Category: fiction

Remember last year’s Prohibition Orcs Kickstarter? One of the rewards was the omnibus cased in “authentic” orc-hide leather.

Turns out one orc has enough hide for thirty-five book cases. Out of decency, I’m keeping the one with the unfortunately placed nipples. Alan at Studio 42 Designs has the prototype. He’s signed each case, and I will sign the title pages.

Each is uniquely textured, carved, and dyed, highlighting the many scars earned by a long-lived orc. I am absolutely delighted at how these came out, and will certainly do something similar again. But not with real orc leather. Negotiating with the family is fraught.

I will be packaging these for mailing on Monday, probably initiating a blood feud with the postman in the process.

The OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems Patronizer, sponsor, and pre-order copies have shipped from the printer, and should arrive at my house this week. If you’re due both a leather-cased Orcibus and an OMF, I’ll ship yours together. But now I’m thinking I should have offered an edition of that book cased in blowfish hide…

I posted yesterday about Amazon putting the complete Montague Portal for Kindle on sale for $5.85. They still pay me $7 a sale, so each time you buy one Bezos adds his own dollar to my payment. It’s pretty clear that they’ll clear a profit if you buy this book and one other ebook. Okay, that makes sense.

But now they’ve put the hardcover on sale for $5.85, at least in the US and UK. (Reports in other countries are mixed. I have no clue what’s happening.)

At first, I thought this was to clear out unsold copies. Amazon predicts how many hardcovers of a new title they’ll need, which is fine. They buy ahead, which is also fine. Their prediction algorithm lumps my fiction and nonfiction together, which is completely inaccurate but I’m okay with it.

But no. They are ordering new hardcovers from IngramSpark, at full retail price, to fill these purchases.

Amazon loses about $15 for every hardcover you buy.

I do not understand their business model. Risking a buck, sure, I can see that. I am torn between “they are playing 4d chess” and “their algorithm is drunk.” (“Both” is a valid answer.) What I do know is that if this bright future SF exploration crime series has ever tempted you, you should grab this deal. No idea how long it will last, if it will spread to other countries, or if Jeff will send legbreakers out to collect his $15 from each of you.

Note that while Amazon only lets each account buy an ebook once, you can buy as many hardcovers as you like. Each purchase costs Amazon $15 plus fulfillment. Just saying.

Oh, and if you use my affiliate links above? They throw a few extra pennies in my pocket. The phrase “guilding the lily” comes to mind, but it turns out I’m okay with that.

Eight years? Who celebrates eight years? I missed every previous anniversary, and I will probably miss most of the others, so suck it up.

Anyway, eight years ago today my first novel came out. Immortal Clay is a critical success and a financial sinkhole. Seems that some parts of it were a bit much for people. Mind you, this book did establish my unbroken practice of never writing a normal sex scene, so there’s that. I took “Carpenter’s The Thing, but after we lose” to its logical extreme, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone, but here we are.

I’m hoping to take another run at book 3, Bones Like Water, next year. Yes, it’s been delayed. Writing cheerful apocalypses requires a certain amount of stability, which we haven’t had since 2016.

Part of me says, “Eight years? What have you been doing, wasting your time? You should have had thirty novels and a television contract by now!” But then I look at my fiction brag shelf and realize it’s bigger than many authors build in their lifetime–I mean, I’m no Blaze Ward or Rex Stout, but it’s not a shabby showing.

If the book didn’t do as well as I hoped, what will I do about it? I will continue flensing readers out of the indifferent mass of humanity, that’s what. After all, the best promo for an old book is a new book.

Today I converted this:

into this:

If you backed the Kickstarter for a signed paperback, these are them. I booked a pickup for tomorrow, but if the postman’s feeling mighty he might take them today.

Note that the piles are not the same size. I ordered 13 of each. They sent me a box with 13 “Prohibition Orcs” and 11 “Frozen Talons,” plus another box with two more “Prohibition Orcs.” It’s like they realized they’d printed the wrong number and ran off two to make it up–but two of the wrong book. Sigh.

Patronizers, what about your books?

You’re backers. You get the exclusive limited-edition Orcibus. Which I plan to order before Monday. I was waiting for the printer to ship me a correct proof before I ordered.

Also, a note on shipping:

If you do any amount of shipping personally, such as signed books: invest in a thermal shipping label printer and learn how to feed address spreadsheets into your postage vendor. I’ve been shipping books from my house for seven years now, and adding new capacities every time.

The spreadsheets shrunk days of shipping into a single day.

But the label printer? “Oh, I can just print my labels on regular paper, trim them down, and use a tape gun to put them on the package.” I bought the label printer this summer and holy crap, I just did an afternoon’s worth of shipping in an hour.

The right tools help. Who knew?

I also discovered that shipping to Canada got more expensive, so I’ve adjusted the shipping rates on the OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems limited-time direct order. It’ll also impact future sponsorships. The change isn’t horrid, I can eat the difference for what’s already been sold, but still.

I hoped that the Prohibition Orcs Kickstarter would break $5k in thirty days. That would give me the complete custom covers, and let me publish my Dream Orc Books.

Instead, it’s over $8k in less than half that time. This is the most I have ever been paid for a work of fiction, and it’s not even out yet. (Lifetime sales on some novels are higher, I’m sure, but I don’t have the accounting software to figure that out. Nobody does.)

It’s also following the same trend as the Badgers kickstarter: busy for ten days, pretty flat for ten, and a last minute surge over the final ten days. I might make the next one only twenty days, to see if I can cut out the sagging middle. Pretty sure it won’t actually work that way, but this is all an experiment and nobody knows anything, so why not?

I’m especially surprised that so many folks are buying the leather-covered Orcibus.

As part of the Kickstarter, I also recorded me reading Woolen Torment, in its entirety. Yes, yes, I have a face for radio and a voice for print, but it’s a thing.

I’ll say it now: my guess for the finish is about $10k.

If the Kickstarter hits the $25k stretch goal, however, I will get my first ever tattoo. A few of my readers who are especially interested in me experiencing pain and scarring would like me to have a tattoo. I figure this goal is low enough to encourage those folks to shill the campaign to others–after all, it’s nearly realistic!–while being high enough to keep my hide intact. But they’ll enjoy threatening my pasty complexion with color, so it’s all good. Here’s the black and white art that will be engraved on the orc-hide Orcibus, and maaaaybe on my hide.

Yes, Mha the orcess is crazy romantic.

Sixteen days left if you want any of the exclusive rewards. Or, just wait until it goes in my bookstore. Whatever.

At long last, I’m publishing a collection of Prohibition Orcs tales and a full-length PO novel. I’m using a Kickstarter to fund the initial expenses, so that I can afford custom art and a few extras.

If you’re a Patronizer, you’ll automatically get books as per your patronage level. If you want the fancy but expensive Orcibus bound in authentic orc leather, you’ll have to get it through the Kickstarter I’m afraid.

Once the books go live, the individual chapbooks will go out of print. Grab them now if you want them.