Joseph Devon's Blog, page 12

3rd Annual Joseph Devon Art Contest

Just wanted to drop a quick word this week to start plugging the 3rd Annual Joseph Devon Art Contest. Technically it's been open since the last one ended but the deadline is now officially a few months out so it's time to chat it up. The winner can choose from a handful of great prizes including an iPad or a Wacom tablet. It's open to the world (which I love) and I encourage anyone and everyone to send in entries.

You all are, collectively, the most awesome fans anywhere and it always amazes m...

10 Things Overheard on the Set of Luck

A few weeks ago HBO announced the cancellation of the show Luck before the first season had even finished airing. The show, an interwoven story line of multiple characters centering on a horse track in California, had a slow start but picked up drastically towards the end and could have really been a show to watch.

The reason it was cancelled was utterly baffling to me; it seemed too many horses were dying on set. Considering the show's central theme was how all of the characters were made...

Tour Stops

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, early March involved a lot of me bouncing around the internets promoting Probability Angels.

I'm not sure yet how, or if, the tour is effecting sales but I wanted to share with you the stops I've made. There's tons of fun interviews to read.

Juniper Grove had me discussing the last movie I had watched at the time of the interview, which was some god-awful made-for-the-SyFy-Channel monster movie, and what I learned from it.

At Darlene's Book Nook I discussed my...

We’re Going to the Big Screen!

I just wanted to quickly share an email Ireceivedfrom a fan a few days ago.

This is from Roma Raju:

I’m originally from India, but I live in a small south bohemian town in Czech Republic, not far from Prague.

I’m supposed to be making a film this semester. But if you ask me, I think nobody should make a film or create any piece of art if they don’t have anything worthwhile to say. Well, that was before I read your short story online, Private Showing.

I loved it! Its very “Visual.” A beautiful sto...

We're Going to the Big Screen!

I just wanted to quickly share an email I received from a fan a few days ago.

This is from Roma Raju:

I'm originally from India, but I live in a small south bohemian town in Czech Republic, not far from Prague.

I'm supposed to be making a film this semester. But if you ask me, I think nobody should make a film or create any piece of art if they don't have anything worthwhile to say. Well, that was before I read your short story online, Private Showing.

I loved it! Its very "Visual." A beautiful...

Tour Starting Next Week

Okay, so I've spent most of this month answering like a billion interview questions. I've lost track of how many times I've explained where the idea for Probability Angels came from or what my hobbies are.

The plus side is that Nurture Virtual Book Tourz got me tons of interviews, hence the flood of questions.

The downside was crafting each response to be fresh. I didn't want to cut and paste answers, that would be cheating everyone, so I tried to answer similar questions with different slants ...

This Is This Is My Game

This is This Is My Game (haha…god that's so confusing to type), a website that my friend Tracy, or @Rolling20s as he's often referred to on here, has wound up co-running somehow. I don't remember the full story. There were a lot of proper nouns involved.

He approached me about manning a blog over at this new site and we're giving it a trial run, though it seems like it's going to work out. The main idea is me comparing and contrasting storytelling as an author with the collaborative...

Virtual Book Tour in March

I recently booked a virtual tour with Nurture Your Books.

For those who don't know, virtual tours are when you and your book are scheduled to appear on a variety of blogs across the internet during a set period of time. This is sort of like what I try to do myself via cold emailing, but by hiring a professional I get access to a much wider network. And I don't have to cold email anyone.

The great people over at Nurture have set up a ton of reviews and interviews (I think I've answered roughly f...

How You Can Help Indie Authors

Here's a question I've been asked a few times in the past month: "Where should I buy your book so that you get the highest royalty possible?"

The people asking were new readers who were looking to support my work and my life as much as they possibly could. It's a lovely sentiment and it makes me warm all over whenever it's expressed, but here's the deal. At the volume of sales that I'm working with right now, the whole publishing thing is a losing proposition financially.

I'm a start-up...

The Joy of Research

I'm starting to do research for the third book in the Matthew and Epp series. Technically I research things constantly in a "Look at that guy! Could I use that guy in a story? Did you hear that noise? Maybe I could use that noise somewhere!" sort of way.

But recently I've started to actually do reading research to prepare for the upcoming books. I need to learn about ancient Rome, clothes, Australian penal colonies, and a few other tidbits.

A lot of people, when I tell them that I write...