I used to worry heavily about concepts, about extreme details about setting, worldbuilding, plot, and pacing. All of those things are nice, and when they come together, they can make for a fine book, but what differentiates a book most readers find good or even great, is having a relatable protagonist that people can care […]
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Review: Wandfasted by Laurie Forest
I’ve been saying that within 2 years, Laurie Forest will be one of the biggest, most respected names in fantasy. Her new novella, Wandfasted, will go a long way toward making that reality. It’s a longer novella, almost full novel length, which is good bang-for-your-buck in terms of entertainment/cost value. And actually, it’s almost two […]
#CNNBlackmail: The Mainstream Media’s Waterloo
On the 4th of July, a day dedicated to celebrating independence from tyranny, CNN used its corporate power to strong-arm an anonymous internet user into apologizing for posting a meme. The article was written by Andrew Kaczynski, a reporter who came to fame via his Buzzfeed platform through publicizing a poor joke by an average young […]
Geek Gab: On The Books At 2 PM PST!
I’ll be on talking Indie vs. Trad Pub with Dragon Award winning author, Brian Niemeier. Tune in! I’m sure the both of us will have very nice things to say about the traditional publishing market/outlets/corporations.
How I Use Rhetoric To Sell Books
I’ve been thinking a lot about the use of rhetoric vs. dialectic lately in life, and how that works as a tool for persuasion. I won’t get into the details of it, but you can look up some pundit guy you may have heard of named Aristotle if you want to get into the nitty […]
Anthology Review: Straight Outta Tombstone
Straight Outta Tombstone – edited by David Boop. Between the title and the cover, it didn’t take much for me to be salivating over buying this. I’m a big fan of the Weird West, as many folk know, going back to my work on Doomtown Reloaded for the Deadlands RPG universe. Add in some of […]
LibertyCon Round Up!
Just getting back from LibertyCon, and I have to say I was pretty blown away by how awesome it was. Almost as awesome as being a gangsta with author A.M. Freeman here: As much as I understand they had some issues with capacity for the hotel, the actual convention at a train station and inside/around […]
#SteampunkMonth Review: Everland by Wendy Spinale
I went into Everland not knowing what to expect. I saw steampunk wings on a cover, heard it was a Peter Pan retelling but Steampunk, and that was enough to get me in the door. It turns out it’s more of a “twisted fairy tale” which I found out afterward is a genre in and […]
Where The Heck Is Jon?
Hello there loyal readers. I am quite sorry that this is the first time in… well, since you probably started reading that I haven’t had at least a blog a day up during weekdays, and that I’ve left you hanging for two straight days. That’s not very nice of me! I mentioned my LibertyCon schedule […]
LibertyCon Schedule – June 30th, Chattanooga TN!
I’ll be going to libertycon this weekend, and I’ll be in Nashville a couple of days before that to go see the Charlie Daniels Band and watch the Nashville Sounds play baseball. I actually have a pretty packed schedule but I’ll do my best to make time for everyone. At libertycon: Day Time Name […]
Social Media Strategy: Crowd Source Fun Things!
Something I do that’s different that I don’t see a lot of other authors do is crowd sourcing. “How do you crowd source books?” one might ask. I actually do it fairly regularly. I give my readers voices in what blogs they want to see and what I’ll write about if I have multiple ideas, […]
Psalm 40
Many of you probably don’t know it, but it’s been a rather hard week for me. I don’t say much about things like that, because I am a firm believer that mindset, energy, pushing toward goals are the way to overcome things. There’s also trusting in God. Instead of reading the news every morning, I’ve […]
