Jim's blog

The Origins of SecureMax

Posted on Sept. 15, 2021 by Jim

Last year I published a new four-book series titled The Blacksword Regiment. In the second book, one of the main characters visits an ultra-secure prison facility located on a remote military base. I named the prison SecureMax and I’ve had a few readers ask where I got the idea for that facility. The short answer is . . .

An Update on my Writing Progress

Posted on July 15, 2019 by Jim

Hopefully, lots to come in the next year.

I’ve recently had several emails from readers asking me when my next book will be out, so I thought it would be good to issue a general update on what I've been doing since publishing Never Dead Enough in 2017.

Strong Female Characters

Posted on Sept. 14, 2018 by Jim

In my latest novel, A Hymn for the Dying, I included a number of strong female characters. I’ve always done that in my writing. In The Gods Within, Rhianne, the female lead, appears to be a flighty young girl whose greatest ambition is to marry a wealthy and powerful lord. But by the end of the story she kicks some serious demon butt, and saves the hero a couple of times. In The Dead Among Us, Katherine McGowan is a city girl who likes designer clothes and expensive shoes, and as far as she is concerned, camping is practicing being homeless—she and my wife agree on that. But she proves to be one heck of a powerful and strong witch—Katherine, not my wife.

Big Publisher Horror Stories

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Jim

We’ve all heard those horror stories of how one of the big publishing houses mistreats some poor author. In a previous blog post I mentioned how my own experiences with traditional publishers were quite enjoyable, and without any of the rumored drama or difficulties. But I’ve only published three books with two traditional publishers, so I recognize that my own experiences are quite limited and could possibly be an exception. And recently I heard of one author’s experience that opened my eyes a bit and made me wonder.

WorldCon 2017 in Helsinki

Posted on Sept. 4, 2017 by Jim

Karen and I recently attended the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Helsinki Finland. It was expensive getting there, and we really had to bite the bullet on plane fare. But once there, everything was quite inexpensive. Dinner in a good restaurant varied from about €15 to €25, which translates to something like $17–28.

Some Thoughts on Development of The Dead Among Us

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Jim

A few days ago SFFWorld.com hosted the cover reveal for my new book Never Dead Enough, book 3 in my urban fantasy series The Dead Among Us. NDE will shortly be available for preorder on Amazon, with final release and availability for download on February 1^st. For the reveal I provided some thoughts on the development of the series, which I thought I'd repeat here, along with a few additional comments.

The Witch of Val d'Ossa; Where the heck did that come from?

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Jim

I was planning to spend this year working on a number of projects, but oh, the best laid schemes of mice and men!

I did finish Of Treasons Born, which was published in April by Open Road Integrated Media, and there was a fair amount of work editing The Thirteenth Man, which was published just two weeks ago by Harper Collins Voyager Impulse. In July I finished the third book in The Dead Among Us series, Never Dead Enough, and I hope to have that available for readers near the end of this year, so I haven't completely ignored my self-commitments. But I must admit that a novel titled The Witch of Val d'Ossa was not even on my radar.

The Thirteenth Man was recently released by Harper Collins Voyager Impulse;

Posted on September 5, 2016 by Jim

I'd like to comment on the experience I had working with my editor and his team at Harper Collins. I've heard many stories where authors describe nightmare experiences working with one of the Big 5—or is it now the big 4 or 6—but I think some of that is more that we just love to hate Microsoft and Amazon, or any of the big players. My experience was the opposite of that.

First, I'd like to talk about the contract they sent me, because . . .

SFFWorld interview regarding release of Of Treasons Born and A Choice of Treasons:

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Jim

I was recently interviewed by Dag Rambraut of SFFWorld regarding the upcoming release of Of Treasons Born and A Choice of Treasons. In his opening remarks Dag commented:

“I might add that A Choice of Treasons is a roller coaster ride of a story which is one of the best books I’ve read in years.”

As a writer, that's what it's all about: hopefully someone will read and enjoy your work.

Signed contracts with Open Road Integrated Media:

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Jim

A year and a half ago I attended the World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio. I sat in the audience during a panel session moderated by Steve Jackson, the well-known game designer and publisher of Pyramid magazine. About ten minutes into the panel, someone mentioned self-publishing, so Steve asked for a show of hands of those who had tried self-publishing. About four of us raised our hands, then lowered them. Steve then pointed at me and said, "So how'd it go?"

The Name of the Sword, the exciting conclusion to The Gods Within, is now available:

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Jim

This has been one heck of a journey, and I want to thank all of you who joined me on it. As I mentioned in my last post, it was difficult closing this series out. I've written . . .

The Name of the Sword, the exciting conclusion to The Gods Within, available February 19, 2015:

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Jim

Just over a week ago I received the recommended edits and changes from my content editor for The Name of the Sword, the conclusion to The Gods Within. At that point, it may take anywhere from one to four weeks to . . .

Guest blog on Leasspell: My Path to Self-Publishing:

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Jim

Jennifer L. Carson of Leasspell asked me to write a guest blog about my path to publishing. Jennifer is a professional editor and writer, and Leasspell is a small group of fantasy and science fiction authors and editors who want to share their experiences and knowledge about publishing, workshopping, and writing. I confess I was pleased and thrilled to be able to contribute something to such a group of pro's, and I'm reproducing that blog here.

I started writing about thirty years ago with no training or experience in fiction. I had concocted all these stories, and I wanted to write, so I just sat down and started writing, pencil on paper. The first thing I wrote was a 250,000-word SF novel that was so bad it never saw the light of day—and never will, but I learned a lot . . .

Just finished the synopsis for The Name of the Sword:

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Jim

I just finished the synopsis for the 4th and final book in The Gods Within. So what does that mean in terms of schedule? To learn a bit about my writing process:

I've got 3 projects in the works right now:

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Jim

The last few months have been a real push to get The Heart of the Sands out, and I hope you readers out there enjoy it. But now that it's out, I'm working on:

The Name of the Sword, the 4th and final chapter in Morgin and Rhianne's saga.
A prequel to A Choice of Treasons in which we meet young York Ballin at the age of twelve. He starts out as a rotten little shit--a real juvenile delinquent.
Just a Bit More Dead, the third book in The Dead Among Us. Paul and Katherine are going to have a heck of a time as the demons get even nastier, and so do the damn faeries.

The Heart of the Sands:
book 3 of The Gods Within is now available on Amazon.

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Jim

Yesterday, my publisher completed the last little bits of formatting, then uploaded The Heart of the Sands to Amazon. Based on recommendations from readers who viewed the preliminary cover art here, I made a few changes to get to the final cover design. I . . .

The Heart of the Sands:
book 3 of The Gods Within final editing is complete.

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Jim

Over the last two weeks I received editing recommendations for The Heart of the Sands from my copy and content editors: all really helpful stuff. The editing stage is now complete, which means that the manuscript is . . .

The Heart of the Sands:
book 3 of The Gods Within is finished.

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Jim

Today I finished the manuscript for The Heart of the Sands. Now it goes to proofing and editing, then to formatting and publication.

The Heart of the Sands:
Progress report on book 3 of The Gods Within

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Jim

The Heart of the Sands is going really well. When I write I go through periods in which I only get a few dozen words down each day, because I spend most of my time plotting out scenes and transitions and plot elements, thinking through important dialog and such. But when I get done with that stage, I know exactly what has to go down on paper, and I start cranking out two or three thousand words a day . . .

Self-Publishing Success 4:
Marketing, how not to

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Jim

In the first installment in this series of blogs, I described my surprise when my 4^th eBook, Child of the Sword, spontaneously sold almost 12,000 copies in 3½ months near the end of 2012. And that raised the following questions:

What's the typical sales curve—books/day—and how will it end: by dropping off rapidly or trailing off slowly?
Will I just sell a few hundred, or a few thousand, or tens of thousands of copies?
What effect will it have on my other books?
What does it take to get on the best-seller lists?
Were my books priced right at $2.99, and what is correct pricing?
What was so different about the 4^th book that it sold so well and the first 3 didn't?
What is considered success among self-published indie authors, a few hundred, a few thousand, etc.?
What do I do to support the book as it's selling, and encourage additional sales?
What did I do to sell all those books?

In the second and third installments I provided some data on 1-6. Now let's look at the last three questions.

Self-Publishing Success 3:
Pricing and what was different

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Jim

What's the typical sales curve—books/day—and how will it end: by dropping off rapidly or trailing off slowly?
Will I just sell a few hundred, or a few thousand, or tens of thousands of copies?
What effect will it have on my other books?
What does it take to get on the best-seller lists?
Were my books priced right at $2.99, and what is correct pricing?
What was so different about the 4^th book that it sold so well and the first 3 didn't?
What is considered success among self-published indie authors, a few hundred, a few thousand, etc.?
What do I do to support the book as it's selling, and encourage additional sales?
What did I do to sell all those books?

In the 2nd installment I provided some hard data on questions 1-4, and in this one I'll cover 5-6. I'll get to 8-9 in later installments.

Self-Publishing Success 2:
Hard data and some answers

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Jim

What's the typical sales curve—books/day—and how will it end: by dropping off rapidly or trailing off slowly?
Will I just sell a few hundred, or a few thousand, or tens of thousands of copies?
What effect will it have on my other books?
What does it take to get on the best-seller lists?
Were my books priced right at $2.99, and what is correct pricing?
What was so different about the 4^th book that it sold so well and the first 3 didn't?
What is considered success among self-published indie authors, a few hundred, a few thousand, etc.?
What do I do to support the book as it's selling, and encourage additional sales?
What did I do to sell all those books?

In this installment I provide some hard data on questions 1-4, and will get to 5-9 in later installments.

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Jim

Jenn Brozek tagged me for this fun blog hop, in which I answer some questions about my work-in-progress (WIP), The Name of the Sword, the next book in The Gods Within series. The hop started with Jenn, she tagged me and a few others, and I was going to tag William Blackwell, but he's somewhere in Ecuador, so I'm not sure if he'll be able to participate. I need to ask him what he's doing in Ecuador.

Here’s how this goes works:

Jenn answered 10 questions on her WIP, and tagged five of us. Those she tagged will answer the same 10 question on their WIP, and tag one to five more, kind of like a chain letter. So here goes:

Self-Publishing Success 1:
What does it mean?

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Jim

Since the release of the first book in The Gods Within in late August, I've had phenomenal success with my eBooks on Amazon, selling over 14,000 books in the last 3 months. The sales peaked in late October and began to decline, but now, with the release of the second book in the series, The SteelMaster of Indwallin, sales are rising again and, as of this writing, easily exceed a hundred books a day. But when it first began to happen, and as it progressed, I felt like a deer in the headlights. I had dozens of questions about what was going to happen, and I quickly learned that there's a lot of bad information out there, including that in the KDP Community Forums. So I thought it might be helpful to others to relate my experience, and a few real facts.

Keep in mind this is just one writer's story. I won't draw broad conclusions; to do so one must have a large ensemble of data, and this is just one, single data point. But I will show what can, and might, happen for others.