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  • Episode 204: Audiobook Sampler Platter!

    Episode 204: Audiobook Sampler Platter!
    2024/06/10

    In this week's special summer episode, I share samples from four of my audiobooks.

    1.) Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire, narrated by Brad Wills.

    2.) Ghost in the Serpent, narrated by Hollis McCarthy.

    3.) Half-Elven Thief, narrated by Leanne Woodward.

    4.) Stealth & Spells Online: Creation, narrated by CJ McAllister.
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    15 分
  • Episode 203: 7 Bad Ways To Start Your Novel

    Episode 203: 7 Bad Ways To Start Your Novel
    2024/06/03
    In this week's episode, we take a look at seven bad ways to open your novel and how to avoid their pitfalls. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 203 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 31st, 2024 and today we are looking at seven bad ways to start your novel. Usually here we have Coupon of the Week. Unfortunately my Internet is currently down as I'm recording this, which means I can't get to my Payhip store and I can't create a Coupon of the Week. So we will resume with Coupon of the Week in June when I start recording new episodes. So now let's move directly to my current writing progress on my current writing projects. I am 38,000 words into Shield of Darkness, which currently puts the Chapter 7 of 24. I have 24 chapters in the rough draft outline, but that will probably increase because I’ll have to split a few of the longer ones in editing. I had hoped to have that out in June. That doesn't look like it's going to happen because I have a lot of home repair to do in June and a couple of multi-day commitments where I won't be able to do any writing. So I think we are looking more likely for some time after the 4th of July in mid-July is when that book will come out. I am also 20,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin, which will come out after Shield of Darkness comes out. I am also 6,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, which will come out sometime this fall, if all goes well. In audiobook news, we are done recording Tales of the Shield Knight, which will excellently be excellently narrated by Brian Wills and that will be a collection of the various short stories I wrote to accompany the Sevenfold Sword and Dragontiarna series. That is all done and should hopefully start appearing on various audiobook platforms before the end of June. 00:01:44 Question of the Week Now before we get into our main topic, let's go to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics, and this week's question: what was the first smartphone you ever used, and what was the first time you decided a smartphone was useful and not a waste of money? And we had one response for this one. Our first response is from Justin, who says: my work issued me a BlackBerry in 2004. Some folks considered them a first smartphone. I considered it a pain. They figured with that they owed me 24/7 and demanded an answer within 5 minutes to any email. I stopped that by asking how much they were paying me to reply outside of work hours. Then I was brought in for a work reprimand for not replying to an urgent e-mail sent during the day. My defense was that I was driving back from a remote site. When asked if I should be using the device while driving (already a no-no back then) or should I pull over and check every time I got a message, my boss decided that just maybe I wouldn't get in trouble that time, anyway. So far, I was not a fan. In 2011, we switched from Blackberries to Samsung with the first Galaxy S. I was unsure about the change, but the increased battery life and ability to put the phone in my shirt pocket won me over. What made it a true useful tool was when I installed the flashlight app on it. Working in a prison made it a pain to bring in a flashlight. You had to have paperwork and disassembled at every checkpoint to show that there's no contraband being smuggled in. The phone got a sticker and was blessed to pass security scrutiny thereafter. The flashlight was so handy. Now it's part of the OS, but then it needed a separate program to run. Yeah, smartphones have definitely contributed to the erosion of work/life balance, in my opinion. I used to do a lot of support for BlackBerry devices and they were a huge pain. I wasn't terribly upset to see the iPhone and Android displace BlackBerry and you know, sort of push it out of business because those phones, from a support perspective, let me tell you, were a big pain. For myself, it was in 2013 when I got my first smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy S3. I hadn’t wanted to get a smartphone, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find non-smartphones. So I finally bit the bullet and moved into the new technology. At the time, I usually resented it since I just wanted another flip phone. When did I find it useful for the first time? I remember that incident distinctly. I was working in IT support at the time, and the next day I had to go activate some network ports in another building. The building in question had been built in the ‘90s before Wi-Fi, and so every room had something like a billion Ethernet ports in it. But network switches are expensive, and even though the building has a little like 500 Ethernet ports, only 48 of them could be active at any one time, since that was how many ports the network switch had. So when anyone moved offices, an IT support minion (i.e. me) had to go over there and move the active network ports in the ...
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    13 分
  • Episode 202: 7 Lessons From Defunct Ebook Stores

    Episode 202: 7 Lessons From Defunct Ebook Stores
    2024/05/27
    In this week's episode, we take a look at seven ebook stores that failed, and what lessons indie authors can learn from them. This coupon code will get you 25% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: SPRINGTALONS The coupon code is valid through June 4th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we’ve got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 202 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 24th, 2024, and today we're looking at lessons from seven defunct ebook stores. We also have updates on my current writing projects and Question of the Week. Before we get into that, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the audiobook of Dragon Skull: Talons of the Sorcerer (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SPRINGTALONS, spelled SPRINGTALONS and of course, as always, we'll have that and the links in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through June the 4th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. As I mentioned last week Cloak of Titans is out and selling very briskly on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. The response has been very strong and so thank you all for that, and I'm glad so many of you are reading and enjoying the book. Now that Cloak of Titans is out, my next project is Shield of Darkness and I am pleased to report I am 18,000 words into it as of this recording. If all goes well, I'm hoping to have that out before the end of June, though that might slip to July depending on how much I need to do in real life in June. After Shield of Darkness is out, my next project will be Half-Orc Paladin, the third Rivah book. I’m about 17,000 words into that, and I'm hoping that will come out in sometime in July, if all goes well. After that, I will be writing the third Shield War book and then Ghost in the Tombs. I will start on Cloak of Illusion, the sequel to Cloak of Titans, after Half-Orc Paladin is done and out. In audiobook news, we are almost done with Tales of the Shield Knight, the Sevenfold Sword/Dragontiarna short story collection that will be narrated by Brad Wills. The collection will be available for sale on all the usual audiobook stores. I will be giving away individual audiobook short stories from time to time to my newsletter subscribers. So that is something to look forward to and if all goes well, we are planning to record Wizard Thief and Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling in audiobook in June. That's still somewhat tentative, but it should be happening. 00:02:24 Question of the Week Let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics, and this week's question: should a book in a long running series start with a little summary of what's happened in previous books? Like, you know how a streaming TV series will often have a previously on section of the start of the show? It's usually a little thirty second montage of key scenes and whatnot from the previous episodes. I got to wondering about this because I was talking with someone who was reading Cloak of Titans, which is the 11th book in the Cloak Mage series and overall the 23rd Nadia book and the reader in question couldn’t remember when the character of Doctor Spencer had first appeared in the series and wished the book had included a little previously on summary in the style of a streaming show. So I put this up for Question of the Week and we had a wide range of opinions on this topic this week. Our first response is from Mike, who says: as for my opinion, if it's the show that is in episodes of at least weekly schedule, I usually either just fast forward through that previously on segment or if it's supported by the service I'm watching the show on, I use the skip it feature. I can almost see the use of it if there are very long (as in a year or two) episodes between the previously on feature. Justin says: info dumps may be necessary sometimes (for example, Star Wars), but should be avoided otherwise. Show, don't tell. I personally find prologues describing past events and characters off-putting. A compromise would be a glossary in the back a la Tolkien. That way the people who want more information or need reminders can indulge themselves without forcing people like me to go along. I have to agree here with Justin about prologues. I don't really like them and stopped doing them, except in very rare cases. My least favorite kind of prologue is one that starts a very long book and references a character who doesn't show up again for like 250 pages. Our next response is from Mike, who says: I think if the summary is brief and concise, it is absolutely worth it...
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    16 分
  • Episode 201: Spring 2024 Movie Review Roundup

    Episode 201: Spring 2024 Movie Review Roundup
    2024/05/20
    In this week's episode, I look back at the movies I saw in Spring 2024 and rate them from least to most favorite. To celebrate the arrival of CLOAK OF TITANS, this coupon code will get you 25% off any of the CLOAK MAGE ebooks at my Payhip store: MAYTITANS The code is valid through June 3rd, 2024. So if you're looking for a new book to start the summer, we've got you covered! PODCAST 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 201 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 17th, 2024, and today we are looking at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Spring 2024. Before we get to anything else, let's do Coupon of the Week. To celebrate the arrival of Cloak of Titans, naturally, this coupon code will give you 25% off any of the Cloak Mage ebooks at my Payhip store. That coupon code is MAYTITANS spelled MAYTITANS and of course, as always, the coupon code will be in the show notes for this episode. This code is valid through June 3rd, 2024, so if you're looking for a new book to start the summer, we've got you covered. Now for an update on current writing and publishing projects. I am pleased to report that Cloak of Titans is done and it is now out. It should at all the ebook stores and get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. It looks like it's off to a good start, so thank you everyone for that. In audio news, Ghost in the Veils is out, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. As of right now, it should be available at Audible, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and my Payhip store. It should be showing up on Google Play, Spotify, and Chirp shortly. Now that Cloak of Titans is done, my next big main project will be Shield of Darkness, the second book in the Shield War series, picking up from Shields of Storms earlier in the year. I spent the last couple days writing the outline for that, and if all goes well, I should start on it on Monday the 20th or Tuesday the 21st. It depends on what the weather is, since there are some things I'd like to do outside if the weather is good, but anyway, that will be my new main project. Hopefully that will be out before the end of June. My secondary project right now is Half-Orc Paladin, the third book in the Rivah series, and I am currently about 14,000 words into that. That should come out fairly quickly after Shield of Darkness is done, so probably mid to late July for that book. 00:02:10 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's question is inspired by the various comments whenever I post the picture related to grilling: specifically, what is your favorite thing to grill? And we had a variety of responses this week. Our first response is from Justin, who says: my favorite thing to grill is a well marinated sirloin. Garlic, pineapple juice, soy sauce, and herbs in a Ziploc bag for two to four hours, then on a hot grill for a couple minutes per side. Yum! Alas, nowadays it’s mostly chicken legs and pork loin sliced up for chops. Even the cheapest hamburger meat is getting to be too expensive to buy on a regular basis. Sadly, this is definitely true, and I've seen that myself. Our next response is from ABM, who says: is it even camping in the Midwest if you're not grilling a pudgie pie over a fire? For those unfamiliar with this regional delicacy, either sandwich or pie fillings are put between bread in the special sandwich shaped iron before it goes over the fire. It really puts the grilled in grilled cheese sandwich. Jenny says: steak, but only because I have a charcoal grill now. I used to use gas. I think it is better because I find it to be slower and tastier. Bonnie says brats and burgers were my favorite when Hubby was around to grill. Gary says: a pork loin is one of my favorite things to grill. I prefer smoking stuff over grilling. Grilling and barbecue are definitely two different things. There is nothing better than a dry rub pork shoulder smoked for about 10 hours and then shredded. Mark says: we love good old-fashioned burgers and lately have been adding teriyaki grilled chicken thighs to the cooking plan. John says: Chinese style plum sauce ribs. Family recipe. Country style ribs, which is just pork butt cut onto thick strips, marinated 3 days. Catriona says: Lamb chops and sausages. A different Mark says: ribs are my favorite, followed by barbecued chicken. Jesse says: spicy Italian sausages for the most part. Michael says: I find the grilling post interesting because over here in the UK, we tend to call it barbecuing and the term itself is a barbecue. Grilling is what you do under grill in your oven indoors. But regardless, I would say hamburgers! Joseph says: Porterhouse and lobster tails on charcoal grill. Second would be shrimp, scallops, and fish fillets of any kind on charcoal. Breakfast on the griddle, pork and chicken on the smoker...
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    22 分
  • Episode 200: Celebrating The 200th Episode

    Episode 200: Celebrating The 200th Episode
    2024/05/13
    In this week's episode, I celebrate the 200th episode of The Pulp Writer Show by asking readers which book of mine they read first. The episode also has a preview of the audiobook of GHOST IN THE VEILS as narrated by Hollis McCarthy. To commemorate the occasion this coupon code will get you 25% off EVERY SINGLE ITEM at my Payhip store: 200THEPISODE That's right, the coupon code will get you 25% off every single ebook or audiobook on my Payhip store, and it's good through May 20th, 2024. So if you're looking for something to read or listen to, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT Audio file Episode200.mp3 Transcript 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 200 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 10th, 2024 and today we are celebrating the 200th episode of this podcast by taking a look back at how people have found my books. We’ll also close out the show with a preview of the upcoming Ghost in the Veils audiobook. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. To celebrate the 200th episode of this podcast, we're going to have a special coupon code that will get you 25% off every single item at my Payhip store. That coupon code is 200THEPISODE, which is spelled 200THEPISODE and the coupon code and the link to my Payhip will be included in the show notes for this episode. That's right, the coupon code will give you 25% off every single ebook or audiobook on my Payhip store and is good through May 20th, 2024. So if you're looking for something to read or listen to, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on current writing projects. The rough draft of Cloak of Titans is done, and I am about 2/3 of the way through the first editing pass. If all goes well, I am hoping to have that out before the end of May. I've also written a short story called Blood Walk and newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of that short story when Cloak of Titans comes out. So this is an excellent time to sign up for my new release newsletter. You'll get 3 free epic fantasy novels when you do. Once Cloak of Titans is published, my next main project will be Shield of Darkness, which will hopefully come out towards the end of June or the start of July. I am also about 11,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin, the third Rivah book, and I will make that my main project after Shield of Darkness is done, so that book will probably come out before the end of this summer, if all goes well. 00:01:57 Main Topic/Question of the Week And our Question of the Week is also this week's main topic. It's a question that I can't answer myself, but I asked because I wanted to talk about it for this episode of the podcast, and the question is, which book of mine did you first read, and how did you come across it (since Cloak of Titans will be, I believe, my 152nd novel)? I expected a wide range of responses and we got them. Our first response is from Roman who says: first one was Demonsouled. I looked for free books when I downloaded the Kindle app for my new iPad and have read everything you've written since. I guess your plan of giving away the first book for free worked on me. That is why I give those books away for free. Our next response is from Dave, who says: I found Child of the Ghosts on BookBub. The title was intriguing. It was also free. I now have an extensive Jonathan Moeller collection on my Kindle Library. Our next response comes from Joachim, who says: Ghost Omnibus One and Ghost Exile Omnibus One were $0.99, so I purchased both. I continued with Ghost Exile, backfilling the Ghost stories later. You would not be able to answer your own question obviously, but would you be able to answer us the following question: what was the first fantasy book you published? That would been Demonsouled back in 2005, when it was traditionally published and later I got the rights back and self-published it for the first time in 2011 and then later made it free. Our next response is from Mark, who says: I found Child of the Ghosts on Kindle. Sam says Frostborn: The Gray Knight. I was looking for a new fantasy series to read after I finished the Codex Alera. Came across it while scrolling through Amazon and thought, huh, why not? Little did I know all these years later I would have an addiction to your novels. Well, there are worse problems to have. I agree very much. Our next response is from Tarun who says: read Child of the Ghosts first on the Kindle web app. Todd says: Child of the Ghosts. Caina is a great Ghost nightfighter. Mary says: Frostborn. I forget why. That seems entirely appropriate, because I wrote Frostborn 11 years ago now. Yes, eleven years ago now, because I wrote it in 2003, so I can barely remember writing it at this point, let alone how someone might come across it. Our next response is from Justin: Demonsouled. Free book offer. Steve says: Iron Hand. If I remember right, it came up as a suggestion on the Kindle app. Sara says: Frostborn. It was $0.99 and ...
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    19 分
  • Episode 199: Ergonomics For Writers

    Episode 199: Ergonomics For Writers
    2024/05/06
    In this week's episode, we take a look at some ergonomics and health tips for writers and other sedentary workers. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: FURY OF THE BARBARIANS (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: SPRINGFURY The coupon code is valid through May 25th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we’ve got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 199 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 3rd 2024 and today we are talking about ergonomics for writers. Before we get to our main topic, we will do Coupon of the Week, an update on current writing projects, and then Question of the Week. First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SPRINGFURY. As always, that will be in the show notes with a link to the Payhip store. This coupon code will be valid through May the 25th, 2024, so if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered. Next up, updates on my current writing projects. I am almost done with Cloak of Titans. I'm currently at 98,000 words. I am hoping to wrap it up after I finish recording this episode (either this afternoon or tomorrow), and so we are well on track to having the book out before the end of May, if all goes well. I am also 8,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin, which will be the sequel to Wizard-Thief and Half-Elven Thief, and the third book in the Rivah series. That will probably be out towards the end of July because once Cloak of Titans is done, I want to go full speed ahead on Shield of Darkness (the sequel to Shield of Storms from earlier in the year and the second book in the Shield War series). If all goes well, the next couple of books I publish will be Cloak of Titans, Shield of Darkness, and Half-Orc Paladin. In audiobook news, Brad Wills is recording the anthology of Tales of the Shield Knight for me. We’re about 1/3 of the way through it, I think and making good progress. I'm looking forward to sharing that with you all. I just got the notification that the files for the audiobook of Ghost in the Veils (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) were uploaded, so just a little more proofing and then that should hopefully be available to you as well. So lots of good things to look forward to. 00:02:07 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is the board game that you've been playing the longest? Board games have many advantages in the modern age. They don't require electricity, they don't need to be charged, and they also have a pleasingly tactile feel that you just don't get from tapping a screen. Sometimes you learn a game when you're a kid and sticks with you ever since. We have some interesting answers this week. Our first answer is from Jesse, who says: I have to say Labyrinth. Played it as a kid a lot with siblings. A year or two ago, my kids got it randomly from a relative, and now it's back. The real precursor to Mario Kart in terms of learning to hate your friends and discovering life is unfair. For myself, I only started playing Mario Kart with my siblings when I was already well into middle age, so we thankfully avoided squabbling over that. If we had played Mario Kart when we were kids, we definitely would have squabbled. Back to Question of the Week. Michael says: I don't really play them anymore, alas. I played chess in school but only so I didn't have to do physical education class. I used to look at the board and immediately resign and then just sit and read a book instead until the teacher wandered over. It used to annoy my opponents who took the game seriously. So congratulations to Michael for devising a chess stratagem that did, in fact get him what he wanted. MacKenzie says: hands down, chess. I may be awful at it, but it's definitely the record holder. Mark says: checkers, because my mum is good at it. Adelaide says: Scrabble for me. Venus says: backgammon. My mother taught me to play. I don't know how old I was. She never let me win. Every time I beat her it was because I had a better game that day. David says it's probably Shoots and Ladders, followed closely by checkers. Grace says: I no longer play the same board games I did as a kid so the ones that I play now with friends. I've played I think Arkham Horror and Quacks of Quedlinburg the most. Both are fun, though Arkham Horror, we've won all of two times. For myself, I think the board game I've been playing the longest is chess. I first learned to play when I think was I was ten and I've been playing on and off ever since. Amusingly for a post about tactile board games, I recently discovered chess.com and I like its large supply of chess...
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    15 分
  • Episode 198: Seven Inaccurate Movies About Writing

    Episode 198: Seven Inaccurate Movies About Writing
    2024/04/26
    In this week's episode, we take a look at seven popular movies about writing & writers and take a look at what they got wrong. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: CURSE OF THE ORCS (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: SPRINGORCS The coupon code is valid through May 20th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we’ve got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello everyone. Welcome to Episode 198 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is April 26th, 2024 and today we were talking about seven of the most inaccurate movies about writers. Before we do that, we will have writing updates, Coupon of the Week, and a Question of the Week. So let's start with Coupon of the Week. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Curse of the Orc (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SPRINGORCS and that's SPRINGORCS. As always, that coupon code will be in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through May 20th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing projects and audiobook projects. I'm currently on Chapter 16 of Cloak of Titans. I'm not sure how many chapters it's going to end up being. My number keeps changing, but I think right now it's 25. I am over halfway through the book and I'm hoping to be past the 70,000 word point by the end of the day, if all goes well. I’m hoping to still have that out before the end of May. I am also 5,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin, which should come out this summer. After Cloak of Titans is out, my next main project will be Shield of Darkness, which I know many people have been asking about, so hopefully it will not be too much longer until I start on Shield of Darkness. In audiobook news, Hollis McCarthy is almost done recording Ghost in the Veils, and we should hopefully have that available to listen to sometime in May. Brad Wills is currently recording the anthology Tales of the Shield Knight, which will contain over 15 of the Shield Knight short stories that I wrote for the Sevenfold Sword and Dragontiarna series, and that should also hopefully be out sometimes toward the end of May or possibly June. So that is where I’m at with my current writing and audiobook projects. 00:01:58 Question of the Week/Update on Starfield from Previous Question of the Week Next up is Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is the first fantasy novel you remember reading? After all, if you're hanging around the website of Jonathan Moeller, Pulp Writer, there's a non-zero chance that you enjoy fantasy books. So it seems like a reasonable question, and it was indeed a reasonable question because we got a lot of responses. Our first response is from Justin, who says: believe it or not, the first fantasy novel I read was The Hobbit. My older sisters had pooled their money to buy the paper version of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I saw them reading it, and since my sisters were for once not being nasty to each other and reading together, it had to be good. After they finished The Hobbit, I asked to borrow it. It was allowed to read it as long as I didn't leave the room and wash my hands first. I was eight. Our next response is from Mary, who says: I remember my first reading of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It was by no stretch of the imagination my first fantasy novel. Our next comment is from Stuart, who says: Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings. When I was younger/preteens, I loved adventure books like Hardy Boys and The Three Investigators. I didn't really read much in the coming years, until one day it was raining outside and being bored, I made a nuisance of myself when my older brother was trying to watch TV. He finally snapped, told me to shut up, threw Pawn of Prophecy at me, and told me to read that. The rest, as they say, is history. I went from adding Eddings to Feist and Gemmel and then on to Jordan, etcetera. I will always have a soft spot for David Eddings books, though. So it seems the common themes here will be a sibling rivalry inspiring love of fantasy literature. Our next response is from Grace, who says: does the Magic Treehouse series count? If not, Chronicles of Narnia. Leanne says Dragonriders of Pern. Boy, did I want a dragon! Melinda says Piers Anthony's Night Mare. I was in 6th grade and my friend gave it to me for my birthday. Cheryl says: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. From then on, it was full steam ahead, Feist, Eddings, Tolkien, Irvine, and now most of the fantasy/sci-fi authors that are currently publishing on Kindle. David says: probably The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Kevin says: many, many moons ago it was the Earthsea trilogy by Ursula Le Guin. Then I wandered ...
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    24 分
  • Episode 197: Payhip vs Shopify For Indie Author Direct Sales

    Episode 197: Payhip vs Shopify For Indie Author Direct Sales
    2024/04/22
    In this week's episode, we take a look at direct selling for indie authors, and compare the pros and cons of Payhip and Shopify as platforms for selling direct. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: BLADE OF THE ELVES (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: 00:00:00 Introduction, Writing Updates, and a Reader Question Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 197 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is April the 19th, 2024, and today we are talking about the pros and cons of Payhip and Shopify for direct sales by authors. Before we do that, we will do Coupon of the Week and some updates on my current writing projects. I have some questions from readers and will discuss what I did to celebrate publishing my 150th book. First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Blade of the Elves (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SPRINGELVES, spelled SPRINGELVES. As always, the link and the coupon code will be in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through May the 14th, 2024, so if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered. Now let's have a look at my current writing and audiobook projects. Wizard-Thief, as I mentioned in last week's episode, is done and is out on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited and is selling quite strongly. Thank you very much for that. Now that it is out, my main project is Cloak of Titans, the 11th book in the Cloak Mage series. As of this recording, I am about 34,000 words into it, which puts me on Chapter 7 of 24. I think the final book length will end up being about the length of Cloak of Embers, which was about 110,000 words. Once Cloak of Titans is finished, my next project will be Shield of Darkness, so I will finally be getting to the second book in the Shield War series, which will be a follow up to Shield of Storms from back in January. If all goes well, I think Cloak of Titans will be out in the second half of May, maybe towards the start of June. I'm hoping to have Shield of Darkness out shortly after that, probably towards the end of June. I have also started working on the sequel to Wizard Thief, which is Half-Orc Paladin. That will come out after Shield of Darkness is done, hopefully not too long after Shield of Darkness is done. So that will probably be around the middle of July or so. So that is what I'm working on for books for the next couple of months. In audiobook news, recording is underway for Ghosts in the Veils. That will once again be recorded by Hollis McCarthy. I have Brad Wills working on the Tales of the Shield Knight anthology, which once it’s in audiobook, I’m going to sell it as a bundle on Audible and Amazon and all the other usual audiobook stores. I will also be giving away short stories individually for free from that collection in my newsletter, so that is once again a very good reason to sign up for my new release newsletter. Leanne Woodward has agreed to narrate the second book in the Half-Elven Thief series, Wizard Thief. If all goes well, that will probably happen in June. And also in June, CJ McAllister will be narrating the second book of the Stealth and Spells Online Series, formerly known as Sevenfold Sword Online. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects. Now we have one question from a reader that is not connected with our other segments. It's from Robert who asks about the Half-Elven Thief series: is this series available in paperback? I'm pleased to say that yes, it is. Both Half-Elven Thief and Wizard-Thief are available in trade paperback. Probably the cheapest place to get them is on Amazon, but I have expanded distribution for them so you should be able to buy it online from a variety of other stores. 00:03:43 Celebrating Book #150 As I mentioned previously on the show, Ghost in the Veils was my 150th book. Thank you for reading, everyone. Quite a few people asked how I wanted to celebrate, the implication being that I wanted to take a trip or something like a cruise, that sort of thing. However, with all respect to the cruise industry, if I wanted to catch norovirus, I could do it much closer to home for far less expense. However, I have established a precedent for celebrating major book milestones like this. Way back in 2019, Dragontiarna: Knights was my 100th book and to celebrate that milestone, I got a Nintendo Switch, which was the first dedicated video game console I had used since 1998 or so. Given that six months later COVID started, that turned out to be a wise purchase because suddenly I had a lot more time for video games. I got to beat a bunch of games I never had time to finish otherwise back in the ‘90s, like Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 3, the original Castlevania trilogy for NES, the Super Nintendo Castlevania games, Super Metroid, and I finally finished Skyrim. It wasn't all a ...
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