Episodios

  • Episode 209: 5 Tips For Vivid Characterization

    Episode 209: 5 Tips For Vivid Characterization
    Jul 15 2024
    In this week's episode, we'll take a look at five tips for creating distinctive character voices and viewpoints within your novel. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Update Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 209 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July the 12th, 2024 and today we are discussing five tips for creating vivid characterizations. Before we get into that, we'll have some writing progress updates, a couple of questions from readers, Question of the Week, and then we'll get on to our main topic. So for my current writing projects, I'm pleased to report that Shield of Darkness is out and selling briskly, and you can get it at all the usual places: Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. It's had a very strong response so far and thank you for that. I'm glad you guys are enjoying the book. Now that Shield of Darkness is out, my next project is Half-Orc Paladin. I am pleased to report I'm currently on Chapter 10 of 16, which puts me at 60,000 words. Yesterday I had a 10,000 word day while I was working on it, my sixth one of 2024. Good progress has been made. I'm hoping to have that book out preferably in early August. In audiobook news, the audiobook of Wizard-Thief as narrated by Leanne Woodward is almost finished. We’ve just got to finish proofing it and that should take place next week and hopefully the audiobook will be out towards the end of July or early August. Once Half-Orc Paladin is done, I have not 100% decided what I’m going to write next. I'm 20,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, so that could be next or I might write Shield of Conquest or Cloak of Illusion. We will see what I do when I get to the end of Half-Orc Paladin. But right now, I am focusing on Half-Orc Paladin and bringing that to completion. We have a reader question from BV, who asks: I saw an app called Scrivener, and I thought of what Jonathan uses. I'm an old mainframe COBOL/RPG developer and I know that the tech environment can really help. I tried Scrivener way back in 2014 and it was too complicated for me, too much. Granted, the app might have changed since then because 2014 feels to me at least like it was really recent, but it was in fact ten years ago. So for writing, I primarily use Microsoft Word for writing and editing and then I use Vellum on the Mac for the final ebook formatting. That's the way I do it right now. Nothing to say that it can't change. Maybe I might switch to LibreOffice again for writing as Microsoft continues to sort of circle the AI drain and adds more and more useless AI features to its products. 00:02:38 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is your favorite kind of sandwich? This got a lot of responses, as you might expect. Grimlar says: buttered oven bottom muffin, slice of lamb, medium mature slice of cheese, and a coating of salad cream. Justin says: the current sandwich at my house is turkey with provolone, lettuce, and tomato with mayonnaise on homemade sourdough. That actually sounds pretty good right now. Kevin says: bit boring here. Grilled cheese and bacon or BLT with mayo. Easily pleased, Michael says: can't beat a toasted cheese sandwich, which seems to be called a grilled cheese in the US, which has always baffled me. Ham is a good addition as well. I agree with Michael. That is a very good sandwich. Brandy says: old school. Tie between cold Jif creamy peanut butter and Concord grape jam or warm grilled Gruyere and Colby Jack on a good homemade bread (pumpernickel, oatmeal, wheat, or sourdough). Barbara says: Kind of a plain girl: toasted cheese and tomato. Annie says: toasted sandwich: ham, cheese, red onions, and tomato with butter and mayo. Jesse says: Italian sub with hot peppers. Steve says: I'd add some cheese because I'm a cheesy kind of guy and my spicy mustard has a bit of horseradish, too. Bonnie says: Maine Amatoes roast beef Italian (RB, cheese, onion, green pepper, pickled tomato, black olives, mayo, not oil. Jenny says: rare roast beef slices, sharp cheddar, and sourdough bread. I don't lubricate my sandwiches and prefer simple. Otherwise grilled cheese (extra sharp cheddar and gouda) or really anything with ham in there. Nick says: this is just perfect. Just make the beef pastrami. Jonah says: Panini. Genoa salami, roasted red peppers, onions, Jack and mozzarella cheese, good olive oil, and maybe a pesto. Gary says: there are lots of good ones, but if I can only have one, it has to be PB&J (crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jam). Andrew says: An MLT, a nice mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich where the mutton is so lean. I have to admit I did not know that was an actual sandwich. Randy says: hot and juicy pastrami with melted pepperjack cheese, diced red onion, mayo, and horseradish mustard on a lightly toasted sourdough hoagie. Dang it. Now ...
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    16 m
  • Episode 208: 6 Tips For Working With Audiobook Narrators

    Episode 208: 6 Tips For Working With Audiobook Narrators
    Jul 8 2024
    In this week's episode, I look at six ways indie authors can effectively work with audiobook narrators to produce great audiobooks. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Update Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 208 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July the 5th, 2024, and today we're discussing six tips for working with audiobook narrators. Before we do that, we'll have an update on my current writing projects and Question of the Week. For my current writing projects, I'm very pleased to say that Shield of Darkness is finally done and published. By the time this episode goes live on Monday, the book should be live at all the ebook stores and you pick it up at your ebook store of choice. It took a bit longer to write this one because I was obliged to take quite a bit of time off during the writing process, but I'm pleased to report it is finally done. My next project will be the third Rivah book, Half-Orc Paladin and I am 35,000 words into that one. I think the final book will end up being around 80,000 words, give or take. I'm also about 18,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs. Not sure when I would do that one. Possibly after Half-Orc Paladin. I might do another book after Half-Orc Paladin first, but we will see. In audiobook news, nothing has changed from what it was last week. Both Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling and Wizard-Thief are currently underway for production, which would ironically tie into my main topic of this week about working with audiobook narrators. 00:01:14 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's topic: your home Internet goes out, which means you can't use the Internet until your Internet service provider gets around to fixing it. What do you do instead? The inspiration for this question was that I wanted to play Starfield, but the Xbox Network services were down and I didn't feel like going through the settings to get the offline mode to work on my Xbox. So I wrote the blog post for Question of the Week instead. We had an interesting range of responses this week. Our first response is from Justin who says: if the Internet is down, I have many things to do. During leisure and recovery time, I can read, play games, and watch movies just fine without the Internet. Most of my computer games are old and do not require connection in order to function. World of Warcraft is the only exception to that, and I keep that around as much to chat with friends and family who play it. If I need to use the Internet (banking, ordering, directions, etcetera), my phone can act as a hotspot and as long as there's phone service, I have slow connectivity. Adrian says: I am lucky enough to live on an island where all the Internet is via fiber network and we have a minimum connection of 500 megabits per second and only have failures once a year at most and our phone network is about to change to 5G. Adrian is quite lucky here, I have to admit, because 500 megabits is very fast. Jonathan D. says: mostly I listen to my son complaining that he cannot watch YouTube videos and then tell him that when I was his age, we only had four TV channels. After that, I would wonder when I became more like my parents. I do have plenty of books, board games, DVDs, and offline computer games if it's a long-term outage. Joaquim says: this would be my day. Over the years we've amassed nearly five terabyte worth of movies and TV shows from tape video recorder, DVD video recorder, and online video recorder. Also, we have a lot of DVDs. My family would rather stream, even if we have it offline already. For music, we have a lot of CDs and MP3s. We would have an outage if a Caterpillar would cut the cable during driveway refurbishing. The last time this happened before smartphones were available, I used a Mini WLAN router as backup. Now I just bought a 5G smartphone, which can act as hotspot for up to 10 devices and has USB tethering for my router. I tested both modes and the speed was quite good. Surabhi says: my data was over for the day, so I read one of your books. I often have these days. I usually catch up on more homework or read some books. Have you watched Oppenheimer yet? I sadly missed the opportunity to watch it in theaters, but I streamed it recently and it was honestly well worth the hype. I read the screenplay before the movie for some reason and it added the experience for some reason. Nolan’s screenplays always make for a nice experience. In fact, I did watch Oppenheimer in the theater back in July or August, when Dragonskull: Crown of the Gods was done, and I published it and finished the Dragonskull series. That was how I celebrated. I took a half day off and went to the theater to watch Oppenheimer and because it was like a three hour movie, you kind of have to take a half day off work to go watch Oppenheimer. I thought it was quite good and one of my favorite movies ...
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    30 m
  • Episode 207: Seven Mindset Tips For Writers

    Episode 207: Seven Mindset Tips For Writers
    Jul 1 2024
    In this week's episode, we take a look at seven attitude shifts for writers that will make them happier and more productive. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 207 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 28th, 2024 and today we are discussing seven important attitude shifts for writers. Before we get into all that, we'll have an update on my current writing projects and then we'll do Question of the Week and then we'll move over to our main topic. For current writing projects, I am still in the first phase of editing for Shield of Darkness. I'm on chapter 20 of what I think is going to end up being either 27 or 28. A couple of my chapters were quite long, so I need to keep splitting them in half as I edit to not have, like 9,000 word chapters. So things are going pretty well with that and I am hoping if all goes well that the book will be out the second week of July, probably after the 4th of July holiday, because releasing new books on the 4th of July is not a great idea. So hopefully before too much longer, we will have that book out. I’m also 31,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin and that will be my next book once Shield of Darkness is done and that will hopefully be out in very early August. I'm also 14,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs. I'm not sure when that's going to come out. I'm very much hoping to have it out before October, but we'll see how things go in the next couple of months. In audiobook news, recording for Wizard Thief and Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling is underway. I believe both narrators started on recording this week. Spells Online: Leveling will be narrated by C.J. McAllister and Wizard Thief will be narrated by Leanne Woodward and they both did the previous books in the respective series. So if you want a sample, you can listen to the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief and Stealth and Spells Online: Creation. 00:01:50 Question of the Week (note: This section contains spoilers for multiple movies, including Casablanca and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan) Now let's move on to Question of the Week. It's time for a Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's topic: what is your favorite ending to a movie? No wrong answers, obviously. The inspiration for this was that I've been editing Shield of Darkness, so I've been thinking a lot about what makes a satisfying ending and what does not. Obviously, I want to have a satisfying ending. We had some good comments with this one. Our first comment is from Justin, who says: I'll go with an oldie, Casablanca. Rick saves Ilsa, the woman he loves, and puts her on the plane to Lisbon with her husband. He puts morals above love and tells her that she would regret staying with him. Then he and Renault head off to join the Resistance. “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” Archetypes so powerful that you've used them. I'd argue that the Gray Knight’s ending with Ridmark, leaving Calliande and go with Kharlacht is a variation on this. That is interesting because I meant that was not at all in my head when I wrote the ending of Frostborn: The Gray Knight, and I don't think I've ever consciously written anything that I would say had been influenced by Casablanca, though of course I have seen it and it is a great movie, which again shows it's a very interesting that people’s interpretation of a particular piece of artwork can often have no connection to what the artist intended when he or she created the artwork, but both views are often valid. Our next come is from Michael, who says: probably the ending to The Illusionist, which is very satisfying or more infamously, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, which often reminds me of a story writing tip you have given in podcasts about good endings not necessarily needing to be a happy one. Our next comment is from Brandy, who says: the end of Serenity, where Summer Glau is checking everyone and stimming. Then her brother is badly hurt and you see that mental click and all the worry that she's going to hurt the one she cares about shifts to a feral “I will make this stop” and it's both feral and beautiful. When they break in, she's got this look like, yeah, test me. But she's perfectly willing to continue laying waste. It's just moving. Honestly having thought about it, go watch Hellsing Ultimate Abridged on YouTube. It's like a quarterly watch at my house, along a lot of true crime right now because my partner is trying to find an appropriately gruesome way to get rid of a character. I have to admit I've never actually seen Serenity or Hellsing myself, so maybe I'll put that on the to watch list. Our next comment is from John who says: Casablanca. Walking off at the end saying “this is beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Becca says V for Vendetta for me, I think. The ending scenes link key scenes, people, and phrases from ...
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    25 m
  • Episode 206: Ebook Pricing Strategies

    Episode 206: Ebook Pricing Strategies
    Jun 24 2024
    In this week's episode, I take a look at different pricing tiers for selling ebooks, and discuss the pros and cons of each. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 206 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 21st, 2024 and today we are discussing ebook pricing and the pros and cons of different ebook price points. Before we get into that, we will have an update on my current writing projects and some discussion about Question of the Week. First up, my current writing projects. I am pleased to report that I have finished the rough draft of Shield of Darkness. It came in at 111,000 words, which I wrote in 31 days. It’s amusing to look back. The book before that in the series, Shield of Storms, was 6,000 words shorter, but I actually wrote it in 35 days, but that was over December and January and I had taken an entire day off for the Christmas holidays back at the end of 2023. Next up, I will be writing a short story called Disciples that ties into the Shield War series and my newsletter subscribers will get that for free when Shield of Darkness comes out in ebook form, so it's a good time to sign up for my newsletter. After Shield of Darkness is out and published, my main focus will then be Half-Orc Paladin, and I think I'm 25 or 26,000 words into it (I'm not entirely sure off the top of my head). That's where I'm at with my current projects. Good news: the rough draft of Shield of Darkness is finally done. 00:01:20 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. This week's topic: what is your favorite food to eat while traveling? The inspiration for this question was the fact that I traveled somewhere around 1,200 miles in the last week before recording this episode. As you might expect, we had a range of answers. Justin says: nuts. Almonds, peanuts, or mixed nuts, roasted and salted. High in sodium, but non-perishable and high in protein. Like nuggets and fries, you can drive while eating them. Another advantage is the ability to easily put away uneaten nuts for later. And finally, no whining from vegans about the evils of consuming meat while in airport lounges. I have to admit I haven't had that personal experience yet, but I can see how that would be a plus. Our next comment is from Surabhi, who says I'm South Asian, so my award goes to samosa and Pani Puri. I'm pretty sure I pronounced that wrong. Our next comment is from Jesse, who says: hot dogs with pepperjack, jalapeños, and mustard. Weirdly cures most of what ails you. Scott says: sunflower seeds pass time for a for a time consuming or passing the time snack. Beef jerky is a choice for me also. The hardier and saltier, the better. John says: tacos as long as I’m west of the Mississippi and South of Dallas. Burger and fries otherwise. If I'm rolling cheap, I'll pack an ice chest to make sandwiches and chips. Juana says: I like to eat different regional foods, like a candy called cherry mash with chocolate and nuts covering cherry nougat. It used to be available in Kansas only. They don't serve a BLT above Tennessee or sweet cold tea in Maine. Michael says: well, I too am a fan of McDonald's. I usually go for the cheeseburger meal with fries and a Diet Coke. Usually consistent and my innards tolerate them well. Also driving friendly. The Diet Coke does tend to clear out the slight grease from the fries and the burgers- cleanses the palate, so to speak…fine dining at McDonald's. But if I'm near Philly, I always defer to a cheesesteak with fried onions. Alton says: don't eat a whole bag of baby carrots. You won't eat them for years afterwards. Good advice for us all! Juan says: be a foodie. I enjoy finding your remote mom and pop places in towns I drive through and enjoying the atmosphere. Sometimes the food is amazing, sometimes food is bleh, but I get to sit in a quaint spot in some obscure town and read a book, scroll Facebook, or just people watch. You could say that I’m more a “experience the travel” than a foodie person, I guess. I rarely eat in the car. I look for excuses to get out of the car. Typically for me is a 5 hour drive to a particular military installation a few times a year and stopping at different rural towns on the way. Todd says: Jack-in-the-Box breakfast sandwiches, especially when it's not breakfast hours. So if they serve them all day, I know my order is made fresh and it's reasonably healthy. Then I ruin any concept of healthiness with a big old Dr. Pepper. Roger says: bacon, brie, and cranberry mini baguette with rocket/arugula. Gary says: I like tacos from food trucks, pop-ups, or little family-owned shops. Hotel desk clerks know a surprising amount of places to get such things. Michael says: chocolate. John says: burritos. Around the West Coast, In and Out. And Bonnie says: I haven't traveled any real distance in years, occasional work trips under 150 miles. It’s usually a large Dunkin’ coffee and sausage, egg...
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    19 m
  • Episode 205: SILENT ORDER series Questions & Answers

    Episode 205: SILENT ORDER series Questions & Answers
    Jun 17 2024
    In this week's episode, I take a look back at my SILENT ORDER science fiction series, and answer twelve of the most common questions from readers about the books. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 205 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June the 14th, 2024 and today we are doing a question and answer session on my Silent Order science fiction series. Before we get to that, we will have an update on my current writing progress and then Question of the Week. My main project right now is Shield of Darkness, a sequel to Shield of Storms and the second book in the Shield War series. Progress has not been as quick as I would like, but there still has been progress and as of this recording, I am about 84,000 words into the rough draft. It really helped that I had a 10,000 word day on June 12th. That really propelled things forward. I'm not entirely sure how long the rough draft is going to be. I think it's probably going to end up around 120,000 words, maybe 115,000 words. We'll see when get there. But I'm still hoping to have it out in July, sometime after the 4th of July. After that is done, my next project will be Half-Orc Paladin, the third book in the Rivah series, and I'm currently 24,000 words into that and I think that one will be around 75,000 words (give or take) once it's done. I’m also 9,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, but that will come out later in the year. In audiobook news, I’m pleased to report that the collection Tales of the Shield Knight, which contains sixteen stories from the Sevenfold Sword and the Dragontiarna series, is now out in audiobook, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills. You can get that at Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books at the moment, and should gradually be making its way onto the other audiobook stores as it gets through processing. Be sure to subscribe to my new release newsletter because sometimes I will give away individual audio short stories for free from that collection in my newsletter. 00:01:50 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Our Question of the Week segment is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: if you read mystery novels, what was the first mystery novel you ever read? No, wrong answers obviously, and as you'd expect, we had quite a few different responses. Justin says: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was 12. I had chicken pox and was confined to my room. I begged my father for something to read, and he handed me a massive book, The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Two days later, I asked for other books by him. I'm still not a fan of mysteries, but Doyle was a great author. Our next comment is from Ray, who says: Hardy Boys, also Sherlock Holmes for school. As an adult, the first I recall by choice were the Father Blackie Mysteries by Andrew Greeley. Our next comment is from Jake who says: can't remember. It had to be back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. But I agree with you, it's great to diversify in reading. Someone gifted me a copy of Water for Elephants. I would never have read that by choice, but I'm glad I did. Our next comment is from Jeff, who says: Tom Swift books and Hound of the Baskervilles. Tom Swift was even science fiction-ish with their far-out inventions. Our next comment is from Jonathan (not me), who says: the Hardy Boys Hunting for Hidden Gold. The reprinted Flashlight edition was my first mystery read for me by my mom when I was about 8. This would have also been my first mystery that I read independently. When I was 10 through 11, I read the original Hardy Boys While the Clock Ticked. I was too young to know about the different editions of novels until much later, but I was always dissatisfied with the Flashlight version because it lacked the ending that I remembered. It was years later that I discovered the history of the series, which led to me finding and purchasing all or most of the original novels. Our next comment is from Becca, who says: Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys in early grade school. No idea which one, but I had quite a few of them. First adult mystery series was probably middle school and was The Alphabet Series by Sue Grafton and the Joe Grey series by Murphy. My mom really encouraged me to read pretty much anything and everything. Wish you would write more mystery books. They're so great. Thanks, Becca. I am glad you liked the mystery books, so I don't think too many other people did, which is why I have not written more of them. Our next comment is from Justin who says: first mystery novel was The Hardy Boys in grade school. Michael says: not my first, but I really like the Pendergast series by Lincoln and Child. Worth the read if folks haven't tried. John says: The Three Investigators series by Alfred Hitchcock. I don't know where I got the first one. My mom probably got it at a yard sale or something, but I was hooked. Was able to check out ...
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    21 m
  • Episode 204: Audiobook Sampler Platter!

    Episode 204: Audiobook Sampler Platter!
    Jun 10 2024

    In this week's special summer episode, I share samples from four of my audiobooks.

    1.) Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire, narrated by Brad Wills.

    2.) Ghost in the Serpent, narrated by Hollis McCarthy.

    3.) Half-Elven Thief, narrated by Leanne Woodward.

    4.) Stealth & Spells Online: Creation, narrated by CJ McAllister.
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    15 m
  • Episode 203: 7 Bad Ways To Start Your Novel

    Episode 203: 7 Bad Ways To Start Your Novel
    Jun 3 2024
    In this week's episode, we take a look at seven bad ways to open your novel and how to avoid their pitfalls. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 203 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 31st, 2024 and today we are looking at seven bad ways to start your novel. Usually here we have Coupon of the Week. Unfortunately my Internet is currently down as I'm recording this, which means I can't get to my Payhip store and I can't create a Coupon of the Week. So we will resume with Coupon of the Week in June when I start recording new episodes. So now let's move directly to my current writing progress on my current writing projects. I am 38,000 words into Shield of Darkness, which currently puts the Chapter 7 of 24. I have 24 chapters in the rough draft outline, but that will probably increase because I’ll have to split a few of the longer ones in editing. I had hoped to have that out in June. That doesn't look like it's going to happen because I have a lot of home repair to do in June and a couple of multi-day commitments where I won't be able to do any writing. So I think we are looking more likely for some time after the 4th of July in mid-July is when that book will come out. I am also 20,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin, which will come out after Shield of Darkness comes out. I am also 6,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, which will come out sometime this fall, if all goes well. In audiobook news, we are done recording Tales of the Shield Knight, which will excellently be excellently narrated by Brian Wills and that will be a collection of the various short stories I wrote to accompany the Sevenfold Sword and Dragontiarna series. That is all done and should hopefully start appearing on various audiobook platforms before the end of June. 00:01:44 Question of the Week Now before we get into our main topic, let's go to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics, and this week's question: what was the first smartphone you ever used, and what was the first time you decided a smartphone was useful and not a waste of money? And we had one response for this one. Our first response is from Justin, who says: my work issued me a BlackBerry in 2004. Some folks considered them a first smartphone. I considered it a pain. They figured with that they owed me 24/7 and demanded an answer within 5 minutes to any email. I stopped that by asking how much they were paying me to reply outside of work hours. Then I was brought in for a work reprimand for not replying to an urgent e-mail sent during the day. My defense was that I was driving back from a remote site. When asked if I should be using the device while driving (already a no-no back then) or should I pull over and check every time I got a message, my boss decided that just maybe I wouldn't get in trouble that time, anyway. So far, I was not a fan. In 2011, we switched from Blackberries to Samsung with the first Galaxy S. I was unsure about the change, but the increased battery life and ability to put the phone in my shirt pocket won me over. What made it a true useful tool was when I installed the flashlight app on it. Working in a prison made it a pain to bring in a flashlight. You had to have paperwork and disassembled at every checkpoint to show that there's no contraband being smuggled in. The phone got a sticker and was blessed to pass security scrutiny thereafter. The flashlight was so handy. Now it's part of the OS, but then it needed a separate program to run. Yeah, smartphones have definitely contributed to the erosion of work/life balance, in my opinion. I used to do a lot of support for BlackBerry devices and they were a huge pain. I wasn't terribly upset to see the iPhone and Android displace BlackBerry and you know, sort of push it out of business because those phones, from a support perspective, let me tell you, were a big pain. For myself, it was in 2013 when I got my first smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy S3. I hadn’t wanted to get a smartphone, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find non-smartphones. So I finally bit the bullet and moved into the new technology. At the time, I usually resented it since I just wanted another flip phone. When did I find it useful for the first time? I remember that incident distinctly. I was working in IT support at the time, and the next day I had to go activate some network ports in another building. The building in question had been built in the ‘90s before Wi-Fi, and so every room had something like a billion Ethernet ports in it. But network switches are expensive, and even though the building has a little like 500 Ethernet ports, only 48 of them could be active at any one time, since that was how many ports the network switch had. So when anyone moved offices, an IT support minion (i.e. me) had to go over there and move the active network ports in the ...
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    13 m
  • Episode 202: 7 Lessons From Defunct Ebook Stores

    Episode 202: 7 Lessons From Defunct Ebook Stores
    May 27 2024
    In this week's episode, we take a look at seven ebook stores that failed, and what lessons indie authors can learn from them. This coupon code will get you 25% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: SPRINGTALONS The coupon code is valid through June 4th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we’ve got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 202 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 24th, 2024, and today we're looking at lessons from seven defunct ebook stores. We also have updates on my current writing projects and Question of the Week. Before we get into that, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the audiobook of Dragon Skull: Talons of the Sorcerer (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SPRINGTALONS, spelled SPRINGTALONS and of course, as always, we'll have that and the links in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through June the 4th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. As I mentioned last week Cloak of Titans is out and selling very briskly on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. The response has been very strong and so thank you all for that, and I'm glad so many of you are reading and enjoying the book. Now that Cloak of Titans is out, my next project is Shield of Darkness and I am pleased to report I am 18,000 words into it as of this recording. If all goes well, I'm hoping to have that out before the end of June, though that might slip to July depending on how much I need to do in real life in June. After Shield of Darkness is out, my next project will be Half-Orc Paladin, the third Rivah book. I’m about 17,000 words into that, and I'm hoping that will come out in sometime in July, if all goes well. After that, I will be writing the third Shield War book and then Ghost in the Tombs. I will start on Cloak of Illusion, the sequel to Cloak of Titans, after Half-Orc Paladin is done and out. In audiobook news, we are almost done with Tales of the Shield Knight, the Sevenfold Sword/Dragontiarna short story collection that will be narrated by Brad Wills. The collection will be available for sale on all the usual audiobook stores. I will be giving away individual audiobook short stories from time to time to my newsletter subscribers. So that is something to look forward to and if all goes well, we are planning to record Wizard Thief and Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling in audiobook in June. That's still somewhat tentative, but it should be happening. 00:02:24 Question of the Week Let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics, and this week's question: should a book in a long running series start with a little summary of what's happened in previous books? Like, you know how a streaming TV series will often have a previously on section of the start of the show? It's usually a little thirty second montage of key scenes and whatnot from the previous episodes. I got to wondering about this because I was talking with someone who was reading Cloak of Titans, which is the 11th book in the Cloak Mage series and overall the 23rd Nadia book and the reader in question couldn’t remember when the character of Doctor Spencer had first appeared in the series and wished the book had included a little previously on summary in the style of a streaming show. So I put this up for Question of the Week and we had a wide range of opinions on this topic this week. Our first response is from Mike, who says: as for my opinion, if it's the show that is in episodes of at least weekly schedule, I usually either just fast forward through that previously on segment or if it's supported by the service I'm watching the show on, I use the skip it feature. I can almost see the use of it if there are very long (as in a year or two) episodes between the previously on feature. Justin says: info dumps may be necessary sometimes (for example, Star Wars), but should be avoided otherwise. Show, don't tell. I personally find prologues describing past events and characters off-putting. A compromise would be a glossary in the back a la Tolkien. That way the people who want more information or need reminders can indulge themselves without forcing people like me to go along. I have to agree here with Justin about prologues. I don't really like them and stopped doing them, except in very rare cases. My least favorite kind of prologue is one that starts a very long book and references a character who doesn't show up again for like 250 pages. Our next response is from Mike, who says: I think if the summary is brief and concise, it is absolutely worth it...
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