Superhero Stuff

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    Happy holidays and happy reading time …

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    Note #1: This post will also appear tomorrow at Magical Musings.

    Note #2: I’m taking a blogging break for the holidays. See you back here on Monday, Jan. 4.

    First of all, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season. May your gatherings be warm, merry, and bright, and may your travels be safe.

    I have a confession to make. One of my favorite things about the holiday season isn’t any family or friend gatherings. It’s not even all the yummy holiday food (although that’s a close second).

    It’s the extra reading time. 🙂

    With Christmas Eve and Christmas Day falling on a Thursday and Friday this year, many folks will have a long holiday weekend, including yours truly. And I plan to spend part of that time digging into some of the books that Santa will hopefully bring me for Christmas. Here are a few books that are on my holiday wishlist. Note that the descriptions are from Amazon:

    Black Widow The Tightly Tangled WebBlack Widow Volume 2: The Tightly Tangled Web by Nathan Edmondson, Phil Noto, and Mitch Gerads

    On a snowy night in Prague, Natasha must fight her way out of disaster alongside the Winter Soldier! Meanwhile, Isaiah has business in London, but a simple plan soon gets very complicated. Then, the Black Widow finds herself fighting against – or alongside? – the Punisher for access to a deadly criminal network. But trapped on an exploding oil rig with Crossbones and his Skull Squad, will Frank and Natasha complete their missions…or take each other out? And because you demanded it: Hawkeye! But how could his fight with the Widow cost Isaiah his life? Finally, in the wake of Wolverine’s death, Black Widow bonds with the despondent X-23 over punching and espionage. Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto continue their run on one of the most acclaimed books of the year!

    COLLECTING: Black Widow 7-12, Punisher 9

    Six of CrowsSix of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

    Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price–and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…

    A convict with a thirst for revenge.

    A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager.

    A runaway with a privileged past.

    A spy known as the Wraith.

    A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

    A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

    Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction?if they don’t kill each other first.

    The Zig Zag GirlThe Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths

    In the first installment of a compelling new series by Elly Griffiths featuring Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens and the magnificent Max Mephisto, a band of magicians who served together in World War II track a killer who’s performing their deadly tricks.

    Brighton, 1950. The body of a girl is found cut into three pieces. Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is convinced the killer is mimicking a famous magic trick—the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old war friend of Edgar’s. They served together in a shadowy unit called the Magic Men, a special ops troop that used stage tricks to confound the enemy. 

    Max is on the traveling show circuit, touring seaside towns with ventriloquists, sword-swallowers and dancing girls. He’s reluctant to leave this world to help Edgar investigate, but advises him to identify the victim quickly — it takes a special sidekick to do the Zig Zag Girl. Those words come back to haunt Max when the dead girl turns out to be Ethel, one of his best assistants to date. He’s soon at Edgar’s side, hunting for Ethel’s killer. 

    Another death, another magic trick: Edgar and Max are sure the answer to the murders lies in their army days. And when Edgar receives a letter warning of another “trick” on the way — the Wolf Trap — he knows they’re all in the killer’s sights.

    What about you guys? What books are you hoping to give, receive, and read this holiday season?

    Happy holidays! 🙂

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    The work of self-publishing …

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    Note: This post appeared last week at Magical Musings, and I wanted to share it here as well.

    Over the past several months, I’ve been working on writing and self-publishing a new book in my Bigtime superhero series. I’m happy to announce that I self-published Fandemic, the fifth book in the series, on June 2. Woot!

    FandemicI’m so glad that the book is finally out there for folks to read and hopefully enjoy. And frankly, I’m also glad that the book — and the work — is finally finished. LOL.

    Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy self-publishing, but it is a lot of work — a lot of work.

    When you self-publish, you are responsible for every single aspect of the book, from actually writing it, to getting it proofread, to the cover art, to the e-book and print book formats, and everything in between. Sure, you can hire folks to do some of the work for you (and I do), but if you don’t do the work (or pay someone to do the work), then it simply doesn’t get done. And once your book is actually published, you are also responsible for promoting the book and letting folks know that it’s available.

    I first started working on Fandemic in May 2014, so it’s taken me more than a year to go from writing the first draft to actually publishing the book. Why so long? Well, I’ve had to squeeze in all the work on Fandemic around writing my two traditionally published series — my Elemental Assassin and Black Blade series.

    With my two traditionally published series, I’m responsible for writing the book, as well as doing copy edits and proofreading the book. But that’s it. The publisher takes care of the cover art, the e-book and print book formatting, and some of the promotion (although I do a fair amount of promotion on my own as well).

    I do hope to write and self-publish more works in my Bigtime series, but it will probably be a while before I start on something new in the series.

    As for right now, I hope that everyone enjoys Fandemic. I’m going to reward myself and go take a nap. 😎

    The Fandemic e-book is $2.99 and is available at the following sites:

    Amazon Kindle / Barnes & Noble / Google Play / iBooks / Kobo / Smashwords

    A print version of Fandemic is also available for $8.99 through Amazon.

    Here is the book description:

    ­Piper Perez has always wanted to be a super­hero. Always wanted to wear a cool costume, have amazing abilities, and save the day. There’s just one problem—Piper doesn’t have any superpowers.

    So she focuses on other things. Facts, figures, memorabilia. Piper knows and collects it all, about both the superheroes and the ubervillains who roam the streets of Bigtime, N.Y. Piper’s friends jokingly call her a fandemic—someone who is a superfan of all things superhero. The nickname is truer than anyone knows, especially since Piper can’t stop thinking about Swifte, the speedy hero who broke her heart months ago.

    But someone has been killing off Bigtime’s heroes and villains. When one of Piper’s friends is murdered, she vows to do whatever she can to help bring the killer to justice, superpowers or not. All the clues and information she gathers lead her to believe that Swifte is the killer’s next target. Piper has always wanted to be a hero, and now she’ll have to use all of her fandemic knowledge to save the man she loves—or die trying….

    Fandemic is around 43,000 words, which means that it is a shorter book than the others in the series, which are around 95,000 words. For those of you who like page counts, Fandemic is about 150 pages.

    You can read the first chapter here. Scroll down and click on the Read Excerpt tab. Happy reading!

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    Fandemic, Bigtime #5, released …

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    Book #5Fandemic, the fifth book in my Bigtime superhero series, has been released. Woot!

    The Fandemic e-book is $2.99, and it is available at the following sites:

    Amazon Kindle / Barnes & Noble / Google Play / iBooks / Kobo / Smashwords

    A print version of Fandemic is available for $8.99 through Amazon.

    Here is the book description:

    ­Piper Perez has always wanted to be a super­hero. Always wanted to wear a cool costume, have amazing abilities, and save the day. There’s just one problem—Piper doesn’t have any superpowers.

    So she focuses on other things. Facts, figures, memorabilia. Piper knows and collects it all, about both the superheroes and the ubervillains who roam the streets of Bigtime, N.Y. Piper’s friends jokingly call her a fandemic—someone who is a superfan of all things superhero. The nickname is truer than anyone knows, especially since Piper can’t stop thinking about Swifte, the speedy hero who broke her heart months ago.

    But someone has been killing off Bigtime’s heroes and villains. When one of Piper’s friends is murdered, she vows to do whatever she can to help bring the killer to justice, superpowers or not. All the clues and information she gathers lead her to believe that Swifte is the killer’s next target. Piper has always wanted to be a hero, and now she’ll have to use all of her fandemic knowledge to save the man she loves—or die trying….

    Note: Fandemic is around 43,000 words, which means that it is a shorter book than the others in the series, which are around 95,000 words. For those of you who like page counts, Fandemic is about 150 pages.

    You can read the first chapter here. Scroll down and click on the Read Excerpt tab.

    For those of you who need a refresher, Piper is the best friend of Abby Appleby, the heroine of Nightingale, the fourth book in the series. And many of you have been waiting to see who the superhero Swifte really is. I won’t spoil that here, but I think it has been fairly obvious in the books who Swifte really is.

    I hope that everyone enjoys Fandemic and the return trip to Bigtime. Cheers!

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    Fandemic, Bigtime #5, up for pre-order …

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    Book #5Fandemic, the fifth book in my Bigtime superhero series, will be released on June 2. Woot!

    The Fandemic e-book will be priced at $2.99. It is up for pre-order at the following sites:

    Amazon Kindle / Google Play / iBooks / Kobo / Smashwords

    The e-book will also be available at Barnes & Noble. That link should go up on release day, June 2.

    A print version of Fandemic will be available for $8.99 through Amazon.

    Here is the book description:

    ­Piper Perez has always wanted to be a super­hero. Always wanted to wear a cool costume, have amazing abilities, and save the day. There’s just one problem—Piper doesn’t have any superpowers.

    So she focuses on other things. Facts, figures, memorabilia. Piper knows and collects it all, about both the superheroes and the ubervillains who roam the streets of Bigtime, N.Y. Piper’s friends jokingly call her a fandemic—someone who is a superfan of all things superhero. The nickname is truer than anyone knows, especially since Piper can’t stop thinking about Swifte, the speedy hero who broke her heart months ago.

    But someone has been killing off Bigtime’s heroes and villains. When one of Piper’s friends is murdered, she vows to do whatever she can to help bring the killer to justice, superpowers or not. All the clues and information she gathers lead her to believe that Swifte is the killer’s next target. Piper has always wanted to be a hero, and now she’ll have to use all of her fandemic knowledge to save the man she loves—or die trying….

    Note: Fandemic is around 43,000 words, which means that it is a shorter book than the others in the series, which are around 95,000 words. For those of you who like page counts, Fandemic is about 150 pages.

    You can read the first chapter here. Scroll down and click on the Read Excerpt tab.

    For those of you who need a refresher, Piper is the best friend of Abby Appleby, the heroine of Nightingale, the fourth book in the series. And many of you have been waiting to see who the superhero Swifte really is. I won’t spoil that here, but I think it has been fairly obvious in the books who Swifte really is.

    Many folks have asked me if I will continue on with the Bigtime series. I would like to write and self-publish more in the series, but self-publishing is very time-consuming, and my writing schedule is already full into 2016 with my Elemental Assassin and Black Blade series.

    If I do write more in the Bigtime series, it will probably be a shorter book like Fandemic or perhaps some more e-novellas, like A Karma Girl Christmas (which is about 14,000 words).

    Anyway, I hope that everyone enjoys Fandemic when it is released. Cheers!

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    Free Comic Book Day coming up on May 2 …

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    Note: This blog will also appear tomorrow, April 14, over at Magical Musings.

    It seems like every day is some sort of holiday. Of course, you have your biggies, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but there is something to celebrate every day. There’s even a National Day Calender where you can keep track of important holidays like Talk Like A Pirate Day (Sept. 19 — Yargh!) and National Cookie Day (Dec. 4 — shouldn’t we celebrate cookies every day?).

    But one of my favorite holidays is Free Comic Book Day, which always takes place on the first Saturday in May — May 2 this year.

    And it is just what it sounds like. On Free Comic Book Day, participating comic book shops across the United States and around the world give away free comics to kids and adults, host costume contests, and much more. You can see a preview of some of the comics that will be given away during this year’s event over at the Free Comic Book Day website.

    Avengers Age of Ultron Free Comic Book Day should be especially fun this year, with the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie coming out on May 1. So why not pick up some comics collections, like Age of Ultron by Brian Michael Bendis, Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson, and Carlos Pacheco, shown at left, and learn more about your favorite superheroes and villains? If you don’t read comics, you’re missing out on some great stories and art.

    Also, if you’re a fantasy author, get in touch with your local comic book store. Many folks who enjoy comics enjoy fantasy stories in general, and you might find some new readers. I’ll be signing books on May 2 at Mountain Empire Comics in Bristol, Tenn. The store always has a great crowd on Free Comic Book Day, and it’s always fun to chat with folks about superhero movies, TV shows, and more.

    Free Comic Book Day is a terrific time to head out to your local comic book store to see what all the superhero fuss is about. Hope everyone enjoys Free Comic Book Day as much as I do. Cheers!