Seriously. I have no idea what to call it. That usually comes later, sometimes after everything else has been completed.

Speaking of completion, I had been thinking I was close to finishing the book for several days, but it wasn’t until Thursday that I actually saved the file, pushed myself away from the keyboard (I was sitting at my desktop computer instead of writing on a notebook like usual), and knew I was done. Now, don’t get me wrong: I still have a lot of work to do on the story before it’s ready.

Before I even get to my revisions, I’m going to sit on the story for a while. After enough time passes that I’m able to come back to it with a fresh perspective and hard, critical eyes, I’ll start cutting and shaping the story. From there, it’ll need to be edited and I’ll get some beta feedback. I also need to whip up a cover, which means contacting Igor again and hoping he has time in his schedule for yet one more commission. Once all of that is done and I make my final changes, it’s the home stretch. Assemble some files, do some last minute polish, and then it’s all done!

While I’m hoping this can all happen before Christmas, I somehow doubt that will be the case. The last time I was aiming for this exact release window I missed by five months. I don’t anticipate this one taking that long, but one can never be certain.

In the meantime, since I mentioned I’ll be sitting on the story for a while (as in, ignoring it to the best of my capabilities), I’ve started work on another project. This is a bit of a side project unrelated to any of my other various projects, and it may or may not see the light of day. I decided, however, that rather than try to shift into the mode required to write for the Scourge of Kallandin series, only to have to re-shift back to the Debate Team series, I would go a completely new direction that keeps me closer to what’s required for Ryan, Malone, Jaguar, and the rest of the folks involved in that series.

It’s too early to say if this side project has legs, but I’m optimistic about it. Time, as always, will render its judgement.

For now, know that I have a couple of items on the burners and ought to have at least one new thing in the near future, and possibly two. Exciting times are upon us! I know that my world is in the process of being turned upside down, but sometimes change, no matter how drastic, is what’s needed.

With the obligatory self-promotion out of the way, on to the additional self-promotion! I’m actually fairly close to finishing the first draft of the sequel to Omni. I don’t have a title for the story just yet, and it’ll definitely still be a while to go through revision, editing, proof-reading, and all of those fun (and sometimes frustrating) stages, then it’ll be ready. I’m not going to guarantee that it’ll be ready before this year is over (I may end up missing the end of the world–are we still making fun of that?), but it won’t be far beyond if so.

I’m excited to get it finished up and get it into people’s hands. Omni was something of an experiment in its genesis, and because of the way that book came together, I struggled with it in spots. I haven’t had anywhere near the same problems with the sequel, and in fact, have been able to explore some characters and backstory that I didn’t get the chance to get into with the first book. It is my hope that this story will help to fill in some blanks while also proving to be a good read on its own. Also, just in case I’ve never been clear about it, Omni, and its sequels, have been conceived as a three-story arc, so there’ll be one more in the Debate Team series after this next one. Beyond that, I can’t speak to anything because I have no plans.

Lastly, I’d like to take a moment to admonish the NHL and the NHLPA (mostly the NHL) for screwing all of us loyal fans out of hockey. Stop being jerks, act like adults, get your crap together, and drop the damn puck on this season already. While I wholly enjoy watching replays of Kings games from last season’s Stanley Cup playoffs, I’d rather see new, current games where the Kings continue to thrash opposing teams along the way in their quest to repeat with the exact same team they won the cup with last season. Exact. Same. Team. (With minor coaching changes, which is a good thing, or at least, can’t be a bad thing.)

Despite that, the entire process of developing Reborn—writing, revising, editing, and ultimately, publishing—turned out to be more instructive than I would have guessed. While I certainly learned much in my first go-round, here’s a few things I picked up from this most recent experience.

1. Every bookstore publishes at a different rate

This may seem obvious, but despite thinking that I understood what to expect from each bookstore, I’ve been astounded to discover that not only did I guess wrong on when the book would be available, I really didn’t learn anything from my first experience. For example, when I published Omni, Barnes & Noble took roughly three days to make the book available. As of the time I’m writing this, Reborn is now finally available on Barnes & Noble after spending… approximately three days in their system getting processed. So much for learning the first time around.

Additionally, I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly Apple made the book available in iTunes. With Omni, it took weeks because I had to wait for my account to be approved, but now that I’m in? I’m not sure, but Apple may have even beaten Amazon to making Reborn available to the public the same day it was uploaded. It’s nice to see some competition! However, that leads to…

2. Apple’s iTunes Producer is simultaneously cool and terrible

If you don’t publish directly with Apple (perhaps you use Smashwords (another point I’ll get to shortly)), then you may not be familiar with iTunes Producer. Where most every other bookstore uses some sort of web interface that works on damn near any system you can think of that’s capable of file transfers (one of these days I may try to see if an iPad or Android device is capable of pushing the files out), Apple requires you to use a Mac-only program if you want to publish directly with them.

Luckily for me, I’m an Apple guy when it comes to computers (though I use Windows in my “normal life”) so I’m able to publish directly with Apple and don’t have to go through a middleman (I’m looking at you, Smashwords). Apple has whipped up their own program that packages everything together and sends them a file with all of the details they need to sell your book/app/etc. While it, for the most part, has the usual Apple look, it’s very un-Applelike in that it’s a bit of a bear to use.

Admittedly, selling a product requires a lot of information so there’s only so much one can do when a service needs to gather a ton of information, but there is one area where Apple could easily improve upon their software. In this case, it’s a simple thing that most of the other vendors are able to automatically do for you with a single click (or maybe a half-dozen). What is this simple task? Choosing territories and prices for said territories.

Imagine that you have six territories available to you to sell in. Each territory must be individually selected, a price set, and another little thing or two set for it. That may not seem too bad, and it wasn’t a year ago when it was only six. Apple is now selling in 32 territories and constantly adding more, all of which require you to individually select each one, establish a price, and answer a couple of other questions they ask you. While Apple’s system is great once you get past this point and have your product available for sale (seriously, their data is awesome and updated in a timely fashion), you have to deal with the torture of setting your product pricing as many times as they have territories. There’s no way to automate this task, unlike Amazon where you can check a couple of boxes and have prices automatically set according to your native territory.

Speaking of Amazon, here’s a super important thing I learned:

3. When you upload your new book to Amazon, “claim” it on Author Central

I knew my book was available on Amazon, but whenever I searched for “KR Jacobsen” I only saw Omni. While I’m glad I saw Omni, I didn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing Reborn. I could follow a direct link to the book just fine, but searching? No luck. So I did what anyone would do: I double-checked that I spelled my name correctly, both in searching and in the author field for Reborn, and tried again.

As you might expect, I saw the same result. As the hours wore on and I still didn’t see my book appearing in the search results, I eventually decided I should look beyond the first page of results, and even the second, and see if my book was anywhere in the list of 159 matches to my name (never mind that they don’t really match). To my surprise, I found my book a few pages in.

Why wasn’t it sitting next to my other book? I had done everything correctly. Same publisher, same author, so why is it sitting in with a bunch of things that don’t really match a search for my name? Simple answer: Author Central.

How often do you check Author Central? If you’re like me, a few times initially, and then not so much. For me, Author Central doesn’t hold much value (yet?), but in this case, it’s extremely important. As soon as I logged into Author Central and claimed my book, it showed up as the second match in a search for my name.

I confirmed this change by using multiple browsers coming from multiple IP addresses—the same thing I did when I was trying to find Reborn by searching for it. Whenever I next get around to uploading the sequel to Omni, you can bet one of the first things I’ll do is check Author Central to update my list of books. You’re darn tootin’ I want all of my books to show up if you search for my name.

As a side note, a search for “KR Jacobsen Reborn” showed no results until I updated Author Central. Now? One result: my book. As it should be.

4. I’ve ignored Smashwords and don’t feel the slightest bit bad about it

Something I learned with Omni is that Smashwords has perhaps the worst system in place for uploading a book. Seriously—the Meatgrinder (yes, they call it that) is this ridiculous program that requires the document be in Word format. Just shoot me.

While I won’t start a rant about proprietary formats, I do hate Word. We’ve had a longstanding love-hate relationship, but these days? It’s almost entirely hate. I use it in my “normal life” (as alluded to above), but when I have the choice I use anything but Word. I do all of writing in Scrivener and do revision in Pages. It’s only when I need something specific, or have to in the case of Smashwords, that I use Word.

So yes, Reborn isn’t available in the Sony store right now because I didn’t go through Smashwords. It’s also not on Kobo and likely a couple of other sites that are small but have a niche following. You know what? I’ll live with it.

In the long run, yes, I’ll crack open Word and go through the nightmare that is formatting in Word (never mind that the book inevitably looks far worse than when I’m able to do it with a standard like, say, epub), but for now? The mere thought of trying to put together a Word formatted document that’ll make my book look ugly is a pain I don’t want to put myself through. (Have I mentioned their archaic requirements to have certain things (i.e. copyright pages) in specific locations? It’s an ebook! The old rules don’t apply—or at least, shouldn’t apply.)

Of course, Smashwords being a minor source of sales might have something to do with this decision, but I stand by my hatred of the Meatgrinder and Word.

5. Time is your friend

Lastly, this is something that I already knew, but it’s a variation that I hadn’t yet experienced in this way—namely, time away for your book is a good thing. How so? If you’ve ever written anything—manuscript, resume, letter—then you likely know that you need some space before you’re able to critique it properly. Even if you’re just shooting off an email, you may need to reread it several times before you’re able to send to it because you keep catching typos.

This isn’t as applicable in the case of emails since they’re usually quick and not much time is dedicated to them, but for anything else it pays to take time away from it. It’s amazing what a little time can do for your brain to forget everything you wrote. This is important because your brain has an annoying tendency to fill in blanks, automatically understand things that would confuse other people, and ignore duplicate words or obvious misspellings among other possibilities.

As soon as you get time away from your own writing, however, your brain does something unexpected and cool: it becomes super critical. This is a Good Thing ™ when you’re revising your own work and in some ways more important than just getting that first draft down. A mediocre first draft can turn into an excellent story with proper revision. The best way to revise? Take a break from your story.

In my case, I normally take anywhere from at least two weeks to a month or more between finishing a first draft and making my first revisions. Some people may be lucky enough to not have to do that, while others may need a bigger break. To each their own. However, in this specific case, I took a month between first draft and revision.

Revision took several months on its own, and by the time I was finished I knew everything about it. The next phase was editing, and after some time spent on going back and forth on things, discussing questions/ideas/etc. with the editor, I finally had what looked like a book that was ready to go.

Beta readers received the book after proofreading and proceeded to point out all of the problems that both I and my editor missed. Oops. No matter how many eyes you get on the project, you’re bound to miss something. (This is a lesson in its own right.)

However, here’s where I learned something new: taking another big chunk of time away from the book following your final edits and before giving it one more pass is a Really Good Thing ™.

Having fixed all of the typos and little things the beta readers found, I myself found yet more errors to correct and also had a fresh perspective on the story. Of course, while I was taking a break from this book I was working on another one (the sequel to Omni, if you’re curious), so I was in a different mindset that made Reborn seem even more “new” and “different” than it otherwise would have been.

However, I’m convinced that if I didn’t take that time between my final edits and making one more proofing pass, I don’t think I would have found anywhere near the same number of mistakes, nor would I have been able to make as any many minor changes and clarifications as I did.

While time may bend us all to its will, it can be your friend if you let it.

Finals words

I learned other things of course, some small and significant to only myself, others perhaps not, but these are what I find myself thinking of now that Reborn is out and I’m shifting gears back to a writing, not revising, mood. I know this has been a long post, and some may find these to be obvious tips, but I hope  someone gets something out of it. I know that when I get around to finishing up the second Debate Team book I’ll be thinking of these lessons… then again, I may just forget them only to relearn them. I seem to be good at that.

It’s been a heck of a journey writing, revising, editing, and finalizing this book, and now all of that time, hard work, and hours spent banging my head against whatever surface I could find has come to fruition.

Though not ever seller updates at the same pace (even though I uploaded the files at roughly the same time), Reborn is now available on the Kindle Bookstore and Apple’s iTunes Bookstore. Slow and steady comes in third, and Barnes & Noble now has it.

For now, enjoy! It’s been a labor of love and I’m off to my next project: the sequel to Omni, which is roughly 75% complete.

However, I will mention that part of the reason for the delay has to do with me being something of an idiot and overly confident. That’s usually the start of a good story, right?

I hate to disappoint, but I’m simply a clumsy oaf. Granted, I was on inline skates for the first time in over a dozen years (perhaps the LA Kings’ Stanley Cup victory inspired me to throw some skates on and grab a hockey stick, but the truth is I’ve been thinking about it for years). I was doing well despite the obvious tragic ending. Let’s just say that I need to relearn some basic skills, including spin stops. Definitely those.

A hard lesson learned is that as you get older, your body doesn’t react the same way it does when you’re young. For those of you perhaps still in your teens or early twenties, you may feel invulnerable. The mere thought of injury, outside of something heinous, never crosses your mind, and surely something as simple as falling to the ground can’t be dangerous. Add a few years to that and things suddenly change.

Your body doesn’t heal as quickly, and just as importantly, is injured more easily. Damage you could take at twenty and bounce back from in a day or two become weeks when you add a dozen or more years. It’s amazing how it happens, but that’s life.

So, as I have intimated, I suffered a bit of an injury from trying to relive my glory days of playing roller hockey. Luckily it was only a sprain, but it’s been a rather serious one that, even after a couple months, I still haven’t fully recovered from. Considering I sprained a wrist, and also considering that typing is central to being a writer (I haven’t mastered dictation and don’t want to write in longhand only to have to type it out later), I’ve been limited in what I could do.

Have I also mentioned the kitten-found-in-a-ceiling-turned-terror that temporarily joined the family at somewhere around three days old only to become a permanent fixture now at five months? No? Man… I posted a picture on twitter at the end of March and my how she has grown. CC has been an experience. She’s currently in the “let’s jump on surfaces I’m not supposed to be on and play with anything I can find, especially if it involves knocking said things under furniture” phase. I’ve never had a feral cat before, and considering she’s been raised from birth (or close enough) by humans (bottle feeding was a kick), maybe she isn’t truly feral. Just the same, she’s a strange one. But fun. And super sweet… when she wants to be.

I could go on and on with the hows and whys that have either been actual delays or make for good excuses as delay, but I probably shouldn’t. Let’s get to the meat of this post.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the picture accompanying this post is the front cover of my next book, Reborn. I’m excited about this story and the rather strange, convoluted path it has taken to get to where it is now, almost ready for you to read… after a slight delay, of course.

While Omni is a contemporary fantasy and something I’m proud of, Reborn is a dark fantasy that’s closer to what I truly love about the fantasy genre. It’s a tale of good and evil, of right and wrong, magic and swordplay, and of a quest with unlikely heroes and despicable villains.

Blood begets blood.

The land of Kallandin has suffered for centuries under the shadow of the wizard Acasul’Ra: never truly defeated, never truly banished. Convinced that Acasul’Ra’s most recent defeat almost a century ago was final, Kallandin has relaxed its guard.

Justin Detrier was there when his brother defeated Acasul’Ra, but Justin also knows that Acasul’Ra was not truly killed because the wizard has a terrible secret to his survival. The kingdom’s complacency has put everyone in danger, and no one wants to listen to the warnings of a man cursed by an evil wizard.

The magic that has sustained Acasul’Ra for centuries binds him to Justin’s family, but years of pain, suffering, and death have decimated the Detrier bloodline. Now, only Justin and one other remains, and together they’re Kallandin’s only hope. However, for a kingdom steeped in tradition, the idea of a female warrior saving the kingdom is not just laughable, but blasphemous.

The time draws near for Acasul’Ra to rise once again from his grave and come to Kallandin, and this battle will be the last for one of them. Unlikely heroes must find a way to do what countless heroes over centuries could not: kill Acasul’Ra. Permanently.

When August 31st rolls around, Reborn will be available. I hope you’ll make the time to read it.

Stay tuned for more info, teases, and possibly pictures of a real life Ceiling Cat. Also, I may get the wiki officially started. What wiki? You’ll have to wait and see.

Oh, and in the meantime? I’ll be working on the sequel to Omni. I’d love to say it’s only a couple of months away, but you know how that goes.

It’s been a learning experience. I ought to have a better idea what to expect next time, but for now, my goal is to get Reborn out as quickly as possible (ideally any day now). Though the final text is all but completed (I have a couple of typos to squash), a few little details remain to be finalized, so as soon as it all comes together, I’ll definitely post something here. And maybe twitter. And Google+. Possibly Facebook.

Sorry for the delay!

Reborn is an epic fantasy, though it may be a little more accurate to call it a dark fantasy. Omni, while a fantasy, is much more contemporary, Reborn harkens back to the days of swords and sorcery, with a touch of horror to keep things interesting.

For Justin Detrier, he has always lived in the shadow of his brother Morgan, the bigger, stronger brother. Morgan was the chosen one, destined to face the Scourge of Kallandin, an evil wizard who has threatened the land for years. Justin has accepted his fate with grace and humility, but when cryptic rumors become reality and Morgan is no longer capable of  facing down the kingdom’s oldest foe, it’s up to Justin to save the kingdom, only he can’t: the Scourge has cursed him.

Dejected, forlorn, and without hope, Justin must find strength he doesn’t know he has and find a way to save the kingdom when no one else believes the threat that hangs over them. A story of courage, family, pain, and vicious action, Reborn is an uncompromising beginning in this dark fantasy trilogy.

Reborn has been a blast to write, and it’s also been instructive. Whether it’s in writing or just life in general, it’s important to try new things, and with this story, I’ve definitely done that. I’m not used to using elements of horror in my writing, and it’s been a bit of a challenge to work it into a story that I never originally viewed as such, but one that naturally came together that way.

I’m currently in the editing phase and anticipate finishing in the next week or two, followed by some final fine-tuning and proofreading and that sort of fun thing. At this rate, Reborn is on target for a May 2012 release.

Perhaps because life is a funny thing and certain facets of it are up in the air for me, this will be a bit of a kick in the rear and I’ll be able to get the next Debate Team story completed soon. I’ve been working on it in between revising and editing Reborn, and I’m currently a little over 25% of the way through. With a little luck, a summer release is entirely possible.

I’m excited at the prospect of getting the next Debate Team novel finished as I’ve increased the scope over the first book by introducing the perspective of some characters who didn’t get much screen time in Omni. By doing so it should answer some questions people have had and really give folks a feel for who these people are and why they’re doing what they’re doing. At the very least, I like how it’s coming together.

So, there’s a couple of books updates cryptically wrapped inside a couple of vague words about changes in life and such. Come back soon and check out Reborn. I can hardly wait!

Do you remember the weird kids in high school who’d sit in a little circle, or maybe at a table at lunch, holding a sheet of paper and rolling dice? No, they weren’t the local bookie and craps dealer at your school, rather they were the ones playing some sort of RPG (role-playing game). Heck, maybe you were one of them–I know I was.

I had two games of choice back then: Advanced Dungeon & Dragons (2nd edition), and Heroes Unlimited. Everyone has heard of D&D, be it good, bad, or otherwise, but I’m willing to bet most people haven’t heard of Heroes Unlimited. It’s a shame, really, because Palladium makes some pretty cool games. While I had a group of buddies I’d play AD&D with, I only had one other friend who would play HU.

It was a fun change of pace because it’s all about being an over-the-top comic book hero and doing heroic things. What kid, teen, or adult wouldn’t love to do that? By that logic, I must be a big comics fan, right? Not at all. Never have been. I have nothing against them, and do find myself reading a graphic novel here and there, but I don’t think I ever read a single one before I was 27 or 28. I’ve always enjoyed words and never found myself wanting pictures in the story itself. I’m weird that way.

This, of course, leads us to Comic Book Hero: The Greatest Cape. It’s a simulation game for Windows (exclusively) about, well, being a comic book hero. Or anti-hero, if that’s your thing. “A simulation?” you ask. Yes, a simulation. As in, lots of text and numbers. No, really. Text and numbers. Oh, and an awful UI, but we’ll get to that later.

Before we go further, if you’re unfamiliar with Adam Ryland, the creator of CBH, he’s written numerous other simulation games. They’re mostly either focused on wrestling or MMA. It’s a fairly small niche inside of another fairly small niche. He’s basically a one-man game producer, though he does get some outside help for graphics and such. Anyhow, his games are fairly inaccessible to the uninitiated, and they’re very data/numbers heavy. They’re real simulators–these are no action games.

With that in mind, what exactly is CBH? Perhaps it can best be described by what you do in your first five minutes: pick your difficulty, decide if you’re going to use a preexisting hero from an original fictional comic world or create your own character, pick a “writer” name (by playing the game you’re “writing” comic books about your character–you see?), pick a hero name, and then start being a hero. As a player, you “control” your hero insofar as you decide on when to add or upgrade powers, even remove powers; travel to different cities; track down villains; try to find NPCs to talk to/hang out with/start a romance with; meet with your team/alliance (or create one); help out the community; rebuild your secret identity; go on patrol; and so on. Yes, you can do a lot, but each “day” consists of doing only one of those activities, and whatever you choose to do is not a guarantee: it’s all decided by numbers.

A day, for instance, can consist of trying to track down another hero (it does get dangerous running around solo) so that you may form a friendship. Once you find this hero and become friends, you can go on patrol in future days or they may even give you information on upcoming villainous activities. But, while looking for that hero, you may also get ambushed by a villain and find yourself in combat.

Combat is anything but pretty. Why? Because it’s all numbers. At first it’s a bit confusing, but combat basically revolves around rolling a higher number than the other person. That’s it. You roll a higher number by having higher stats (strength, endurance, willpower, etc.), and you get a better chance to roll a higher number by being higher “level” (your popularity) or taking powers that give you more rolls. If you win, congrats! You get some points that can be allocated to enhancing/purchasing skills/powers/etc. If you lose, you lose your unsaved points and have to recuperate.

Along the way, you’ll have to watch your health, your energy (required for using certain powers), your stress level (even comic book heroes are stressed), your social level (don’t be a hermit!), your fulfillment (“Am I making a difference?”), and, if you want, your romance level. Romance, by default, is optional, but increasing it increases the positive psychological aspects. Of course, if a friend or loved one dies, then your tragedy level rises. Yes, your tragedy level.

There’s no specific goal to the game. That’s its strength and its weakness. You’re writing your own story, so it’s up to you to decide what you want to do. Along the way you may find yourself in a position where you have to make some sort of damning, moral choice, but I haven’t seen those yet (from what I can tell, it looks neat–you possibly have the chance to die, and if you do, it’s game over). The game is “done” when you decide it’s done. Unhappy with that hero? Start another. Sick of being a pre-made hero? Make your own. The freedom of choice is wonderful and refreshing.

However, it’s all very numbersy. That’s how Mr. Ryland’s games work. They also rely on a heavy dose of role-playing, so if you’re not much of one to role-play, you may not find you’re able to get as much enjoyment out of these games as others do. That said, it’s still fun, and there should be enough for most everyone, if playing games with lots of data and numbers and almost no help files whatsoever is your idea of fun.

Oh, I didn’t mention that the help system is terrible? Let’s get the bad things out of the way then: while an improvement over other games, question mark boxes are sprinkled throughout the game for you to click on. They’ll tell what this ability does or what the tragedy level means, but at the end of the day, you only know the bare minimums. You don’t have any information on how a lot of different aspects actually work and what things really mean. For instance: say you want to find another hero. What determines your chances of success? If you read the forums, you’d know it’s a roll of your cunning versus the other hero’s. However, that isn’t stated in the game. There’s a mention in the cunning help mark that indicates it “helps” you to track down NPCs, but it doesn’t say how.

And that, as well, is how Mr. Ryland’s games often work. He doesn’t like to give away his algorithms, even if they’re that simple. That means you’ll sometimes struggle to understand why something happens when you’re convinced the result should be the opposite. A search on the forums usually uncovers the answer (but not always).

The rest of the help consists of a single-page HTML file that gives you a general understanding of a couple of things. In fairness, there’s more than enough information for most users to get by with. They’ll be able to figure out on their own how some things work, but for others, they’ll be forever mystified. For people like me who must know the hows and whys, it’s frustrating.

The other mark against CBH is the interface. I know Mr. Ryland isn’t a UI engineer, and I don’t necessarily fault him for it, but the UI is hideous. It’s outdated, inefficient, and I’m sorry, I know this is personal opinion, but ugly. While it doesn’t detract from a game that’s based upon numbers and data, in any other situation it’d be unforgivable. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.

On a related note, the game screen is a fixed 1024×768 window. This means if you have a small display, you’re probably okay since most displays are a higher resolution than that. However, for those with large monitors, it’s a small box on the desktop, and the text can be difficult to read (especially because the fonts are awful–Comic Sans, not a good choice). Worse, there’s no way to change these things, so you have to deal with small, ugly text, and a small window if you’re on a big monitor.

My gripes are all fairly minor in the grand scheme. No one else is making games like Mr. Ryland, and even though I complain about certain things, I really do enjoy the game. Specifically where this game is concerned, I think it’s a one-of-a-kind. I know of a few similar games to some of his others, but I don’t remember seeing anything like CBH, and perhaps for that reason alone, I don’t regret the $25. I want him to know I appreciate his time and effort and want him to continue making new games. If he does, chances are good I’ll buy them, even though it’s a pain for me to have to reboot into Windows or boot a virtual machine just to play (I’m a Mac guy).

Here’s the final verdict: if you’re a numbers/simulation nerd and you’ve ever found yourself wishing you were a comic book hero, then buy Comic Book Hero: The Greatest Cape. It may have a steep learning curve, but if you’re patient enough to learn it, it’s rewarding. And if you’re a little hesitant to spend the money, try the demo. Yes, the demo is unfairly weighted against you in battle, but it gives you an adequate idea of how things work.

To recap 2011, I went from being somebody that almost everyone had never heard of, to someone slightly-less-than-almost everyone had never heard of. It’s not so bad, really. This is what I figured would happen based upon what I’m comfortable with doing. Quite simply, I don’t want to promote, promote, promote for the next several months, so instead I’m just writing.

That, of course, means that I’m usually too busy to do the things that would get me name recognition now, but all in good time. I’m a patient Padawan.

Anyhow, 2011 saw Omni‘s release, the first book in the Debate Team series. I’d be lying if I told you the Debate Team has more than three books planned, but I think more is possible. However, the story arc is a relatively small one, and three feels right, so that’s what I’ll be writing. (I reserve the right to change this somewhere down the road, likely around the time of writing book three.)

Book two in the Debate Team series is moving along quite well. The focus on the first book was fairly narrow, and for specific reasons. There’s a lot of information that’s left to the reader to inuit, and more that’s simply not answered. Book two aims to fill in some of those gaps by expanding upon the perspective and the characters, while simultaneously picking up exactly where Omni left off.

I’m also nearing completion on the first book in my unnamed dark fantasy trilogy. I’ve been working on this one for quite some time now, and because of the way I’ve written it, I actually have some of the second book completed as well. The story arc is established as I originally wrote the outline to all three books (as one giant outline) when I began the process of developing this story, its characters, and its world.

Those projects are clear in my mind, and they’re going to be my focus for 2012, and likely a fair part of 2013 as well. Though I have an ambitious plan to publish the two remaining Debate Team novels this year, along with the first and second parts of the dark fantasy series, I’m not sure I can release four complete, high-quality novels in the span of a year. I refuse to publish something that isn’t ready, so if it means I have to move things into 2013, so be it.

And what would I be without a boatload of other projects being kicked around? I’d be someone else, that’s what. So let’s list them:

• One sword and sorcery trilogy (that’s heavy on the sword, and not so much the sorcery);
• One “realistic fantasy” series that’s completely devoid of magic;
• One fantasy book (I’m not sure which fantasy genre it falls into yet) involving someone who has been returned to life;
• And one post-apocalyptic science-fiction/fantasy book that I enjoy the crap out of, but don’t really know where it’s going.

So there you go. I have a lot going on, though I admit I don’t spend as much time on those other projects as I do on my main ones. (But, to let you in on a secret: a couple of those manuscripts are actually complete. Shhh.)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have a “vampire” story kicking around in my head for one of these days. There’s no sparkling here, unless it’s light reflecting on pools of blood. Or guns. Either way.

So, that’s 2011 and a sneak peak at 2012. At this point, I’m shooting for a Q1 release for the first book in my dark fantasy trilogy, while I’m also aiming for a Q2 release for book two in the Debate Team series. I can’t predict at this point how likely either of these scenarios are, but it’s what I’m shooting for.

Wish me luck!

If you haven’t heard, it’s all the rage in the last couple of days. Amazon, well-known and loved (I suppose) for its ease of allowing folks to publish, is endeavoring to make it easier for books to reach a broader market. How? By allowing authors to enroll their works in the KDP Select program that allows Kindle owners to “borrow” books from Amazon’s library. (We’re going to ignore the inanity of attaching physical world ideas to a digital world.)

There’s a few problems with this, but for those who don’t know or for people who would wonder what Amazon is offering  authors to entice them, here it is: money. $500k to start, with a $6m allocated for next year. Yes, that “m” means million, as in, $6000000. That’s a lot of money, right? Here’s the catch: you only get a percentage of the pie.

Well of course you didn’t think Amazon would give all of it to one person, right? But to earn anything beyond a few pennies (admittedly, the numbers remain to be seen), you have to have your book “borrowed” more than pretty much everyone else. Here’s where we begin to discover why I won’t be participating in this, and why you will still have to buy my books (Kindle loaning and piracy aside): I’m never going to have more books borrowed than Stephen King. Or Dean Koontz. Or Stephanie Meyer. Or James Patterson. Or… and so it goes. I’m fine with that, but if that’s the case, that means I’m not going to see much in the ways of compensation for making my books available for free.

Ah, but I get to promote it for five days every 90 days. Hooray? So does everyone else. While it’d admittedly be more promotion than I’m doing now, that’s a temporary situation. I somehow doubt five days of promotion, along with the others thousands of people who’ve signed up (27000 signed up the first day, or so I’ve seen claimed), is going to do much.

Besides, one also has to grant Amazon exclusivity of the book for 90 days. That means no selling at Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Smashwords, and on and on. I don’t sell exclusively on Amazon, and I’m not going to grant them exclusivity.

There’s a couple smaller catches that go with the exclusivity thing, namely that Amazon auto-enrolls your book every 90 days if you don’t tell them not to, and should you remove your book or publish it elsewhere during the exclusivity period, they beat you with a stick (well, they hold onto your earnings, but then that’s really your fault).

Smashwords has a fairly lengthy blog post up going into why this is such a bad deal. Granted, they have a horse in this race because they’re an ebook publisher, but I actually agree with most of the sentiment. Mark Coker is pretty much spot-on in it, but he’d earn a lot more good will by having his damn company accept epubs instead of crappy Word files (hello! Standards!), not that I’m particularly bitter about it (or the time I have to spend making said crappy Word files).