Richard Parry: writer, liar, superhero
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.
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/
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 …
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/
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 …
When I released the first tortured edition of Upgrade in 2014, it sank without a trace (from a sales perspective). While sales aren’t the total arbiter of success, they’re definitely a leading indicator! The re-master launched last Friday. Today, it snuck into the top 100 of the cyberpunk genre on the world’s biggest bookstore. No clue if 96 is as high as it’ll go, but it feels like I might have finally given this book the treatment it deserved.
“A fun, fast paced romp through the future of humanity. Buckle up.” [Check out the full review here] and maybe then [your retailer for Chromed: Upgrade]. In unrelated news, I dig the header logo on their site 😬
Chromed: Upgrade is on virtual shelves across planet Earth. It’s about the twisted, beautiful creatures we are and what this world does to us. It’s 2150AD. There hasn’t been a corporate war… until now. Mason Floyd is an augmented syndicate enforcer at the top of his game. His job is asset protection and acquisition, no questions asked. Company tech is stolen on Mason’s watch. Rival megacorps want it, and they don’t mind killing him to get it. Framed for the theft, Mason runs. He tangles with off-grid rockstar Sadie Freeman on the grimy seam between the powerful and poor. Together they uncover a secret an entire city died to keep. Hunted and desperate, they must team up to survive. Together Mason and Sadie can save the world. Apart, both are lost. They must trust each other or die. Megacorps. Cyborgs. Read More …
Soft! What light through yonder window breaks? Chromed: Rogue is preloading on the Kindle store, just in time for Christmas…
No. Wait, you want something better than that? Okay. I entered, and “won,” NaNo back in 2014. I was itching to write a cool, edgy cyberpunk book. I’d originally titled it Uplinked, but after conversation with my wife that changed to Upgrade. I had so, so many ideas for this book. Bionics. Particle cannons. Plasma weapons. Always online, always ready. Love. Hope. The people lost in the cracks. I would do William Gibson proud, man. A little peer pressure crept in. October of that same year, a few friends were talking big about how they’d win NaNo. I’d never heard of NaNo, thought, “How hard can it be?” and wrote Upgrade (or a hyooooge chunk of it) during November. Despite knocking something like 65,000 words out of the park during NaNo, well in excess of the 50k threshold, I discovered Read More …