Category Janus

The Phoenix Fallacy: Book 2!

Hey folks,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Mine was a mixture of mad-scramble and occasionally being a bit more lazy than I should have.  As some of you know, I didn’t end up travelling home this year, which marks it as the first time I haven’t spent the holiday with my family.

Fortunately for me, I’ve met plenty of wonderful people up here in Seattle, and a few of them were kind enough to invite me over to join them!  I ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner with the family of one of my project teammates.  It was a great meal, with delicious homemade fixings and a truly memorable apple pie at the end to finish it off!  All of it was made from scratch, which makes the feat of cooking it all even more impressive.  Many thanks to the Street family for the wonderful meal.

Wh...

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The Final Stretch(es)

Hey folks,

Things are coming down to the wire now, both for my book and my school projects.  On the book front, I’ve seen several covers so far, and although the final isn’t quite ready yet, I should have a version in the next week or so.  While I’ve been waiting for that, and when I haven’t been directly editing, I’ve been adding some extra content to Book II.  This includes a brand new appendix with some extra lore for those who really love to dive in, and some resources for those who want to be able to flip to the back for a quick refresher at any moment.  Early signs suggest it really helps out and adds to the quality of the read, so I’m pretty excited about showing all of that soon.

On the school front, we had our Alpha presentations this week, and overall, it went pretty well...

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Halloween!

Hey folks,

The past few days have been really busy.  I’ve been working on my GAM100 project Robo Knight Rusty all week and had a major feature presentation on Friday.  I’ll fill in the details on that next time, but for now I wanted to say a belated Happy Halloween to everyone!

Next week should be a little less rushed, so I’ll see you then!

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The Colors of Fall

Hey Folks!

I don’t know about you, but the last week went by extremely quickly.  Maybe it’s my self-imposed deadline with the book closing in, or the fact that my game project just seems to be moving up faster and faster, but the days are really short right now.

Of course, it might have to do with the fact that the days themselves are literally getting shorter, too.

I’ve never lived in an area that had a true ‘Fall’ season before, so seeing the colors change here in Redmond has been pretty remarkable.  Funny enough, I didn’t even notice the change happening at first.  As a testament to at least my nature (if not human nature), I spent every day of the last week riding back and forth to school and apparently never looked up.

Just by accident as I was riding one morning, I adjusted my hel...

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Almost Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Book Sales…

Hey loyal readers!

It’s time for a book sales update, with some of the major lessons I’ve learned from the past month.  First off, let me give you some straight sales numbers:

– Last month (September), I sold just over 500 books.  Amazon has a delay in releasing the exact numbers, so I have to use my own tracking (which has a couple weaknesses I will get to in a moment).

– Amazon Prime members borrowed 12 books, which means they get to read it for free through my participation in the program (more on this in a moment, as well).

– 6 people returned the book (this number was already factored into my total sold above).  Why on earth would any return such an awesome book, you ask?  All I know is, there are a lot of strange people out there, my friends.

Now onto the juicier details, includi...

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Quick Book 2 Update

Hey readers and members of ODIN’s army!

I just wanted to give a quick update on Book II release progress.  Despite the heavy workload from school, I think we’re still going to make the October release window.

I made some good progress this weekend on edits, and I’ve got my original cover artist hard at work on a new cover.  The cover should be ready in early October, and so I think it will be possible to get a final version by late in the month and prepare the book for release.  There’s still plenty to do, and school is definitely pushing it to the limit, but you can bet I’ll be putting in the overtime to get the book out the door.

My goal is to have a sales update on Book I by the end of the month...

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An Uphill Climb

I’m aiming to have my Seattle post up tomorrow or Thursday, depending on how busy my schedule is Wednesday with orientation, but I wanted to make a quick post about the book and e-publishing.

The last few weeks have been very enlightening to me, especially regarding the amount of work it takes to get anywhere in the field of writing.  I’m not talking about writing the book itself, which is in many ways a Herculean effort alone.  I’m talking about the marketing and getting the word out about it.  Just three weeks ago, I was selling 50 books a day on Amazon and climbing.  Now I’ve dropped to around 30.  It’s extremely troubling, as you might imagine...

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Book Reviews and Book 2 Update!

I’m deep into the Book 2 edits now, and it’s going more smoothly than I had hoped.  I’ve still got plenty of work to do, but it appears we’re still on track for an October release.  Look for The Phoenix Fallacy Book 2 in October, with more updates and writing tips to follow later this month and in September.

Let me also just give a quick shout out to my readers and reviewers.  I can’t express my thanks for all your support!

Every great review makes a huge difference, adding credibility to my book, and garnering more attention for it.  I really appreciate each one of you who has taken the time to give me a review, even those who didn’t give me five stars.  I can’t expect everyone to like it, but judging it fairly makes it clear that the book is worth a new reader’s time.

Thanks again t...

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Welcome to LA LA land!

My next stop was the West Coast of California – LA and Corona del Mar!

If you’ve never been to LA or Corona Del Mar, you might not understand how accurate the title of the post is, but honestly, a bad day in either of those locations can trump a good day somewhere else.  The California sun is pretty much always shining, but it doesn’t get insanely hot, like Twentynine Palms, or humid, like Florida.

If you’ve got to pick one place to visit in California, it’s hard to go wrong with Corona del Mar.  When I say the weather is perfect, I mean it’s PERFECT.

For those of you living someplace other than right there (or maybe San Diego), imagine being able to leave your windows and doors open year round because the temperature is always fantastic...

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Ouch! The Soul-Crushing Effect of the Three-Star Review

I got my first three-star review Monday.  I have to admit, it caught me a bit off-guard.

It’s not that I didn’t expect I would eventually encounter a three-star review.  They happen.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the soul-crushing effect that came with it.

First there was denial:

‘Hmmm – I must have misread that.’

Wait...what?

Wait…what?

Then, there was anger:

What?  How can someone say they read through a book in a matter of hours and then give it THREE STARS?’

I will destroy you!

I will destroy you!

Bargaining came next:

‘That doesn’t make any sense.  Maybe they misclicked?  Is there something I’m missing here?’

Maybe if I can get another 30 5-star reviews...

Maybe if I can get another 30 five-star reviews…

Then I went back to anger!

‘Curse you, random Amazon reviewer!  Your insolence will not be tolerated!’

My anger cannot be expressed in text!

My anger cannot be expressed in text!

Depression h...

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