My interview with the Blasters and Blades podcast is now live. You can listen to it on Anchor FM or on YouTube:
My wife listened to it earlier and said to me, “You talk too much,” which is true. I was nervous during this interview, and when I get nervous, I talk.
During the interview, we mostly talked about Rags and Muffin, which, it just so happens, would make a nice Christmas gift for the geek in your life.
Recently, I gave an interview to the podcast Blasters and Blades, so it’s only fair I give them a shout-out, though my interview won’t go online until late October (I’ll let you know when).
You can find the podcast several ways, one of the easiest being their YouTube channel.
I got onto the Blasters and Blades podcast thanks to Declan Finn, a prolific pulp author who gave the podcast’s hosts several recommendations for interviewing new talent.
I was on the podcast discussing Rags and Muffin, of course. This was my first podcast interview, but I think I acquitted myself fairly well. I likely droned a little, and since I was nervous, I made a few silly mistakes: For example, I’m reasonably sure that, in describing the technology of the book, I accidentally implied that I thought there were no electronics in the 1980s. Aside from that, I don’t think I came across as too terribly stupid.
So check out their channel, and I’ll let you know when my interview goes live.
We are right down to the wire on the free book promotion for Jake and the Dynamo. You will never have a better opportunity to get yourself a copy, and there is literally nothing to lose.
Also, we are coming to the end of the 99-cent offer on Rags and Muffin. A richer and darker story but still loaded with action, it will give you a different experience from Jake while keeping within the theme of child heroes.
If you read either book, consider taking the time to leave a brief review. It is enormously helpful to an indie author.
The time has come! Today is the release day of Rags and Muffin! This is, I am sure, my best works so far. I don’t mind saying I am proud of this novel. If you like cute girls and gruesome violence, this is the book for you.
To celebrate the release, I have two sales to offer you: First, Rags and Muffin will be available for only 99 cents. If the price hasn’t shifted by the time you read this post, check back later in the day.
Second, Jake and the Dynamo is available for free during the five days of our release party. You heard that right: Free. If you’ve been wondering whether to check out some madcap horror-humor magical-girl action, now is the time. The book will never be cheaper.
Both novels are available as eBooks, in print, and on Kindle Unlimited. The eBook versions are DRM-free with lending enabled because I believe you should own what you buy.
Get them here:
The upcoming, action-packed novel Rags and Muffin will release on December 10th, just in time for you to cozy up with it over Christmas break. Taking place in a sweltering city somewhere in the tropics and featuring a lot of fiery explosions, Rags and Muffin will help you think warm thoughts during the cold winter.
You can preview it right now. Chapters one through four are available as a PDF file:
Rags and Muffin Sample Chapters (PDF)
My latest novel, Rags and Muffin is now available for predorder! This is a rough, tough vision of the magical-girl concept that brings together a wide range of influences from the kumari veneration of Nepal to the film noir tradition of American cinema. Bone-crunching action blends with a brooding meditation on the concept of the child hero. Rags and Muffin is Fancy Nancy as written by Rudyard Kipling after binging on mecha anime while tripping on acid.
And I have to give a special shout-out to the team at MiblArt, which knocked it out of the park with the book’s cover art. This is an incredible interpretation of Rags and Muffin, compelling enough to change my own vision of the characters. I’ll likely review their services in the near future.
Since I just got the cover art near the end of October, I’ve decided to push the release date back to early December because I want to run some promotions that require a preorder window. But I recommend ordering now to lock in the low preorder price.
This post contains affiliate links.
Someone recently left this review for Dead 2 Rites:
Horror with a sweet sense of humor
If you enjoy breezy adolescent adventure novels with cheap heroics and villains made of straw, give this series a big miss. Why don’t you grow up already, with this coming of age confection? That’s right, big kid, the child in you will delight to the glittering, grisly action that recalls the Power Rangers episodes you devoured instead of studying. The adult in you will appreciate the ironic perspective you gain from Jake, the boy hero protagonist who is slowly piecing together the rotten puzzle of his post-apocalyptic world, and the hellish bargain his friend, the Dynamo of the title, has made to save it from final destruction. Dead to Rites has it all: Sailor Moon superheroics, Cronenberguesque body horror, and moral conundrums that would make Oscar Wilde light another cigarette in the holder. Get it, and let it get you twisted.
Contains affiliate links.
Sometime back, I wrote a largely enthusiastic review of Vivid Strike!, which I consider the best series in the maddeningly inconsistent Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha franchise.
As far as I have been able to discern, the series is only legally available, at least in the U.S., on Amazon Prime—and I recently saw that the series is slated to disappear soon. At the time of writing, Amazon has posted a notice that it disappears in nine days. Assuming I can count, that means it will be gone on October 1st.
The rest of the Nanoha shows have previously disappeared from Amazon and are, as far as I know, not available anywhere else to the English-speaking audience.
Despite its problems, I do think ViVid Strike! is one of the best encapsulations of the magical girl warrior concept. If you’ve not seen it, you might consider watching it before it disappears. It doesn’t require knowledge of the other titles in the franchise.
Recently, Amazon ripped me off yet also didn’t. I have for many years had an Amazon Associates account, which is a method of getting a small amount of money from links and advertisements. Since I’ve run irregular review blogs for decades now, I’ve long had such an account. I haven’t made a profit from it—you need a crazy amount of traffic and click-throughs to make a profit—but it defrays the cost of my hobby a bit.
I had all but forgotten about my account, though I still habitually made links through it, simply because, until recently, I stopped getting any significant click-throughs after I switched from my old blog to this one. Just recently, after publishing my books, my click-throughs have begun generating what I consider a significant amount of money.
A few weeks ago, I got a notice from Amazon that, with no possibility of appeal, they were closing my account and handing my earnings over to the government. The notice seemed so unlikely that I contacted a representative to be sure I wasn’t getting hoaxed. It turns out it was genuine and also my own damn fault: I had neglected to update my contact and tax information for long enough that I was considered out of contact, and my earnings were therefore forfeit.
And that’s why you should keep track of that stuff.
I’m writing this in part because I opened a new associates account; as an indie author, it would be dumb not to have one as it means, at least occasionally, I can eke out slightly more royalties. Also, I need a few clicks to validate the new account, so in this post I am strongly encouraging you to buy Jake and the Dynamo. You’ll like it. It’s funny. That was an affiliate link, by the way.
I also, in the midst of this, accidentally discovered a feature I didn’t know existed. It appears that if I drop an affiliate link into the HTML editor with no markup around it, WordPress will automatically create that interactive box you see at the top of the post. That’s pretty neat, so I’m going to use that from now on.
The wait is over. Instant gratification can now be yours.
The DRM-free eBook features full-color illustrations. The paperback features new, more readable formatting with illustrations in glorious black and white.
And if you read, remember you can do me a solid by leaving an honest review.
Jake Blatowski can’t wait for high school—basketball, calculus, and a cafeteria that isn’t under investigation by the health department.
But he’ll have to wait: A computer malfunction has assigned him to the fifth grade!
It’s bad enough that he bangs his knees on the desks or that Miss Percy is going over long division . . . again . . . but Jake has to sit next to Dana Volt, a perpetually surly troublemaker determined to make his life a living hell.
Worse yet, Dana secretly belongs to a coalition of girls who protect humanity from the horde of deadly monsters plaguing the city—monsters that have chosen Jake as their next target!
Jake’s no hero; he just wants to make it to varsity tryouts. But now the impulsive and moody Dana is the only one who can save Jake from certain death—and Jake is the only one who can save Dana from herself.
