R.J. Blain's Blog, page 11

So, You Found a Book Like Mine? Wheeee!

Dear reader,

Someone on my discord tentatively brought up an interesting subject; they had found books that were similar to things I write to the point they thought about asking if I’d written them. (Spoiler alert: I hadn’t.)

Plagiarism is never okay, so we’ll start there. That’s when someone directly steals my stuff and claims they wrote it, especially for profit. (This is bad, don’t do this.) I also strongly dislike piracy… I like getting paid. I don’t get paid when people pirate my book...

Readers, YOU decide if a series lives or dies.

Dear reader,

Today’s post is a response to something I saw on facebook, posted by someone who sneezes and makes more money than I do. (What? That’s just fact. This person’s sneezes are worth than my entire career basically.) And that’s okay. More power to them! They’re doing great, and I’m happy for them.

But they said something absolutely important, and I want to take the time to have a talk about it.

Readers, at the end of the day, you decide if a series lives or dies.

Authors are ...

Tentative Writing Order of Upcoming Books

Please note that this list may change. Also note that I write “play projects” around other things, and when a play project reaches a certain point, I insert it into the writing list for publication. As such, this list will change.

There are also a few projects that I deliberately did not list but are actively being worked on. They fall in the “play project” category, I have no idea when they’ll be done, so they were excluded from the list.

Here goes. I am listing the title, series, and aut...

Statistics for Those Who are Asking.

There seems to be a great deal of confusion on how the other vendors work, including volume. As such, I’m going to expose Playing with Fire’s sales between January 1 to now and the sales for Whiskers on Kittens from its launch to current. (The date ranges are “close enough” for this purpose.)

Hopefully, this will illustrate the basic issue and why I used Amazon’s figures in general.

Please note that getting the data out from the wide vendors is not easy, it’s very time consuming, and no, I wil...

Allow me to Reassure You…

Dear Readers,

I love you. Please take a deep and soothing breath, release it slowly, and allow your worries to fly away.

Just because there was bad news on the decline of the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series, it’s truly not a big deal. You’ll still be getting books in the series. You’ll still be getting the exact same number of books in the series! It’s just going to take a little longer than anticipated.

Dragon Her Heels will be coming in 2025. I’m planning my writing...

I guess it’s time for the bad news…

I am about to do a TL;DR summary of this post on my author-centric site, Shiny Sugar Goblin. The Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series has reached its “Death Throes” for a series. While I will be finishing it as planned, if the math maths as it has been mathing as of late, the new releases in this series will no longer be making any profit.

Too bad, so sad. That does mean one thing: the release frequency is officially being dropped to no more than once a year, and honestly, I may...

Happy Book Birthday, Grave Affairs by Lilith Daniels!

Today is it! Grave Affairs has released. If you like dragons and fun pets, this book is for you. If you don’t like dragons, well, this book is probably not for you. Please note that this is the first part of a planned duet. As such, not every little bit of the mystery is solved. If I solved everything, there wouldn’t be a point in a book two in a series.

You can buy now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Smashwords.

Following an accusation of being a necromancer with no ...

Dead Weight Audiobook now available in the Patreon Store!

Greetings, folks! It turns out I did an oops and forgot to get the audiobook cover for Dead Weight, but since Patreon doesn’t need it, I’ve loaded it into the Patreon Store for your enjoyment.

It costs $15.99 due to length.

The bonus short story that was in the back of Dead Weight is also available as a public audiobook treat. You can click here to listen to the short. (If you have not read Dead Weight, you will be utterly lost and confused about what is going on. You have been warned.)

...

Oops, I’m changing the name of that new fun series!

I don’t watch television or movies. I don’t like them, it’s not for me, and the only thing you’ll catch me watching? Dinosaurs eating people.

As such, when I named the Many Deaths of Mr. Magoo, I had picked the name because “it sounded right.” There’s another Mr. Magoo… and while it has nothing to do with my thing, I also don’t want there to be people thinking I used to watch the show or movie. (I haven’t seen either, don’t want to see either, and no, I don’t care what I’m ‘missing’; I do...

Notice re: print editions for Lilith Daniels

I will not be doing the mass market for the Lilith Daniels books. The price is too high for realistic purchase. Instead, I will be doing a trade hardback edition and standard trade edition.

However much I love mass market, I simply can’t justify the price for admission. The hardback costs more than the mass market, but you’re getting a better product for it, so that’s the route I will be taking. (Alas, it will probably mean I won’t have many print copies available in libraries, but that’s jus...