Fandom Is Dead. Long Live Fandom!

Fandom Is Dead. Long Live Fandom!

If you change the medium, you change the message. Philosopher of communication Marshall McLuhan argued persuasively that advances in media, regardless of content, can incite dramatic, culture-wide effects. A best selling print book can reach millions of people, but turn that book into a hit movie, and you increase its…
Sad Puppies 4 Update: My Readers Are Awesome!

Sad Puppies 4 Update: My Readers Are Awesome!

Fans of Nethereal have been busy over on the Sad Puppies 4 Best Novel recommendations thread. Throughout all of its iterations, Sad Puppies has been dedicated to making SF fandom at large aware of books that would normally have gone unnoticed by the much smaller Worldcon membership. SP has been particularly…
Souldancer Character Study: Nahel

Souldancer Character Study: Nahel

During the revision process for my new book Souldancer, my editor recommended a character-building exercise popularized by literary agent Donald Maass. I ran several of the book's principle characters through the exercise to help me figure out what made them tick, and thus portray them more three-dimensionally. Of all the new…

Geek Gab Episode 39: 13 Hours

Welcome to another drug-fueled episode of Geek Gab! This time, Daddy Warpig, Dorrinal, and I discuss the controversial new movie 13 Hours. Check it out! P.S. prayers for Daddy Warpig's full and swift recovery from surgery. I hope the bug hallucinations stop.
You Spoke. We Listened.

You Spoke. We Listened.

The results of the Souldancer cover A/B test are in! Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote. We had a total of 31 participants who provided a good sample size and lots of useful feedback. The poll The poll ran for two days. It was quite a contest, with…
Cast Your Vote for My New Book’s Cover

Cast Your Vote for My New Book’s Cover

Frequent readers will recall that the talented Marcelo Orsi Blanco designed the cover for my space pirate novel Nethereal. As you can probably tell just by looking, Marcelo's cover was a smash hit. Several readers told me that they decided to buy the novel based solely on his cover art.…
Cirsova Heroic Fantasy is Here!

Cirsova Heroic Fantasy is Here!

Science fiction used to be a niche market restricted to a small cult following. Back in the day, a sci-fi fan could easily read every novel and short story published in the field each year. A handful of magazines and one or two major conventions could easily accommodate the whole…

Geek Gab Episode 38: The Revenant

This week on Geek Gab, Daddy Warpig and Dorrinal talk about the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Revenant. My mic cut out right after we started, but it wasn't much of a loss because I didn't get to see the movie. The technical difficulties were resolved in time for me…
Goodreads Censors Crimethink

Goodreads Censors Crimethink

As the backlash over Twitter's deverification of British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos reverberates through the internet, a parallel controversy involving censorship and libel against other counterculture figures continues to simmer on Goodreads. Before we dive in, it's worth noting a few key points of Goodreads' review policy. Mentioning the author in the context…
How to Set the Price of Your Self-Published Book on Amazon

How to Set the Price of Your Self-Published Book on Amazon

Most publishers are pricing their eBooks too high. How much is an eBook worth? Several factors must be taken into account when attempting to answer that question, and the answer can change depending on the book. Consider Amazon Amazon reserves their best 70 percent royalty rate for eBooks priced between…