The new Tom Stranger, Number One in Customer Service, is available on Audible now!
This one is a complete collection. It includes the original Adventures of Tom Stranger, Murder of Manatees, and three all new stories featuring Tom and Jimmy the Intern. Doughnut Run, Apocalypse Cow, and The Custies.
The new Tom Stranger is available for preorder on Audible now.
This one is a complete collection. It has three new stories, and also includes the first two. Adam Baldwin narrates once again, and they even got me to record the introduction. Don’t worry, you only have to listen to my goofy voice for the first few minutes. 🙂
My co-editor on the Monster Hunter Files has a new thriller out now. This isn’t a Book Bomb because I’ve not read it yet, but I have read snippits that are really good. (and me and Jonathan Maberry might even show up as police detectives!)
It has been another busy month here on Yard Moose Mountain.
Book Release Aftermath Stuff:
My last regular release was Monster Hunter Guardian in August with Sarah Hoyt. I got some numbers for that, and it did awesome. I am very pleased. On Nielsen Bookscan (the most comprehensive bestseller list) in fantasy the only things we lost to were Good Omens (two of the most popular authors ever with a new hit TV show) and James Patterson (who holds the world’s record for #1 bestsellers). So I’ll take it! 😀
I couldn’t figure out why my overall Amazon author rank didn’t jump much though. Usually when a new MHI book comes out I end up in the top ten. It wasn’t until two months later that I realized Amazon didn’t have Guardian listed as one of my books for some bizarre reason. It’s fixed now. (honestly, the only real point of ending up that high on the author list is so you can take screen caps of which big shot you are next to for bragging rights!)
Then Invisible Wars came out. This is an omnibus collection of the Dead Six novels with Mike Kupari. Omnibuses are interesting, in that they’re this oddball product, but I really like them. The Monster Hunters one has made me a surprisingly large amount of money over the years.
One note on Invisible Wars though, because it’s a collection and people have already reviewed the books, it only has a couple of reviews on Amazon so far. And one of those is a one star because the guy loved the books, but zinged it because Amazon labeled it wrong. Thanks man, but the giant soulless megacorporation don’t care. All reviews like that (or my other favorite, UPS damaged the package, one star) only punish the authors by lowering our overall ranking.
So if you guys who’ve read the Dead Six series get a chance, would you please go post a review? That’s always super helpful.
My next release is Target Rich Environment 2 in December. This is the 2nd volume of my collected short fiction. I love these. I love writing short stories. And for me it is a lot of fun to bounce all over between different universes in one collection. There’s MHI, Grimnoir, Forgotten Warrior, some original stand alones, and then I got to play in other people’s worlds, like Joe Ledger, Freehold, Alien, and Predator. All in one volume.
Plus on the cover, I look like Dad of War and my super hot wife is in a fur bikini. So basically the best cover ever. 😀
Book Stuff:
I’m almost done with Destroyer of Worlds, the 3rd book in the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior (Son of the Black Sword and House of Assassins). I am really pleased with how this one turned out. The rough draft is mostly finished. All I’ve got left is the final battle sequence, which I’m not going to give any spoilers for.
I believe our release date for this one is Fall 2020.
Both of the previous two in the series have won the Dragon Award, which is awesome, and I appreciate that, but you guys really need to nominate somebody else. Share the love. I got mine. I’m doing awesome. Other authors could use the boost.
Normally when I finish a rough draft I then take a break and work on some short stories for a few weeks. That way when I go back to edit I’m no longer so close to the manuscript that I miss dumb things.
Up next I need to do a short story for the LibertyCon anthology in honor of Uncle Timmy Bolgeo, and a short bit for an anthology Christopher Ruocchio is putting together.
Once the final Destroyer of Worlds is turned in then I will be working on the sci-fi collaboration with John D. Brown. John finished the rough a while ago, and has been patiently waiting for me to meet my other pressing deadlines so I can do my thing. I appreciate that. John is one hell of a good writer, so I’m really excited for this one.
There’s a bunch more stuff in the pipeline after that. More MHI, more Grimnoir (new trilogy), more Forgotten Warrior, and another planned dark fantasy collaboration with Steve Diamond.
Related Book Stuff:
The MHI Savage Worlds RPG has been shipping! Yay!
As many of you (and everybody who backed this project) know we got hit with some big delays because Savage Worlds switched to a new edition during our project. So we were stuck, release a dated product with the old rules, or wait for the new edition.
We decided to wait for the new edition, and I’m glad we did. I think it came out beautiful.
Once that’s all caught up I really want to Kickstart Gritty Cop Show, but RPG stuff is just a fun side project for me. Regular book writing has to come first.
Also, related, the Vault Books limited edition Grimnoirs. Hard Magic has shipped and they are working on Spellbound. There are still some available for sale. These are truly the prettiest books I’ve ever seen.
I’ve got a couple other secret projects in the works, but nothing I can talk about yet.
No new updates on the TV show options. They renewed, which is nice. So I’m still getting paid to do basically nothing, which is also very nice.
Personal Stuff:
Life is good.
One of my coauthors and best friends is getting married this weekend. Congratulations, Mike and Cathe. You guys are amazing and we’re all really excited for you.
We’re still unpacking boxes at Yard Moose Mountain. I got some help from the USU Extension office and we’re going to be planting a bunch of native plants in all the parts the construction tore up. And also the range, because my range is gigantic, I need to prevent erosion, and also needed something that wouldn’t catch on fire during the summer.
Some excellent news, we sold our old house. Yay! We bought and built when the market was down, so we made a pretty darn good profit on it. Selling a house is a pain, but we had an awesome realtor. If you are in northern Utah I unreservedly recommend Cade Erickson. He’s sold two houses for me now in ten years, and found us our last house, and the property that would become Yard Moose Mountain.
I mentioned this in the last update, but we got puppy, Panzerfaust the Krasnovian Waffle Hound (or Booflehund in his native language). Holy moly I forgot what a pain the ass puppies are. He’s a wonderful, happy, fun little floof, but my gosh potty training sucks. I’m having flash backs to our actual babies. But he’s–slowly–coming along.
Faust is a lot of fun though. It’s a good thing dogs have the whole unconditional love thing going for them, because otherwise it would be tempting to just leave him out at 2:00 AM for the coyotes.
And thankfully the other giant time suck in our lives, high school football, the season is almost over. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a lot of fun to watch (my son is a 6’4″ 240 pound Freshman and all around beast) but my poor wife spends a lot of time driving back and forth for practices. Football is a giant time suck and I’m looking forward to this kid getting his driver’s license.
It’s weird having your kids get old. I’ve got one in college being a responsible adult (and published author!). The next one has a job and will be in college soon. That’s nuts. I don’t feel old enough to have adult children.