Category Archives: Uncategorized
Branching Out (Other Vendors)
So after some thinking, I decided that I wanted to branch out with the availability of my works. For right now, because I have The Cerberus Rebellion in the KDP Select program, it’s just going to be my short stories, novellas and any non-Griffins & Gunpowder works that I put out.
The Sithean Betrayal, The Gathering Storm and The Red Dragon’s Gold are now available on Barnes & Noble for the Nook and on the Kobo e-Book store.
Head over to the Products page to see the new links!
Upcoming Blog Tour
Starting next Monday, September 3rd, The Cerberus Rebellion will be featured on a month-long blog tour every weekday in September (assembled and hosted by GoddessFish Promotions).
The first week will be a blurb blitz where The Cerberus Rebellion’s blurb will be posted. Week 2 will involve a run of 5 stops on a Review tour where different sites will review The Cerberus Rebellion. Finally Week’s 3 and 4 will be a hybrid of interviews and guest blogs.
I’ll be posting a comprehensive list of stops sometime this week, as well as providing links to the sites.
Guest Post – Excerpt from Crown of Ash
Josh’s Note: Steven Montano released Book 4 of his Blood Skies series, Crown of Ash, today. Below is an excerpt!
A behemoth city of pale rock and sea stone appeared in the wasteland of grey sand. Rickety bridges made from petrified sinew connected iron towers that looked shoved into the ground like wayward spears. Rings of blasted sandstone surrounded deep pits, and flags stitched from whale flesh flapped in the breeze. There were no streets, just sandy walkways that wound between rugged towers and houses thatched together with rope and metallic netting. Drifts of sand covered the buildings like metal snow. The Ebonsand Sea was just beyond the city, and it reflected the radiant light of the melting sun.
Large walrus-like beasts shuffled outside the city perimeter and left lines of acidic glue in their wake. More of the grey-skinned humanoids rode the slug-tailed creatures. Skiffs docked on rusting metal planks next to crashing ocean waves. A number of ATVs and dune-buggies drove in and out of a network of tunnels beneath the city.
Cold ocean air blew in from the dark sea. Kane tasted salt and engine oil.
The vehicle flew close to the ground. Something appeared over a dune just south of the city.
It was another skiff. It flew in low over the dune bank, and was also bound for the city. The vehicle was equipped with fewer guns and a wider deck than the vehicle Kane and the others rode, which meant there was more room for the dead and wounded on board.
There were at least two dozen of the grey-skinned humanoids. They bled green or were missing limbs, and had been flayed open or turned inside out. Their grisly wounds were crudely bandaged with wraps of linen. Some of the wounded thrashed about violently as they clawed at some imaginary threat. Others couldn’t stop screaming, or bled constantly from both eyes. Several others had decaying appendages turned to stumps of clay or ash.
The two crafts drew to within a hundred yards of each other. Kane heard dissonant whispers in the wind, a gritty chant made by gargling and guttural voices. It took him a moment to realize that what he heard was a chorus of the wounded. They all spoke jointly in a vagrant and sibilant tongue. Their eyes were blank as their mouths moved without their knowledge.
“What the hell…” Kane whispered.
“Anarchotech,” Jade said.
“Bless you,” Kane said as he looked at her. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide.
“And what the hell is ‘anarchotech’?” Ronan asked.
“It’s Ebon Cities experimental magic,” she explained. “They fuse chaotic energies with captured soul power to create a new type of energy. It’s unstable. And it’s incredibly debilitating towards living creatures.”
“Why don’t they use it all of the time, then?” Ronan said with a grim laugh. “And why haven’t we heard of it before?”
“They just started experimenting with it recently,” Jade explained as their skiff drew closer to the city. “It’s still in the early stages, I think. Most Southern Claw mages know about it, but they haven’t spread the word.” She shrugged. “I guess your military doesn’t want a panic on its hands. I understand it’s dangerous for the vampires, too…it’s just a lot more dangerous for living creatures.”
“So what does it do?” Kane asked.
“It destabilizes you,” Jade said. “Melds you with other possibilities, or something to that effect. No one knows just how powerful it is.” She looked back at the ship of the wounded.
“Hopefully we won’t find out.”
“It looks like someone already has,” Kane said.
Crown of Ashes is available on Amazon and Smashwords
Guest Post – Release Announcement, Crown of Ash by Steven Montano
Josh’s Note: Steven and I are members of the Guild of Dreams Fantasy writer’s collective. His most recent novel released today, so I offered to let him take over for a day to announce it. I’ll be putting up a second post later today with an excerpt, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Eric Cross and his team have been to hell and back, but their journey isn’t over yet.
Marooned in the remote criminal city of Blacksand, the only way for the mercenaries to get home is to help a local crime boss protect his territories from the Ebon Cities.
To complicate matters, Danica Black is also being hunted by The Revengers, a powerful band of corrupt prison wardens, while Cross himself is trapped in the Whisperlands, a realm of darkness controlled by a cadre of evil mages known as the Shadow Lords.
The team will battle their way through corroding wastelands and deadly vampire outposts, but even their considerable skills might not be enough to save them from the cruel machinations of the Shadow Lord’s mysterious master, a malevolent creature who has manipulated their destinies right from the beginning…
Return to the world of The Black in Book 4 of the BLOOD SKIES saga!
Crown of Ash is available on Amazon.com and Smashwords!
Catch up with the rest of the serieson Amazon.com!
About the Author
Steven Montano is a full-time accountant and the author of the Blood Skies series.
He enjoys dark music, depressing
cinema, cooking, hiking, and spending time with his crazy family. He lives in Washington, where he desperately prepares for the vampire apocalypse.
Visit Steven’s official website, bloodskies.com
Quick Note: Site Milestone
I just wanted to take the time to celebrate passing 1,000 views all-time.
I just want to say thank you to all of those that have visited the site since I launched it and continue to read my posts going forward. Thanks!
The Problem with Sequels
I recently joined the website Scribophile. Essentially, writers gather there to critique and be critiqued by other members of the site. It works on a sort of tit-for-tat system where you get “Karma” for doing critiques and then spend that “Karma” to post stories for critique.
I’m 23,000 words into The Hydra Offensive; Book 2 in the Ansgari Rebellion Series. I didn’t post The Cerberus Rebellion on this site so as I start posting The Hydra Offensive, I’m running into the issue of bringing new readers to my world.
At first, I thought of this as a problem. Why would someone start with Book 2 in the series? Then I remembered, that’s how I started the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. I bought Ashes of Victory (Book 9 in the series) because of the cover art; I bought Books 1-8 and the 3 Honorverse anthologies because of the writing.
I came to the realization that you have to hook readers at the beginning of the book whether they are invested in the series already or not. I need to make sure that the beginning of the book keeps moving, without bogging down with backstory and infodumps.
Have you ever started mid-series and gone back and purchased all of the previous novels? What caused you to do that?
When Is Good Enough, Good Enough?
I was having a conversation with a fellow writer the other day when he asked “Do you ever get worried that your writing might not be good enough?”
The question isn’t something that’s new to writers/authors. I think that self-doubt is something that just naturally comes when you are creating something and putting it out there for people to read/see/hear/etc.
Everyone has to work through this period of self-doubt in their own way. For me, I had a moment after a read-through of The Cerberus Rebellion. I had written, revised, revised, sent to a beta-reader, revised, sent to my editor for a substantive edit, revised, sent to my editor for a line edit, and finally revised again.
I realized that at this time in my life, it wasn’t going to spontaneously improve itself out of thin air. The work is only going to be as good as the writer that I am today. But in a year? Two? Ten?
Exhibit A: CommonScape
This was one of the first pieces of writing that I posted on the internet. It was fanfiction crossing the worlds of Andromeda and Farscape. I first published it in April of 2003, nine years ago.
Reading through the 55,000 words of this fanfiction now, I see so much that could be better. The plotting, the characterization, the setting. And that was with two worlds that I didn’t even have to create for myself.
If I go further back, 15 years, to the notebooks that are stored in my basement, I find stories that wouldn’t even make it to the Save button before I erased and revised.
“You can’t please everyone.” It’s a phrase that everyone says. It’s very similar to “You can’t account for taste” which is something my dad has said since I was a little kid.
I came to the realization that you don’t need to worry about pleasing everyone. You need to worry about pleasing yourself and realize that at some point, your work isn’t going to get any better right now.
So when you start doubting yourself, realize that at some point you need to let your baby go.
Religion on Zaria
Author’s Aside: Harry Vossen, creator of A Way With Worlds, has been very helpful and supportive of The Cerberus Rebellion, so I thought I would repay the favor. He’s running an IndieGoGo campaign to develop the funding for his novel, Under a Burning Sky, to be self-published in paperback, hardcover and special edition. You can find his post here. Stop by!
Religion on Zaria
This post was inspired by several posts over at A Way With Worlds covering the topic of Religion in Worldbuilding.
I have a particularly special insight into the matter of Religion. I was exposed to a great deal of study into the various major religions and their off-shoots; how those religions interacted with each other and what they believed. I’ve used that insight to help develop the various religions of my world.
Since The Cerberus Rebellion primarily deals with the nations of Ansgar and Kerberos, I think that I’ll limit myself to discussing the two major religions of these nations, how they affect their followers and interact with each other.
Kerberos
The Kerberosi, as descendants of Nordahr, have continued to follow the Nordahrian religion.
The Nordahrian religion is polytheistic: they believe in several primary gods and several major deities. Each of these gods has a different role within their religion: God of War, Goddess of Charisma, God of Justice. There are distinct priesthoods for each of the major gods and important deities; the people pray to whichever gods they think will aid them in whatever endeavor they seek.
While the religion is widespread throughout Kerberos, outsiders are tolerated but not given the respect that a follower would.
I based this religion on a conglomeration of the Ancient Greek and Roman Pantheons: belief that their gods will affect their lives through prayer and sacrifices, a pantheon that consists of gods that are able to take physical form, and various other minor aspects.
Ansgar
The Ansgari Religion is also polytheistic, but I based this religion slightly more on the Norse pantheon and rites. The Ansgari heaven includes a special place for heroes, their tradition is passed on through ballads, holy books and oral tradition. This religion is not only followed in Ansgar, but was carried there by colonists from Welos.
While the Ansgari religion is similar to the Nordahrian in that the majority of the citizens of the nation believe in it and follow its tenets, the Ansgari discriminate severely against those that chose not to follow the religion. Some of the religion’s deadly sins include apostasy and faithlessness. The largest effect of this is that when Kerberos was invaded, subdued and annexed by Ansgar, laws were put into effect banning the open worship and the Nordahrian language in any form.
My major characters aren’t particularly devote in their worship of the religion, but they do follow the general tents of it.
These are only two of more than a dozen different religions worshipped on the world of Zaria. As more of these come into focus, I’ll do more posts on those religions.
5 Weeks In…
So as of Monday, The Cerberus Rebellion (available here) has been on the market for 5 weeks. And, as of writing this, I’ve had 13 Sales of The Cerberus Rebellion and have sold approximately 20 total units of my 3 short stories.
Quite a few of my friends, family and co-workers know that I’ve published through Amazon (an at least a handful of them have purchased one or the other, which I appreciate!) and recently some have asked how my sales are doing. When I tell them how I’m doing, I’m always sure to temper my reports with the fact that I’m a new author with only one novel available but inside, I’m thrilled that I’ve done so well in only a month.
I had a revelation/exciting moment recently: I have several co-workers that have said they were going to pick up my novel (I’ve been pretty low-key about IRL promo since I don’t want to push them away). So when I had a sale of Cerberus show up this week, I asked a few of them if they had picked it up and none of them had. I made the comment that I didn’t know who bought that copy and one of my co-workers brought it to my attention that getting sales from complete strangers was kind of the point. It made me feel kind of silly and giddy at the same time.
So now that I’ve been on the market for than a month and have passed 10 sales, and very nearly passed 500 Free-load copies during my KDP Select promotion a few weeks ago, my goal is to get a few reviews under my belt (a member of the Guild of Dreams blog, Bruce Blake, had a good post about how reviews affect Indie authors especially here).
So if you bought or downloaded Cerberus, and liked it, please consider going back to Amazon and leaving a review!
Meanwhile, work on The Hydra Offensive continues; you can track the progress with the Word Count tracker on the right sidebar. Currently, I’ve just passed 13.7K words! More than15% complete.
Gunpowder Fantasy 