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Advance Reading Copy of Myth Reaver (Noir Viking Fantasy)

I mentioned this yesterday, but wanted to give it the full attention it deserves. So here’s my official grand announcement:

Someone decided to merge a neo-noir fantasy epic with a Viking saga…and nailed it. And I got to help.

Joshua Unruh is my Marketing Czar at Consortium of Books, and we’ve just completed acquisitions for Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall. Here’s the product description:

Noir: Everyday men and women drowning in the murky, corrupt waters of their own flaws.

Saga: Peerless heroes fighting epic battles yet ultimately doomed to fail.

At the crossroads of these two literary traditions stands the Saga of the Myth Reaver.

 

The Nine Worlds have never seen a hero like Finn Styrrsson. Blessed with an unmatched thirst for victory and the supernatural strength and vigor to slake it, Finn might have been the greatest warrior-king his people had ever known. But he was born the youngest of eight princes with a conniving eldest brother who won’t abide the threat Finn poses to his rule. Despite Finn’s unfailing loyalty, he is forced from his home to forge a new destiny.

Already a powerful warrior and deadly reaver, Finn discovers that he above all others is equipped to kill the monsters, the giants, the myths that besiege Midgard. He becomes the Myth Reaver and a living legend.

Yet despite his prowess and fame–indeed because of them–Finn never wins that which he most desires. He never finds a home. After a lifetime spent battling dread monsters and shining demigods, Finn realizes that in all the Nine Worlds, there is only one enemy whose defeat can give him the renown he so richly deserves.

Whether it’s in search of glory or a glorious death, Finn always overlooks his true enemy. That mistake will be his downfall.

We’d like to start the book off with some positive word-of-mouth, so if the premise sounds interesting and you’d be willing to provide a helpful book review, leave a comment below (with a valid email address). We’ll send free ARCs to the first 100 people who ask.

Update!

The book is now live at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo! That means we’re no longer offering the ARC, but you can pick up your own official copy for just 99 cents.

Check it out, and be sure to leave a review!

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Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City…

A title like that really shouldn’t be followed with fascinating tidbits, should it? But life has been action-packed around here lately, and it’s only getting more interesting by the minute.

Here are some highlights:

Most of my books are now available on Kobo!

That means you can get DRM-free ePubs even if you’re not living the in the US. (I hadn’t realized Barnes and Noble made that restriction). We’re working on getting all the Consortium Books library up there, and will have it shortly.

Draft2Digital (my new e-book publishing platform) is…functional! Sort of!

Man, that should really sound more exciting than it does. As of yesterday afternoon, we can now add new book projects, input all the basic sales data, upload a source document (Word or Google Docs), and then generate a beautifully-formatted e-book. We haven’t integrated the tools to publish that book to our various vendors yet, but I’ve done proof of concept and tying all the pieces together shouldn’t be too hard.

I just signed a three-book deal with Amazon’s sci-fi fantasy publishing imprint, 47North! (Yes, these all get exclamation marks. If they didn’t deserve exclamation marks, they wouldn’t be news.)

That was actually last Wednesday, but Amazon has agreed to publish and promote three books in the World of Auric superhero-fantasy series. I’m really looking forward to experiencing the (somewhat) traditional publishing process, and especially to the promotional partnership Amazon can provide.

And while I was writing this post, I was contacted by an anime production group interested in developing the Dragonprince’s Heir into a feature film, or possibly a series!

I have no idea how much interest you would have in seeing that, but I find the idea fascinating. And, of course, it gives me an opportunity to find new readers in another market altogether. That some exciting stuff!

And, finally, I recently approved our next title from Consortium Books, Myth Reaver: Downfall, by Joshua Unruh!

It’s neo-noir Viking fantasy, which means it’s huge and dramatic and all kinds of grim. If any of that sounds at all interesting to you, you’ll probably love the book. It’s epic in scale and tone, and perfectly executed. I’m so proud to have been a part of this story’s development.

I really wanted to mention this one sooner, but I saved it to the end because it comes with an offer! Draft2Digital will be building us an Advance Reading Copy of Myth Reaver: Downfall sometime tomorrow, and Josh offered to let me share copies with my readers.

I’ll probably make a separate post about that tomorrow (if I can find the time), but if you’ve read this far, you can get a head start. Leave a comment below asking for an ARC of some grim Viking fantasy, and I’ll make sure you get one.

Now…I guess I’d better get back to work!

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Afterword

Dear Readers,
This is not the end. It’s an end, but there’s still plenty more to tell.

The final book in the Dragonprince Trilogy has been available in e-book form for most of a week now. Within a few hours of its release, it was on the Science Fiction and Fantasy bestseller list at Amazon. It’s already sold nearly a thousand copies, and thanks to my fans who requested Advance Reading Copies, it boasted a bunch of customer reviews from day one.

Unfortunately…they’re not all friendly reviews. Some of them are genuine critiques of the story’s style–“The ending felt rushed” or “This minor character seemed totally pointless” or “I hated the protagonist”–but overall, the resounding complaint boils down to this:

“You didn’t tell the story I wanted you to tell.”

That is agonizing feedback for a storyteller. It’s almost impossible to fix. My readers like my stories because of my style, and part of that style is choosing the boundaries and progression of narratives. When I choose how to tell a story, I always think long and hard about everything that goes into it, and I choose the method that will make the most interesting story I can possibly tell.

In this case, I chose to tell the end of the Dragonprince story from the perspective of Daven’s son Taryn, fifteen years after the events of The Dragonswarm. I knew that would be a surprise to my readers. I hoped it would be a good surprise (and as of this writing, most of my reviewers say it was). I’m certain it was a necessary one.

Because I wanted to tell the story of the Dragonprince. I wanted to tell the story of the boy who rose to power, chose to use that power fighting monsters instead of men, and then followed through on that commitment, whatever the cost. I could have told that story from Daven’s perspective, but as you’ll know if you’ve read the book, it would have been a tortuous and miserable experience.

But I don’t think very many of my readers are frustrated with how I chose to end the story. Mostly, they seem to be frustrated that I ended the story. Maybe it really did take fifteen years before we saw the true conclusion to the story that started when Othin challenged the shepherd swordsman in front of his friends. Maybe the story of the end needed to be told from Taryn’s perspective. But that doesn’t mean I should have skipped straight there. Right? What about all the interesting things that happened to Daven in between?

Some readers have suggested that The Dragonprince’s Heir is really Book Four (or Book One in a new trilogy about Taryn), and they’re going to hold out hope for a real Book Three.

I understand the frustration my readers might have felt thinking that this was the last story I would ever have to tell about Daven. I’m sad to think how few of those disappointed readers will ever make it here to read this. I wish I could have done a better job communicating my long-term intentions, but I will make what amends I can.

I promise you this:

I’m not finished with these characters.

It has always been my intention to develop a separate “Dragonriders of the Tower” series within the fifteen-year gap between The Dragonswarm and The Dragonprince’s Heir. You will get to see Daven wielding some of that incredible power he’d harnessed by the end of Book Two.

You will get to see Lareth convince Garrett Dain to risk his life in an attempt to reproduce Daven’s bonding experience. You will get to see the high-flying, action-packed adventures of the men and women who spend five years battling the dragonswarm until there is not a waking wyrm anywhere in the whole Ardain.

But I can promise this, too:

Daven’s war with the dragonswarm is not the most interesting story I have to tell.

It’s a good one, but it’s just a drop in the bucket. I also have stories to tell of the FirstKing (who built the nation Daven fought so hard to protect), and of the primitive people who first invited evil (and, with it, great magic) into the world.

And Daven’s sons are going to change the world. Among themselves, Taryn, Damion, and Isaiah shape much of the next thousand years (with the help of Caleb’s Order Knights, of course).

I’ve been dreaming up the stories of this world my whole life, and I’d be happy to spend the rest of it writing them down. Before the summer is over, I’ll have another Daven story for you (if only a novella).

This is not the end. It’s just a handful of beginnings. Thank you for joining me on the voyage.

Sincerely,
Aaron Pogue

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Book Reviews (And Another Free ARC)

No matter how much time we spend living inside our own heads, no matter how hard we work to develop thick skin, no matter how dedicated we are to our own artistic vision…the most important thing in the world to a professional writer is someone else’s opinion.

I’ve recently published an incomplete list of the ways you can support your favorite writer, but the most important far are the three I mention at the top of my Books page here:

If you’ve enjoyed any of my books, please leave a review. It makes more of a difference than you might imagine. One of the biggest things you can do to support me as a writer (right after “Buying my books” and “Recommending them to your friends”) is leaving a review at Amazon.com.

Published book reviews are a phenomenally powerful marketing tool whether they’re in a national paper, a book review blog, or just customer comments at Amazon. And reader recommendations (also known as “word of mouth”) are an even more powerful force.

Harnessing those forces can be a huge challenge. I’ve tried to spark a fire with my recent offer of Advance Reading Copies for my upcoming novel, and as you can see I’ve now blogged on two separate sites and posted a personal plea on one my Books page begging readers for review.

At my publisher’s site, we’ve just posted a standing request for reliable book reviews. That’s right: Consortium Books is willing to give away free copies of every book they publish to any applicants who can prove themselves to be reliable reviewers. That’s how important reviews are.

And today I want to share one with you. It’s for an upcoming novel by my friend and fellow Consortium Writer, Courtney Cantrell. Next Tuesday, the same day we’re releasing The Dragonprince’s Heir, Consortium Books will also be releasing the first book in Courtney’s epic fantasy series, Schism’s Daughter (Legends of the Light-Walkers, #1).

Schism’s Daughter is incredible. You’re going to love it. I read the book years ago, and it was a lot of the reason I came back to fantasy writing. If it hadn’t been for Courtney showing me what real fantasy could be like–rich, grown-up, exciting, and moving–the Dragonprince Trilogy might never have seen the light of day.

If you like epic fantasy, you will love this book. If you like anything you’ve read by me, this book is even better. Courtney Cantrell has a special kind of magic when it comes to high fantasy, and she has worked wonders here.

Read this book. You’ll be glad you did.

I love this book, and I want to see it succeed. I also love my fans who showed up in such great numbers to request a review copy of The Dragonprince’s Heir, so I told Courtney I’d send you guys her way if she would share a copy of Schism’s Daughter with you.

She agreed, and it’s the same offer I made: The first 100 people to leave a comment with a valid email address get free ARCs. So pop over to Courtney’s blog before the end of the day today and get a sneak peek at the next great epic fantasy from Consortium Books.

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Fanmail

My final editorial review of The Dragonprince’s Heir is done. I finished it around 10:00 last night, then sat up for another hour tweaking the custom metadata file we use to turn a Google Doc into an actual e-book. Then I wrote a little personal letter to tuck inside the back of the book, ran BookMaker, and mailed out copies to a couple hundred people.

My name is Taryn Eliade, firstborn son of Daven Carrickson. I’ve been called a nuisance and a little lord, a kingsman and a traitor. I’ve been called the dragon-born son and the heritage of Chaos. I was born the Dragonprince’s heir. In the summer of my fourteenth year, at the waning of the dragonswarm, I went on a quest to choose my destiny.

When I woke up this morning, I already had answers. Nobody had sat up all night to finish the book (or if they did, they were too tired to email me), but I had lots of gracious “thank yous.” Those weren’t at all necessary (as I’ll explain below), but they started my day bright.

I also had one fan who’d caught a typo. He was terribly friendly about it, and I was grateful for the heads-up. (It’s already fixed in the source document. Digital bookmaking is a wonderful thing.)

Anyway, as I was making that correction, I glanced down the page and saw this little exchange:

“Those are dangerous words,” I hissed.

Jen’s eyes glittered like a viper’s. “Less dangerous than yours. I only insulted a king. You insulted Caleb Drake.”

(That link isn’t in the actual ebook, it just seemed appropriate here.)

I know it’s not cool to be impressed at your own writing, but when I saw those lines I fell in love with Jen all over again. She’s a relatively minor character in the book, but (for me anyway) she stole the show.

It’s been an interesting week. I’ve split my time between sending out fanmail to people I respect in the desperate hopes of making a connection so I might generate some real publicity for the KickStarter campaign (in its last week, and not even 20% funded), and checking my email for the WordPress comment notifications which, by and large, read like fanmail sent to me!

That still blows my mind. I know a lot of people are buying the books (I check the sales reports obsessively), and I have a lot of followers at Facebook and some wonderful reviews at Amazon. But it still comes as a shock when someone takes the time to contact me directly, especially if it’s to say my books robbed them of sleep or inspired their imagination or left them wanting more.

Those are the things I live for as a reader, and it’s almost unbelievable that I’m getting to have that impact as a storyteller now. You’d be surprised how much time I spend just smiling at my computer monitor.

So, last Saturday I posted saying, “Leave a comment if you want an Advance Reading Copy of The Dragonprince’s Heir.” That was a shrewd, soulless, calculated business tactic. Positive reviews (especially at Amazon) directly and measurably impact how many people hear about the book and end up reading it. When I offer ARCs, I’m doing it as a greedy corporate mogul, to drive the machine of business. Or something.

And your response to that offer left me speechless. For four straight days, I got a constant string of comment notifications from Amazon. It’s like I posted a blog saying,

“Make me feel good about myself!”

And the internet obeyed.

I just wanted to take a moment to express my thanks to all of you. It’s because of my readers that I get to be a storyteller, and that has been my biggest dream my entire life. Thanks for reading, thanks for visiting the site, thanks for recommending the books and posting reviews and leaving comments and sending fanmail. Every bit of that is amazing.

Most of all, thanks for liking me. I like you, too.

Sincerely,
Aaron Pogue

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Advance Reading Copy of The Dragonprince’s Heir!

For several weeks now (primarily at my Facebook page) I’ve been promising to provide some some Advance Reading Copies of The Dragonprince’s Heir (The Dragonprince Trilogy, #3) to my fans. As you may know, that effort has been delayed a little bit, but I think I’m finally ready to follow through.

I’d like to allow everyone a little time to make their requests (which will also give me time to finish this round of edits and build the files I’ll need to send out). So if you’re interested, leave a comment (with a valid email address) on this post before the end of the day Tuesday, June 12th. If you don’t know what to say, “Me too, please!” will probably do the job. It’s not an essay contest.

I only have digital copies available, but they should be readable on whatever you’re using to read this blog post. On Wednesday, I’ll send review copies to the first hundred people who commented below. All I’d ask in return is that you write me a review at the digital vendor(s) of your choice. Blog posts are welcome too, of course.

Please note that this is a separate offer from the one we made at KickStarter, but everyone who made a pledge there before the end of the day on May 31st should also be getting their ARCs this Wednesday.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, definitely check out our KickStarter campaign! It’s a good cause, and it’s an easy way to pre-order a signed first edition of the paperback.

Update from the Comments

Congratulations to everyone on the list so far! You’ll be hearing back from me on Wednesday. And, of course, there’s still room for more!

I just wanted to pop in and respond to those of you who’ve mentioned how desperate you are for an ARC because you’re all out of reading material. At the risk of sounding like some soulless salesperson, I should mention that I do have some other stories available.

Maybe you’ve already read them all. If so, I can still introduce you to some great new writers. You can’t go wrong with anyone from Consortium Books.

Update from the 100th Responder

We just got our 100th request! Sorry to anyone who missed out, but you’ll only be waiting a couple weeks. The book will be available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble by Tuesday, June 26th.

Can’t wait to hear what you all think! Thanks for the enthusiastic response!

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Contribute to Our KickStarter Campaign and Secure Your ARC of Dragonprince #3!

I’ve been talking a lot about this KickStarter campaign lately, and I’ll probably keep on doing it for the next two or three weeks. We’ve got a lot hanging on this campaign.

For one, it’s the only way I get paid for The Dragonprince’s Heir. I’ve already donated the proceeds of the book to the Consortium, so a successful KickStarter campaign is the only way this book is going to help me pay off my newest student loans.

Don’t feel sorry for me. I made the decision to donate those proceeds, and I’m doing just fine financially. Still, I wouldn’t pass up the chance to roll around in a pile of money.

The real reason this campaign is so important to me, is that it offers the opportunity to get a lot of public attention on what we’re doing here. If we can actually raise $30,000 in patronage funding for a book project, we’ll end up with a story in USA Today. Maybe I’ll get to talk to Jon Stewart. Could be fun.

Anyway! I’ve been getting a lot of requests for details about the promised Advance Reading Copy of The Dragonprince’s Heir. For those of you still wondering, no, I haven’t yet announced the requirements (or schedule) for it here. I wanted to do that this week, but it looks like it’ll be early next week instead.

However, as part of the KickStarter campaign, we’ve promised to give ARCs to everyone who makes a pledge (starting as low as $1) by the end of the day today. It’s also a handy way to pre-order a signed copy of the paperback, which isn’t something we usually offer.

So even if all you want is more dragonswarm, this KickStarter has something to offer you. If you really like my work (and want to see more like it), please support the company that pays me to write. It’s a good cause.

But with that said, please don’t feel like a contribution is required to get an ARC. It’s just a perk the Consortium is offering. That’s something else altogether.

I’ll still have a post early next week, as promised, explaining when and where and how to get an ARC, no purchase necessary. I just need to do some really frantic revisions first. But that’s what Saturdays are for, right?