Jon Pew's Blog, page 4

big news!!

Well hello again from Afghani land! Some big news on a few fronts, 1st im less than 2 says from becoming an NCO and getting pinned SGT, very excited. Second looks like im less than 2 months from seeing my wife and babies again, I’m pumped!!! Third and most important for this blog, I have decided to self publish all my own books for now!

As most of you know my publisher Little Acorns has closed it’s doors for very good reasons. (In my opinion) And Kristina has very kindly offered to keep T-Man in print and e-book until I get settled which works out well for me as I’m deployed and its hard to publish anything from here. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and praying and considering my options, but in the end I’ve figured I’m nearly ready to publish my books anyway and I’ve done all the work  with the help of a pro. (www.elizabethdrosa.com)

It’s been a hard choice. I had a few smaller houses interested in taking over the contract and helping me publish with them. I’ve blogged on the topic before and I feel that I truly can do this on  my own for now. If I change my mind I can resubmit my work later for a new contract. I’m also going to set up my own little publishing house with only one author, me. I have found that print options are more favorable to a house than to a person. Also for some reason being published with a “house” is better in the eyes of the world than independent publishing. Let me say here real quick that those that were talking with me about offering me a contact to publish, I’m deeply honored and still will speak kindly of your houses and your work, but this is a choice I have made just for myself I mean no offense.

So I’m reworking T-Man just a little bit and re-releasing it soon, in the mean time thanks to Kristina for being such an awesome person it’s still available to the public through the usual sources. I know this is short for one of my posts but I want to promote everything I do with my new site and blog, so there you go. don’t worry my usual lecture will be out in another day or two but for now that’s it.

As always I’m proud of my kids and my wife. Play to Win! And you stay classy planet earth.

Transition Man Roboot!

Well hello again from Afghani land! Not much to report on the home front things really haven’t changed. But your well wishes lift my spirits and I pass them to the wife and kids. So again, thanks. A few more days until my promotion and I’m excited about that, but one thing I don’t get about the army is the way they say congratulations, now let’s punch you in the chest until your sternum breaks. Or happy birthday, now we’re gonna ball you up and beat the crap out of you, because we love you. Like is said don’t get it but I have to live with it, I guess its part of being in the military.

On the author front things are moving in a direction I never expected. My publisher Little Acorns, is closing its doors and letting me out of contract. So I now have choices to make and things to consider. As all 5 of you know that read this blog I have invested a small amount of money (even though it’s all I have) into hiring a pro to help get my author work into public eyes and try to advance sales on my book. Well the good news is one month after that investment I’m seeing sales improve! I’ve sold 4 books in the last week and things are looking good. My biggest concern is it’ll taper off. I only have so many friends and I need to tap a much bigger audience to have any hope of sustaining sales to a certain number a month. I’m not sure, but I had a few publishers interested in my work before I signed with LAP and I know of one right now that is interested for sure. So my question is sign or try going on my own. I’ve blogged extensively about this topic, however it’s still something to consider and I think I’m gonna.

I haven’t blogged about Transition Man in a while and I thought since my last several posts have been book related I’d wrap up with covering my first novel and currently the only one for sale to the public. So here’s a brief over view and some of my source material and original inspiration.

I’d considered what I might be good at and what my I might have an aptitude for and I came to the conclusion that besides my family the only thing I really enjoy is the movies. I love going and sitting in the theater, eating the fattening popcorn and sipping a large soda. I love picking apart the plot details and predicting the outcome at the beginning of the movie. (My wife hates that by the way but I love it!) So I considered how I might put that to use. I’m always thinking of ways movies can be improved by simple things that couldn’t be too expensive. It mostly has to do with dialogue or what characters are being moved from one point in the movie to another, but most of the time I’m right. (Even if I do say so myself!)

So I looked at trying to adapt one of my favorite novels, Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz to a movie series. He see’s dead people and helps them solve their problems. Often they help him out of a jam or guide him in a quest to solve a crime. It’s really outstanding and I love reading the books. I’m glad another book in the series came out and I need to read it. But anyway staying on point here I needed to feed the fam and I’m not an accomplished screen writer so I joined the Army in order to put food on the table and cloths on backs and so far it’s working out pretty well.

I was on duty at a night desk while at training for my army job and saw the ghost whisper guys who say they’ve died seen down the proverbial tunnel to the afterlife and returned. What a crappy way to connect with people. But it gave me an idea, and that was what about a scum bag going down the tunnel and returning with super powers and being forced to take an active part in the war between good and evil. And so it started.

I have a good friend Nathan Leonhardt that lives in Las Vegas and when we travel between Utah and Arizona (which we used to do a lot once upon a time) we’d stay there with him. I ate at several outstanding restaurants, walked up and down the strip over and over again, gambled in the casinos and in general had a great time. So I decided to bring all those elements into the book.

Some of my favorite movies shaped characters. Griffin is modeled a little after Neo in the Matrix, Isa has always been Selma Hayek in my mind and I went with Bandits for that one. Anyway I started writing and the story shaped itself. From my love of movies is where my writing style comes from. I love visual things, things that create a reaction in people and that’s how I try to manipulate my books. So Griffin, my hero is lost in the sauce and caught between a rock and a hard place.

I also served a mission for my church in New Zealand and fell in love with the native people. They are a warrior culture there, the Maori’s and I looked at their weapons and just admire the skill of the people with their Tiaha, which is amazing and deadly. That’s where Talon came from.

Anyway to wrap up here, the story of Transition Man is a Las Vegas scum bag big shot sends his best girl to close a deal, she gets roughed up and goes to him for help, which he refuses. She’s had enough and following a prompting shoots him and kills him. He sees down the tunnel and an evil presence sends him back to earth to try again making him a Transition Man.

When he wakes up he has super powers, and can see dark figures (demons) called shadows, and angels. He has to act on what he sees. For humans time stops in an instant, and the angels, demons and Transition Men fight it out with swords and shields, flying around and doing unearthly things that only superhero’s can do! In the end Griffin will have to decide to serve the darkness, or the light. His internal struggle is what the book series is all about. He falls in love with his teacher, Isa, and his girl that shoots him becomes his biggest project, her name is Jordan. There is much more, but if I’ve piqued your interest check out Transition Man, it’s available on your favorite book site. http://www.amazon.com/Transition-Man-Griffin-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B008G1BVFS/ is the amazon site.

Well that’s it for now, as always I’m proud of my kids and my wife. Play to win! And you stay classy planet earth.

a peak into Sword of Achilles

Well hello again from Afghani land! It’s been a few days since my last post and I wanted to get a quick up date in before I go on to the post. I’m doing pretty well. I have received several posts on my fan page and PM’s that have wished me well and I appreciate that. It’s almost April so I’m definitely on the down-hill slide. I passed my most recent PT test so I should be getting promoted to the rank of SGT on the 1st and that is a big deal and a very good thing. Jules has made it home safe and is trying to adjust to being there with the kids. In the meantime they’re working hard at school and looking forward to spring sports. My mom is still there helping take care of them during the transition for the wife. We’ve had a lot of weather here lately so I haven’t flown as much, but when I do it’s still a great time and I enjoy it. The temps are rising, especially during the day but when the sun goes down its still cold enough to want a jacket. I have been running and lifting in the gym again and so far my joints aren’t hurting as much so I still hope to go home with some bigger muscles and a smaller belly.

This post is about my new project. I’m letting the cat out of the bag a little early because I’m so very excited about it. The title of the book (so far) is called the Sword of Achilles. I know it’s a dead giveaway as to the subject of the story but I kinda wanted that. I’m still not sure what genre it will be categorized under. Many of my friends in the writing community say it’s a steam punk version of the Trojan War… but I’m not so sure. A steam punk is usually a Victorian story told with more modern and more specifically steam powered technology. My story is older for sure but it’s using today’s tech and weapons.

The story has the same basic characters and plot, Helen is the most beautiful woman the world has ever seen, and Sparta has her as their queen. Prince Paris of Troy falls in love with her and she goes back to Troy with him causing the war. We also have Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax, Odysseus, Hector and many more from the original stories. However the means of fighting are very different.

As many of you know I am a soldier with the Army and currently on my second rotation to combat in Afghanistan. I’m not an infantryman, nor am I a Spec Ops guy. I crew on Chinook helicopters and it’s a kickin job! What I do is I am a maintainer or mechanic for the bird if you will, but in addition I also fly on it as a member of the flight crew. In the back we fly from one of three positions. There are two “doors” in the front a left and right. The left is basically a window with a gun mounted in it, and the right is an actual door used to enter and exit the aircraft, but when the lower door is shut it also has a gun mounted there that we shoot from to defend ourselves from attackers on the ground. At the aft of the airplane is a large ramp that is opened and closed, or raised and lowered if you will by hydraulic power. When flying at the right or cabin door you provide suppressive fire if need be but you also help the pilots guide the aircraft safely and help call it down to the ground. On the ramp we control what’s going on inside the airplane and help guide the aircraft with feedback (which we call “Calls”) from there. From the left gun, we give guidance calls and again provide covering fire if need be. As a crew member I have seen and done lots on this rotation. Our main task has been to support the ground guys by providing transport and resupply to forward operating bases (FOB’s) and on direct assault missions. We’ve had lots of different “customers” as we call them come on and off the aircraft, and have supported many different mission sets. I’ve had Rangers, Seals, SF, CIA, Other Defense Assets (ODA), British SAS, Polish Special Ops and Afghani commando’s on board to name a few. I’ve loaded and unloaded under dusty, snowy, or any other crazy conditions vehicles, as well as personnel that have the harder task of finding and killing or capturing bad guys. I’ve heard what combat calls sound like as we’ve supported these missions and also what has been going on, on the ground when coming in and going out. I’ve been amazed at how impressive the communications are, and how precise the timing and targeting is by the US forces. I’ve also made many friends in these groups that have so kindly been willing to tell me what it’s like for them on the ground, how the planning works and what exactly goes through their minds as the helicopter lands and it’s time for them to do their jobs. It’s from this perspective that I’ve taken up the task of writing this story so if you like military stuff, you’ll love this.

The prologue which I’ve posted on my FB fan page as a note will be added to this blog today, it is very accurate to what I hear on short and final on nearly every mission I’ve flown. I’ve had to change some names and had to omit a few details because they are classified, but needless to say, when my crew member friends and my Spec Ops buddies read it, it got all their adrenaline pumping (as well as mine when I wrote it).

Basically, we’ve got all the major players from the legend. The Spartan’s in history are some of the most feared warriors every assembled. I’ve given them a group called the Spartan Elite that are their Special Forces very much like Rangers. We also have the Myrmidons, they are Achilles special trained warriors and they are my Delta Force. There is also the Ithaca Navy and Marines, the Spartan main infantry so on and so forth. Then we’ve got the Trojan opposites. The Apollonian Guard are like Navy Seals led by Hector, Paris leads an elite group of snipers, and there is the Trojan infantry as well. Cool side note, in some of my research I found some theories that say the Trojan exiles after the city burns end up in Italy and basically found Rome, becoming the very deadly Roman Army and Legionnaires. So they were definitely capable warriors themselves some speculate spawning great warrior leaders like Julius Caesar.

The entire country of Greece goes to war so the smaller kingdom of Troy is vastly out- numbered but their city is protected by super advanced defensive technology. This is real tech, the Phalanx system for example is a real defense used by modern military and the short range fighters are basically A-10’s. In order to make it a little fairer I gave the Greeks a massive Navy and supper powerful ground force, I also gave them my Chinook’s so they are good fighters. The Trojan’s I gave a more advanced air force and technology overall. In an open field battle the Greeks would win, they have the Spartans and their army dwarfed the Trojan’s, but as they are trying to lay siege to a city with massive protective walls and very strong defensive tech, those numbers are negligible.

Helen is a seductive power hungry woman who uses all her “skills” meaning her body and her sexuality to control men’s minds and get to her over all goals. It has been a lot of fun to write her, though I feel a little dirty when I’m done. Achilles is the most skilled warrior and his men are the most feared in the known world. Patroclus and Ajax are his two LT’s and are very capable. Hector as you might imagine is a true hero, only fighting to protect his people and his family. Next to Achilles he is the best warrior in the story and his men are nearly the equal of the Myrmidons. The Apollonian Guard is a “water to land” fighting force, which comes into play in the story. Their main mode of transport is stealth subs, but I don’t want to give too much away. My Paris isn’t the same as in other stories. He isn’t weak, he isn’t scared and he isn’t stupid. He is one of the best warriors in the book. The Trojan’s are known as having great archers, so it wasn’t a stretch to make them snipers and Paris is the best of all snipers revered worldwide. I did a lot of weapon research and need to thank my buddy Eric Kirkwood for his input in the weapons selections for the story. The battle between Menelaus and Paris in my book will be epic! Not as biblical as Hector and Patroclus and then Hector and Achilles will be, but awesome none the less.

I don’t want to give away what the Horse will be that eventually sacks the city, but…rest assured it’s not made of wood. Here’s the skinny if you like realistic military lingo and action from a guy who has seen it and with input from people who live it, as well as a super sexy female trying to rule the world with her body then you’ll love this. On a side note, I wanted to say that the Myrmidon aircrews on their CH-47M (Myrmidon) aircraft are taken from the unit I currently serve with, the Bravo company, 6th battalion 101st CAB Pachyderms the best in the Army! As a matter of fact I’m still debating calling the unit in the book the Pachyderms, just haven’t decided for sure yet.

Well that’s it for now hope you enjoyed a look into Sword of Achilles, more to come on this score. My goal is to have this ready to publish by fall of 2013 but we’ll see. In the mean time I will be updating you on the progress of this WIP as it gets closer to being ready to release. As always I’m proud of my kids and my wife. Play to Win!! And you stay classy planet earth.

Twisted Souls behind the book.

Well hello again from Afghani land! It’s been an interesting few days here. The weather is warming and the spring rains have started to fall. We are starting to pack up all our winter things and it’s a lot more comfortable to fly without so many layers on. Don’t get me wrong it’s still cold, but bearable. I managed to hurt my elbow lifting weights and trying to play basketball like a younger man, and it’s taken me a bit to recover but feeling better. At home the family is recovering nicely and Jules is home with the kids again. Laynee won her last game of the season and all three kids are starting fresh for the 4th quarter of the year. So crisis averted and we seem to be back on track.

This deployment is going well. By the time I post next I’ll know if I made the promotion list, here’s hoping. The flying is going great! I’m really comfortable in the air now and enjoy watching the world go by beneath me. The fighting season has officially begun here so we are thinking the number of flights should increase. I may yet get to 400 hours on this tour, we’ll see. In the meantime I’m working hard and trying to get home safe.

Well this post is about Twisted Souls the second book in the Griffin Chronicles series. I hope you all got to see the cover at the reveal and like the hard work being put in to bring this book to life.

At the present I plan to release by July this year. If you’ve read the first book in this series, (and I hope you have, if not go buy one!) you may remember where we left our hero. Griffin had just lost his love in a great battle in Tempe Arizona and taken Jordan back to Vegas to try and rebuild her life. Well that’s where we pick it up. Griffin and Jordan back in Vegas.

Griffin will have his hands full with Jordan in this story. She’s seen him as a Transition Man and has found she has powers of her own. Both sides are turning up the heat and Griffin’s choices are becoming harder and harder. The biggest battle will be dealing with his past and accepting what he has to do. Wesley is growing stronger inside the hero and is trying to break out and take over the great power that the General possesses. But who will win this internal struggle? Read and find out.

I introduce some new Characters in the book, one that is particularly relevant, Rae and she’s one of the seven as well. (Again if you haven’t read book one this might be a little confusing, so go buy and read. I’ll even sign it!) Rae if you couldn’t guess is female. Tall and slender, a natural platinum blonde with blue eyes, great curves and amazing powers. She’s also an interesting addition to Griffin’s life with her pull on his heart from “long ago.” So a fun love triangle emerges here between Rae, Isa and Griffin. (Read it and find out.) Our old friend Raven is back with a vengeance along with Daru and the horsemen. I also introduce a new villain; however he’s only mentioned, he doesn’t really appear until the third novel. New weapons and great more intense fights all brought to you from the wicked imagination of yours truly. The battles will all take place in Vegas this time so if you love the strip you’ll like the scenes here. I don’t want to give too much away but we lose one of the main characters in the series in this book. Not telling who, but it surprised me when I wrote it.

The best part is Griffin and Wesley will have it out on the strip! (Mass destruction ensues.) The main plot behind this book will be to determine who will ultimately control the power of the Transition Man. But who will it be and what will happen after? It’s all part of the continuing saga of the Transition Man in the Griffin Chronicles. If you have questions about something specific I will answer a few questions about the book as you ask.

Well that’s it for this blog post, hope you enjoyed it. As always I’m so proud of my kids and my wife. Play to Win!! And you stay classy planet earth.

Cover for Griffin Chronicles 2 Twisted Souls revealed!

Well fans here it is…the cover for the second book in the Griffin Chronicles series, Twisted Souls! Coming July 2013!!

 

Goals and Aspirations. (announcments included!)

Well hello again from Afghani land, I’m nearing the end of this rotation so you’ll have a new greeting soon. Anyway, it has been an interesting week, the family is doing much better and will all be reunited again very soon. My daughter Laynee has her last basketball game on Saturday, Go Strykers! And I’m excited to hear how she does. She’s had a winning season and learned a lot, she says. My boys are finally caught up on their homework, or at least as much as they can be. (Nice work Grandma.) And they’ll both get a fresh start in the last quarter of the school year. Jules is getting some help right now and from all I hear it’s going really well. As a positive to all this we have a Grammy or a Nana staying with the family until I get home sounds like fun.

For me things have been cruising along, flying and learning my job better. No word yet on Promotion but I’m extremely hopeful to get picked up in the next month. (Still more to come on that score.) As I said we are nearing the end of the tour so I have much to consider on how I’m going proceeding with this writing venture when I get home. As I discussed in a previous entry I believe writing is more of a business than authors realize. Selling books is directly correlated to the amount of time and money one invests in advertising and promoting. So I have a whole lot to think about. I’ve decided to set some goals and find some realistic aspirations for my writing career. With 4 books on the market by the end of summer and another 2 planned for the next year after that, I will certainly have enough novels for sale that I can consider this a viable career or at least a solid side line to my “day job” in the Army.

So for goals :

I had a goal to sell 150 books in my first year with Transition Man, I don’t know exactly where I am at present, but I don’t think I’m there yet. Still I have until June and I’m trying to make a go of it and promote the heck out of myself in the next few months, ya never know I just might get there. I’m also participating in the Lucky Day Giveaway with a bunch of other authors to try and drum up business, so here’s the link, please come check it out and get a free book. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/events/107409092780556/ (plug complete) But now that I’m looking ahead for the next year, setting up a budget for marketing and trying to get my head around how one sells books, I have to try and set a goal for book sales for the next 12 months. My personal fiscal year starts in July which is when Transition Man was released and for the next year after the release of Genesis, the first book in the True Immortals series. With two books on the market and a third shortly after that I should be able to hit a higher number and hope to get a little more out of the effort and investment I’ve put in and that I plan to put out over that next year. Considering what I’ve earned in my royalties and what paperbacks I’ve sold myself I am reinvesting every dime and then some to try and get my name recognized and sell some. But spending what I earn on further promotion will only get me so far. I need to find a way to cover my investment and try and put some green in my own pocket. I see two ways to set realistic goals for book sales for an indie author, or an author with a small house.

1-see what the trends are from your last 6 months and use that as a base line.

2-shoot high and work hard

An average between these two is a reasonable number. I believe I’ll hit my 150 copies of T-Man this year and if I do and I can get some of those readers to write reviews and recommend my books to others I should be able to double that next year. Also I am releasing my second novel in June, so now I can hope to sell 150 of that book as well. With a new goal to sell 450 novels in the 12 months of my new fiscal year, however I’m not done.

Now for the big news, In July I’ll be releasing the second book in the Griffin Chronicles series! That’s right Griffin fans, your sequel is about to be released so I think I can plan on selling my usual 150 for the first year of a new series, plus a few more for those that will read the first book Transition Man and want to know what happens next, so I’m bumping that up.

Last but not least my new project titled the Sword of Achilles should be ready for release in August, though I haven’t decided what to do with this one, I expect it too will be released within that twelve month time frame for my goals adding to my total.

When I look at that I have a hope to sell many books and get a decent return on investment for advertising and promotion. I have run several small businesses and have learned a truth that most won’t tell you, running a company on your own is difficult and expensive. My grandfather told me that if you can reinvest most of your returns for the first 5 years of any enterprise it will in theory become self-sustaining. Now I don’t know about all that, many things depend on the market and how many potential customers you might have so I don’t buy into that 100 % per say but it does give a good plan for success when one has another source of income to help with taking care of the basics. My plan this next 12 months is to invest close to 600 dollars into a marketing and promotion campaign that will I hope keep my name and my book titles in the public eye spurring sales to an even higher level. I’m using myself as an example because I don’t get into other peoples affairs, but the model holds true if like me you hope to see your book sales increase steadily over the next few years until it is a part of my budget able income, instead of a nice surprise. Covering the cost is the first priority, so with that kind of investment I’m really hoping to get a good return. Then I’ll reevaluate about this same time next year and set up the 2015 budget for Jon Pew Author activities. I only share this on my blog because if you’re an indie author or with a small house you may need to make this kind of plan to help your aspirations come true.

As for my aspirations, I kind of already stated mine. I want to see my sales increase steadily until I can count on them to help take care of my family. I wrote my first novel because I had an idea and thought it was entertaining. Apparently it is, and many people are enjoying T-Man and spreading the word. But now that I’m invested in becoming established as an author and selling books to supplement my income I have higher dreams than just seeing my work in print. I’ve done that, and it was amazing but if we stand still for too long we die. It’s time to make new dreams and larger goals. So here are my new aspirations. First is to get all 6 planned books published by the end of my 2014 fiscal. Second is to sell enough to cover the investment into my sail boat. It will be a stretch to try and purchase a boat on my soldier salary, as many of you might have seen in the news we don’t make very much and they are fixing to make it even less. So the purchase cost of my boat will have to come from another source. My books are the only thing that work all the time, they are always for sale and can be purchased 24 hours a day 7 days a week so that seems to me to be the ideal place to get my boat money from. Hey if you’re gonna dream, dream big!

So there are my goals and aspirations. By the third year of this author work, I hope to have more books planned to write and get enough money together to buy my first sail boat, I’ll let you know how that’s going as time passes, but for the present I guess this will have to do. I hope my ramblings might help someone who might be struggling with how to make the tough choices required to become a known author and writer and gives them a model to try and establish their own budget and plan for promotion and marketing. In my opinion, nothing could be more important if you have a dream like mine that you want to use your author credit for.

Well that’s if for this edition of my blog, as always I’m so proud of my wife and kids. Play to Win!! And you stay classy planet earth!