Audio Test – Check One, Check Two…

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Hey y’all. I’m experimenting with audio at the moment. There’s been a few requests for various of my books in audio format. I’d love to do this, but also love to not be bankrupted by the process (audio’s expensive to make!). To that end, I’ve been thinking things like, what if I got a local narrator, or what would happen if I took some acting lessons and tried it myself? One of the big challenges is the New Zealand accent on the untested ear. Most audiobooks I’ve listened to have North American narrators; is this the expected norm? Do people dig our accents from down under, or are we bad to listen to? I’ve put together a quick audio test – have a listen, and give me some feedback on the accent: I’m aware the video’s a bit shit (ancient Read More …

I Wrote an Epic Fantasy 🍾

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You know what this is? The length of the Boundless first draft. Finished it today! It needs a few chunks added, which I’ll finish over the next couple days, then editing (ROUND ONE) begins. But, the story’s code complete. Geneve reached the end, someone died who deserved it, and someone died who didn’t. That’s how these things go. Spoilers: Boundless is a working title. I need to come up with something suitable. Also, to work out where that dragon I misplaced in chapter 25 went… In case you’re curious about length: My Ezeroc Wars books (Tyche’s Flight…) are about 85,000 words long. Night’s Champion (Night’s Favor…) are about 120,000 words. Chromed books (Chromed: Upgrade…) are about 80,000 words. So, this is bigger than any of those. Just sayin’.

The Pursuit of Readers 📚

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I’ve been thinking: how do you find your ideal reader? There’s a lot of advice on this, most of which is using personas. This is an old trick I learned in IT Land™️ Way Back When™️. The idea is you work out who uses your product, and/or who you want to, and design services around those people. If you’re writing a mobile banking app for retirees to check their account balances, you damn Skippy better make sure you take into account their tech familiarity and ability mismatch scenarios, or it’ll crash and burn (…and/or no one will use it). My deep, introspective* thoughts suggests there are two interlinked parts: Who you write for, and Who you market to (or, perhaps, how you market to them). * In the shower last Tuesday. A friend and I talked about the different types Read More …

I survived my vacation 🎉

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Here’s one of my world-famous emails, originally sent June 12, year of our Lord 2019. Get on the list here! The Hawkes Bay had exactly zero zombies. This left me a little disappointed. I mean, you go to a place known for its wine, and you kinda expect a few of the walking dead, but nope: all very civilized. This week: How’d the vacation go? A new release! and An excerpt of said release. If you hate holiday photos, you might want to brace yourself. Let’s dig in. STATUS: VACATION ACCOMPLISHED We stayed in Havelock North, part of NZ’s wine region Bermuda Triangle (the other contributors being Hastins and Napier). Rae and I had a fantastic time – despite it being the depths of winter, we managed to eat and drink our way to heart-disease levels of satisfaction. Here’s a Read More …

Nevernight

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You might remember me gushing about Red Sister. It’s time for me to show you the path to another great grimdark tale: Nevernight, by Jay Kristoff. While Nevernight’s hero is a young woman, that’s where basic framing between the two tales ends. Nevernight’s Mia Corvere hunts murderers: her mission is to avenge the death of her parents. While this seems at first blush a fairly typical narrative arc, what makes Mia’s journey a little different is her dedication. She’s not content to slip a knife in someone’s ribs: Mia joins the Red Church, to follow our Lady of Blessed Murder. It’d be easy for this tale to degrade into a charnel house of body parts at this point, but Kristoff never takes his eyes off the prize. Mia’s not a Terminator-style killer; she didn’t chose this life, but was rather Read More …

Choosing Your Cover Artist

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Authors-only post follows, but y’all may like it anyway. Many cover artists are good, but the crucial thing I’ve found is how well they gel with you. Choosing your preferred artist should be one of your principle business relationships. It’s all about the fit, and I’ve developed a set of five criteria for assessing this relationship that should save you time and money. I had an opportunity to give my covert artist a testimonial for her site today, and it got me thinking: how should authors choose a cover artist? You might think it’s an easy decision to grab an artist from the web, maybe hunt around by price, and viola! Job done. If your goal is to not sell books, that’s a great approach. If you want to get your stories into readers hands, you need to refine a Read More …

The Aftermath Trilogy

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There’s a special place in my heart for Star Wars. I remember watching the first movie (A New Hope, not that hot garbage that had pod racing…) as a zygote and being amazed that such a thing could go on a screen. I think I dragged my poor mother to that like seven times at the cinemas, just to get more. I’m a big fan of the original trilogy (no again, not that shit starting with pod racing), and am one of the people who thinks Rogue One is one of the best movies made. Believe me when I tell you that, until recently, I felt all hope was lost with Star Wars books. The plots felt shallow, hurried, and pure fan exploitation without a wise monarch to guide the overall narrative of the universe canon. I was pretty pleased Read More …

The Order of Things ① ② ③…

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Ricky emailed me a few days back, mentioning that he’d accidentally picked up a couple of my books he’d already read. How’s this happen? By virtue of me scuppering old editions and putting up new ones. If you want to know which books were previously released and what changed, I’ve prepared this handy chart: Current Release Previously Known As What Changed? Night’s Favor Night’s Favour & Night’s Favor Language change from UK to US English. The story’s unchanged. Somewhere in there it also got a new cover. Night’s Fall  Night’s Fall Language change from UK to US English. Like Night’s Favor, Night’s Fall’s story remains intact, with language updates for the US market.Somewhere in here, it got a cover change, but TBH I can’t remember exactly when all that happened. Sorry about that. Chromed: Upgrade & Chromed: Rogue Upgrade Language Read More …