Matt Forbeck's Blog, page 30

Bundle of Holding Got Bigger

The Bundle of Holding is only a few days old, but it’s already doing pretty well. Despite a few Day-One glitches, it brought in a lot of buyers and made a good chunk of change for both Child’s Play and Reading Is Fundamental so far.

One of the biggest surprises is how generous the donors have been. We started out with an average of $8, but that quickly ran to over $16. Since then it’s tapered off a bit and is now back down closer to $15, but that’s still amazing.

Tonight, we added another bonus book to the lot. This one’s from the amazing and multi-talented Mur Lafferty. Besides being a great novelist and an RPG writer, Mur hosts the long-running podcasts I Should Be Writing and Escape Pod, as well as the podcast from Angry Robot Books, which publishes my own Amortals, Vegas Knights, and Carpathia.

Mur’s contribution to the bundle is a superheroes novel called Playing for Keeps. It’s a fun and funny book about a bar owner in a world filled with charming villains and superheroic jerks. Be sure to check it out and grab it — and the rest of the bundle — while you still can.

Hard Times Hardcopies on Sale Now

With the help of my friends at DriveThruFiction.com, I just flipped the switch, and you print junkies out there can now order print-on-demand hardcopies of Hard Times in Dragon City from them. Hardcovers are $15, and softcovers are $10 each. They come complete with a free copy of the ebook editions in DRM-free ePub, Kindle, and PDF formats.

Of course, if you just want the ebook edition, you can grab that through the Bundle of Holding, which is still going for the next 17 days. Alternatively, you can snag right here on this site or through Amazon, BN.com, etc.

Book 2 in the series — Bad Times in Dragon City — went out to my Kickstarter backers last week, and we’re looking at a March 5 release for the rest of you fine readers out there. I’m editing Book 3 — End Times in Dragon City — this week and hope to have that out to my backers soon too, with the public release a couple weeks past that.

Meanwhile, you can check out a couple recent interviews with me. Monday night, I chatted with Christopher Helton of Dorkland about all fiction, games, and all things in between. We had a fun, relaxed time.

Last night, the fine guys behind the Speculate podcast — Brad Beaulieu and Gregory A. Wilson, both excellent writers — released Episode 68, in which they chatted with extraordinary artist Lee Moyer and me. Since Brad, Lee, and I have all run successful Kickstarters, the conversation revolved around that. We had a rollicking good talk.

A Split Worlds Story from Emma Newman

Today, in a very special blog post… I’m going to do something I’ve never done on this blog before: post someone else’s fiction. Hell, I don’t even post my own fiction up here that much. I usually wrap it up in an ebook and either sell it or give it away in that format instead.

To be honest, it never occurred to me to do something like this, but then Emma Newman came along. I had the pleasure of meeting Emma — one of my fellow Angry Robot writers — at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago last Labor Day Weekend. In a lot of ways, the AR crew is like an extended family, and the group of us spent large chunks of the weekend hanging out together swapping publishing war stories and having a fantastic time. So when Emma asked if I’d be willing to put one of her Split Worlds stories up here — set in the same universe as her upcoming urban fantasy trilogy, which launches next month with Between Two Thorns — I only wondered why she hadn’t asked earlier and why I hadn’t thought to offer.

I tried to write a dozen novels last year. Just as ambitious, Emma tackled fifty short stories instead, and she’s still going! Here’s her latest, the fiftieth of the lot.

I’ll let Emma set it up for you. 

In 2013 Angry Robot books will be publishing three Split Worlds novels, the first is out in March and called Between Two Thorns. I’ve been releasing a new story every week for a year and a day, hosted on a different site every time, all set in the Split Worlds. I wanted to give readers a taste of my kind of urban fantasy and have the opportunity to build in secrets and extra bits for those people who, like me, love the tiny details. It’s also been a major part of my world-building work alongside writing the novels.

This is the fiftieth tale in the year and a day of weekly short stories set in the Split Worlds.  If you would like me to read it to you instead, you can listen here. You can find links to all the other stories, and the new ones as they are released, here. You can also sign up to get the stories delivered to your inbox, one per week for a year and a day.

This story revisits characters in “The Price of Art” a year after that story takes place. (In case you want to check that one out first!)

The Business of Art

Clive held the hammer in the air, poised to strike as he listened. There was another knock at the door. He swore under his breath and laid the hammer down as quietly as he could.

“Mr Pascoe?” A male voice called. “I know you’re in there, I could hear you down the street.”

“Who is it?”

“Mr Neugent.”

Clive recognised the voice now; he was the one who’d tried to buy his work. But he’d torn up the cheque and contract and ignored his calls. Why was he there, that day of all days?

He unlocked the door after covering the piece he was working on with a dust sheet. Neugent’s hair was greyer than he remembered but his eyes were the same copper sulphate blue. He smiled and extended a hand which Clive shook.

“It’s the opening day of the exhibition,” Neugent said. “I thought you’d be checking your installations.”

The gnawing anxiety made Clive’s stomach cramp again. “It’s all ready. I know it is.”

Neugent looked at the draped sheet. “Come to work off some nerves?”

“Something like that. Look, it was nothing personal. Before, I mean. I just… it didn’t…”

“Amelia Rose convinced you to sculpt wood,” Neugent said, walking towards the hidden piece. “How has that worked out for you?”

Clive sat on an upturned bucket, tired of pretending. “It’s shit. The whole exhibition, all of it. It’s derivative GCSE art student crap with no convincing narrative between the pieces. But Amelia seemed happy enough.”

“She knows nothing about art,” Neugent said.

“That’s what she says about you,” Clive replied.

“She’s happy with the exhibition, but it’s not because of your work.” Neugent’s hand reached towards the sheet. “She doesn’t care about your career, your development or how you feel.”

“But she’s been funding me for a year!”

“It’s a small price to pay to prevent me offering patronage.” Neugent grasped the cloth and looked at Clive who just shrugged. He pulled it off the unfinished sculpture and let the sheet fall to the floor.

Clive watched the way Neugent touched the metal and the direction his hands moved in. He was following the flow of the piece. He understood what he was trying to capture.

“This is good,” Neugent whispered. “Very good. Steel perfectly balanced between strength and beauty.” His blue eyes were brilliant against the grey metal. “You can’t deny this is your calling. You come here and make this when you should be preparing for your opening night — that says everything.”

“I know,” Clive let his head rest on his hands. “I’m screwed. She’ll go mental if she—”

“Have you eaten?”

“What?”

“Let’s go and eat.” Neugent headed for the door. “Talk things over. No pressure, no obligations, just lunch. I’ll buy.”

There was a limousine outside. Clive climbed inside wearing his overalls, worrying he would mark the cream leather seats. He only had boxer shorts on underneath and no other clothes at the workshop. The walnut veneer reminded him of the dreaded exhibition.

Neugent offered him a drink and he declined. The limousine moved off and Clive stared out at the grimy streets. This was where he belonged, not the sunny studio in Richmond that Amelia had given him. He needed to be in east London, somewhere that still remembered industry and hard work and didn’t mind the hammering.

“She said you’d burn me out,” he told Neugent as they left the streets he knew. “That you valued money more than art. I suppose I thought I’d be selling out if I went with your offer.”

“Rose is very persuasive,” Neugent replied. “Do you regret it?”

Clive looked down at the black under his fingernails. Nothing felt so good as when he was working the metal. “Yeah. The splinters suck.”

Neugent reflected his smirk but said nothing. Was he going to make the offer again? If he did, what would Amelia say? She could destroy his artistic reputation. But then his own exhibition was about to do that anyway.

He looked back out of the window and waited for Neugent to say something but the minutes passed in silence. What was he doing getting into some bloke’s limo? How had he got so—

They were driving down a familiar street and the car was slowing down. They passed the gallery and parked only metres away, making his stomach churn. The gallery’s owner was outside with a woman in a suit holding a clipboard. The owner was pale and clearly distressed.

“Who’s that woman?” he asked Neugent as they watched through the rear window.

“Health and Safety,” he replied. “What a day to have a surprise inspection.” Neugent pointed at the alleyway running down the side of the gallery. The securing bolts at the top of the metal fire escape had failed and it was leaning away from the building.

A piece of paper was pulled from the clipboard and handed to the owner who scrunched it up and shouted something at the inspector as she left. Clive looked away, not sure whether to feel relieved or not. The exhibition would have to be cancelled, but did he want to be in a car with someone prepared to sabotage another person’s livelihood?

“It looks like you’ll have some time to reflect upon your career,” Neugent said. “If you want to pull out all together I can help with the legal side of things. The gallery hasn’t provided a space so they’re in breach of contract.”

“But what about Amelia?”

“I’m sure a solution can be found.”

Clive sighed. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?”

Neugent smiled. “No. And it won’t be the last. She’ll know it’s nothing personal. You have to consider what’s best for you and your career now. We can talk about it over lunch.”

Clive nodded. He wasn’t going to disagree whilst sitting in his car.

The gallery owner walked to the alley, his back to the limo as he looked up at the fire escape. “What about him though?” Clive asked. “He’s a nice guy. It doesn’t seem fair.”

Neugent pressed the button to open the window an inch and then got out of the car. “Is this the right place for the Pascoe exhibition opening tonight?”

“It would be,” the owner pointed at the fire escape. “It’s going to be delayed.”

Neugent reached into his pocket. “If you need any help, I run a company that can manage communications in difficult circumstances.” He handed the owner a business card. “PinPR.com. We can help.”

“Smooth,” Clive said when Neugent got back in. “You may get a client out of today as well as a pet artist.”

“Art is art, Mr Pascoe,” Neugent said as he closed the window. “And business is business.”

Thanks for hosting, Matt! By the way, there’s a prize draw for those who pre-order Between Two Thorns and information on launch events here. 

Grab the Bundle of Holding Now

The Bundle of Holding went live this morning. As I mentioned earlier this week, this is a bundle of fiction ebooks written by games writers, for which you can pay what you like. You get the books in all three major formats (ePub, Kindle, and PDF), and they’re all DRM-free (no built-in copy restrictions).

There are eight books in the bundle in all, including stories from:

Chuck Wendig (Hunter: The Vigil)
Jenna Moran (Nobilis, Exalted)
Stephen D. Sullivan (D&D/AD&D, Chill)
Rafael Chandler (Scorn, Spite)
Derek Pearcy (In Nomine)
Aaron Rosenberg (Asylum, Spookshow)
Sarah Newton (Mindjammer, Legends of Anglerre)
And me (lots of stuff)

If you pay less than the average — down to a minimum of $1, which is there to cover processing fees — you get six of the books. That includes:

Irregular Creatures by Chuck Wendig
The Birth of the Dread Remorra by Aaron Rosenberg
Hero Worship by Derek Pearcy
Tournament of Death by Stephen D. Sullivan
The Fable of the Swan by Jenna Moran
Hexcommunicated by Rafael Chandler

If you pay more than the average, you also get Sarah Newton’s Mindjammer and my Hard Times in Dragon City tossed into your bundle as well. Another neat thing is that when you buy the bundle, you get to choose where the money goes, splitting it among the writers, our chosen charities, and the upkeep of the site.

The average started at $8 this morning, but people have been so generous that it keeps going up. Since our chosen charities go to Child’s Play and Reading Is Fundamental, that’s a good thing.

Now, you might remember that I released Hard Times in Dragon City last week with a note telling you to hold off buying it. That’s because I didn’t want anyone to regret picking it up and missing out on the bundle just over the horizon. Now, though, GO AHEAD AND GRAB IT! PLEASE!

If you like the idea of the bundle, go ahead and pay above the average for that, and get Hard Times in Dragon City with it.

If you don’t want the rest of the bundle, just grab the book by itself.

If you’d rather have a printed version of the book, I should have that available soon too. Meanwhile, be sure to check out the Bundle of Holding and chip in if you can. Thanks!

Magic: The Gathering: Paths of Vengeance #3 Out Tomorrow

Tomorrow, IDW releases Magic: The Gathering: Paths of Vengeance #3. This is the 11th comic I’ve written featuring Dack Fayden, the planeswalking spell thief, and it’s roller coaster ride that leads up to the climax in the next and final issue in the series. You can check out a free preview of it over at Comicosity.

Dack’s story — or at least my part in it — comes to an end with the next issue. I’d always plotted the story to fit a dozen issues, and I’m thrilled that Martin Cóccolo, J. Edwin Stevens, and I got to tell the whole thing. Be sure to grab that final issue too, as we send Dack off with a bang.

There’s a Bundle on the Horizon

This Wednesday, keep your eyes peeled for the Bundle of Holding, a bundle of fiction ebooks written by tabletop game designers (like me). It’s going to make for a fantastic deal, and it’ll include one of my novels in the pack.

Tabletop game designers spend their days building worlds and adventures for other people to play in. They come up with characters, locations, situations, and all the others bits that make fictional universes seem the kind of thrilling places you’d like to spend some time in — at least at the arm’s length that playing a game or reading a book affords.

That’s just one chunk of making a great speculative fiction book, of course, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any group better at it. With the Bundle of Holding, you can read what happens when those same people with their rare skill sets place characters of their own into worlds they’ve created and let them loose.

This Bundle of Holding is modeled on other successful bundles like the Humble Bundle and Story Bundle. You can pay whatever you like for the bundle, down to $1, and you can split the proceeds among the writers, the website itself, and charity. All we ask then is that you enjoy the books and help spread the fun.

The Bundle of Holding site should launch on Wednesday, so look for it then. Meanwhile, you can follow the Bundle of Holding on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Bad Times Out to Backers

While I’m getting the Kickstarter editions of Bad Times in Dragon City out to my backers, I’m also prepping the files for the release of the standard edition of the book. At the moment, that’s scheduled for March 5, and I hope to have print-on-demand options ready by then too. To whet your appetite, here’s a look at the book’s cover, along with the back cover text.

If It Wasn’t for Bad Times…

Ex-adventurer Max Gibson wouldn’t have any times at all. Saddled with babysitting the heir to the Dragon Empire, a deadly dragonet with a mind all its own, Max wishes he could hunker down in his bar and shut out the rest of Dragon City, but it seems everyone wants a piece of him.

If the scum down in Goblintown aren’t trying to throw him to the zombies on the other side of the Great Circle, it’s the Imperial Dragon’s Guard trying to haul him into protective custody. Or the Wizards Council hoping for a closer look at the dragonet.

All that goes out the window, though, when Belle Sanguigno — a heartbreaker of an elf who’s shattered Max more than once — turns to him for help. She needs to find the body of her sister, who Max and the dragonet killed last week, or pay the ultimate penalty for her loss.

And the bad times keep getting worse.

Bad Times in Dragon City is the second novel  in the Shotguns & Sorcery setting.

Gambling with Alas Vegas

My pal James Wallis is a tabletop gaming legend. Among many other things, he co-created the wonderful Once Upon a Time card game; he wrote and published one of the first story-driven roleplaying games, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen; and he launched the much-loved Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. He’s been off doing other things for a while, but he’s returning to tabletop games with a new game called Alas Vegas, and he’s funding it via Kickstarter.

Alas Vegas is, as James describes it, “an RPG miniseries about amnesia, sin, horror and gambling… The player characters begin the game by digging themselves out of a shallow grave in the desert, at midnight. They are naked, and they have no memory of who they are or how they got where they are. On the horizon is a scar of neon. There will be answers there. And trouble.”

I don’t know about you, but that hooked me good.

James’s backers smashed through the funding goal in under eight hours, and he’s lined up a number of excellent stretch goals. These include new campaigns by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan and Allen Varney, cocktail recipes by John Tynes, a guide for using Tarot cards in other games by Robin Laws, and even an Alas Vegas novel by James himself.

I’m also chipping in a chapter on how to handle Vegas-style gambling in games that are already card and dice driven. As a game designer, that’s a fun challenge, and as you might imagine, I studied a lot about Vegas gambling to prepare for writing Vegas Knights. That kicks in if/when Alas Vegas reaches £13k. Since the drive’s already up past £8k and has 18 days left, I’m betting it can make that.

Go check it out. If you like it, deal yourself in.

Don’t Buy Hard Times — Yet

Setting a firm release date for an ebook is a big challenge with today’s tools. I can submit files and details to the various ebook retailers, but it can take anywhere from hours to days or longer for the files to be posted and actually ready for sale.

I’m in the process of releasing Hard Times in Dragon City — the first novel for my Shotguns & Sorcery setting — so that it’s available soon. You can already buy it here on my site, for instance, and on Smashwords, and it should be up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s site soonish. But you should hold on to your cash for just a little bit longer.

Hard Times in Dragon City is slated to be part of a sweet bundle of ebooks that should be announced any day now. They’re going to make for a fantastic deal, and I’d hate for you to feel like you should have waited for it, especially since the bundle is so close to being here.

At the same time, there’s a chance that people would rather buy the book than the bundle, and I don’t want those readers to have to sit on the sidelines until the bundle’s sale period is over either. That’s why I’m getting the process for releasing the book rolling now rather than waiting any longer.

Speaking of which, I’ve sent the files for the print-on-demand edition off to my friends at DriveThruFiction.com. Once those are all approved and I’ve checked off on the proof, I’ll have the hardcopy version ready for sale too, both in paperback and hardcover.

So, if you just have to have the ebook right now, go ahead and grab it. I’ll make a few more dollars from that sale than I will through the bundle. If you like yourself a fantastic bargain, though, hold onto your wallet for a few days longer. You’ll thank me for it.

Please Don’t Pirate My Books (Unless)

Over at his website, Chuck Wendig’s been writing a lot about the pirating of ebooks, and he declared today to be Please Don’t Pirate My Book Day, asking authors to pitch in a post about the subject. So here’s mine.

I don’t worry about piracy all that much. I want people to pay for my work, but I don’t tear out my hair worrying that people might be shoplifting my books from stores or borrowing them from a friend or a library. If they read it for free, then dammit, I hope they at least enjoy it.

If you experience some kind of art and love it — book, film, music, painting, and so on — you should figure out some way to thank the creator in a meaningful way that you can afford. It’s the right thing to do, and it helps make sure that the creator doesn’t have to go back to driving pizza and selling plasma instead of making more things for you to enjoy. (Chuck writes eloquently about this today.)

But there are cases in which I don’t mind if my work is pirated. For instance, I’ve written six Dungeons & Dragons novels and four Blood Bowl novels. They’re all out of print, and the publishers haven’t shown much interest in releasing them as ebooks. Those were written as work-for-hire, so the rights will never revert to me. The publishers clearly have better things to do with their limited time, and while I may question their judgment, that’s their right.

Despite that, pirates have scanned them and put them out there on the internet for people to read. So, if you want to go grab those books off a pirate server and read them, more power to you. Other than stumbling over a used copy on eBay or Amazon or in a local store, you don’t have many other choices. And you know how much the publisher and I see from those used book sales anyhow? Not a penny.

If you enjoy those books (and I hope you do), then pony up some of your hard-earned cash for the books my publishers and I do keep in print and available to you. Go grab my books from Angry Robot. Snag my Leverage novel. Buy the BNW Omnibus I have on sale on this very site right now. (All the money from that, barring PayPal’s cut, goes straight into my pocket and from there into my children’s mouths.)

So, enjoy as you like, pay what you can, and keep those wheels spinning. I’ll do my best to keep up my end of that bargain too.