For 2 weeks only, Shadowlith: Book 1 of the Umbral Blade will be available for the sweet low price of $0.99! Reserve your copy today!
Welcome to Vecnos, the world of Shadowlith
The official cover for Shadowlith: Book 1 of the Umbral Blade
Cover art reveal!!!
Release date should be in the first or second week of April!
Another teaser for Shadowlith: Book One of the Umbral Blade
So I hate reading poorly written fight scenes in fantasy books. Whenever my characters fight, I try to make it as realistic as possible. Here's how you write a concussion:
Holt caught a glimpse of a flanged mace heading right for the side of head, breaking his momentary confusion and forcing him to fall to the ground to avoid being killed in a single blow. The edge of the mace caught his helmet with a loud crash, instantly disorienting him and replacing all the sounds of battle with a harsh, screeching ring in his ears.
Luckily, his attacker overbalanced in the assault, and Holt wasn’t simply obliterated by a second blow from the fearsome weapon. Clutching his stolen axe like a cane, Holt pulled himself to his feet and tried to steady the spinning world. He felt drunk, overwhelmingly drunk, and a wave of nausea crept into the back of his throat as he failed to get his bearings perfectly straight.
The mace-wielder turned back, a wide grin splayed across his unarmored face. He slapped the head of his weapon in his open palm, and Holt saw a few streaks of blood rub off on the man’s skin.
The captain tore his helm from his head and tossed it aside. The fresh air seemed to calm his roiling stomach, but only by a fraction. When he looked ahead, he could barely focus. Everything was blurry around the edges. The man came forward again, swinging his heavy mace from left to right. Holt raised his axe to block, and the mace head shattered his weapon’s shaft into a hundred splinters.
“Now you die!” the attacker bellowed. The man’s teeth were yellow and jagged, and his breath smelled like vomit.
Holt stifled a chuckle when he realized it was his breath that carried the pungent stench of stomach acid, not his attacker’s. Still spinning helplessly in his own mind, he tumbled back to the ground unarmed, heaving the contents of his gut across the stones at his feet.
The captain fell onto his side with a sullen whimper, waiting for the killing blow to quickly bring an end to his scrambled senses. After a few seconds, he realized it likely wasn’t going to happen.
He wanted to open his eyes, to see what fate had befallen his attacker, but he knew it would be useless. Even with his eyes shut, all he saw was a shifting field of slowly spinning color blotches that made him scream in agony. The screaming brought on another round of painful vomiting, and then everything finally, mercifully, went black.
A trip to Iron Wind Metals!
I had a pretty cool experience today. The tabletop miniatures game I write for invited me up to their factory to sign some rulebooks being mailed out this week which feature stories I've written to help develop the lore of their world. (For more, check out this blog post or you can head over to the short stories tab to read the lore).
Thankfully, the great guys at Iron Wind Metals were kind enough to give me a tour of the place and let me take some cool, behind-the-scenes pictures. Here it is!
Getting all the figures together for a shipment this week. Most of the figures on the table here are bee cavalry (yes, cavalry riders on bees!), treants, a winged beast, and some armored bears. They look awesome.
A big bin of hero figures. The orange disc are silicon molds used to make those figures, and the brown boxes to the side are older figures which have since been discontinued. Above the box, you can see some of the design concepts on a clipboard.
Some resin molds used for casting figures.
Shelf after shelf of finished miniatures waiting to be shipped. Thousands of different models, hundreds of each.
These discs are silicon molds used to make the pewter figures. Iron Wind Metals has been around since the 70s, so they have a ridiculous amount of these molds.
These shelves are full of 'master molds' which are like the blueprints for making miniatures. A lot of them are used to the make the miniatures used in Chaos Wars!
The inside of a silicon mold. So much detail! These things are really cool.
This mold makes wings for dragons. It was at the active pouring station where I got to see some weapons poured into molds and made before my very eyes. It was awesome!
Stacks of pewter ingots waiting to become fantasy miniatures. Each one weighs about 15 pounds and can craft about 100 individual figures.
Some finished miniatures, expertly painted and on display.
The T-Rex is my favorite.
Goblins!
These dragon riders are really cool.
That thing is sick!
A limited edition dragon.
More cool dragons.
And the best part of the whole trip, getting a chance to see my story in the rulebook before it ships!
Lina Arias is something of the champion of this edition of Chaos Wars. The daughter of Estria's king, she threw away her birthright in order to make a name for herself - as a vampire, a summoner, and a necromancer.
I hope you enjoyed the Iron Wind Metals factory tour! It was a pretty cool experience I'll always remember.
Getting paid in interesting ways!
When you don't get paid in cash...
So a while back I began writing short stories for Ral Partha's Chaos Wars miniatures game. You can check them out here. When I started writing the series of background stories (which has been a ton of fun), I agreed to do it for free. I would get some free publicity, and the minis game would get some cool lore to spice up their world. In my mind, that's a pretty fine deal.
But then I got a package in the mail yesterday.
The fine folks at Iron Wind Metals, the company who makes the Chaos Wars game, sent me an entire army of goblins (always my favorite!) and a couple special edition figures to go with them! That's awesome!
The full contents of the package.
This figure, the Vampire Queen, is an awesome one I had the honor of writing. She's a badass.
Back in the day, I used to play a decent amount of Warhammer 40,000. I also played a few other miniatures games, so I know how to paint models. I'm not incredibly good at it by any means, but I'm going to paint a couple of these guys and see what happens.
In the meantime, I plan on writing another short story for Ral Partha which uses the awesome spider figure they sent me. Look for that story to go up in a week or so!
Shadowlith Update - Progress!
So if you read my last blog entry, you know I'm pretty excited about the new magic system I conjured up in the car one day. Well, here's the update:
Shadowlith (still a working title) has officially become my next expected full length release. I'm currently about 30% through writing the novel and I (realistically) hope to finish the first draft by the end of January, 2017. So, to give everyone a little taste, here is an unedited excerpt:
*****
Alster nearly fell to the ground. The shade from the archive, or whatever it truly was, stood in the doorway to the record room, a towering black menace of twisting shadows.
A host of incomprehensible screams poured from Elsey’s mouth as she tried to scramble away. Her feet tangled as she jumped, and she hit the ground hard, but the lantern did not go out. The closest horse kicked at its stall door, rousing some of the other creatures from their sleep.
The shade moved directly over Elsey, filling up almost every inch of the darkness between the lantern’s partial light.
Suddenly exploding in a flurry of action, Alster did the only thing he could think to do. He ripped Alistair’s dagger from his belt and lunged, losing his balance completely. In the small hallway of the stable, his accuracy with the blade was irrelevant. As he fell, Alster gripped the dagger as tightly as he could and simply held it above his head, letting his momentum do the work for him.
Alster didn’t fully understand what he heard when he crashed into the ground. The shade yelled, the voice a mix of shock and pain, and then evaporated, leaving behind a cool mist like a cloud of fog.
As quickly as it had begun, the stable was once again calm, though the horse behind Alster seemed intent on breaking its stall to escape.
When Alster pushed himself up to his knees, he felt something tingle inside his stolen gauntlets. It felt warm and comforting, whatever the sensation was, and Alster found himself grinning from ear to ear. With one hand against the doorframe for balance, Alster stood up fully and brushed the dirt from his clothes.
Mixed with the flickering lantern light, a soft reg glow emanated from the filigree on Alster’s gauntlets. He turned his hands over in wonder, half of his mind expecting some dazzling display of magic and the other half not believing his own eyes.
“Did you see that?” Alster whispered.
Elsey collected herself and righted the lantern, though her body shook with fear.
“I think I killed the shade,” Alster said, never taking his eyes from the gauntlets. After a few more seconds, the red light faded and the gauntlets returned to their mundane state.
Deep in Alster’s chest, he felt something begin to stir. He felt stronger. He felt more alive than he ever had before. His grip on the dagger tightened, and he thought he felt the newfound energy pulse within his very bones.
“I,” Alster began, but he didn’t know how to describe what took place within his ribcage. “I think… I consumed the shade,” he said after a moment.
“What?”
“I think I drank it,” Alster said. “You know the feeling when it is cold so you drink something warm and the heat spreads from your chest through your whole body?”
Elsey nodded, her eyes wide with some emotion Alster could not pinpoint.
“The dagger killed the shade,” Alster continued. He slide the weapon back into his belt and unclenched his hand, relaxing the muscles of his arm. “When the shade was dead, I drank it,” he concluded.
“On purpose?”
A new fantasy series!
A new fantasy series?
Maybe... Maybe...
So I had an idea while driving from Tennessee back to Kentucky this Labor Day. I've been thinking of ways to incorporate new and exciting magic systems into my fantasy writing and well, I might have it figured out.
Here's the pitch: this new fantasy series will surround characters who are 'Shadowliths' - gifted with the ability from birth (or perhaps learned as well) to consciously take the form of their shadow and go about doing things. Fantasy things. I like this magic system for a few reasons. Firstly, it makes an interesting circumstance arise: the caster can only control his / her shadow during the daylight. The night does not provide enough light to make substantial shadows after all. Putting such an ominous feeling magic system into a new fantasy setting where they only have power in the day seems oddly refreshing to me. I'd expect a shadow-based fantasy magic to be more powerful at night, not less.
Secondly, I like the idea of the shadowlith going into a stupor while controlling the shadow. A lot of fantasy worlds (DnD, WoW, etc.) feature absurdly powerful wizards casting spells until they run out of strength, energy, favor, mana, etc. Until their spell power is fully drained, they are basically immortal. I'd love to see casters made incredibly vulnerable by their art. That could be a great twist on a fantasy staple which I have personally never read before.
So did I try it yet? Of course! I've officially begun work on a side-project fantasy book (or maybe novella, who knows?) which I tentatively call: "The Shadowlith" - cheesy title but I'll probably change it.
Maybe I'll have something ready for the publisher in the next 6 months, but it isn't likely. I'd bet this idea won't be fully fleshed out until the fall / winter of 2017.
The entire Goblin Wars series is now available in standalone paperback!
CHECK OUT THE NEW PAPERBACKS!
New formatting, redesigned interiors, awesome art.
Exciting News! Free Books!
The Goblin Wars Part One: Siege of Talonrend will now be free... forever!
Goblin Wars 3 Cover Art Reveal!
The Goblin Wars Part Three: Rebirth of a God
May, 2016
New fantasy short stories for Ral Partha's Chaos Wars!
Through a great stroke of luck, I managed to score the booth next to the fine folks from Iron Wind Metals at CincyCon this year. They make all sorts of cool miniatures games and their flagship line, Chaos Wars, is an awesome fantasy setting complete with goblins, centaurs, undead, wizards, dwarves, orcs, lizardmen, and pretty much everything else you could imagine. After a few hours, I knew I had to make a few stories for them. Every great miniatures game has a rule book full of flavor and backstories for your favorite characters - commonly called 'fluff' - and I am now that writer for Ral Partha's Chaos Wars.
Check out the first two installments of the Chaos Wars "Chronicles of Estria" series:
Author SWAG!!!!
AUTHOR SWAG - SERIOUS BUSINESS
Check out one of my detailed table assemblages on Instagram
Villainous Halloween Market 2023
Bookmarks
Business Cards
Stickers
Once you have all your swag under control, check out the Marketing Series for tips and tricks on picking the right conventions and selling!
I get all my table swag from Easy Canvas, UPrinting, and Vista Print. It just depends which company is having the best sale at the time, but they’re all virtually the same. I have gotten some posters from Staples too.
Have your own author swag? Post it in the comments!
Book Teaser
Check it out!
This art is incredible. I'm in love with it already and I haven't even felt it in my hands yet.
Behold! A Map!
As the Goblin Wars Omnibus edition gets closer and closer to completion, we have a map!
Check it out!
Social Media for Authors
BUT HOW DO I TWEETS?
I can't tell you how many older authors I've met who have no clue how to use social media. Many of them simply forgo the entire process and never create accounts. Just take the time to learn your platforms. Any social media platform can be learned in a day or less.
I MADE THE TWITTERS, WHERE ARE MY SALES?
Tweeting about your book constantly is about as good as placing pop-up ads with flashing lights in comic sans on your website. In other words, it actually makes people hate you. Do not do that.
SO WHAT DO I DO?
Firstly, you should use social media. Get on Facebook (make an author page), make a Goodreads account as an author, and get a Twitter. Instagram is great for a few genres as well, namely poetry and romance. Obviously, more platforms can't really hurt if you use them correctly, so make accounts pretty much everywhere. Figure out where your typical fan hangs out on social media, and master that platform.
Once you have your platforms under control, there are programs out there to help you streamline them and link them together so one post goes everywhere, increasing visibility. HootSuite is a decent one I know a lot of people use. Check it out. And I’m sure there are more. Use whichever service suits you the best.
Now that you have the basics under control, what do you post? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't spam your book every chance you get. What authors want to gain from social media is this: visibility, recognition, and impressions. How often have you taken a picture of a billboard outside and posted it to your Facebook? I really hope the answer is never or very close to never. So when you tweet / post things that are just billboards for your books, no one interacts with them. No one shares those. You don't make impressions or gain visibility. In fact, you alienate people. No one likes ads. Ever notice any sidebar or header ads on this website? Nope. I hate ads too.
CONTENT!
Firstly, and you'll see this advice everywhere, be yourself. Post things you are interested in. See a cool article on your favorite sports team? Share it. Have a music video you love? Share it too. Have a wealth of funny jokes rotting in your brain? Tweet them out. Are you good at cosplay? Post your pictures all around. No one wants to feel like you are trying to get them to buy something, even if you are. What authors should focus on is developing a following related to their book ventures, but not directly tied to it.
How do you do that? It actually isn't that hard. Make posts relative to your content area. Do you write horror? Tweet your favorite horror movies. Tweet articles about horror. Tweet horror art. Build up a following of people interested in your genre, and then when those people find out you've written a book, they will be interested because they already respect you as an online entity.
Do you write fantasy? The same thing applies. Make posts about fantasy you enjoy. Share awesome fantasy art from all over the web. Grow your followers through your passion.
BUT WHEN DO I SIPHON THEIR BANK ACCOUNTS?
Once you have an established base of people who enjoy certain content from you, tweet about your book only when it is relevant. Don't just post a static link to your Amazon page. That harkens back to a bad billboard. What is relevant? Post when you have a sale. Post when you have a contest running on your website. Tweet new concept art for an upcoming book cover. That kind of thing. Don't just spam people with your links when nothing special is going on or you'll erode the base you worked hard to build.
An author on a social media marketing panel I took part in once said only 25% of your tweets should be related to your books. I would argue to make it somewhere around 10%. People simply don't want to see that kind of thing. Think about it this way: if you were a reader in your genre, what kind of stuff would you like to see from an author? Not ads, that’s for certain.
SHOULD I REVIEW OTHER BOOKS ON GOODREADS?
This one gets a lot of debate. Posting reviews is something every reader should do, author or not. But what if you hated a book? A lot of people say to not post negative reviews as an author. That’s generally good advice. Getting into a flame war with another author cannot win you any sales. On the reverse, to me, posting only good reviews is disingenuous. It feels fake and flaky. I have opinions and I have no problems backing them up. But again, that's my style. That image might not work for everyone. I won’t shy away from leaving a bad review on a book from a major publisher, but if the book is indie, I typically won’t go below 3 stars. If I feel it deserves less, I simply do not review it.
This post isn't meant to be an end-all guide to social media, just what I've learned over the years. Have your own advice? Post it in the comments. I'd love to see more / other perspectives.
Looking for your next favorite book? Click here.
Special Announcement! Goblin Wars artwork now for sale!
Looking for that special piece of wall art to bring a room together? Looking for a gift for the strange cousin who loves fantasy?
Check it out!
It looks a little washed out since I'm a terrible photographer.
Here is the high quality version. It looks stunning on the canvas - I'm just bad at taking pictures.
Interview with Steampunk Author Rebekah McAuliffe
Firstly, tell us about Gears of Golgotha, your debut novel. What inspired it? Where did you get the idea for the world of chemists and scientists?
It's kind of a funny story how I came up with the idea for Gears, actually. The basic ideas of it came from a dream I had after a night of hanging out with friends (and no, it wasn't like that haha). From that dream came Erin, the main character; Dr. Sharpe; the villain (at the beginning, the villain was a man named Xerxes, brother of the Supreme Leader); and the Gears themselves. I knew I wanted to turn it into a novel, but I didn't know where to go with it. That was until NaNoWriMo 2013. I was hanging out at my cousin Amy's house (of Bella Morteand Letters to Daniel fame). I had a basic skeleton of the story, but didn't feel it had any meat on its bones. I had two choices to take on for my NaNoWriMo project: develop this new idea, or refine a murder mystery I had been working on. I eventually picked the new idea, but still couldn't think of a name. The idea of Chemists and Mages, as well as the title itself, are actually fossils from the era of story development where Gears was actually a commentary on the science vs. religion debate.
What made you sit down and start writing? Have you always been a writer?
This is another funny story, I think. When I was in first grade, my class had to participate in the Young Authors competition at my school. I've always been very competitive, and when I heard that there were going to be medals (at the time my life goal was to earn one of them), I jumped at the challenge. With the help of my Eighth Grade Buddy (an 8th grader that was assigned to first grade students to tutor them and serve as a role model), I wrote My Alabama Vacation, a story where I go on vacation to a zoo in Alabama, even though I have to this day never been there haha. There was no real plot to the book; it was mostly just about the trip there, and stopping at places like a barber shop and comparing human and animal behavior ("Do animals get haircuts, too?"). I glued in different pictures of animals, including one of a monkey picking bugs out of another monkey's fur for the "haircut" bit. I was really proud of my work, and submitted it to the contest. A kid in my class named Nicholas won first place with his story The Last Dinosaur. Even though I won second place, I didn't think it was good enough. I swore that day I would hone my skills as a writer, so that next year, I would kick Nicholas' butt. He transferred to another school the next year, and there were no more Young Authors contests, but I still kept writing and writing. In 7th grade, I wrote Chapparelle's World,a short story which can only be described as Edgar Allen Poe meets Alice in Wonderland, in which a woman ends up in her dreamworld and confronts her demons while in a coma after a failed suicide attempt. I won 1st place in my school's Young Author's competition, and even went on to the county-wide semi-finals, but it was then I realized something: I didn't care about the awards. Sure, they were nice, but I loved writing. And I was good at it. I've been writing regularly ever since.
What has been the most enjoyable aspect of being a writer? What keeps you writing more?
I love making up things. I love asking "What if...?" When I was little, I used to make up what I called "step-friends," imaginary characters that I would make up stories for. I think about different worlds, wonder what life would be like if someone changed one little thing, or if something never even happened.
Who are your favorite authors? Does any of their work influence yours?
I really love the classics; you can never go wrong with them. I feel like the darkness of my stories was inspired by writers like Poe and the Bronte sisters. I love J.K. Rowling's writing style, too; it's so raw and personal, and gets under the readers' skin, which is something that I strive to do as well.
What books did you read when you were young? What was the first book you ever read?
I read pretty much everything I could get my hands on. I would read anything and everything. While I can't remember the first book I ever read, I do remember that I started reading from a very young age. My mom will tell you that I started reading at 2 years old, when I picked up the newspaper off the kitchen table and started reading it to my parents. I mostly read Dr. Seuss, Harry Potter, and the Magic Tree House books. I didn't start reading classics until 5th grade, with my first being The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
What do you have planned in the future? Anymore steampunk? Anything written in the Gears universe?
I do want to write a sequel to Gears, but I haven't even started it yet, let alone set a release date for it. Right now, my attention is focused on ALPHA, book 1 of The ALPHA Trilogy. Think Bourne saga meets Manchurian Candidate. It's my first spy/political thriller, but I've always been fascinated with MK ULTRA and other legends like it, so writing it has been a lot of fun.
What's the best convention you've attended to promote your work?
Imaginarium, by a long shot. It was my first convention, and I had never felt more welcome there than anywhere else. That was where I actually felt like my work could mean something to other people. I was offered and signed two contracts there for Gears and ALPHA from Hydra Publications. I had a lot of fun, and I can't wait to go again in September, where I'll be turning 21!
What advice do you have for fledgling writers?
KEEP WRITING. I can't stress this enough. They say that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get good at something. And don't let ANYONE tell you to stop writing.
Lastly, where can we find your work?
Goblin Wars book 1 is down to $0.99 forever! Yay!
Like the title says, Goblin Wars part 1 is now a $0.99 eBook for the rest of time.... What are you waiting for?
