15-Day Story Challenge: WEEK ONE

Posted on

We’re at the end of Week One of our 15-day story challenge. How’s it going? In this video: Progress Surprises Challenges, and Plans for next week. Discord: https://discord.gg/mqQstMW Who we are: John Hindmarsh: http://www.johnhindmarsh.com, https://www.facebook.com/JohnHindmarshAuthor/ Kim Faulks: http://www.hauntingfiction.com, https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKimFaulks/ Nova Blake (aka Cassie Hart): https://www.novablake.com, https://www.facebook.com/novablakewrites/ Richard Parry: https://parrydox.com, https://www.facebook.com/therealrichardparry/

10th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards

Posted on

The winners are here: [Goodreads Choice Awards 2018] Having seen none of the books I voted for get in, I’m faced with two possibilities. It’s rigged; or Everyone’s wrong. Hmm. FWIW, I voted for: Fantasy: Grey Sister Sci-Fi: Persepolis Rising Get in there. New, excellent books are on my must-read pile.

15-Day Story Challenge Kick-off!

Posted on

We originally shared this as a Facebook Live but the audio was, in the parlance of my people, “Fucked.” Behold! One with all channels audible. In the video, we talk about: Introductions What we’re planning to write How we feel about the project How we’re planning to write What to expect from us coming up (emails, blogs, FB…) Where they can find us online How to get involved Our self-care plans so we don’t combust Discord: https://discord.gg/mqQstMW Who we are: John Hindmarsh: http://www.johnhindmarsh.com, https://www.facebook.com/JohnHindmarshAuthor/ Kim Faulks: http://www.hauntingfiction.com, https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKimFaulks/ Nova Blake (aka Cassie Hart): https://www.novablake.com, https://www.facebook.com/novablakewrites/ Richard Parry: https://parrydox.com, https://www.facebook.com/therealrichardparry/

We begin the 15-day story challenge on Monday 📅

Posted on

This is one of my world-famous emails, originally sent Friday, November 30. You can get on the list here. Happy [insert day of the week] to you. You might remember me talking about the 15-day story challenge. Turns out, that’s next week. WHAT HAVE I DONE?! I feel sick, but excited! This week: A few details on the story I’m minting; The plans and schedules; Me vs. Aeon 14; and Free beer. Rattle and roll. The Story Tyche’s Progeny, in particular Tyche’s Ghosts and Tyche’s Angels, features Algernon as a part of the cast. He’s a sentient machine, a survivor of the human-AI wars that resulted in the Mercury Accords. People really liked Algernon. I got a lot of email about him because he’s funny, but also because he spends about 70% of his on-screen moments mocking October Kohl. A Read More …

Three to See, One to Avoid

Posted on

I picked up a bunch of movies on physical media. If you’re on the fence about Alien: Covenant, Ready Player One, Thor: Ragnarok, or A Dark Song, this might help your decision-making process. Alien: Covenant This is a good monster movie. If you watched Prometheus and left wanting to /wrists, this is not the same thing. Where Prometheus was ridiculous to a fault (e.g., why can people not run sideways out of the path of a giant rolling donut…), Covenant is a return to an Alien movie where they don’t try to explain too much (busting things in the process – what even was the black goo…), and give you the horrific scenes you want. Covenant follows the crew of a colony ship. Pulled off-course by an accident, they set down on a human-habitable world. Unfortunately, the monsters beat ’em Read More …

I hope you haven’t slipped into a diabetic coma (🦃)

Posted on

This is one of my world-famous emails, originally sent Friday, 23 November 2018. Get on the list here. Those of you in the US are probably full. We don’t really do Thanksgiving in New Zealand – but the photos on my social media of food, more food, and all the food kinda make me wish we did. This week: The 15-day story challenge; Tragedy; and A peak into my old, terrible covers. Let’s get to it. The 15-day story challenge Some of you who’ve been here a while will remember Delilah. I wrote this story and sampled it out to you over the course of a few months, eventually giving out the free book download link. It was fun to do, and most of you seemed to like the tale. I’m doing something similar again. Similar, but totally different. I’m Read More …

Scalzi’s Thanksgiving Gift

Posted on

I suggest listening to the audio of this rather than reading it. Also, try not to get too angry at your past automated phone system support calls. https://whatever.scalzi.com/2018/11/19/a-thanksgiving-week-gift-for-you-automated-customer-service/

The tale of a launch week 🚀

Posted on

This is one of my world-famous emails, originally send Friday, 16 November 2018. You can get on the list here. But first… …we need to acknowledge the passing of a titan. Today: The late, great Stan Lee. A tiny bit of author biz, and Chromed: Upgrade’s launch week. Let’s dig in. Marvel has the best characters. I reckon that’s all down to Stan Lee. I’ve read comics for while, but not forever. I noped out in my early years – I didn’t really understand things like Commando or Archie, and when I found ‘superhero’ comics, they were full of muscle-bound weirdos and not-empowered women. I didn’t get the magic. Then a friend told me about Ronin. This changed my whole world. How he explained it: ‘comics’ were for kids and ‘graphic novels’ were the real deal. Fast forward a number Read More …

The Interesting Science of Free Books Driving Piracy

Posted on1 Comment

I like data. It helps make better decisions, and avoid posturing and hand-wavium. A bunch of people in the author community espouse the value of permafree* book one in a longer series. The basic argument is: There’s no friction to reader attachment, thus you’ll get a higher readership. This is testable. While less people as a percentage of book one readers will read next-in-series (as speculative “purchasers” can come from outside your genre lane), the volume of readers will drive greater success overall. We can test this for science. We can also talk about the shit-show of also-boughts and how that makes advertising painful. You gain exposure on other storefronts, other than the mighty Zon. We can test this too! TL;DR: none of the promised gains worked for me, but I did see a massive spike in book 2 & Read More …