This is CorreiaTech’s Marketing Daiymo Jack Wylder. The ILOH is traveling out of town this week so our CFO Wendell has asked me to take this opportunity to make some adjustments on the Monster Hunter Nation website. Do not adjust your internet- the entire process shouldn’t take that long and should be relatively painless. If you experience any tingling or numbness, see your doctor. Thank you.

edited to add:
Due to multiple requests we have now implemented an edit feature on comments. Once you post, if you refresh the page you should see an ‘edit’ button by your post along with a 5 minute timer counting down; once it hits 0, that’s it. (That way typos can be fixed, but people can’t go back and change what they said after they get called out on it.)

I’m going to post the changes here so you don’t have to scroll through all the comments to keep up. I can’t guarantee this will stay here forever, but at least until Larry returns…

THE List and progress

-Preview button ((resolved with the 5 minute edit ability))
-That too big space up top (menu) ((resolved))
-Menu is hard to read and not centered ((resolved))
-That whole ‘on phone you have to see the books first’ thing. ((I’ve had a lot of back and forth with the theme developer and he agrees it’s a problem. He’s coded a fix and it will be included in the next update.))
-I understand wanting the comments on the left as that’s the “prime” real estate. Might swap them back. ((Switched back.))
-Am planning on reducing the font size on the sidebars((resolved))
-‘Post Comment’ is unreadable white on white ((resolved)
-Some pages (An Opinion on Gun Control for example) are slow to load. ((Comments will now be split into multiple pages of 50 top level posts. This will speed up the site overall (I know it can be annoying. There’s a balancing act required…)))
-Building off the above, currently it is oldest comments on top and works down from there. ((Larry will advise which way he prefers upon his return.))
-Member requested ability to post YouTube videos in comments ((Resolved, although it seems to only work from desktop/full addresses and not mobile ones))
-Request for Twitter feed to move to side bar ((Until we get the ‘what comes up first on phones’ issue resolved, it’s staying down there so it’s out of the way)
-Font ((changed to a different one, but I’m not seeing what other are seeing. If you have a problem with the font, PLEASE send me a screen shot to correiatech1911 at gmail dot com- I can’t fix what I can’t reproduce!))
-A few folks had a problem reading the font selected. ((This is going to be a fine tuning thing- a couple of hunters sent me screen shots (which helps). I’m trying another one today and can tweak this on the fly until I find one that only a couple of people complain about. Ultimately it will come down to the font Larry likes best…)) ((Update 2: the people who sent me screenshots are much happier with this one so as long as Larry likes it, we’ll keep it on this one…))

The ALL NEW Monster Hunter Nation! Now with 76% MORE Hate! New Package- Same Great Taste!!

I will be at Book Expo in New York City next week. This is an industry show, I don’t think there is anything open to the public, and I’m booked up with business stuff the whole time. So I won’t be doing any regular events or even playing tourist while I’m there.

I’ll have the full calender of my tour stops and cons for the rest of the year posted as soon as I get back. I just needed to figure a few things out schedule wise before posting. People have been asking, yes, I will be at DragonCon. I’m going to ALA too, but that is causing me to miss LibertyCon. I’ve got about a month of tour around the release of Son of the Black Sword, and I’ll post all those soon.

Speaking of which, Jim Butcher read it and loved it. He wrote a blurb for the cover. Jim is a very talented author, I’ve been a fan of his for a long time, so that was pretty neat. Beyond the blurb he gave me a bunch of feedback on the plot. Jim got what I was trying to do and what I’m working towards. He’s a perceptive guy. 🙂

Some of you have noticed that on the eARC for Son of the Black Sword the cover has changed.
http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2688-son-of-the-black-sword-earc.aspx

The basic black cover is now the cover for the hard back. The Larry Elmore painting is now a full color art page in the front with the maps. This was one of those marketing decisions that the author didn’t have much to do with. There was a bunch of discussion. I trust my marketing people, so if that’s what they say to do, that’s what we’ll do.

People ask me how much say an author has over their cover. At first? Zip. And by the time you are successful enough that your opinion actually does count, that means you’ve sold enough books that you trust the people who sell them for you.

That said, this picture is still totally bad ass, and I’m glad it is in there as a glossy art page. (I’m also putting it on my wall in a nice frame).

The packet of samples is now available for download.

 http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/packet_download/ 

It should go without saying, but apparently I need to plainly state the blatantly obvious, everyone should read the nominations and vote honestly.

Check this out.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1486366537/champions-of-aetaltis-a-heroic-fantasy-anthology

Marc Tassin put this fiction anthology together. It features a bunch of really good authors with all new stories.

I first met Marc at GenCon, where he is one of the organizers of the writing track. He told me about his RPG project, and the world he’d created for it. He wanted to know if I’d write a story for it. I get a lot of writing requests and have to turn most of them down, but after I read through the world guide, I had to do it. They’ve created something unique and fun here.

In the world of Aetaltis there is an order of mystical warrior monks called the Kinjatsi. There is also a stoic, tough race called the Drothmal, who worship the god of suffering. Once I got done reading the world guide, I contacted Marc and asked if anybody had claimed Kinjatsi. No? Score. 🙂

My story is already done and turned in, and I think it came out pretty darned good if I do say so myself.  So please, check it out.

The eBook for my first novel, Monster Hunter International, is available for free right now. We just added MHI to the Baen Free Library.

My publisher follows the same basic marketing philosophy as crack dealers. The first hit is free! If you like it, there is a whole lot more where that came from.