C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 115
January 11, 2012
Easy Pickings now available on Amazon & B&N!
You now have three very exciting options for buying "Easy Pickings", the Jane Yellowrock/Joanne Walker crossover novella written by Faith Hunter and myself!
1: You can buy it here on CEMurphy.Net (or on Faith's site) for $2.99. The download will give you an epub, a mobi, and a PDF file, so any type of e-reader you have will be able to read it. This, frankly, is our favorite way for you to buy it, because we get about $2.75 off that sale, rather than $2 from the other sites. :)
That said, I'm really quite okay with you buying it at one of the following sites, because that raises its profile there, and we need that!
2. You can buy it here on Amazon if you have a Kindle and only want the Kindle file. It'll still cost you $2.99, though.
3. You can buy it here on B&N.com if you have a Nook and only want the epub file. Still $2.99. :)
(Really, if you're at my website, I expect you'll probably buy it here. It's the folks who don't hang out here who *really* need it at B&N and Amazon!)
Two heroines. Two magics.
One world.
There's nowhere in America like the Big Easy. Just ask Jane Yellowrock, shapeshifting vampire killer, whose hunting grounds run the length and breadth of the Bayou.
Just ask Joanne Walker, whose shamanic magic has drawn her to the heart of American Weird.
But it's not Joanne's world, and it isn't Jane's either. In a New Orleans where Katrina never hit and supposedly-dead vampires stalk the streets, Jane and Jo have to find and defeat the magic that brought them there–or they just might find themselves…
EASY PICKINGS
fan fiction by the authors themselves!
Read the teaser and
PLEASE NOTE: You will be given the option to "return to open at mizkit dot com" once you've paid! Click through on that, because that's what will bring you to the download page! So don't skip out of Paypal until you do so through that link! Otherwise you won't get your story, and I won't know that! I'll think you're out there happy as a fish in water, reading all about Jane and Jo's adventures, when instead you'll be sniffling in your tea! Don't let that happen!
RAVEN CALLS teaser posted!
RAVEN CALLS, book 7 of the Walker Papers, is due out in March! I've finally posted a lil' teaser for it, so here you go! Enjoy!
-Catie
SUNDAY, MARCH 19, 9:53 A.M.
The werewolf bite on my forearm itched.
Itching was wrong. It wasn't old enough to itch. It should hurt like the dickens, because I'd obtained it maybe six hours earlier. Instead it itched like it was a two-week-old injury, well on the way to healing.
Only I was quite sure it wasn't healing. For one thing, I kept peeking at it, and it was still a big nasty slashy bite that oozed blood when the bandages were loosened. For another thing, my stock in trade was healing. Fourteen months, two weeks and three days ago—but who was counting—I had been stabbed through the chest. A smart-ass coyote—kinda my spirit guide—had given me a choice between dying or becoming a shaman. Even for someone with no use for the esoteric, like I'd been, it hadn't been much of a choice. So now, nearly fifteen months on, a bite on my forearm was something I really should be able to deal with.
And it wasn't that I hadn't tried healing it, because I had. Magic slid off like oil and water, or possibly more like oil and gashed flesh, if oil slid off gashed flesh, which I assumed it did but didn't want to actually find out. Either way, the magic wasn't working. Normally that would be a bad sign, but my talent had taken both a beating and a boosting in the past twenty-four hours, and wasn't behaving. It reacted explosively when I tried using it, and I didn't want to explode my arm. So I was getting on a plane with absolutely no notice and flying to Ireland, because I'd had a vision of the woman who had turned werewolves from slavering beasties 100% of the time into part-time monsters, and in my vision, she'd been in Ireland. I figured if anybody could keep me human, it had to be the woman who'd bound the wolves to the moon's cycle.
That's what I was telling myself, anyway, because it was slightly better than a full-on panic attack in the middle of the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.
January 9, 2012
Crowdfunding: Old Races Short Story Project
This is the landing page for my second major crowdfunding project of 2011, the Old Races Short Story Project. I'm posting it here and now because The Rose & Bay Crowdfunding Award is open for nominations, but it's also a really good way to do a year-end round-up and look at what I've accomplished in non-traditional publishing methods over the past 12 months.
So on to the ORSSP write-up!
Project Proposal: I set out with a goal to to write 6 short stories set in my Old Races universe, to create content for a possible future print publication collection of Old Races stories. I had in mind a financial goal of $3,000 ($500/story), but the especially important aspect to me was obtaining an audience for the stories to make certain I wrote them.
Project Conclusion: Over 180 patrons donated over $4,000 toward the ORSSP, making it not only a success in terms of getting me to write the stories, but also a clear financial success in and of itself.
Proof of Fiction Committed: There are teasers available for five of the six stories. For the sixth, my patrons have generously agreed to let me post the entire story publicly.
"Salt Water Stains the Sand", a tale of the djinn, is available here.
Teasers for the other stories are available here:
The Death of Him, a story of the selkies
Awakening, a story of the vampires (set after the Negotiator Trilogy)
Falling, a story of the gargoyles
St. George & the Dragons, a story of the dragons
and
Legacy, a story of the humans
Really, it went so well I'm more than half tempted to do it again this year, except I already have a great deal on my plate in 2012. :)
January 8, 2012
Crowdfunding: "No Dominion"
It's that time of year again: The Rose & Bay Crowdfunding Award is open for nominations, and part of the process is making certain nominees have a landing page for people to go read about their crowdfunding efforts in 2011. I'll be doing two landing pages for 2011: the "No Dominion" Kickstarter campaign, and the Old Races Short Story Project.
First up: "No Dominion"!
Project Proposal: I set out with a goal to raise $4000 through Kickstarter.com to fund the writing of a Walker Papers tie-in novella about Gary Muldoon, Joanne Walker's septuagenarian sidekick:
Recently widowed after nearly fifty years of marriage, Gary Muldoon had given up on adventure. Then shaman Joanne Walker climbed into the back seat of his cab, and since then, Gary has trifled with gods, met mystics, slain zombies and ridden with the Wild Hunt.
But now he must leave Joanne's side to face a battle only he can win. Because as their long battle against a dark magic-user races toward its climax, it becomes clear that it was not illness that took Annie's life, but their enemy's long and deadly touch.
Though lovers be lost, love shall not…
…AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION.
Project Conclusion: Over 500 patrons contributed over $20,500 to the "No Dominion" campaign, earning them the following:
3 novellas
5 short stories
3 chapters of a book that doesn't exist
& 1 CE Murphy photographic calendar
…which, frankly, was rather more than I expected. :)
Proof of Fiction Committed: There are two pieces of free fiction associated with the "No Dominion" campaign. Neither is actually from the "No Dominion" novella, because that novella begins in the middle of RAVEN CALLS, the 7th book of the Walker Papers series, which isn't due out until March 2012, and I didn't want to spoil anything. Instead, I'm offering up the following:
Magic Hath An Element, the first chapters of URBAN SHAMAN, as seen through Gary's eyes instead of Joanne's, and Forgotten But By A Few, the first "No Dominion" campaign short story.
Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
January 6, 2012
Cover Reveal: BABA YAGA'S DAUGHTER!
Ancient rivals, best of friends, worst of enemies: dragonlord Janx and master vampire Eliseo Daisani are the threads upon which a tapestry of lives and loves are woven across the centuries. From the coldest Russian nights to the heat of Chicago's greatest fire, nothing brings the immortal adversaries together–or tears them apart–like a woman.
And there is always a woman.
Vanessa Grey has been at Daisani's side for decades, but the secrets borne by a witch may be her undoing. Baba Yaga's daughter has plots that are decades in the hatching, but they may only succeed if Margrit Knight, named "the Negotiator" by Daisani and Janx themselves, will work with her. And there are others: the greatest vampire hunter mankind has ever known, and a woman for whom the Old Races are a wonder to walk away from.
Revisit C.E. Murphy's world of the Old Races with eight stories that delve into the past and future of the two most beloved characters from her urban fantasy trilogy The Negotiator!
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ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG *SQUEE*! THOMAS CANTY COVER! SO PRETTY! SO EXCITED!!! ZOMG EEEEEEEE!
BABA YAGA'S DAUGHTER should be be available for pre-order later this month (or early in February) so I'll be doing this all over again then, but SQUEE! I'm really, really excited about this book. It's going to be SO beautiful, and I'm very pleased with the stories in it, so holy beans, I hope you guys will like it too. EEEEEEEEE!
V. large full cover behind the cut! Worth clicking through! I PROMISE!
SQUEEEEE!
January 1, 2012
Happy New Year!
Today is Gary Muldoon's 80th birthday. Kyle Cassidy and "No Dominion" cover model Charles "The Hunk" Summerfield had such a great time with the "No Dominion" cover shoot that they stole off to get another couple pictures of Gary on Christmas Eve:
Happy Birthday, Gary, and Happy New Year to the world!
