The Art of Tweeting in the Rain

Twitter is one of those things that sounded completely ridiculous the first time I heard it described.

Say anything you want to anyone who will listen, as long as you can say it in less than 140 characters.

Listen, I can barely mumble good morning in less than 140 characters. And the list of people with any interest whatsoever in hearing me wish them good morning can be counted on two fingers. One, even.

So I laughed and put Twitter out of my mind, until one day I was confronted with a deep, profound Truth concerning Twitter that shook me to my very core.

Did I suddenly comprehend that Twitter was an emerging, powerful social engine that would fundamentally alter the very exchange of ideas? Was I overcome with an epiphany which left me nearly blinded by the sheer magnitude and depth of the impact Twitter is having on language itself? Did I suddenly feel connected in a profound new way to millions of my fellow humans as we struggle together on this painful journey we call life?

Nah.

I learned an effective Twitter presence was a good way to sell books.

I should really qualify that statement. What I learned was that Twitter is an effective way for some authors to sell books.  I naturally assumed that since I have, on numerous occasions, composed sentences in the 140 character range, that I'd be a shoo-in for Twitter superstardom.

Upon reflection, I'm relegating that particular assumption to the same dusty bin that holds a number of other assumptions which failed to survive their head-on collision with reality.  Most notable of these assumptions is that Volkswagen Beetles will float -- they most certainly do not, and I have the experiential knowledge to prove it -- but I digress.

Suffice it to say that my climb from Twitter obscurity to anything resembling notoriety has been, um, fraught with challenge.

Turns out it's not easy to sell books on Twitter at all.

Not that there aren't lots of authors out there trying.  And I feel for them, I really do, but after the sixth or eighth time I see the same For the Love of Pete BUY MY BOOK tweet repeated my finger is already clicking the dread UNFOLLOW button.

So if strident repetition of titles doesn't work, what next?

Some strive for complex, deep snippets of philosophy or social commentary, each designed to leave the reader reeling at the mere force of the author's intellect.

I'm more a knock-knock joke kind of guy, and I never spell Nietzsche right, so that path wasn't my best choice either.

So, comedy it was.  I fired up my Twitter dashboard and...

....and....

...and sat there for most of November.  Being funny on demand in 140 characters is a lot like trying to jump out of bed in the middle of the night and belt out a big Broadway song and dance routine with no rehearsal, no back-up singers, and no do-overs. I still have nightmares about that. And for the record, lots of grown men sleep in footie pajamas.

So I floundered around like any Twitter newb, alternating between lame lunch-menu posts and thinly veiled plugs for my books.

But somewhere along the way, I started to get the hang of Twitter, and I did that by shutting my mouth (so to speak) and listening, instead of typing.

What I found was a vibrant, hilarious crew of Twitters who riff off each other and the news and books and pretty much everything else to create an endless, multi-faceted conversation.

My tweet stream is often fascinating. Neil Gaiman talks about books and reading, while the Voyager spacecraft note their positions and activities and the stars of Leverage talk about acting and films. I can keep up with the writing careers of a couple dozen authors, some big names, some further down the sales totem pole than me.  I get news before the networks. I can see what the ISS crew is up to at any given moment.  There's an anonymous New York editor who rails and rants about the horrors of his slush pile.

In short, it's a blast.

Does it sell me any books?

Frankly, Scarlet, I don't have a clue.  I've stopped worrying about that.  Sure, I'll mention it when a new one comes out.  But if I've learned one thing about Twitter, it's this -- pretend it's a party.  Strangers are milling around everywhere, smiling, talking, trying to find the shrimp tray.

You don't want to be that guy who corners people and tries to sell them something.  It's a party. They didn't sign up for sales pitches. So relax. Listen more than you talk. Measure your words when you do speak. If you tell a joke, make sure it's funny.

Now go join Twitter and start tweeting -- right after you buy one of my books!

Hey, this isn't Twitter...

All the Paths of Shadow

The Broken Bell

Review for "The Broken Bell"

There's a deep and therapeutic sense of release on the day and in the hour that a new book is released into the world.  The author can finally sigh in relief.  The writing is done.  The editing is done.  There are no more decisions to be made, no more words to scrutinize, no more nuances to ponder and weigh.  The manuscript has become a book, and readers will either love it or hate it or, worst of all, pass it by without a second glance.  But its fate is out of the author's hands.

That deep relief I just described lasts maybe an hour.

Because right after you wave farewell to your manuscript and comment on what a grown-up book it has become, with that shiny new cover and that freshly-minted ISBN number, you as a writer know what lies ahead.

Book reviews.

That's right.  Book reviews.  Someone with no predisposition to love your hard-born literary offspring is, maybe, picking it up, frowning at the back cover copy, skipping the dedication and starting with Chapter One.

What if -- gasp -- they don't like it?

What if -- moan -- they read that first sentence, that first sentence that you spent three weeks agonizing over, that first sentence that you were sure an hour ago represented the apex of your wit, wisdom, and talent, and they read it and hate it?

What if -- shudder -- you've been fooling yourself all along and you have the writing skills of a freshly-stunned blowfish, and that cold cruel inescapable fact is about to be broadcast to he world at large?

What if?

Now do you see why writers are so fond of strong drink?

So yeah, about an hour after a release I get fidgety.  I set a Google alert for my title.  I start doing sporadic searches on it just in case a review so bad pops up Google doesn't have the heart to show it to me.

And I wait.  Wait for that first review.

Well, boys and girls, the wait is over.

The first official review for The Broken Bell is in.

Before I post the link, let me 'splain about the reviewer and why her opinion matters so much to me.

First of all, Ann Somerville is both reader and writer.  Go ahead, click her name -- she's got literally pages of books on Amazon.  Good books, too.  And not just good in the enjoyable to read sense, either -- I mean she can write. With complexity, nuance, and insight. She doesn't flinch. She doesn't stutter.  Her fictional worlds live and breathe, and they'll take your breath away.

You should stop right now and grab one of her ebooks.  The first book of hers I read was Interstitial, which she published with Samhain.  There's a razor-sharp mind behind that book.  On my best day, I'm more of a blunt instrument mind.

Ann and I have never met.   We're net buddies, sure, but if I wrote a stinker of a book, Ann would say so, because she's honest.  And I'd have nothing but the utmost respect for her evaluation, because I know she knows good writing when she sees it, and when she doesn't.

All of which is a very roundabout way of explaining why this review of The Broken Bell is so significant to me.  It's validation by peril, if that makes sense.

So now I can breathe that sigh of relief.  If Ann Somerville gives Broken Bell that many stars, I've done something right!

Oh, and one more thing.  Too often everyone, me included, forgets that a lot of people worked on The Broken Bell. Believe me when I say that the manuscript I submitted and the book you buy are two very different reading experiences!  So thank my editor, Bethany Morgan.  She's every bit as responsible as I am for bringing The Broken Bell to market!

Please click the link and read Ann's review here.

Finally, my late mother also contributed to The Broken Bell.  The original ending was a cliffhanger, and she read the book -- no easy feat, when you're in the last stages of ALS and you can move two fingers and nothing else -- and when she was done, she said I really needed to wrap things up.  Said it forcefully.  I believe her exact words, typed out one agonizing letter at a time, were "Boy you are in big trouble with this ending."

So I added another thousand words, and I'm glad I did.

Thanks, Mom.  I'm going to miss having you read the next one.

Back to Basics

It's a dreary nasty day here in the glorious wonderland that is north Mississippi.  It's neither cool enough for jackets and heaters, or warm enough for short sleeves and sitting on the patio.  In fact, today is suitable for only one thing, and that thing is a pounding headache, which I have.  Thanks, Nature.  And no, all those beautiful pristine tropical waterfalls and so forth do not make up for today.

Even my dogs are listless and mildly annoyed.  Thor just looked out the window and growled at the sky.  Lou Ann hasn't budged from her (my) chair.  Max and Fletcher are parked on the couch, unconscious and determined to stay that way.

I'm trying to write, but not having much luck. Something about the sullen, lead-grey sky just squashes the words before I can get them typed.  Which is another strike against Nature, and one which only strengthens my resolve to one day build a windowless writing room far beneath the surface, a room reachable only by elevator and pizza delivery man.  I don't need the sky messing with my head.  I've got plenty of things inside my head messing with me already.

I have done a couple of marketing type things lately.  All the Paths of Shadow now has its own Facebook page.  Meralda and Mug are frequent posters there, so if you're interested in interacting with them, hit the Paths of Shadow Facebook page by clicking here.  And yes, that really is Mug, and that really is Meralda, so hit the page and say hi!

In completely unrelated news, I'm adding a new component to the Temple of Boom, which is my nickname for my stereo.  I've come full circle, gentle readers -- I listened to vinyl as a kid, then eagerly took up CDs when they premiered.  When iTunes came along, I embraced that too.

And now I'm turning full circle.  CD production is down.  Most music is sold in digital format, as a download.

But I'm heading back to vinyl.

There are a lot of reasons for my change.  And I'm not abandoning digital music.  I'll still listen to my iPod  and my PC.  Heck, I'm listening now -- Alan Parson, 'Turn it Up,' from the 'Try Anything Once' album.

But a while back I came across an old Crutchfield catalog and I remembered how much fun I used to have messing about with my sound gear.  It was a serious hobby, or at least as serious as it could be on my tiny budget.  But I knew receivers and speakers inside and out.  The specs meant something, and getting the most accurate sound for your money was a blast.

I was all about listening to the music back then.  Really listening.  Starting at Track 1 and going all the way through the album, just as the band intended.

I realized something, thumbing through that 1989 Crutchfield stereo catalog. Somewhere along the way between CDs and iTunes, I stopped listening to music.

Oh, it's always playing nearby.  I put iTunes on shuffle and let it go.  And I'm listening, sort of.

But I've heard these songs a million times.  They've become background noise.

So I'm turning back the clock.  No, I'm not going to buy my entire collection on vinyl all over again.  With a few rare exceptions, everything I get on vinyl is going to be new.

And I'm going to sit down and start with Track 1 and listen to the whole album, song by song.  No pause.  No shuffle.  No fast-forward.

Old school, baby.

My new turntable is a Audi-Technica AT-LP60.  Nothing fancy.  It doesn't convert vinyl tracks to MP3s, it doesn't let you choose track order, it doesn't do anything but play records.

And I'm buying my new music from Fat Possum Records, which shares my home in Oxford, Mississippi.  I like supporting locals.  And they offer a good mix of rock and blues.

My first album is Believers, by AA Bondy.  I haven't heard it yet.  The album is here, but not the turntable.

I'll let you guys know how it all goes.  I can't wait to cue the record up and let the stylus drop for the very first time, all over again.

Stay groovy, kids.  Hit the Paths of Shadow Facebook page!

Three Resolutions

I made three resolutions for the new year.

First, I resolved to never stick my head in a fan again, even on a double-dog dare.  Especially not an all-steel industrial cooling fan that could probably serve as the number two port wing engine on a DC-3 in a pinch.  Those things have got torque, people. And forget ever getting your hair out of the manifold.

Second, I vowed to immediately cease and desist housing squirrels, chipmunks, marmots, or other small mammals in my britches.  I think the article that inspired that idea may have been a parody.  In any case, stitches are expensive (and in many cases embarrassing) and Mr. Chang down at the Super Plus Good One-Day Cleaners was very clear on the matter of more squirrels in his steam-press.

Finally, I have sworn to refrain from prank calling Luxembourg.  They never quite caught on to the Prince Albert in a can joke anyway, and I never learned German or French, so most of the calls deteriorated into both sides speaking very loudly and very slowly with neither person ever comprehending what was said.  Now that I think about it, that makes Luxembourg one of my best friends, so maybe I'll keep calling just for old times' sake.

So what did you, gentle reader, resolve to do differently in this shiny, hopeful new year?

Email me with your resolutions and I'll post the best and the strangest of them here in a few days.

In the meantime, BUY MY BOOKS!  Please.  I'm starving down here.

All the Paths of Shadow

The Broken Bell

2011: The Year That Was

Frakked.

If you're familiar with Battlestar Galactica (the recent remake, not that awful 80s thing), you know what 'frakked' means.

If you're not, well, frakked is a curse word, and it means exactly what you think it means.

And frakked is what 2011 was, at least to me.  There's just not a better way to sum up that wretched, terrible year than with the most forbidden perjorative in the language.

2011 brought the Tuttle household many things, few of them pleasant.  Terminal illness, first and foremost.  The relentless inexorable decline of a loved one, who suffered horribly from a disease that can't even be treated, much less cured.  The entire battery of our much-vaunted 21st century medicine couldn't do a thing; in the end, it was that old standby morphine that offered at least a little comfort.  No hope, of course, but perhaps a few moments of peace.

I won't even go any further down the list.  If I had to put a more polite label on 2011, I'd just call it the Year I Watched.  Watched, and waited, because ultimately that was all any of us could do.

So yeah, color me a little bitter about 2011.  Oh, I know there are chipper, smiling types out there who are just bursting with platitudes of the 'in every tragedy there is a lesson to be learned' variety, but I'm well past the age when I step in manure and immediately assume rainbow-hued unicorns are prancing nearby.

It's just manure.  And it stinks.

But now, it's 2012.  Surely the new year will bring with it fresh new changes...

What's that you say?  Mayan prophecy?  Armageddon, Doomsday, the End of the World, and you don't mean the song by REM?

Someone has been watching the History Channel.

Let me make a couple of things abundantly clear.  Yes, the world, and by the world I mean us, is teetering on the brink of complete chaos.  War or plague or climate change or any combination of calamity could effectively wipe us out next Tuesday, without warning.  I agree with that.

What I don't agree with is that 2012 is any riskier than 2000 or 1958 or 1426.  That state of chaos?  The constant threats from above, from below, from within?

That's what we high school graduates call the human condition.  We've added a few new threats in the last century -- nuclear war, designer viruses, global warming -- but the Doomsday List was already so long  three more entries barely tilted the poor odds further against us significantly.  It's as if Nature just shrugged and said 'Sure, I'll see your nuclear warheads, and raise you a supervolcano.'

In fact, the most significant feature of 2012 is the media frenzy surrounding its alleged status as the last year we'll ever put on a calendar.

First, that bit about the Mayan long count calendar.  The Maya weren't asserting that time ends of December 21st, 2012, any more than we claim the world ends at midnight every December 31st.  It doesn't.  We just start again with a new calendar, maybe one with kittens or pastoral scenes of rural Ireland. Nothing ends, we just reset the counter.

Which is exactly what the Maya were doing, until a modern-day writer decided to sell a few million copies of his doomsday book by claiming a (then) little-known calendar created by a vanished people who hadn't even figured out the wheel foretold the end of days.

And it did sell a lot of books.  Which is a far more compelling statement concerning the grisly curiosity of the public than it is evidence of any plausible bit of prophecy.

And then you've got your Nostradamus and your Mother Shipton and half a dozen other second-class prophets all claiming the end is nigh.  I wish the programming guys at the History Channel would study a little history now and then.  'Mother Shipton' never existed, save as the figment of a cash-strapped author's surprisingly plentiful imagination.  Nostradamus, as the Beatles sang, gets by with a little help from his friends, i.e., his translators, who are quite helpful when it comes to turning a phrase just so now and then.

Those quatrains are so flexible, in fact, that both the Axis and the Allies used them to predict their own inevitable victories during WWII.  Nice how that worked out, huh?

So put me down as thoroughly unimpressed when confronted with the usual suspects in regard to prescience.

In fact, the whole prophecy bit is so easy I'll throw my own hat in the ring.  Here, then, are my Prophetic Visions(tm) for the Year 2012:

1) A lot of people will get suddenly, horribly ganked by wars, the weather, illness, or the collapse of those enormous shelves at Home Depot.
2) The American political scene will descend even further into the arena of profound incompetence.
3) Bad, bad things will happen in places that end with the suffix '-stan.'
4) The rich will get richer, and the poor will get drunker, higher, and thinner.
5) Soda straws will see a collective 2% increase in flow efficiency.

There you have it.  Science and commerce march on, and if they step over a few bodies on the way that's just the way we roll in 2012.

So be careful out there, folks.  Watch your six.  Never assume it's just the wind scratching at the windows, because it might be the Maya, wanting to say 'We told you so.'

Oh, and 2011?

Frak you.

Very Good Drugs

Lately, my various internal organs and sundry squishy bits have been the objects of keen interest by somber-faced physicians and the instruments of their curiosity.

I've had MRIs, CAT scans, blood panels, EKGs, electrocardiograms, and a host of other three-letter acronym tests that all seem to involve two things -- slight blood loss and large bills. With needles inserted into your arm, just to remind you who's boss when the bills come in.

Yesterday yet another camera was poked down my throat.  I'm sure that action and the recent renewed interest in the location of missing Teamster Jimmy Hoffa's remains is mere coincidence. First, I never met the man, and second, I don't think anything that size would fit in my esophagus.

But they took another tissue sample, just to make sure, because you know how clever those Mob hit men can be.

I hope yesterday was the last time I need to have anything the length of a nine-iron shoved down my throat.  Not that the people who did the deed weren't friendly and professional -- they were -- but enough is enough.  I promise, guys, there's nothing that interesting going on in there.

As I was coming out of the anesthesia, I apparently told everyone that Sam Winchester left a glowing review on Amazon for The Broken Bell. That's not likely to happen, since Sam is a fictional character on the TV show Supernatural, but for drug-induced hallucinations that's actually a good hallucination to experience.  It sure beats the one about the 300-pound toad with the bag of rattlesnakes and the taser.

Today I'm taking it easy, messing with my iPod, making ready for the arrival of the turntable, that sort of thing.  But I do want to pass along a review of The Broken Bell, flagged just now courtesy of Google Alerts.  Thanks, Naughty Bits, for the kind words!

Click here to read it.

The Waiting Game

Whew.

Well, the new book The Broken Bell is out. The Big Three sites (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Samhain) are all selling copies hand over fist. My Amazon sales rank is holding steady around 16K, which is pretty good for a new book's first day when you're not a household name like King or Koontz.

Now, a seasoned pro in this business would just glance at the various bookseller webpages to make sure everything was running smoothly and get on with the business of writing the next book.  Because really, at this point, the book is going to stand or fall on its own, and there's not much I can do to promote it without making a colossal nuisance of myself.  There are only so many ways and so many times I can wave the 'Buy my book!' sign in your face before you get understandably weary of seeing it.

Maybe one day I'll be that seasoned pro, but it sure wasn't today.

If there's a tech on duty at Amazon's Network Operations Center, he's probably looking at my IP address and shaking his head, because I've been refreshing my Amazon sales page for The Broken Bell all day long.

Take a look for yourself. Click here, then scroll down to the bit that says Amazon Best Sellers Rank under Product Details.

Right now I'm at #16,334 Paid in the Amazon Store.  Which isn't too bad, since it means that only 16,333 items in the entire vast Amazon inventory are selling faster than my book right now.  And since Amazon sells everything from ant farms to zithers, I'm happy with that.  I'll be happier when it drops even lower, but for now, I'm good.

But Frank, you ask, what does that Amazon rank number translate to in terms of actual sales?

Well, I'm glad you asked.  Amazon has steadfastly refused to divulge the specifics of their ranking mathematics, but after my 18th cup of strong black coffee I had a revelation (or perhaps a small cerebral event, same thing) and figured it all out.  Here's how Amazon determines ranks:

Rank = (All the money in the world) times (the number of Jeff Bezos' servers at breakfast) times (the number of self-published vampire romances with the words blood passion in the title) divided by (the combined numeric weight, in kilograms, of all the tears shed at Barnes & Noble when the Fire was released) plus (Planck's Constant, because Wikipedia said so).

Yes.  Yes, it's all perfectly clear now!

Running the numbers -- carry the two, find a common denominator, figure in a seven MPH wind drift, subtract the Battle of Hastings -- aha.

I have sold exactly blue copies of The Broken Bell, with an accuracy of plus or minus ducks.

Um.  Okay, maybe that needs work.

But I'll have to do it later.  Right now I must get back to my refresh button...

  

The Broken Bell on Amazon

The Broken Bell on B & N


All the Paths of Shadow on Amazon

THE BROKEN BELL released Tuesday, December 27

It's very nearly December 27, and that can mean only one thing...

Yes, yes, all right, that means it's nearly Tuesday.  That's not what I'm referring to. And yes, December 27 also marks the last air date of the Carol Burnett Show on CBS, but again, that's not what I mean.

My new book The Broken Bell hits the stands tomorrow, bright and early, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and  Samhain Publishing. This is the sixth entry in the Markhat series, and it's the longest and I think the best yet.

What's The Broken Bell about, you ask?

Well, without giving too much away, I'll say this -- it's about love and hope and fear and loss.  There will be war, and rumors of war. Grooms will vanish, leaving empty altars and determined brides behind.  Dark sorceries will arise. Mama Hog will grumble and stomp. A blood-feud will spill out of quaint, far-off Pot Lockney and come tramping right to Markhat's door.

And through it all, Markhat will muddle ahead, through murder, mayhem, and magic, if need be.

And need will be.  I broke Rannit's peace in this one, boys and girls.  Things will never be same.

To all my Markhat fans, this new one is for all of you.  To anyone who hasn't read any of the series and who's understandably hesitant to dive in, well, why not check out something shorter first, just see if you like the tone and flavor of the thing?  The Cadaver Client is short and a lot of fun, and it's only a couple of bucks (that was the Kindle version; here's one for your Nook).

Still not convinced?  Fine.  Here's the first couple of pages, with helpful links at the bottom, because I'm nothing if not helpful, especially where your money is concerned.

THE BROKEN BELL

Babysitting banshees is a nerve-wracking business.

And after a morning with Buttercup, my nerves were not only wracked but wrecked and possibly wreaked as well.

Buttercup is all of four feet tall. She weighs forty pounds soaking wet with a big rock in each hand. And despite what you’ve heard about banshees, there isn’t a mean bone in her tiny body.

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy a bit of old-fashioned banshee mischief when Mama Hog and Gertriss are away and there’s no one but Uncle Markhat to play with.

Buttercup’s favorite game is to make that banshee hop-step that transports her from place to place without the trouble and fuss of walking through the space between her and, for instance, the top of my desk.

Hop, appear, giggle, hop. From desktop to floor and back again, all in the space of a blink, with my good black hat clutched in her tiny banshee hands.

“That’s my good hat, sweetie.” I put on my most winning talking-to-the-kids smile. Darla claims it looks more like a grimace, as though someone was stepping on my toes, but it’s the best I can do. “Let’s find something else to play with.”

Hop blur, hop blur. She went from floor to desktop, vanished, poked me in the small of my back and was gone when I turned.

Shoes came tap-tap-tapping right up to my door. Not men’s shoes, but female ones.

They stopped. The lady knocked. No hesitation, no furtiveness.

Buttercup appeared at my side. She put my hat in my hand and clung to my leg with what I fervently hoped was purely platonic fervor.

She might be tiny, and she might be a thousand years old, but I’m very nearly a married man, I’m told.

“In the back. Get under the covers. Don’t make a sound ’til I come get you.”

Buttercup doesn’t speak much Kingdom, but she understands it well enough. She nodded once and was gone. I heard my bedsprings squeak through the door Buttercup hadn’t bothered to open.

I put my hat on the rack—right above the new tan raincoat Darla had left there the day before.

Funny. The hat was a gift from Darla too. I wondered how long it would be before my entire wardrobe was the product of Darla’s keen eye for my clothes.

The lady at my door knocked again. Three-leg Cat rose, arched his back and yawned silently before sauntering toward the door, eager to slip outside.

I forced a smile and obliged cat and woman.

Darla stood at my door, grinning. Three-leg dashed between her ankles, circling her once and issuing a rough loud purr before darting away at a three-legged gallop.

 “Mama swears you’ve never risen before noon.” Darla’s brown eyes glinted. She was wearing something high-necked and purple, and the one hand I could see was wearing a silk glove. “Are you sure you’re decent at this unholy hour?”

I made a show of looking at my elegantly rumpled attire. “I seem to be clothed, though by whom I don’t recall. Do come in, Miss Tomas. And bring that picnic basket with you.”

Darla glided in, and the heavenly smells that wafted up from the basket she carried came with her.

The basket wound up on my desk while we greeted each other. Clever devil that I am, I managed to snag a sticky bun from the basket and bring it up and around Darla so that I had a bite ready when we finished the good morning kiss.

Darla turned and laughed and took a bite and then we sat.

I chewed and swallowed. The bun was hot and sweet and perfectly baked.

I took another bite and lifted an eyebrow.

“So, what brings you out with the wagons, Darla dearest?” I asked. “It’s so early the vampires haven’t taken to their crypts yet.”

One of the many things I like about Darla is her utter lack of pretense.

“I’m here to ply you with pastries and my feminine wiles. I want to hire you, Mister Markhat. I want you to find someone for me.”

I choked down my sticky bun. All the play was gone from her eyes, all the mirth from her voice. She had her hands in her lap and she was not smiling. I’d only seen her do this once before.

“Tell me.”

Hooked yet?  Desperate to know what happens next? Have five bucks on ya?

Then get thee to the links below, gentle reader, and welcome to Rannit!

The Broken Bell, for the Nook

The Broken Bell, for the Kindle

The Broken Bell, any other format

One last thing -- if you get the book, and you like it, please consider leaving a review with Amazon, B&N, or Samhain.  We authors live or die by word of mouth, and living is considerably more fun than dying.

Thanks!

Countdown: Four Days For New Markhat!

Four days, boy and girls.

That's the only thing standing, metaphorically speaking of course, between you and the new Markhat book, The Broken Bell.  The release date for all e-book formats is December 27; you can of course pre-order right now, if you so desire, and the book will be delivered with ruthless internet efficiency directly to your reading device of choice the moment it is released.

Here are some links you might follow, based on your preference of format:

Amazon, for your Kindle, Kindle Fire, or Kindle reading app:
The Broken Bell

Barnes&Noble, for your Nook or Nook reading app:
The Broken Bell

Samhain Publishing, for any format, any reader:
The Broken Bell

Hey, is this a series? If so, where do I start?
Frank's FAQ page!

As you can see, we aim to please, no matter what device you use for your reading.  Anyone who prefers printed books may have to wait a bit longer, but as soon as I have a print release date I'll pass that information along to you right here in the blog.

If you're new around here, you may well be asking yourself two questions -- first, why did this guy's blog pop up instead of Fark, and second, who is this Markhat character, and why should I care?

My blog popped up because I pay a hacker who calls himself N3XOS to create random redirects. Markhat is my wise-cracking fantasy detective. And that's three questions, not two, but you should care because I need the measly five bucks The Broken Bell will set you back.

The thumbnail sketch?

Markhat lives and works in Rannit, the largest city of the old Kingdom to survive the War more or less intact.  You've heard the term 'mean streets' used so often in the detective genre it's become cliche. Well, Rannit's best streets are not just mean, but downright psychopathic, even the ones sporting new sidewalks and cheery freshly-painted mansions.

Oh, there are laws in Rannit, and on paper they apply to rich and poor with equal weight.  In reality, though, justice is available only to those who can afford it.

For everyone else, there is Markhat the finder.

For a modest fee, Markhat will find missing daughters, vanished sons, errant husbands, or straying wives.  Markhat makes his living rooting out the sad truth behind the most well-meaning of lies.

Most of what Markhat finds, of course, is trouble.

There are now six books in the Markhat series.  The Broken Bell brings the whole crew back together, for a single moment that will change them all forever.

For fans of the series, I'll throw out this tidbit.  Mama Hog winds up face-to-snaggletoothed-face with a furious sorcerer bent on her messy demise.  This annoys Mama.  Angers her, even.

I had a lot of fun writing that scene.  I think you'll have a lot of fun reading it.

So scroll back up to the links above and grab a copy of your own.  Or, if you're new to the series, head on over to my webpage and click books and visit Rannit for a bit.  I suggest either Dead Man's Rain or The Cadaver Client.  Both are short enough and cheap enough to give you a feel for the series, and if it's not your cup of arsenic-laced tea then you're not out a fortune.

I hope you enjoy the books!  

DIY Fantasy Art

Sometimes I wish I wrote Westerns or straight-up 1930s detective film noir mysteries or even spy thrillers.  Say I wrote Westerns, for instance.  Then I could hang pictures of horses on the walls and leave a saddle casually draped over the back of a rocking chair and even hang a ten-gallon hat on a peg by the door, and I think all that would help set a mood for writing.

But I write fantasy.  Now, don't get me wrong, there is some fantastic fantasy art out there.  I know, because I own a lot of it.  And I love it.  My study walls are covered with dragons and elves and swords, and that's just the way I like it.

Even so, it's always seemed to me that it's harder to decorate your writing place if you tend more toward Tolkien than Tolstoy.  So much so, in fact, that I've taken to making my own art, based on some of the devices and items in my tales.

Which brings us to tonight's photo session, in which I subject -- er, treat -- you to a couple of things I made when I was, for one reason or another, unable to write.

These are wands, because wands are to a fantasy author what Colt revolvers are to the guy who writes Westerns.  Now, I know the image invoked by the word 'wand' is usually a more or less straight piece of wood, with maybe a few details carved into it.

Not so in my imaginings, though.  Look, if anyone could grab the nearest stick and start working magic just by waving it around and saying "Abracadabra!" you'd have a few millions Dark Lords strolling around any given tract of land.

So I've always imagined that the wands and other implements in my stories are complex, finely-crafted instruments that took hundreds of hours of intense effort just to shape.  Too, I seldom assign my characters one-wand-does all type instruments -- no, if they want to generate heat, they'll need a special wand for that, which won't be the same wand they'll use to stir the wind or call down a few thousand foul-tempered fruit bats.

Even the magic in Markhat's world requires a lot of time and effort, which is the main reason common folk have little or nothing to do with it.  The only piece of magic Markhat routinely carries is his old Army flash-papers, which are just what they sound like.  It's a piece of (by now) ratty paper, inscribed with a hex symbol.  If he tears it in half, and the hex is still active after all these years, he'll release a brief flash of extremely bright light.  That's it.  He can't ever use it again, and the paper burns itself up when the simple spell is activated.  It's not going to reduce whole armies to ashes or knock down city walls.

The magic in Meralda's world is a little more accessible.  I won't say too much about it here, but readers will recognize that her magic behaves much like our electricity.  It can be grounded out.  It can be stored in devices rather like batteries.  It generates (or absorbs) heat when it is manipulated.

But enough blathering, let's look at the wands!

First up is a smallish hand-held wand carved from a nice blond oak.

It's about a foot long (that's nine hundred and eighty seven thousand meters for my Metric friends).  I think I did most of the actual carving in a couple of afternoons; sanding it took much longer.  Both sides look the same.

This is the kind of wand I picture Meralda carrying, or leaving lying on her work-table.  And yes, in the long-established cinematic tradition of this world, it glows a brilliant blue at the end when it's in use.

Here's a closer shot of it. The symbols carved into have deep mystical meanings, or they just sort of wound up that way, I'll leave that determination up to you.

This wand lives on a pair of hooks that hang it out in front of three mystical runes, which together spell out the eldritch phrase "I'd really like a sandwich now."  I like this wand, and I use it mostly to deter Balrogs and, though I probably shouldn't, heat marshmallows. 

Next up we have a wand in a box!  With a carved sigil on the lid, to wit:

Is that a dragon?  Um, yes, as the runes in the body clearly spell out 'dragon.'  Do they really?

Um, sure.  Anyway.  Check out the box, which I also made.  It's oak, and even the hinges are handmade wood.  I was really proud of those hinges...

As you know, having metal around certain wands is dangerous :)

Now let's open it up, and check out the wand!

Yep, more runes.  These spell out the usual arcane disclaimers -- not responsible for intentional misuse, do not expose to oscillating thaumic aether fields, yada yada yada.

And here's the wand itself, which was carved from pecan ...

Pretty nice!  That's a pure copper sphere in the handle, with copper leads spiraling down into the wand. I drilled and twisted and mounted all that while listening to Pink Floyd while a thunderstorm raged outside.

This is the sort of wand I picture the Corpsemaster from Markhat's world carrying.  Or even Meralda, if she'd had a very bad day and someone insulted her hair.  I can see her whipping this out and dealing a little mayhem in that instance.

So that's the sort of things fantasy authors get up to in order to avoid work, i.e., the writing of new fantasy novels.

My next project will probably have a more steampunk bent.  I may reproduce, using simple materials, a radio Meralda is even now trying to perfect as part of the next book.  That would be fun...yes, FUN...

PS: If you just read this and you have no idea who Markhat or Meralda are, well, they're characters in my books.  Here's a link that will take you to all of them!