Michael C. Bailey's Blog, page 92

Fast Five With Jack Wallen

Hey, everyone! Today I’m kicking off a series of quickie interviews with my fellow Indie Superhero StoryBundle authors, and leading the series is Jack Wallen, who has proven a bit of a dynamo when it comes to promoting the bundle, so it feels appropriate that he’s starting things off.

1) It’s high-concept pitch time. In 20 words or fewer, what is your book about?

A transgender superhero protects the very citizens that mock him against evil most vile.

2) Why did you decide to tackle a superhero story as a prose novel rather than as a traditional comic book/graphic novel?

Due to the nature of Shero, it would be incredibly easy to turn a transgender superhero into something other than what was intended. By using the written word, Shero becomes the product of the reader’s minds and not the result of an artists rendering of what a transgender superhero would be.

3) One of the notable earmarks of our current Indie Superhero StoryBundle is that “indie” part. Are you an independent author by choice? And what are the big pros and cons of life as an indie author?

I am indie by choice. I decided to go that route for one simple reason– control. Too often publishers want more control over elements they may not fully understand. I know the endgame of every series I write and with that knowledge comes a responsibility to each story that a publisher may not get.

Also, too many publishers are still stuck in the old, stale mold of what “genre” should be. Without being able to navigate the grand rapids of writer-dom as an indie author, the likes of Shero might never have happened… simply because publishers wouldn’t know what to do with it. Thinking outside the norm is not one of their strengths.

4) Superheroes are well-established archetypes, and their stories have their own sensibilities and internal logic. How did you play with or subvert the tropes of superhero fiction in your story?

Two things: First and foremost this was made incredibly easy by nature of Shero. Because he is transgender he is a good guy that isn’t always seen as such, simply because he fights super villains in a little black dress.

Second, the nature of the narrator in the series evolved into something very special. The narrator is as much a part of the series as Shero. The narrator also breaks a lot of rules – one rule in particular is that he breaks the “fourth wall” and comments not only on the action in the book, but on the reader as well. I have a LOT of fun with that.

Author Jack Wallen.

5) Beginnings, middles, and ends. What is your favorite/the easiest part of a story to write and which is the hardest/least favorite?

Everything about Shero is a joy to write. In fact, I write a new Shero book every time I think I’m starting to take myself too seriously. I laugh so much as I write it, so the process is incredibly easy.

If I had to name a challenge it would be the never-ending struggle to not go “too far” with the humor and the cheestastic nature of nearly every situation in the series.

StoryBundle Giveaway!

Hey everyone! Looks like the Indie Superhero StoryBundle offer I’m part of is selling quite well in its opening days. Woo! The eight authors will be participating in an online Q&A session via the StoryBundle Facebook page, so if you’re interested in participating, go to the official event page for details.

In the coming days I’ll be posting some quickie interviews with some of my fellow SB authors, but today I’m conducting a special giveaway. I have five — FIVE codes to give away that will get you all eight e-books for FREE. Can I capitalize these important points any more?

But what I am looking for are five recipients who have not yet read Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins. I’d like to draw in some new readers, so I’m asking my readers to nominate someone to receive this bundle. If you have a friend or family member who would like these books, please share this post and let them know what’s going on.

This next section is for those of you who were pointed to this site, so the rest of you can stop reading.

Hi, new person! You’re here because a current fan of my series thought you might like to check it out, along with seven other superhero e-books for the low low cost of nothing. Here’s the deal: using the Contact Mike link at the top of the page, send me a message asking for a code. I only have five, so it’s first come, first served. Tell me who sent you so I can thank him or her appropriately, and I’ll e-mail you a code that will get you the eight book e-bundle. They’re available in EPUB and MOBI formats, so they should work with any e-reader or e-reader app.

Thanks for stopping by, and hope you enjoy the books!

The New Superhero StoryBundle Is Live!

I’ve mention this before, but now the StoryBundle Indie Superhero collection is available for purchase!

Here’s how it works: you set the price you want to pay for the base bundle of four e-books (which includes Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins) and determine how much of the payment is shared with the writers. If you pay at least $12, you get four bonus books.

This is a curated collection; every book has been read and personally selected by a member of the StroryBundle team, so you know you’re getting some good stuff here. Plus, you get to try out some titles you might not otherwise know about, AND support a group of independent authors.

To learn more about each author and title, go check out their websites and Facebook pages:

Adam Oster
Matt Adams
Joshua Corey Mays
Jack Wallen
Charlie Wood
Mike Leon
Mur Lafferty

A Short Series Of Brief Announcements

First and perhaps most importantly, draft two of Action Figures – Issue Five: Team-Ups is done and out to my test-readers! Hopefully I’ll hear back from all of them within the next couple of weeks so I can make my next round of revisions and ship it off to my editor Julie for her scrutiny.

Julie is earning her money from me big-time, since she’s also in the middle of editing The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot to get that ready for its late September/early October release.

My big pile of books for two October events. Hope they all find new homes!

Both books should be available for my two October appearances now on my calendar. In addition to my book-signing Sunday, October 4 at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, I’ve added an authors roundtable event at the Sharon Public Library in Sharon, MA. On Thursday, October 8 at 7:30 PM (date and time tentative) I’ll join fellow genre fiction authors to discuss fantasy/sci-fi/horror fiction and sign copies of my books.

And by that time, I should be well into the first draft of my next book: Action Figures – Issue Six: Power Play!

Team-Ups – A Brief Update

Going to keep it short and sweet, because I still have a lot of work to do. Draft one of Action Figures – Issue Five: Team-Ups is done!

Draft one suggests that book five will be the longest entry in the series yet, coming in at 100,011 words. I’m going to work on slimming it down a bit, but I think readers are going to have a lot of good reading coming.

What’s the book about? Glad you asked…

The Hero Squad is finished.

Their friendships damaged in the wake of the King of Pain incident, perhaps beyond repair, the team go their separate ways to lick their wounds and figure out where their respective paths will take them…and if those paths will ever lead back to each other.

Team-Ups features a series of individual adventures that partner the Hero Squad with unexpected friends and pit them against some surprising foes. Sara finally learns the price of her betrayal; Matt and Nina Nitro go hunting for superhuman fugitives; Carrie gets a rematch with Manticore that takes a shocking turn; Stuart follows Dr. Enigma into Boston’s magical underworld in search of a powerful and dangerous artifact; Missy gets a lesson in taking names and kicking ass from the Entity; and it all leads to Carrie finally learning the truth behind her fantastic powers…but is she willing to pay their terrible cost?

Shameless Self-Promotion Time

I’ve already mentioned my book-signing at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire in October, but now I think it’s safe to call it 100 percent official. Check out this page from the CTRF website!

You may notice some other notable names on there, such as fellow indie authors J.M. Aucoin, Erin Thorne, and E.A. Rappaport, as well as the esteemed R.A. Salvatore.

And the push to get The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot out to the masses in time for the signing proceeds apace. The manuscript is with my editor Julie, and a preview copy has gone out to about half of the kind readers who volunteered to check it out and help me with the initial publicity push.

That said, I still have space for a few more readers! I’d like to get 10 total and so far I have seven. If you’d like to read a preview copy, go to this post for details, then contact me.

Friday Fun Facts

Today begins a two and-a-half day writing weekend — the “and-a-half” is because I’ll spend part of the weekend consuming meat and beer at a friend’s Fourth of July cookout — and it’ll be the last weekend I have for a while, because I’ll be working ConnectiCon next weekend with my wife. So, three fewer writing days, but I get to spend them cosplayer watching instead. Fair trade-off.

As I warm up for today’s writing, I thought I’d share some random nibbly-bits about Action Figures — little insights into my thought process, backstory material, scenes that’ll never make it into the series, stuff like that.

* The Buzzkill Joy character’s look is based on actress , who many people know from her stint on Arrow, and who is currently on MTV’s Scream series. I had just begun rough-plotting Action Figures – Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect when I first saw her on Arrow. I was immediately struck by her look and thought, That’s Buzzkill Joy.

I sent Tricia, my cover artist, a couple of photos of Bex and told her to use them as inspiration. Actually I think I said something to the effect of, “I want Joy to look like Bex Taylor-Klaus, if Bex were a bloodthirsty lunatic.”

rt by Tricia Lupien.

I think she nailed it pretty well. I hasten to add that I think Bex herself is not a bloodthirsty maniac, and would be a lot of fun (and completely safe) to hang out with.

Olivia Wilde as Quorra.

* Joy is not the only character whose looks are inspired by an actress. Natalie “Nina Nitro” Guerrero’s hairstyle, in real life and in the story, are inspired by Quorra character from Tron: Legacy.

PS: Natalie loves Olivia Wilde but didn’t like Tron: Legacy.

* Like Carrie, Matt inherited his musical tastes — as well as his tastes in movies — from his father. Stuart’s love of hard rock and heavy metal comes from Gerry Yannick, back when Gerry, Stuart, and Matt were friends. Stuart passed along his tastes in part to Missy.

* Stuart’s grandmother is a retired police officer. She rose to the rank of sergeant but declined further promotions because she enjoyed working the streets. She impressed upon Stuart the importance of helping people and defending those who can’t defend themselves.

* Missy learned to speak rudimentary Japanese watching anime. Her uncle Seiji helped her fine-tune her fluency during secret Skype sessions (because, at the time, Missy’s dad was still actively denying his Japanese heritage and didn’t speak Japanese in the home). Also: Missy is a hardcore fan.

* Gwendolyn “Doc Quantum” Quentin — back when she was simply Gwendolyn Green — met Tisha “TranzSister” Greene at MIT. The two were roommates who became such good friends, classmates referred to them as the Green(e) Sisters.

* Matt bought his original black trench coat after watching The Matrix for the first time.

* Matt’s love of The Matrix led to Kingsport High School banning students from wearing Halloween costumes — but it wasn’t entirely his fault. The year before Carrie’s arrival in Kingsport, Matt went to school dressed as Neo, which prompted Angus Parr to make a remark about Matt shooting up the school. A teacher overheard this and sent both of them to see vice-principal Dent. Matt was told to take off the costume, and costumes were banned from that point on. Angus was briefly suspended, which only fueled his longstanding hatred toward Matt.

Kunoichi. Art and copyright Adam Warren.

* Before she was Kunoichi, Missy’s superhero name was Ninjette, but I had to scrap that after Adam Warren released Empowered, which features a character named Ninjette. I made a joke about it in Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins. I can’t be too mad about it, because I’m a longtime fan of Warren’s work, and of Empowered. Bonus fun fact: both Adam and I are former students of the Kubert School. Obviously, Adam has had more success in the comics industry than I have. Extra bonus fun fact: the late Joe Kubert, the school’s founder, was the man who told me, with kindness but total honesty, I had no future in art and should pursue this writing thing I seem to be interested in.

* Matt and Stuart first bonded during a school talent show. They were paired together and instructed to come up with a skit to perform. They reenacted several scenes from The Blues Brothers, which Matt had watched weeks earlier with his father. A parent-teacher conference followed soon thereafter.

* Edison “Concorde” Bose never went to college. He wanted to attend MIT, but was thrust into the corporate world following the death of his surrogate father. He managed to sneak in business classes here and there, but never received any formal higher education in any scientific field.

* Nina Nitro and Dr. Enigma originally played different roles within the series. Originally, Astrid filled the role of the kids’ friend/contemporary, but as I plotted out the series, I realized Nina would work much better, so I flipped the characters’ relationships with the Hero Squad.

Hope you enjoyed this look inside the rattling, echoing cavern of my brain pan. If you have any questions about the series, please feel free to shoot ’em over!

Looking For Readers!

First, on a non-selfish note, I want to give a virtual high-five to my friend and fellow author J.M. Aucoin for dropping his first full-length novel, Honor Among Thieves. It’s available now on Amazon in hard copy and Kindle editions, so click on the image to pick up a copy!

Now, onto business.

Over the weekend, I power-edited The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot and sent it off to my editor Julie for her final review. I plan to release this book in advance of a book-signing at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, so sometime in the late summer or early fall.

I’d like this new book to hit the ground running, so to speak, so I am looking for 10 people interested in reading a preview copy of the book. This would be an “unedited proof,” which means it will not be fully formatted and there may still be typos hiding among the text, but it would otherwise be the finished product.

Here’s the deal: if you want to be one of my preview readers, shoot me an e-mail using the Contact Mike link. On July 31, I will send the first ten people to respond an electronic copy of the book (as a PDF, or as an EPUB or MOBI file for e-readers) to check out.

If you’re selected to be a preview readers, the next step is easy: read the book, and finish it by the end of August.

Once the book page is live on Amazon, I’ll contact preview readers to let them know. If you liked the book, leave a review, and as a thank-you, I’ll send you a signed copy of the final print edition!

What Am I Working On Now?

Well, as I indicated in my last post, I’m putting Action Figures – Book Five: Team-Ups on a very brief hiatus to do a final polish on The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot, a fantasy adventure novel that I wrote a few years ago. I’m hoping to get that wrapped up this weekend and ship it off to my editor to be mercilessly scrutinized and dissected.

What’s this new book going to be about? Let me answer you with the text that’ll appear on the back cover…

In the land of Asaches, there are great men and women who have changed the course of history. Their adventures are honored in song, their names are spoken with a reverence normally reserved for the gods, their heroic deeds have elevated them to the status of living legends.

And then there are these guys…

Derek Strongarm and Felix Lightfoot are two hard-luck adventurers for hire looking for their big break — or an excuse to retire before they get killed. Salvation appears in the form of Erika Racewind, a mysterious elven woman with a dark secret and lucrative job offer. Desperate and destitute, Derek and Felix agree to join Erika in escorting her young charge across Asaches.

Of course, nothing is ever so simple for Strongarm and Lightfoot.

The boy turns out to be no one less than the fabled Reaper, he who is destined to destroy the mad lich-lord Habbatarr and save the world from total destruction. The adventurers soon find themselves fighting off fanatical cultists, hordes of mindless undead, bestial Hruks with a taste for human flesh, and unspeakable subterranean horrors — and things only stand to get worse as they travel ever deeper into Habbatarr’s blighted domain.

The fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, and the only things standing in the way of a global apocalypse are a mild-mannered warrior, an occasionally good-hearted thief, an ill-tempered elf, and a Chosen One with a serious attitude problem.

Asaches is screwed.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot, the new series from author Michael Bailey (Action Figures), is an irreverent take on the fantasy genre. Get ready for an epic tale filled with action, magic, monsters, quests, treasure, inconveniently located ancient artifacts of great power, curiously specific prophecies, and dangerously rickety rope bridges that someone really should have repaired a long time ago.

There you go!

Book Signing (And New Book) Announcement!

I’m still pinning down the fine details, but I am currently scheduled to appear at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire for a book signing on Sunday, October 4 from 1 to 3 PM.

This will be a new experience of sorts. I’ve been involved with CTRF in various capacities for 10 years now (I started out as a staff script writer before moving on to performing and fight directing), so it’ll be odd to be at the show as a special guest.

I’ll be one of three authors making in appearance at the fall show. My friend J.M. Aucoin will be there on Monday (Columbus Day), October 12 signing copies of his new book Honor Among Thieves (Hope & Steel Book 1), and some guy named R.A. Salvatore will be there on Saturday, October 15. I hear he’s got a few books out there, and a bit of a following.*

While I will of course have copies of the Action Figures series on-hand, I am using the opportunity to finally finish work on a book I’ve had sitting on the back burner for a while. That’s right, CTRF will host the official debut of my humorous fantasy novel The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot! I’ve already spoken to my editor Julie and cover artist Tricia and put them on alert so I can get this sucker wrapped up and ready for sale by the show.

I often refer to this book as the fantasy novel for people who don’t like fantasy novels or, when I’m in a more hyperbolic mood, the anti-A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s got plenty of action in it, but also a lot of humor, including some gentle (and not so gentle) jabs at some of the well-worn tropes of the genre.

The book will be something of a test. It is set up ad the first book in a series, but whether I continue the series will depend on how well-received it is. We’ll see.

One potential downside to this is: it might delay Action Figures – Issue Five: Team-Ups slightly. I am still plugging away at it and should finish up draft one soon, but there are other elements of putting a book together I have no control over (namely the availability of my aforementioned editor and cover artist, who now have the AoS&L project on their do-to lists) that could delay the release — hopefully not long, but it could happen.

One final note: Strongarm & Lightfoot will be my first non-YA release. It’ll have some more mature elements that might make it inappropriate for younger readers, but I will aim to give readers another title that leans toward fun escapism rather than the darker, more serious fare that tends to dominate the genre.

* Chill out, people. I know who R.A. Salvatore is, and I’m extremely flattered to be in the same airspace as the man.