer. So what will the Exarch do to prepare for the next invasion?”

Gareth shrugged. “I suppose she will try to attack Cintarra or seize one of the towns along the coast.”

Moriah stared at him.

“Your father is an intelligent man,” said Moriah. “I hope you will live up to that one day.”

Gareth felt his frown turn to a scowl.

###

“My youthful mistakes were of a different nature. Suffice it to say that Lady Moriah was not the only Cintarran thief to embark upon a different path after the war.”

“I see,” said Gareth. “Does that mean I need to watch my money pouch?”

“Certainly not, sir.”

“You wouldn’t steal from a knight?”

“You don’t have any money, sir. One does have one’s self-respect.”

Despite himself, Gareth laughed.

-JM

2021: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES now available!

I am very pleased to report that 2021: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES is now available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, and Smashwords.

Here are the 9 short stories (and their main characters) that are in the collection.

1.) GHOST EYE (Maglarion from CHILD OF THE GHOSTS)
2.) SHIELD KNIGHT: REBELS (Niall & Moriah)
3.) GHOST MIRAGE (Caina)
4.) THE FIRST SORCERESS (Azalmora, chief villain of the DRAGONSKULL series)
5.) JUNKYARD WOLVES (Nadia)
6.) COPPER COILS (Cormac Rogan)
7.) PHASE DRIVE (Jack March)
8.) THE FIRST RISING (Gareth)
9.) GHOST SPIRE (Caina)

-JM

Frontlist vs Backlist

A constant question that indie authors ask is which is more important – backlist or frontlist? Of course, we should define the terms first. “Frontlist” is books that came out recently. “Backlist” would be the older stuff. For me, as of December 2021, GHOST IN THE SUN would be frontlist, while an older book like SOUL OF TYRANTS from 2011 would be backlist.

Granted, this is something of an obsolete term, since it originated in the bad old days of traditional publishing when publishers would “list” their books. That said, it’s still a useful idea. Do new books generate more sales than old ones for an indie author?

I always thought new books sold better, but determining exactly how much would have been too difficult. But with Scribecount, I can track book sales to a granular enough level that I can determine exactly how much of book sales came from new books, and how much came from old books. So I set out to determine how much of 2021’s book sales came from books published in 2021, and how much came from books I had published earlier.

If was going to guess, I would have said that 40% came from new books, and 60% from the older ones.

However, the numbers told a different story.  In 2021, 21.57% of my book sales came from new stuff, and 78.43% from older books. I was not expecting that!

Here’s how it broke down on the new books. Obviously, a book that was out longer had more chances to gather sales than a newer book.

Dragontiarna: Visionary (January 10th, 2021) – 4.62%

Avenging Fire (January 30th, 2021) – 0.005%

Ghost in the Talisman (February 8th, 2021) – 2.3%

Dragontiarna: Storms (April 5th, 2021) – 4.25%

Ghost in the Lore (May 5th, 2021) – 2%

Dragontiarna: Warden (June 13th, 2021) – 3.95%

Cloak of Blades (July 22nd, 2021) – 1.57%

Covering Fire (August 11th, 2021) – 0.002%

Silent Order: Royal Hand (August 23rd, 2021) -0.0079%

Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire (October 1st, 2021) – 1.65%

Ghost in the Sun (November 8th, 2021) – 1.22%

What conclusions can we draw from this?

1.) First, it’s helpful to write in a really long series if possible. When I release a book in a new series, it lifts up the older books as well. The reason that the CORMAC ROGAN books were so comparatively low, for instance, was because that there was only two of them and they couldn’t augment the rest of the series because there isn’t one yet.

2.) It’s also a good idea to improve your backlist with updated covers and descriptions whenever possible. I went through several iterations of the CLOAK GAMES and CLOAK MAGE covers before I found a set that really seemed to click with the readers.

3.) It’s also a good idea to advertise the backlist. I’ve posted “monthly return” totals on advertise before, where I say, for example, that for every $1 I spent advertising CLOAK GAMES, I got back $3.98 or so. A long series also makes turning a profit on ads much easier. In fact, I will be running a sale on GHOST NIGHT OMNIBUS ONE next week.

4.) Write more books! That’s the way to get a long backlist. As with all things, time, patience, and effort can effect great changes.

5.) I think it’s better to be an indie author than a traditionally published one because you have far greater control over your books. It’s a lot easier to run sales and generate book sales from older books when you’re indie than when you are traditionally published.

And, of course, as always, thanks for reading, everyone!

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 100: The One Hundredth Episode!

The Pulp Writer Show has its 100th episode! Thanks for listening, everyone.

In this week’s episode, I discuss the ultimate reason for writing fiction. We also talk about Spotify, audiobooks, and the perils of cloud computing.

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

-JM

Non Fungible Tokens

An interesting question last week.

A reader emailed to ask if I plan to release any NFTs of my work.

I’m going to say no. If you’re not familiar with the term NFT, it’s an acronym for Non Fungible Token. Basically, an NFT is a unique identifier that is stored on a distributed digital ledger (commonly called a “blockchain”) of the sort that is used to power digital currencies like Bitcoin and Etherium. The idea is that you purchase this unique identifier, and then it’s permanently written into the distributed digital ledger that you are the owner of this unique identifier. The NFT can be used to identify the purchaser as the exclusive owner of some sort of limited-edition digital property – a song or a picture or something of that sort. Of course, there’s nothing to stop other people from copying the actual song or picture or digital property, but you have this NFT that says you’re the exclusive owner.  It’s sort of like a Certificate of Authenticity.

Now, if this sounds like you’re basically just buying a database entry instead of something of actual value, like land, lumber, a savings bond, or a bag of potatoes, then you see the basic problem with NFTs.

Anyway, I don’t plan to release any NFTs for five reasons.

1.) I don’t have the time, and the reward doesn’t seem worth the effort. And, overall, NFTs seem like a solution in search of a problem.

2.) NFTs right now are in the “financial craze” or “gold rush” state, like tulips in 17th century Netherlands or Beanie Babies in 1990s America. Remember Beanie Babies? They were people – actual people with apparently actually functioning brains – who thought that Beanie Babies were a sound investment that would hold their value in the future, and so spent vast sums acquiring Beanie Babies. This didn’t work out so well. A few people actually do make money during these sort of crazes, but most people don’t, and really unlucky people lose a whole bunch of money.

3.) Individual blockchains appear and disappear all the time. You could buy an NFT tied to a specific blockchain, but if people stop using that particular blockchain, the NFT will be worthless.

4.) Cryptocurrency in general is too unstable for me. I’m also unsure about its long-term viability. People like to talk about the difficulties with “fiat currency” – ie, currency backed by a government, but for all its many well-documented problems, fiat currency generally works because the government has more guns and nuclear weapons than anyone else. Governments, in general, do not care for competitors. My gut feeling is that cryptocurrency will last right up until major governments decide it’s a threat to tax revenue, and then they’ll simply make it illegal with the penalty of long prison terms.

Or, perhaps, this is a more likely outcome:

5.) Cryptocurrency/blockchains/NFT are a viable technology, but it’s too early, and the ultimate boring practical use for them hasn’t been found yet. Like, for example, a technology for encrypting Internet traffic called Transport Layer Security, which grew out of an older protocol called Secure Sockets Layer. If you’re looking at this website, you’re using TLS, and you likely didn’t even realize it. Computer cryptography in general used to be very dramatized and contentious – people used to think it would make institutions and governments obsolete, while governments feared unbreakable encryption would make it impossible to maintain public order. But computer cryptography now is simply part of the boring background tools of everyday life. Everybody uses it, and usually without thinking too much about it. (Indeed, with all the high-profile hacks lately, we probably need more computer cryptography, not less!)

Probably that will be the fate of blockchain-based technology – eventually it will be integrated into other things in a way that average person simply doesn’t think about, the way most people don’t think about Transport Layer Security, public/private key encryption, and TCP/IP when they buy something off Amazon, even though those technologies are integral to the experience. (Kickstarter is starting to experiment with something like that with blockchain technology.)

However, it’s too early to know what form that will take.

In the end, I think NFTs are like Betamax, HD-DVD, and perhaps the NeXT computer – too-early forms of an eventually mainstream technology.

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT cover image!

Both the rough drafts of DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT and THE FIRST SPEAR are done.

Editing is now underway for DRAGONSKULL: SHIELD OF THE KNIGHT, so let’s see the cover image!

I am disappointed I wasn’t able to get the book out in December, but it’s on track to be out in early January.

-JM