Becoming An Internet Author - Week One

The slow but determined march towards Hobson & Choi self-publication continues. A few days ago, I blogged a little about receiving professional edits on the text and my feelings on same. I think I reached equilibrium by the end, and I'm relatively okay with the direction it's going.

However, there is obviously another side to the whole thing. If I'm self-publishing (or author-publishing or hybrid-authoring or whatever), I obviously have to do all my own promotion. Well, I'm hoping some good reviews will do a bit of the work for me, but I still have to get the book to some reviewers.

All of which means doing some tweeting, some blogging, some awkward-for-me self-advertising. Talking about myself. Becoming an Internet Author. Never mind my damn edits, how do I feel about that?

Hobson & Choi #73: "Behind The Scenes"

The next chapter of Hobson & Choi! Our heroes go behind the curtain at the shopping centre to meet... The Boss!

Sorry, this blog post is running a bit late - the chapter went up at the usual time, six-ish hours ago, but I didn't quite manage to do this. Here it is, though.

And it is the last chapter of the month of June, so if you have time to check it out, maybe vote for as many H&C chapters as you are able, all helps with the monthly Top 30. Ta very much.

And now I have to leg it off once again, but if you want more related to Hobson & Choi, here's a blog post about receiving my first every professional edits on the first storyline. Scary stuff.

Receiving my first set of edits - A Psychological Journey

So, the ongoing plunge towards Hobson & Choi self-publication continues. I sent my manuscript of Book One off to an editor, because if my trip to London Book Fair taught me one thing, it's that you gotta let someone else loose on it.

After all, I'm competing with an array of authors who have editors, I'm bothering to get a decent cover done, so I might as well make sure the insides are up to scratch.

With that goal in mind, I got my book back from the editor about a week ago, and have just blasted through the whole lot of edits once, making changes accordingly. It's a strange experience, getting edited for the first time, and even after chatting to other people beforehand, it's still... interesting.

Hobson & Choi #72: "Upward Mobility"

The latest H&C chapter is up! Marvel as the shopping centre case moves to a whole new level!

Also, if you happen to hiding in the walls of my house, marvel as I force myself to achieve a baseline level of stuff even through a stabbing hangover-headache. Owwwww.

I'm currently editing the text of Hobson & Choi's first storyline for the upcoming self-published edition. The process has been interesting and there will be a blog post, but possibly over the weekend rather than the usual Friday morning, due to said hangover and the fact I'm meant to be out watching the football tonight.

Come on England, etc. In the meantime, enjoy H&C, see you fairly soon!

Game of Thrones: Finale review with finality!

Final Game of Thrones review of season 4! Up now on Dork Adore, featuring various assessments of finality.

And that'll be that. I'll miss them a lot. Still, at least they're back next year.

Is comedy dead? Or just not a great selling point in publishing?

Yesterday, I attended the final day of The Literary Conference 2014, an event thrown by The Literary People at The Literary Consultancy. I attended a few things, drank some nice coffee, and heard a thought that stuck with me: a brief answer uttered by a literary agent during the Pen Factor (literary X Factor) event.

One author read from a work which seemed to place itself as a humour story. Said agent commented that novels which identify heavily as comedy versions of existing genres tend to be a hard sell. After all, comedy is pretty subjective and "parody novels" are rarely amazing, so if possible, it's better to market your comedy thriller (for example) as a thriller, and let people decide whether they like the book on those terms. If they happen to find you funny, bonus.

As someone who writes "funny" stories and mentions that attribute when describing them, this obviously gave me pause. So... time to reconsider?

Hobson & Choi #71 - "Fetched"

The new chapter is up! Do you like Markus the dog? Then this could easily be your moment!

If you don't know who he is, then you're very behind on your reading and should catch up.

In other H&C news, we were #3 on the Jukepop top 30 for May, which was always good. Nice to see we can still get up there among the big boys. Thanks to all voters.

0

And now, I ready myself for editing the first H&C storyline for our upcoming ebook edition. Edits due back today. Pretty scary. Blog post no doubt to follow.

Game of Thrones review - MAMMOTH ON WALL ACTION

The wildlings have come to eat the Wall in this week's Dork Adore Game of Thrones review. And only one episode left this year!

You gotta admire the scale, really. Mammoths! Giants! Looking forward to this season finale next week.

Story "Troubling UnderCurrents" to appear in Superhero Monster-Hunter anthology!

New fictional anthology appearance! My short story Troubling UnderCurrents is appearing in the upcoming collection The Good Fight from Emby Press, a fun new publisher amazingly devoted to stories about monsterhunting.

The theme of this particular book is superhero monsterhunting, as you might guess from the cover off to the right. And let's all just take a moment to look at that cover, because I love it.

Okay, enough slack-jaw for now. Here's a summary:

Troubling UnderCurrents is about a poor man who grows a second personality called UnderCurrent after an accident. They share a body, they squabble, sometimes UnderCurrent takes over and goes for a joyride. But the host persuades him to channel his constant aggression into punching criminals, as it's better than any alternatives they come up with.

Still, violently stalking people on the street isn't ideal. What these guys need is a punching bag. Some kind of big, straight-up evil... monster.

Publication apparently scheduled for autumn 2014, which is exciting. Rest assured I'll talk about it more nearer the time as I enjoyed writing this one - it's a good meaty piece too, over seven thousand words. Hell, I might even bring UnderCurrent back some day, he's got a certain something.

(Me and my constantly squabbling duos, I know. At least these two share a single body for added efficiency.)

So, that's the big announcement for now. You can see the full list of included stories over on the Emby Press site, and if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do some kind of gleeful dance at the prospect of finally getting to write a superhero. Feel free to gaze at the cover again, god knows I will.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past - "Open Mouth. Insert Wolverine."

This week, I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past, a movie attempting to properly fire the X-Engine back up for their cut of that sweet Avengers money. There are millions of characters in the X-Cupboard, after all, and they were among the first entrants in the current run of super-movies.

So, hell, do a comeback, why not. But, oddly, this isn't a reboot or straight continuation of the excellent X-Men: First Class prequel. Instead, they're bringing back cast and director from the first two films and mashing everything together into an epic time travel story.

Wow. That's so comic book. I'm totally on-board. But will it be a good movie?

WARNING: Full spoilers throughout. And the ending is impressively weird, so if you've somehow avoided ruining it for this long, I'd keep going until you see it.

Hobson & Choi #70: "Market Lessons"

Hobson voyages deeper into the belly of the capitalist beast in this week's new, all-70th Hobson & Choi chapter.

Not much time for fun notes this week, but yes, we're at chapter #70, which is good isn't it? We've basically reached #100.

Game of Thrones: A Review Of Sadness

After a week off, back to the Thrones reviews on Dork Adore. And yes, as the internet may have already told you, a lot of sadness in this one.

(The episode, not my review of it. My review is filled with purest joy.)

All You Can Eat Media - Nick vs Netflix, Man vs Marvel Unlimited

In the last few weeks since my birthday, I've catapulted myself hard into the world of unlimited on-demand media. Yes, I already had things like BBC iPlayer, 4OD and American equivalents, but this was the next level: Netflix for TV and the Marvel Unlimited service for comics.

After years of only watching carefully selected shows and targeted media, going back to having a wide range of stuff I might like available and choosing from it has been a strange experience. It's like when I was young and I used to read TV guides and consider watching new stuff.

Only with comics too, which is where the comparison breaks down.

Anyway, after two months in the new world of everything-you-could-ever-want rampant consumption, here are the observations I've made.