Michael C. Bailey's Blog, page 94

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.

Author Interview – J.M. Aucoin Discusses “Honor Among Thieves”

Hey, folks. My friend Justin is getting ready to release his new book, Honor Among Thieves (Hope & Steel Book 1), which is now available for pre-order for the Kindle. Here he is to tell everyone about it!

Tell everyone about the new book and what inspired the story.

Honor Among Thieves is the first book in the Hope & Steel series. It takes place in early 17th Century France, during King Henry IV’s reign and about a decade after the French religious wars ended.

In the book, we follow Darion Delerue, a former soldier turned highwayman, and Jacquelyna Brocquart, a lady-in-waiting for Queen Marie de Medici. Both are unwillingly thrown into a political plot to undermine the crown and could throw France back into chaos and civil war.

As for inspiration, I’ve always been a huge fan of swashbucklers and the historical adventure genre. I’m a carnivore of all things Three Musketeers. I love the high adventure, the weaving of fictional plots with historical events, and the camaraderie of the characters. I’m also a fan of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s Captain Alatriste series, which is full of swordplay, history, and a dash of realism. So I tried combining both into the Hope & Steel series. You get a lot of high adventure in the plots but with the gritty realism of life of 17th Century France and all its consequences.

Your previous releases (the Jake Hawking books) were all short stories. What drove you to tackle a full-length novel?

It’s funny, Honor Among Thieves gave birth to the Jake Hawking Adventures in some ways. I was in the middle of a major re-write for Honor Among Thieves and I was getting a little frustrated with the process. I was struggling to fill major plot holes and I was second guessing myself on what point of views to keep and what to cut. I needed to step away from the project, but I also hate going too long without writing anything. I need to feel productive or I get grumpy. So I decided to write a few piratical short stories. Nothing serious. Nothing grim. Just fun, light-hearted tales. And voila! Jake Hawking, Little Queen, and the crew of the Broad-Wing were born.

Doing the Hawking stories also gave me my first taste at self-publishing, which was good. The trio of short-stories and then the omnibus collection let me ease into the industry and figure things out without like hiring a cover artist and formatting for Kindle and Createspace.

But it’s always been my plan to write full-length novels.

Is this the first in a series for this character or a stand-alone novel?

This is the first book in what I hope becomes a long-lasting series. I have the first four books more or less outlined in my head, but I’m hoping for a long and prosperous career of fighting for Darion and company.

This is your first new release in more than a year (since Jake Hawking & the Bounty Hunters (A Jake Hawking Adventure Collection Book 1), released in April 2014). What took so long?

Rewrites. Day job. Procrastination. Take your pick!

Honor Among Thieves has been about three or four years in the making. It was the first full-length novel I actually completed (I had tried and failed at completing novels a few times prior), so there was a lot of problems with the first draft. It was way too long (140K words), and the second half of the novel didn’t really jive with the first half. It was a perfect case of the story taking a life of its own and running away from my outline.

So I basically torched the first draft and started over. I thought I would be able to use large chunks of the original copy in the second draft, but I think I rewrote about 90% of the book. In the middle of all this is when I took a break and let Hawking come to life. Then I went back and finished it. Sent it out to test readers. Went over their feedback and then hunted for an editor, which was a bit of a nightmare in itself. Finding one that was good and also in my budget was tough. It’s one of the harder parts of being a self-pub author.

I really wanted this book to come out last October, but I also didn’t want to rush things. Delaying it eight months was the right course, I think.

And, of course, I still need a day job to pay the bills, so that’s 8-10 hours of possible writing time gone. I get writing in during my lunch break and I try to do some writing after work, but some days the brain won’t have it, so an hour or two might be all that I get done. It makes getting projects done a slow process.

How research-intensive was this story?

A lot. I wanted to fictional characters to interact with historical figures and weave fictional plots into real world events. I also wanted to paint a picture of what France was like in 1609, and not just what we all assume it was like because of the movies. So to do that I needed to do a good amount of research into what was happening and who was in charge and doing what, and who liked (or didn’t like) who, etc. for this time period.

Amazingly, my local library (Boston Public) didn’t have a lot of books on King Henry IV of France or that time period. It seems to be a very un-sexy era for researchers. However, I did find a lot of research material via Google Books that I was able to download for free. I found about 10 books from Google Books in total and bought a couple of more online and in local bookshops. I also looked for maps of France and Paris from around the time, so I could get street names and bridge names correct for the early 17th Century.

Readers shouldn’t take my portrayals of historical characters as gospel, but a lot of research went into this swashbuckler to get things right. I want to get people interested in the era and have them do their own research after.

I’m going to assume there are plenty of action sequences. What was your process for putting those together?

What’s a swashbuckler without a little action, eh?

There’s a good amount of fighting in this novel. Far more steel is brandished in Honor Among Thieves than in the Jake Hawking Adventures. Darion’s a former soldier turned highwayman; he’s young, proud, and can be hot tempered. Drawing steel is how problems get solved in his life – for better or worse.

But unsheathing one’s sword is a serious affair. You don’t draw your rapier unless you were absolutely certain you were ready to use it. It’s not like modern Olympic fencing or even HEMA/SCA rapier combat. It meant life or death.

So I try to approach my action scenes in the same way. I don’t just throw in a fight scene for the sake of a fight scene being there. Action scenes need to serve a purpose in fiction. It needs to convey some new information about a character, solve (or create) a problem, or further the story somehow.

We have to talk about the cover, because it’s pretty kick-ass. Did you have any input on the concept, or was it all left to your cover artist?

I absolutely love this cover. Graham Sternberg made it for me. He’s a good friend of mine from my fencing circle and also a fantastic artist, so he was perfect for the job.

The concept of the cover was a little of my idea and a lot of Graham’s idea. When we started talking about what the cover should be, I wasn’t sure what I wanted it in terms of action and setting, but I knew what I wanted the overall feel and tone of the cover to be. I wanted the cover to convey the action and sense of urgency of the story, and I knew I wanted it to look like a painting. I wanted the brush strokes and the roughness of a not-so-quite-finished painting to be seen. I also wanted more jewel and earth tones, so it would be a little different looking than the Hawking covers, which use a lot of primary colors.

So that was my main contribution. Graham did the rest. He came up with idea of doing a wrap-around cover, so the front and back is one artwork – which I loved. He drew up about half a dozen pencil sketches of ideas based off the plot of the book. From there I chose the ones I liked and gave some feedback based on what I saw and he would go do what he did best until we had the final design.

What’s the next project?

Got a few projects in the works, all at different stages.

I have a stand-alone pirate revenge story that’s about 20K words in. I think that’ll be my “I need to work on something different” project when other stories are becoming obstacles. I have an idea for a pulp mystery/suspense series that I’m aiming to work on – at least for a little bit – in the fall. I think that’ll be a novella length project. And I’m world building, off and on, for a possible fantasy series, but I don’t expect to actually write that for some time.

Of course, once Honor Among Thieves is published I’ll start the second book in the series. I have a general outline all set; it’s just a matter of filling in the details of the plot. There are some bread crumbs in book one that’ll lead to book two.

I think I have the classic dilemma of too many ideas, not enough time!