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Break Over. Time for New Work.

When you finish a big project, you’re allowed some downtime. Now that The Sword is in the hands of readers, I’ve been letting myself do nothing. Now it’s time to get the juices flowing again.

I’ve got some stuff to write for the next UJ, and I might squeeze out a novella before the year’s out, while doing an edit on The Sword. That’s doable in the next few months, and doable gives me momentum for the next big project:

It’s sword and sorcery. It’s high fantasy with a Robert Howard flair. It’s going to be rad.

Stay tuned.

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2018 Publishing Plan imminent.

I will be posting something within the next few days about my current publishing plans. Right now I’m dealing with some manner of gastrointestinal distress. The long and short of it, 2018 is going to be a big year.

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Email Lists, Book Covers, Periscope, and Other Assorted Jazz

In my research as to the proper way to have a career as an indie author, I’ve read a good few useful books and absorbed what some successful authors have had to say. The boys over at Realm and Sands, who do the Self-Publishing Podcast, have coined the phrase “Write. Publish. Repeat.”, which is the title of their indie author self-help book, which I’ve read, and found useful.

Then, scrolling through my twitter feed today, I found this:

You need not watch to the whole thing, as his cheeky meta-obvious promotion might or might not be your cup of tea. But he’s a success, what he and Write. Publish. Repeat. have in common is the insistence on the importance of an email list.

I’ve resisted this, because I get so much email that I barely bother to read it. But apparently it works, so I’m going to have to get a list going. I’m leaning towards MailChimp right now, based on initial research, and also because it’s free until I hit 2,000 subscribers. Free is the right starting price for an indie author.

Also, I have this urge in me to start Periscoping. I think it might add something to my social media presence and help get the word out when I have some new content to talk about, like a book or a new issue of Unnamed Journal. Speaking of which, did you see this?

uj8cs

February 1st, people. Mark your calendars.

I made this on my iPad using Adobe Spark, which is a fun little photo design app that’s allowed me to up my book cover design game. At least, I think so.

For example, here’s the current cover for The Devil Left Him, along side a cover I just did on Adobe Spark:

thedevillefthim

devil-1

The second one just Pops more to my mind. What do you think?

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I Get Bad Reviews

I’m starting to think I should keep all my short-form content free on Amazon. Sarah Hoyt advises it, and now I’m starting to wonder if the price of zero would spare me reviews like this:

2.0 out of 5 stars No true fan of Aaron Burr would like this book., November 23, 2013
Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: A Brief Conversation With Aaron Burr (Paperback)

This book is way too brief for its “conversational” purpose. It does no justice to Colonel Burr, except to make him out to be somewhat irascible, which (though justified) he certainly would not have been when talking with another, unless, of course, he knew that the author would be treating him in such a shallow way.

Fieri non potest, si iocum confutuere

simpsons_nelson_haha

 

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Madness in Great Ones Must Not Unwatched Go.

“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming…”

I don’t know if it’s my subconscious ruminating on the debased state of American politics, or just the idle curiosity to re-watch a train wreck, but I found myself viewing, for the second time, the 1979 film Caligulia with Malcolm McDowell on Netflix. I only got an hour or so into it before I decided that it was just as bad as I remember it, and finally put my finger on the reason for its badness. It’s not the sets, or the script, or the acting. It’s not even the dull pornography. It’s that the film has no moral center. There is no one, not one person in this refuse worth caring about. Monsters and fools alone abound.

Well, it worked some kind of perverse inspiration in me, because I suddenly have the yen to write another book. I want to get elbow-deep into this boyish monster, and plumb the human depths of his tyranny. I’ve lined up the books I must read:

  • Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesers, because it’s been sitting in my bookshelf and I’ve never had the chance to really dig into it.
  • I, Claudius and Claudius the God. I’m familiar with the BBC series, of course, but I’ve got old copies of this, too. Been wanting to read them.
  • Camus’ Caligulia play. A friend of mine read this in college, and gave me the gist of the twist: Caligula, far from being insane, succumbs to the ennui of supreme power and seeks to “make the possible likely.” I like the premise of that, and it’s about time I read it.
  • The obligatory myth-debunking scholarly biography.
  • Possibly Allan Massie’s Tiberius: The Memoirs of the Emperor.

I’m interested chiefly in the widely-reported notion that Caligulia believed himself a god. The Roman Empire was a time of great religious flux, as the old Republican pantheon gave way to thrilling cults from the East: Isis, Mithraism, Manichaeanism, Gnosticism, and Christianity. So I’d like to shift this most notorious emperor from Crazy to Self-Deifying.

This will naturally be a long project. Check this space for details.

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The Solar System Blues Review is In!

T.B. Markinson at Self-Publishing Review calls it “an exhilarating read”.

Not only is this story science fiction, but it’s also a thriller.

As Burton and his assistant travel further and further into space the story slowly unfolds. It all starts to make sense. In the meantime, Burton has music from decades ago to keep him company since it’s lonely in space. Very lonely. Of course Burton also has the ship’s computer to talk to, but have you tried to have a philosophical conversation with a computer? It’s not easy.

There is much to like about this story. Burton is an interesting character: witty, flawed, loving, determined, and obsessed. The teenager is your typical teenager. She wants to rebel but has no friends to rebel with. That doesn’t stop her from doing what she can do to antagonize the one adult in her world.  Even in space there’s no controlling teenage hormones.

The world building is subtle and the author avoids too much information dumping on the whole. This book is a quick read and is only 140 pages. While the action and mystery come at the reader fast, after you get past the first few pages, it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Read the whole thing. Then buy the book. On Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, if you prefer. All one to me.