Hobson & Choi v4 - Blood Will Stream - OUT NOW!

Today is BWS day! No, not "beers, wines and spirits" (my friend Paul used to work in Sainsburys BWS section), it's Blood Will Stream!

The fourth Hobson & Choi book is out today, featuring our heroes investigating the locked room murder of a YouTuber. Who did the deed, and can Hobson and Angelina find the killer without making the whole situation much worse? For once? Maybe?

I could type a lot more, but since I'm doing YouTube videos at the moment to tie in with this YouTubey book, I'll embed a video instead. Here are my release day thoughts. Ready yourselves.

(Or if you just want to buy the damn book, there's a grid of buy links just below the video. Go for it.)

There we go. Hope that stirred something in you. Aside from the thought "Man, that guy needs to stop waving his hands around."

Anyway, down to business: here are all the places you can buy Blood Will Stream in print and digital! Check it out! Hope you like it! Tell your friends! Etc! Release day woooooooo!

Blood Will Stream Video #3 - Five Favourite Books I Had On My Bookshelves

So, my attempt to do some authentic YouTubing to promote my upcoming book about a YouTuber being murdered continues! First, I filmed a broad intro to the book, then I unboxed my print proof.

Now my third video is here, and I thought it'd be fun to talk about some authors other than myself this time. So, in the end, I decided to do the my five favourite books I have on my current bookshelves! So excluding all ebooks and everything I've left at my parents' house for space reasons!

An odd criteria, maybe, but I'm pretty pleased with the five I found. Click the video below to see what they are and what I said about them, including a brief anecdote about the one time I met Neil Gaiman. (Yes, he's on the list.)

And, video messing aside, today marks one week until the release of Blood Will Stream! So that's pretty nerve-wracking. Pre-order now to make me feel better about it all! Links to available pre-orders can be found in its entry on the main Hobson & Choi page!

Blood Will Stream video #2 - proof copy unboxing!

My second YouTube video promoting Blood Will Stream is up now! I attempt to perform an "unboxing" (as seen across YouTube!) on my print proof copy!

If you missed the intro video, you can see it and some general chat here!

Blood Will Stream introduction video - up now on YouTube!

So, since launching the cover and details for the fourth Hobson & Choi book the other day, I've been kicking around the idea of doing some YouTube videos to promote it - since the book is about a YouTuber being killed, it didn't seem like the worst idea.

With time running down before the all-important 4th October launch date, I've decided to get stuck in and do an intro video to explain what the book's about and what the big differences are between this one and the previous three. Hopefully if you're on this website, you might be just the target audience for such a thing.

And yes, I also nervously fidget with my hands a lot. I know.

Anyway, here it is:

Hope you enjoyed that. If it's enticed you to pre-order the book, I've added all the available pre-order options to the main Hobson & Choi page! (Not print, I know. They won't let me offer pre-orders for print. Sorry.)

It was somewhat fun to do. I have plans for at least one more, which should be with you within the next week, and then... I don't know, ideas welcome. Tweet me at @NickMB with things to talk about! Or ask random questions and I'll do a Q&A maybe!

Hobson & Choi - Case Four: Blood Will Stream - COVER AND PRE-ORDER DETAILS

Hello.

After many Twitter mumblings and late-into-the-night formatting sessions, I'm excited to report that the fourth book in the Hobson & Choi series is happening! It's called Blood Will Stream, it's about the locked-room murder of a YouTuber and it should be with you on 4th October 2016, just under a year after the third one.

Which is exciting in itself, but also means another cool part of any Hobson & Choi book launch - a new cover by Design For Writers! As you can see, they've very much taken the online streaming theme and run with it.

To go alongside that, here's a nice sales blurb:

“I used to think knowing people just by online handles was totally cool, but these internet murders might be changing my mind.”

After YouTuber GrazGrim is found dead in his locked bedroom-studio, the police are ready to write it off as a suicide.

The online fandom only have one chance for justice: John Hobson and Angelina Choi, internet detectives!

But can Angelina persuade Hobson to take the case on? And will anyone like what they find?

Blood Will Stream is the fourth book in this darkly comic London crime series. The detectives are back in whodunnit territory, revisiting their love-hate relationship with the internet.

Hobson & Choi has been #1 in Dark Comedy on Amazon, broken records on Jukepop Serials and now returns with an all-new mystery never seen anywhere else!

So there we go. This is really happening. As the blurb implies, this is the first H&C book written specifically for book format, rather than forged from rewritten webserial chapters, and I think it's the best yet. Although it does mean I haven't had any pre-validation from online comments.

Still, if you want to validate me, you can always pre-order using the links below! (Seamless...)

• Amazon UK!
• Amazon US!
• Kobo!

And it's also on Goodreads here for those of you who go there. If you have a blog, YouTube channel or other book reviewing outlet and want a review copy, email me at nick@nickbryan.com and we can probably work something out.

Probably some more stuff to come - it has been pointed out that one suitable promo campaign for this book would be to do some YouTube videos, so you might get to see that over the next few weeks. You lucky, lucky people.

Now, as has become tradition, it's 3D time...

Thinkin' About Social Media - Two guest posts elsewhere!

Hello!

A rare bit of blog content between podcasts now, as I've been doing some more guest posts to drum up more interest in my Hobson & Choi self-published crime series. On this occasion, whether by coincidence or because it's a cunning PR strategy (I don't actually know), they are both about the demon Social Media.

First to go up was "The Benefits and Disadvantages of Social Media to an Author" on Linda's Bookbag. In this post, I attempt to distill everything I have learnt and observed about using social media over the years - mostly as an author, but sometimes just as a human being.

Second, I try to explain "How Do You End Up Writing A Book About Social Media?" on Emma's Bookery. It's a good question - I sometimes wonder myself - and I know some people act like it's the death of dramatic tension, but I think I can justify its appeal to me. You'll have to read it yourself to see how I did.

And those are my guest posts! Hopefully a few more of these popping up in the coming weeks as we start ramping up for the H&C4 launch - I've got a cover completion date in early August confirmed, so hopefully we should get the book out before the third quarter of 2016 is over. I can but dream.
And in the spirit of Social Media Strategy, obviously do not forget to follow me on Twitter.

How To Write A Hobson & Choi Book In 50 Easy Steps - GUEST POST ELSEWHERE

Because I am the best at internet, I've only just realised that a guest post I wrote a while back has been on the internet since December! It's a choose-your-own-adventure style list post on how to write your own Hobson & Choi book in 50 easy steps, and it's hosted on the Music, Books & Tea blog! Click on this paragraph to activate it!

This only came to light when I was emailed by Faye Rogers (the nice PR person who gets me these guest post gigs) to talk about future commitments and I realised I'd never actually promoted this one.

Whoops. Still, I think it's pretty funny and deserving of attention. More stuff like this probably coming up as we move ever closer to the release of H&C4!

Thirty-Second Birthday V Hobson & Choi 4: Dawn of Moderate Fantasy Violence

Hello!

Since I keep saying I should do a blog here without a podcast attached, I thought I'd slide a quick one out today - because it is my thirty-second birthday! And I always seem to blog on this day, for whatever reason. I've got to go out for my celebratory activity quite soon - more on that later - but here is some stuff. It's been a while since the last substantial Hobson & Choi update, so let's start there...

H&C4 - Coming To The Airwaves!

Yes, I have a complete not-shit draft of Hobson & Choi Case Four! Almost time to send it to the external editor, get some informed feedback and then take a big swing to try and make it publication-ready.

First, however, I have to read the whole text out loud to myself. I inflict this upon all my fiction-prose work before releasing it to an external audience, because I find it really helps with the flow of the writing. However, it is boring as shit, and no amount of knowledge that it's useful seems to change that.

I did a whole blog post on this task a while back if you're interested in more, but the current-upshot is: H&C4 is coming along, it should be with you... if I had to guess, I'd say around the third quarter of 2016. I am hopeful that it won't slip into the fourth, but no promises.

Weirdly, looking back on my thirty-first birthday post, this is almost exactly where I was with H&C3 at the same time last year. However, I'm hoping it won't take until October to get this one out, as I don't have the distraction of moving across London this time.

So anyway, it's coming soon. If you want to check out any of the first three, you should absolutely do that. The first case remains free on digital. All links and info on the main H&C page.

Moderate Fantasy Violence website and the Birthday Activity

My pop-culture-chat podcast Moderate Fantasy Violence, the focus of every other post on this blog so far in 2016, continues apace. For my birthday activity, we're going to see the widely-criticised film Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Then we'll record our fourth episode tomorrow and see if we can add anything to the critical conversation.

Yes, the film's reviews are bad, but it sounds like it might be an Interesting Failure, and those are absolute catnip to story-talky-people like myself, so I'm still excited.

In other MFV news, we now have a proper separate website at ModerateFantasyViolence.com where you can see and listen to all the podcast stuff so far. Kudos to my co-host Alastair JR Ball for doing most of the hard work setting that up, it looks great. I'll continue posting here when a new ep comes out, but the new site is now the main hub. As well as the main episodes that I've been posting here, you can hear some deleted tangent-conversations that were cut to get the shows under an hour. Check that out, and if you fancy subscribing to or reviewing us on iTunes, even better.

So how are you in yourself, Nick?

Alright?

Kinda struggling to get another writing project going thanks to ideas not quite coming together or seeming as beautiful on the page as they do in my head. Once H&C4 is off to an editor, I'm going to take another swing at that. I think I've probably become a bit complacent thanks to spending so long working almost exclusively on Hobson & Choi, which is a world I love, know and can write easily. Maybe a short story or something to make it less intimidating?

And outside that, the new flat in Lewisham seems to be working out, realising my long-held dream of doing a podcast is a lot of fun and I don't even mind turning 32 because it seems a lot like 31. So cool. Good work. See you back here next year, I suppose?

(I will attempt to blog at some stage before my thirty-third birthday.)

ADMIN FOR THE ADMIN GOD - Video reading! Guest blog! Thought Bubble!

Hello! Yes, it's been a few weeks since the last brief admin post and now here's another one. Sorry. Got at least one thing to blog about, but I have to get a train to Leeds in about an hour for reasons you'll discover shortly, so it'll have to wait.

But! I have managed to write a guest blog post for someone else entirely (because I secretly hate you etc), so at least there's something to read. This is on the excellent If These Books Could Talk blog and is me musing about prose serialisation (yes, my pet topic), complete with recent examples and the inevitable bodily fluids joke at the end. It's a good post, check it out.

Outside the written world, I also did a reading at the lovely Big Green Bookshop (where you can now buy all three Hobson & Choi books in print!) as part of the Novel London series. If you couldn't make the reading due to only hearing about it now, that's okay, as Novel London filmed it and the result is now up on YouTube and also embedded below. Note the delicately beautiful product placement of H&C3 in the background.

Thanks to Safeena of Novel London for setting all that up, and if you get the chance to read at or attend a future event, give it a go. It's fun.

Last of all, I am off to Leeds shortly to both visit my godchild (also called Nick, it's weird) and attend one day (Saturday) of the Thought Bubble convention, which I hear on Twitter and many podcasts is one of the best comicon type events in the UK. Excited for that. Do say hello if you'll also be there, I am wandering around by myself so may look scared. I also have a copy or two of The Gathering: Noir anthology featuring my published corporate noir story, so that's exciting.

That is it! I hope to manage a more meaningful blog post next week. Or at least before the end of November.

Hobson & Choi quiz! Poem! Guest posts a go-go!

Hi!

After producing a slightly loose post last week, I was perhaps considering writing a real one this time, but I became unexpectedly busy and the remaining time had to be given over to the important tasks of actually writing and watching TV shows based on comics.

But as luck would have it, I've written some proper structured Hobson & Choi related bits for other blogs that have gone up this week, so at least I can link to those.

They're a little more esoteric than some of the guest posts I've done in my time, as there's only so much I can say about my Amazing Writing Process.

Firstly, there's the "Which Hobson & Choi Character Are You?" quiz, which is perhaps the most important personality test of our generation. Yes, even though it contains an arguable factual error re: whether Breaking Bad is a "current" TV show. Ahem.

Thanks to the always-excellent Chelley of Tales of Yesterday for hosting that one, including doing all the actual set-up for the quiz - I just sent over a set of questions and answers. Much obliged.

Second, and even more in-jokey than the first one, it's Gentrificapocalypse Now, a poem by Sad Receptionist. This is an actual creative work by a character from the H&C books, who you can follow on Twitter if you want. His backstory is (partially) unveiled in the second book, but the actual Twitter account is just stupid rhyming jokes really. More details in the actual blog post, kindly hosted by Andrew of The Pewter Wolf.

And that is it for now. Next week, if I'm not unexpectedly busy, maybe a real blog post here?

Writing challenge update! Guest post! GollanczFest! ADMINARAMA!

This is going to be another post which mish-mashes together some smaller points rather than having an amazing structure of its own, I'm afraid, as I've been writing a lot of guest-posts for other people's blogs, so haven't got a huge amount of fuel left in the Blog-Engine (or spare time left in the day) to produce a properly-structured masterpiece for my own.

However, I want to do some kind of update on my ongoing thousand-words-a-day writing challenge and I've got a few other bits and bobs too, so here's another disjointed general summary!

NickNoWriQuart - OOH WE'RE HALFWAY THERE

The big news (for me anyway) is that I've made it over the halfway mark of the daily writing challenge I outlined on this blog a month ago. My day job got quite busy for a while and then I had to publish the third Hobson & Choi book and write all those guest posts and I really thought one of those things would smash it to bits, but no, I'm still on track. In fact, I'm a few days over quota, as I'm busy most of the weekend - for reasons I'll outline a little further down - and wanted to make sure I didn't drop the challenge.

So, the good news is that I've done nearly 50k and, if this were NaNoWriMo rather than NickNoWriQuart, would have won by now. But NickNoWriQuart is both more hardcore (longer total!) and less (smaller daily wordcount!) than NaNo.

The bad news is, as with nearly all my first drafts, decent-sized chunks of the plan haven't really survived contact with reality and various changes became necessary as I went along. This is something I've blogged about a fair bit - here I am talking about making less mistakes and here I am talking about plans going awry - and yet still it happens.

But I've got my notes, the broad plot remains in place, so I'm going to try and swoop onwards for now. Mostly because I think it would be useful to have taken a swing at the ending - more infuriating to go back now and make a huge amount of substantial change, then discover this new version doesn't work for my ending and have to change everything again.

So, in short, everything continues as normal. I still want a full first draft by the end of November (or possibly the end of the year if I need to write a final couple of chapters in Dec) and I'll do another update at some point.

Guest Post - Five High Street Institutions I Could Turn Evil in Future H&C Books

If you want something that more closely resembles a structured blog post, I've written this one for Jim over at YA Yeah Yeah in which I talk about five fixtures of the British high street that I could theoretically turn all crimey for a future Hobson & Choi novel.

Do give it a look for some fun. Even if you've no interest in hearing about my writing process (in which case the previous section of this post must've just killed you), this really is all silly jokes.

Oh, and as this is the only H&C-relevant section of this post - yes, the book 3 launch went fine, thanks for asking. Sold a decent amount of book three, gave away a huge amount of the newly-free-on-ebook book one. Coming up next: some promotion, including a few more guest posts (I'll try and list them here in some kind of link compilation) and maybe even some Multimedia Content. We'll see if that works out.

GollanczFest - Will it be GollanczBest?

This weekend, I am going to GollanczFest in London, in which a bunch of sci-fi/fantasy authors (who happen to all be published by Gollancz) will be talking in general about their work on Saturday and in a more advice-to-writers way on Sunday. I hope it'll be interesting, there are some great authors in attendance (including Joe Abercrombie, Ben Aaronovitch, Paul Cornell, loads of others) and after the excellent fun of Nine Worlds in August, I'm up for more of this kinda thing.

Linking back up to the first part, GollanczFest is why I've written a short way ahead on the NickNoWriQuart challenge. It may also be the topic of its own blog next week, if I can think of much to say beyond "Yeah, it was good." If you want that level of analysis, follow me on Twitter and it's a safe bet you'll get some over the weekend.

Okay, that turned out a decent length (if still quite bitty) post in the end. Cool cool.

Trapped In The Bargain Basement - Hobson & Choi Case Three - OUT NOW

One of those blog posts that kinda writes itself - Trapped In The Bargain Basement, the third book in my mismatched-detective-duo London crime series Hobson & Choi comes out today! It should be out now!

In this third book, the team look into the dark heart of a massive towering shopping centre. But how is it evil? And why? And whose fault is it, and can it be proven? All these answers plus romantic subplot complications in this third volume!

I'll be honest, it's a very plot-heavy series, so I'd recommend starting from the first book (The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf) if you've not read any before. Helpfully, said debut book is currently free and you can get that from the links on the main Hobson & Choi page.

However, I do think Case Three could be one of the best yet and you don't have to just take my word for it. The first review went up yesterday on fellow indie author Virginia McClain's blog, which you can see here accompanied by a nice guest post by me about how to turn your serial into a novel.

Here's a nice pertinent quote from Virginia's review: "This third installment of the Hobson & Choi mysteries delivers just as much fun and whimsy as the first two books, but with the delightful addition of more wolfhound. My favorite thing about all three books is the characters and their engagement with each other.... Whoever's perspective we're following, there's a good chance that we are going to be forced to take a good look at our own privilege, even if we aren't forced to stare at it too long, and can safely return to pinning things on the 'bad guys' a few pages later. It's this odd but compelling mixture of dark humor and introspection that keeps me returning to Bryan's books."

(It's weird being referred to by my surname again, by the way. Reminds me of being back at all-boys grammar school.)

So there we go. Trapped In The Bargain Basement is out now in both print and digital and below should be a rank of buttons to help you buy it. Enjoy!

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf - FREE AT LAST (on digital)

The first Hobson & Choi book, The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, has been around since early 2013 in various forms: on Jukepop Serials, podcasted, in the self-published book and recently in serialised form on Wattpad.

Well, as the H&C Empire begins gearing up for its third installment (and I've already written the first draft of Case Four), I'd like everyone to at least give my grim-yet-fun urban crime book series a shot so I can have some chance of buying that heavily armoured central London fortress.

For that exact reason, the very first H&C case is now free on all major ebook platforms that I could upload and set it as free on.
So if you've been meaning to try the series but held back by money, it now costs nothing. How long this price will last, I don't know - I am a man, not a publishing machine - but at least the rest of 2015, I think.

I considered announcing this on Tuesday with the cover reveal, but because I didn't get it set up in time wanted to maximise the impact of the strategic announcement on the internet content media #landscape, here's the freebie news a few days later.

If you've already read the first H&C story arc in one format or another, consider grabbing the freebie anyway for Book-One-only bonus short story The Left Hand Is Always Right, which I enjoyed writing muchly.

Anyway, that's enough text considering all I'm announcing is The Free Thing Is Free. Below are the buy-buttons, begin yoinking from your ebook retailer of choice. And if you enjoy it, you can move quickly on to Case Two and (soon) Three, feeling good about your real contribution towards my fortress.

Hobson & Choi III: Trapped In The Bargain Basement - COVERS & PRE-ORDERS

After a long editing process, the third book in the Hobson & Choi series is absolutely happening! My darkly-comic crime series in which a world-weary private investigator and his curious teenage sidekick confront the dark side of every modern institution I can think of!

It's grim, it's fun and I like it more than most other things - yes, even Batman. (Sorry, Bruce.)

In this third book, our heroes stumble into an evil shopping centre. Yes, even commerce is wrong now, but how is it awful? Find out on October 6th 2015, when Trapped In The Bargain Basement opens for business in print and ebook form!

Of course, a new H&C declaration means a new lovely cover from Design For Writers, the great folk behind the last two. Without any further burble, here's the cover alongside the blurb, and below that, some pre-order links and review opportunities.

Trapped In The Bargain Basement - THE TRUTH

“You've heard of conspiracies within conspiracies? I wish conspiracies WOULD hide inside each other, instead of turning up everywhere I go."

Angelina Choi returns for her final day of work experience at the Hobson Agency - is there a job waiting afterwards? Should she walk away for her own good?

While she mulls it over, they're hired by the massive EastVillage shopping centre to investigate a spate of muggings. But do the management know more than they're letting on?

As Hobson and Choi wrestle with commercialised corruption, will Angelina finally squeeze in her first date with Will the Hot Receptionist? Can anything emerge from the smoking crater of Hobson’s love life?

Trapped In The Bargain Basement plunges grimly comic London crime series Hobson & Choi to new depths, after climbing to #1 in Dark Comedy on Amazon and breaking records on Jukepop Serials.

Also included: Wuff! - The Markus Tail, a book-only bonus short story. Discover the bone-gnawingly tense origin of H&C’s furriest, friendliest character.

Want to pre-order now?

Want to secure your copy before they... run out of books or something? Here are the places you can already get your order in! As ever, there will be a print edition too, but I can only get pre-orders working on ebook for whatever reason.

• Amazon UK!
• Amazon US!
• Apple iBooks!
• Kobo!
• Google Play!
• Smashwords!

If you want to formally declare your intentions to read the book, you can add H&C as want-to-read on Goodreads too.

Lastly, if you have a book blog (or other outlet) and want to review Trapped In The Bargain Basement, get in touch with me at nick@nickbryan.com and I'll set you up.

ADMINARAMA - H&C on Wattpad! Competition answer! BOOK THREE LOOMS!

Sundry bits and bobs on the blog today - might try for a full-length post in a few days, but for now, sundry newsbursts from Nick-land...

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf on WHAT pad?

If you want to read The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, the first book in my darkly-comic crime Hobson & Choi series, without shelling out cash, I'm currently serialising it on Wattpad, the popular story-sharing site. Plus you can read H&C old-school, serialised with cliffhangers, a format I still have a huge amount of affection for.

Chapters are going up every other day (next one tomorrow) and there's only fifteen of them, so it should be all there fairly soon. Check it out and if you have a Wattpad account and feel like throwing in a vote or comment, go for it.

Phantom of the Space Opera - Competition ongoing!

Remember my competition from last week? The one where you had to guess which chapter I wrote in the team-written book from Nine Worlds? Well, no winners yet, so because I feel like it, rather than tell you the answer, I'm going to just leave it hanging.

Once one human being (not one of the ones who has told me they got the answer in a way other than reading it) emails the correct answer to nick@nickbryan.com, I'll send them a copy of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, signed or unsigned as per their will. Maybe some other gift as well, I've got a few spare comics and stuff hanging around.

Once that happens, I'll post the right answer here. Check the original blog post for the full details of what that's all about.

Trapped In The Bargain Basement soon to be released!

Last and definitely not least, the third Hobson & Choi book Trapped In The Bargain Basement is finally more or less ready to be released into the community! It's taken some work - specifically, a set of rewrites so massive that I've had to remove the original webseries version from the internet because it embarrasses me.

But we have a final text, nearly a final cover, it's all very close. I'm not going to say anything specific like a date yet, but Trapped should be with you by this time next month, let's put it that way. So even sooner than that, there might be a cover reveal. Gosh.

However, if you have a blog and would like a review copy so you can post something near the release date, do email me or something and I can probably get it to you reasonably soon. If you definitely have a blog/other outlet for reviews and desperately want to cover the whole series, I may even be able to supply all three.