Go · Fiction · Finance
Go · Fiction · Finance
Dec 11, 2017
Not a lot to report re: new stuff, but now, just in time for gift-holidays, you can get all three of my books -- that is, Ghostcrime and the first two volumes of Snapback, in a bundle for just $40 plus tax. I'll even pay the shipping within Canada.
Buy buy buy buy buy buy buy read read read read read read read read read read read
Sep 26, 2017
The second instalment of the Snapback series is now available! It features 20 new illustrations from Dawn Davis, and, if you can believe it, even more laughs and Go intrigue than the first one.
Right now it's just in PDF, for logistical reasons (it takes less work to produce it from the print-ready PDF than an ePub) but I'll have the ePub up this week most likely. As always, purchasing the digital version gives you access to all digital formats.
Aug 5, 2017
A deal as hot as my wretched workspace -- a digital copy of Snapback: Fuseki is now free when you create an account on this site!
Of course, that's just one benefit of signing up. You'll also be given free access to ghostCRM, which will help you to prevent your life from falling apart around you, and you'll be able to save your progress (and diamonds) as you play through Diamond Find, the most comprehensive diamond-finding adventure ever built. Who knew.
If those aren't reasons enough, I can't help you.
Jul 29, 2017
This was a long time coming, but I made some upgrades to this very eBook store. Now there are specific pages for each eBook, featuring 3D representations of the books themselves with samples you can flip through! We're living in the future.
Things are also looking slightly better, which I'm hoping will improve sales. SPEAKING OF SALES, there is a discount if you buy Ghostcrime and Snapback Vol. 1 together. Do it. Come on.
You also might notice the new Digital Popularity Indexes above. These give you valuable real-time business insight into my digital publishing operation. Data, it's said, drives success.
Jul 16, 2017
I buckled down this summer and finished Snapback Volume 2! It ended up about 5,000 words longer than the first volume, and I think it's considerably better. But you'll have to wait for September to decide for yourself. I'll have copies at Hal-Con.
Writing one novella per year, I've found, is a manageable task. Even with a full-time job, I've been able to muster up the motivation, two years in a row, to produce something that's 20-25k words. It's not a lot, and in years past, I've produced far, far more.
Ghostcrime was different. I really got going in 2009, when I was unemployed, and I wrote about 40k before burning out and putting it away for half a decade. When my life stabilized, I picked it up again and wrote the second half in 6 months, producing the masterpiece that we all love. But it was a considerable effort that drained me, and in the ~7 years it took to fully produce, I had nothing to show for it until the end.
The idea with Snapback is to produce and release consistently. To always have something new to sell at the conventions, and keep improving my writing and publishing process with faster iterations. So far, it's been working. And in a few years, I'll even have something I can push together into a single volume.
What would it take me to write another novel? Money and time, probably, in large quantities. But even if I devoted all my energy to producing a novel, I don't see why I wouldn't release it in serial. There were complaints when the seventh Harry Potter film would be split up into two parts, but does anyone care that they're not a single work now? If you can watch them one after another, what's the difference?
So those are my thoughts on big writing projects. But who knows -- maybe you're more productive than me and more disciplined, and you can write a novel without having your life fall apart as you do it.
I look forward to reading it.
Dec 1, 2016
On the subject of events that make me feel like a legitimate author, Halifax alt-weekly The Coast just published a review of Snapback! Thanks to Adam Fiske for writing those words.
The book is available now in paperback, ePub, and PDF. And there's still a $2 discount if you buy the digital edition along with Ghostcrime, a thing I wrote that also has reviews.
Buy them for yourself, or as solstice-holiday gifts! You... do know you're obligated to spend money on people you love, right?
Nov 13, 2016
Last weekend I showed up to Hal-Con with a table full of newly-minted copies of Snapback, and I tell you, did the occasional person ever stop to look at them! In all seriousness, I did move a good number, and it was a successful weekend.
But then shortly after, I succumbed to some November sadness, as is expected, and I only just got around to producing an eBook version of the damn thing. So the PDF is up here now, and if you want a physical copy, you can order one of those, too. There's $5 shipping on that link, so if you're local and just want to pick it up from me, let me know when you order and I'll reimburse you the $5. God I'm accommodating.
And as for the eBook, a deal mechanism is in place, so if you buy Snapback and Ghostcrime eBooks together, you get $2 off the purchase! I'm just throwing money away. For literacy, though.
Oct 22, 2016
It's exciting times here in the living room that has become my studio -- after months of writing and years of editing, dithering, re-working, giving up, un-giving up, etc., Volume 1 of Snapback has been sent off to print! I'll be selling it for $10 at Hal-Con in two weeks. The eBook will also be available, if I can muster up the energy to produce it.
The foundation of the story took a long time to get right, but I'll be able to 'churn out' further volumes much faster now, and publish them digital-only. Volume 2 is about 2/3rds done at this point, and will probably be available early next year.
I guess another reason I'm excited for this to be out is that I built a 'price combos' deal system into this online store last year, when I only had Ghostcrime for sale. But now, with more than one book, I can bundle them together and offer discounts, making use of carefully-written, well-tested code from last November! Why am I even a writer. It is clearly more torturous than programming.
Aug 8, 2016
There's nothing like the pseudo-holiday of self-employment. Since a contract came to an end last Friday, I've been jetting around the country, specifically to cities in BC. That province has got it together.
But now I am back in Halifax and ready to buckle down again. I've got to finalize the edits for Snapback before I publish it, and there's some web stuff for friends to polish off. But other than that? I bought an irresponsible number of books on the west coast, mostly sci-fi, so I'll probably just read until it's fall.
Unless, of course, you need me to build you a data-rich web application! Or, if you have an old/broken app that needs a breath of life, that's what I do best. Let me know.
Jun 18, 2016
I've been sitting on a novella for years, so long now that the technology the characters use seem dated. It's never been perfect, though it gets better every year, and it's always needed some art, which I am not qualified to do. The book is called Snapback , and it's about some Go-playing friends who get wrapped up in an international board game conspiracy.
Bruce Delo loved the draft I sent him, and we thought he might be able to do the images, but he's going to be pretty busy on the next volume of Kobra Stallion. If he's going to get it out for Hal-Con 2016, I can't take him away from production. It is huge. And from the script and the first 50-60 pages, there's no doubt it's going to be amazing.
Recently, though, I've been working with Dawn Davis, and she's going to illustrate! This is very exciting news because Dawn is mega-talented and I think her style really works for the story.
So, at long last, Snapback will be released. It's going to the first in a series of 3 or 4 short novellas, all hopefully adding up to the bulk of one regular-sized novel. This lets me release faster and experiment with episodic structure.
Can't wait to see you all at Hal-Con.
