Category Archives: Promotion

Welcome!

Hello! Welcome new people that I may have met at RI ComiCon; or if not, just welcome anyway.

I am L.A. Jacob, and I’ve been writing for about 30 (mumble-mumble) years. Homecoming was my first published novel, in June 2015. I’ve since published the Grimaulkin series and a quick sequel to Homecoming, War Mage.

My plans next year is for an anthology for Grimaulkin which will be the backstory of some of the characters in the novel, including how Grimalkin appeared, who Ritter is, what Chevalier is, and how the man in the gray suit ended up at the Atheneum Library.

Also, I hope the new book I’m writing for this month’s National Novel Writing Month, Yellowtree, will be good enough for publishing some time next year. It was going to take place in Florida, but I noticed there was a real interest in local areas, so I’m going to set it in Jamestown, RI and go from there.

Speaking of RI ComiCon, I’d like to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who purchased books and stopped by my booth in the Dunk. I went over and above my target; in fact, I ran out of stock on Saturday! Thank you, thank you, for stopping by. Next year, we may do it again – with more and bigger and better stories available for your consumption!

WorldCon done…what I learned.

So! WorldCon 76 finished, and I sold 19 books! That’s my record for a weekend to try and beat.

However, these fairs and book selling things are bad for my health. I ended up in the hospital (again) with my levels all out of whack. I didn’t drink enough water, take enough iron and steroids, and actually lost weight. (Oh, yes, I fit in the airplane bathrooms.)

We got some good feedback about our setup, which was set back from the aisle to give people room to “step inside”. Most people, though, seemed to be looking for older, established authors, as opposed to new authors. We put together Grimaulkin into a bundle with a rainbow ribbon, and those attracted a lot of attention and sold books. Maybe if we had a sign saying the shorts were $3 a piece but free with purchase we could have sold more.

Nobody wanted tarot readings. Maybe I should skip that on ComiCon this year.

I met so many people, although many who wanted to come back never did. I went to one panel which was about the use of non-binary pronouns and what people want to be called. Needless to say, non-binary people want to be called “they/them” or “ze/zim” or even something else. They want the language to change, but that’s not going to happen in my lifetime.

I found out about collecting ribbons. I guess certain merchants or panels will give out an achievement ribbon. We might do that next time they’re in the US.

WorldCon will be in Dublin next year and New Zealand in 2020. Not going that far for it. Maybe the next one will be in Boston. Who knows.

My next appearance may be some time in Columbus Day weekend, but not sure how that’s going to go. Definitely going to be there for RI Comicon November 2-4 and the Expo on December 1.

 

At the Con!

I’m reporting to you live from the Worldcon76 in San Jose CA!

So far, we’re doing fairly well with the books and selling. But mostly I came out here to get my name out. Hopefully to sell more books, too! I’ve sold a few bundles of books, which are con-only available, and given away freebies like hotcakes. I’ve met so many interesting people here, went to a couple of panels, and everything’s been interesting and eye-opening. I might do more cons, but the price is not necessarily right to do so. The niche market that I write for (LBGTQ positive and fantasy) are not a big deal in our local area. I have to go where the LBGTQ community is. So maybe some of those cons.

I’ll be heading back home on Monday, and hopefully things will go well on the way home (I’m taking the red-eye).

I’ve sent Blood From a Stone to the editor and as soon as WorldC0n is finished he’s going to take a look at it, However, Maxwell Thomas might write the book under Zarra Knightley….we’re still under discussion on that. It’s not a romance. It’s more of a murder mystery with transvestites and a queer in the closet. But we’ll see on that one, too.

My new Dark Mystic Quill podcast is up, and is an interview with Wayne Barber of WNRI radio. My more recent interview should be available in a couple of months, where I spend the whole hour talking to Wayne about books and the author process.

Wish us luck on day four of five!.

Heading to WorldCon!

“War Mage,” the short story, is headed off to the editor, but we’re really concentrating on WorldCon at the moment.

I just finished editing Blood From a Stone, my NaNoWriMo from a couple of years back. It’s a murder mystery, with a gay protagonist, who wants to keep himself firmly in the closet. But by the end of the story, he at least thinks about coming out. This is a one-off, non-magical story–just a straight up murder mystery.  With a transvestite, too.

So next week I might not blog, or I might just blog a little bit to let you know how things are going in California. I’ve got a little bit of packing to do, and then I’ll be ready.

So come to San Jose to WorldCon and visit me. I’ll probably be at the table because I have crowd anxiety.

War Mage – outta my life!

So, the good news, is I decided to make War Mage a short story instead. It will be a 99 center, selling at the venues for a buck a book. I can’t think about it anymore. It’s taking up so much room in my head, so much time and effort, that I finally had to just write down the main plot and get it over with.

What’s next on my bucket list is finishing “Devour”, a multi-part story on the Maxwell Thomas website. I’m also picking at a Grimaulkin anthology, backstories of different characters and scenes that Mike wasn’t privy to, such as Aunt Jane’s death or how Ritter became a knight.  I’m stopping myself from doing Grimaulkin: TNG because I personally hate when an author goes that way with his characters.. Grimaulkin can’t last forever (unlike Harry Dresden that just went on and on and on…).

I’m waiting until after WorldCon to start on Air. I’ll be at WorldCon in two weeks! It seems so close now. I’ll be on WNRI.com on Tuesday at 9 a.m. with Wayne Barber on the Authors’ Hour. I’ll be talking about poetry, podcasting, and Grimaulkin Redeemed, how it feels to write the last book in a series.

I’ll probably do a quick hello from Worldcon.

The book tour

Today I’m going to  an LBGTQ store located in my area to try and pitch my books to put them on their shelf.  Mister Sister is located on Wickenden Street in Providence. Even if they don’t put my books up, I still would advertise them.

We’re getting ready for WorldCon in San Jose. We have no idea what table we’re at (I am suspecting it’s a first-come, first-served kind of thing), but as soon as I find out, I’ll tweet it. My twitter is @warwriter or @MaxwellTAuthor .

I’ll be on the radio at WNRI.com (again!) on August 7 at 9 a.m., talking about Grimaulkin Redeemed. And this time I promise I’ll talk about the book, not about me.

I’m still writing War Mage. Hopefully this time it’s the charm and this will be the last draft for this book. I have to fish or cut bait on this one; ten drafts is enough.

How big are those bathrooms, anyway?

WorldCon 76 is just about a month away, and we plan to have a large presence there. There will be not only my books–Grimaulkin Redeemed is now available and it’s a really nice contrast to the dark colors of the first two, a great eye-catcher.  There will also be books by J Dark in her Glass Bottles series, Building Baby Brother by Steven Radecki, and Children of the Wrong Time by Flavia Ada.  And dragons. And card readings.

I had an event yesterday and sold one book, which I was happy about. These small fairs, though, are a real crapshoot. Most of the people who come to them are older folk looking for stuff for them or their grandchildren. I happened to get lucky and get a 15 year old who was so excited to read his first “New Adult” book that he kept saying, “I can’t wait to read this!” He probably started reading it in the car.

After the event, I decided to sit down and start War Mage again. I’m following my own advice and making up stuff based on research. The history is all wrong, there is no Firebase Jackson, there is no Colonel Parlance, but there is a 10th Mountain Division. I just put them there because from what I’ve read, those guys kick ass. I have the sinking feeling, though, I’m not going to get 50K words out of it. We’ll see what happens.

A new podcast is up at Dark Mystic Quill. It’s about magic and writing. Together.

Fire is on hold until after WorldCon while the publisher gets things ready for that. All I care about is fitting in the bathroom on the plane. If I don’t, you’ll see me on youtube and CNN as the idiot lady who got stuck in a JetBlue bathroom. I’ll be famous! And sell lots of books!

 

Rained out

I had an event scheduled for yesterday, but it got rained out. Even though it didn’t rain. (They decided to cancel because of threat of thunder showers–but this is New England, and the weatherman is 88% wrong.)

Grimaulkin Redeemed is still slated for July 1, but we’re having technical difficulties, so the print version may not be available at that time. I had hoped to have it for my Shastea appearance next Thursday, but such is life. I doubt I’ll sell anything there anyway.

Hm, let’s see. I’ve been working on Fire and am finding myself with a writer’s block on “Leo”. I’m adding some light BDSM to it, and I have to research it. I was upset when I got a $2.99 book from Amazon, and it was a chapter of a book. A chapter! We sell whole books for $2.99. This is why my erotica is more story than sex now.

Anyway…I used Storymatic to generate a new idea, and it was “A long awaited invitation” and “poet”. I was going to do Walt Whitman as Gemini, but then I dropped that idea. I decided to check out Wattpad because that’s where all the cool kids go these days. Wattpad is fanfic, according to my son, so why can’t I just twist history around, and have Walt Whitman have a relationship with Henry David Thoreau?

Bingo!

So for giggles, I’m writing a really bad fanfic of those two getting together, even though they probably never did. I noticed that if I free myself from reality then the story happens. This is what the problem with War Mage is–I’m too stuck in its reality. in satisfying people who were there, that I can’t write it. Maybe I’ll try it in Wattpad to see how it goes.

Success!

Had a successful meet and greet yesterday. Sold a bundle of all three books I have published (other than Water), plus the shorts, all for $30. See, if you come visit me, you get free stuff AND cheap stuff too!

I didn’t have enough space to read cards, so I owe her (she’s an author in ARIA). She’s also in charge of the Lively Literati which I will be the featured author for on the 28th of this month. I’ll have stuff, but I don’t think I can read cards there. It’s a very busy place.

I had really good neighbors, and networking was a plus. We all traded how we do things, what events were successful, what to watch out for, things like that. My neighbor and I were the only fantasy authors there. He was more high fantasy while I’m contemporary fantasy, so we didn’t conflict.

I was over the moon with the sales. I’m so easy to satisfy.

In other news, Earth should be out next Friday, at least the e-books. We’re waiting on a few things, but the pre-order is up if you want to get in now. Maxwell Thomas is tweeting almost daily. We’re working on building up his followers. He’s on twitter @MaxwellTAuthor.

Grimaulkin Redeemed is almost ready to go for July 1. I hope to have copies for the Lively Literati on the 28th, but I should definitely have copies for Richmond’s Author Day on July 14. It will be bittersweet to see the last in the trilogy…however the publisher is thinking of me doing an anthology consisting of some of the characters in the Grimaulkin story, like Ritter and the Knight in the Atheneum. Maybe. But I’m working on Fire right now. My personal goal is to get that one done by October.

Oh yeah, and then there’s War Mage. Um…yeah. Still doing research on it. I’m listening to War by Sebastian Junger, which is all about soldiers in Afghanistan in 2008, three years after my book takes place. It’s still pertinent because they didn’t have glatis plates on the bottom of Hummers to stop IED’s from killing people in the armored personnel carriers. It’s a very interesting and insightful book, something I should have read before any others.

 

A new gig!

Hello there.

If you’re new, welcome! If you’re not, welcome anyway!

This site updates you on what’s going on with my writing life, books I’m writing, reading (that I can see because, I tell you, I’m going blind) and other important things going on in life that might make for interesting reading.

First off, Grimaulkin Redeemed is on its final proof! It’s almost in the hopper, ready for publication on July 1. i’m so sad, because this is the last of the trilogy, and I have just a few ideas of what to do next.

Earth will be out June 15 (we’re waiting on the final cover) with the audiobook to follow probably a couple of months later. Earth is going to be shorter (and cheaper) than Water. My favorite in Earth is “Taurus”, though “Capricorn” is pretty good, too. Read them and tell me what you think here or on twitter @warwriter or @darkmysticquill.

Now….drum roll please….

Maxwell Thomas will be guesting on the Zarra Knightley website. Zarra Knightley Publishing does my gay erotica series, but they don’t only do gay erotica. They do heterosexual erotica as well. It just so happens that the books they have available are under Maxwell Thomas, my alter-ego.

Appearances:

Come to beautiful downtown Woonsocket on Social Street to the Woonsocket Harris Public Library on june 9 from 10-2 and see ME! And buy my books! And get free stuff! And I’ll give you a card reading if you mention that you saw this on my blog. (You’ll also get a card reading if you buy a book, too.)