It’s been exciting looking at the viewership numbers on this blog and seeing them slowly tick upward as the weeks go on. If you want to stick around and get updated each week when a blog post goes live, feel free to use the subscribe button in the left toolbar!

As an FYI, I am not currently planning on making a blog post next week. My brother is getting married, my sister is getting baptized, I’m going to be out of town all week… well, that’s the big stuff that will be taking my attention.

Oh, and my baby will be turning 11 months. That’s exciting.

Website Updates

Several website updates went live over the past week. I am no web designer, and I am not particularly skilled when it comes to web building, so hopefully my final results aren’t too utilitarian. That said, you can now check out my current bio page in the left toolbar, or check out the Robot Cannibal Apocalypse page—which currently belongs solely to The Failed Technomancer, but when the trilogy gets finished it’ll have each book in there, with blurbs, purchase links, and so forth.

I also updated my headshot. Let me know if you like the change or preferred the old one.

The Failed Technomancer

I finally received my approved copyright for The Failed Technomancer! Woohoo! Hopefully I never run into any issues with piracy and the like, but I have stronger evidence that my book is, in fact, mine if that ever becomes an issue.

In addition:

I received my first batch of author copies! I immediately turned around and took them to UPS to ship them off to various reviewers who agreed to check the book out. Hopefully I’ll have some reviews or quotes to share with you in the coming weeks! (Months, more likely, since I could only afford the cheapest shipping option.)

I have one extra copy of the book at this moment, and I’m undecided what I’d like to do with it. I’m currently leaning toward a signed copy raffle giveaway for subscribers to the blog/my newsletter (once I finish that), but I won’t make a final decision on that until later.

Two last updates on The Failed Technomancer.

First, IngramSpark prints 5×8 hardcover copies of books! I’m so excited! I didn’t think hardcovers would be an option after checking literally every other printer I’m distributing books through, at least not at the size I designed this book for, but it ended up working out. Unfortunately, IngramSpark is not cheap… But, if you prefer hardcover above all else, that will be an option soonish!

Second, Audible finally accepted The Failed Technomancer!… and upped the price to about $24, for some reason. I’m working to get that fixed, because I want the price to be set at $3.99 everywhere for digital copies. (Yes, that pricing update is going live.)

Also, as a secondary update for the audiobook, I was informed of a minor audio issue in the prologue. I reached out to my audiobook editor and we got it fixed, and the new file will be live as soon as my distributor can get it out to each vendor. If your book is provided through a service, rather than downloaded as its own file, you should get the fix automatically in the coming days (weeks, in the case of Audible, because they are way slow).

Other Projects

I’m still slower than I would like with regards to getting to work on Grand Odyssey, but it’s not because I haven’t been doing anything. Last week needed my focus on a lot of the business aspects of being an indie author, and this week is going to need my focus on groundwork stuff. The big thing being, I need to update and improve my worldbible for Third Realm, and I found Microsoft OneNote to be a terrible program for it. So I downloaded Obsidian and, despite perhaps having a steep learning curve, I think I will be able to transfer my notes over and create a much better environment for gardening my world and creating future stories in it.

I also need to prepare for my lecture at YANCON in three weeks, so that’s taking up some time.

Inner Demon is still in with my editor, so not much to say there.

Bloggyness

Kings of the Wyld (Nicholas Eames) was almost the perfect book for me. Almost. It has a super fun premise—in a world that feels straight out of a (excellently done) Dungeons and Dragons game, our protagonists are aging warriors who retired from adventuring two decades ago but are forced to take up the sword again when a loved one is put in dire peril. There’s a reason the book’s tagline is “The Boys are Back in Town,” and I agree with a lot of reviews describing a distinct “rock’n’roll/get the band back together” feel to this story, with all the exciting highs and hilarious lows that come with that. There’s also a lot of exciting action, thrilling set pieces, high fantasy magic, humor, and hints at interesting background plot events. Clearly there’s a large audience that loves this style of book, based on the number of positive Amazon reviews alone.

This book also absolutely blew past my tolerance for swearing and crude humor. I put up with some swearing (Ted Lasso is my favorite TV show, after all; despite how stellar Ted Lasso is, the show would be abysmal for anyone who can’t tolerate swearing and innuendo), and I laugh at the occasional innuendo, and when used with restraint I think this content can be used to strongly emphasize certain emotional moments. Unfortunately, I think there’s just a lack of imagination when half of the vocabulary of most of the cast is the F-word and when many of the jokes are at about the level of crassness of “Ha ha, that guy touched a statue’s breast,” or lower.

I think it’s also worth noting that the least crass character in the cast, Clay Cooper (our viewpoint protagonist), I just found boring. The concept of old has-beens getting back together and going on an adventure again is fun, except when you realize how well the author did in putting each of these guys at the end of their road. Clay lived his life, he already grew, changed, and kinda settled in as a better person—compared to who he was. He has a family at home he’d rather be with, he’s not very stoked about having to kill a lot of monsters again, and he’s at about the same emotional level most of the book, being outwardly stoic and inwardly sarcastic. Nicholas Eames did an incredible job at putting everyone except Clay in a place of intense need and growth despite being has-beens, and it makes me wish that nearly any character except Clay was the viewpoint. Or that this story were about these heroes in their glory days.

Again, this is not a bad book. There’s a lot of heart and humor, some great fantasy mayhem, and the world is wildly imaginative. If you don’t mind (or if you really like) the rough edges, you will have a great time. If you’re like me and your tolerance for swearing and crass humor is average (unfortunately, that’s a pretty subjective description), you might find yourself enjoying the book barely enough to want to finish it but not nearly enough to read its sequel.