Tag Archives: Kindle

You can do that?

21 Jul

The House in the Old Wood coverOne thing people love about physical books is the ability to share them.

Turns out, people like that in ebooks too.

A recent study by Author Earnings shows that ebooks you can share outsell “protected” ebooks two-to-one.

Didn’t know you can share ebooks? You can. At least with Kindle books, with other Kindle users, you can.

You can share all my ebooks. (With one exception which I will fix soon.) And I encourage you to do so. Let your friends read them. You could do that if it was a physical book, right? You paid for it, right?

Oh, hey, some people got the ebook version of The House in the Old Wood free, didn’t they?

No matter. Feel free to share it. It’s yours. I gave it to you.

(At this time, new purchases of The House in the Old Wood are protected. I am having trouble toggling that to “off.” I will do so soon, but this may result in the book being unavailable for a couple of days.)

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10 reasons The Day Magic Died is better than A Song of Ice and Fire, part two

15 Jul

You may have heard people say that George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (that’s the books on which HBO’s Game of Thrones is based, in case you missed that) is the best fantasy series of our time. And yesterday I gave you five of the ten reasons my series, The Day Magic Died, is better.

Here are reasons six through ten:

6. Trustworthy: Look at the man. George RR Martin has a beard! I always say, never trust a man with a beard. Yes, I have a beard too. So? What are you implying?

7. You knead this: Never once, in all those words in all those books in A Song of Ice and Fire, does Martin give a detailed description of making bread. You’ll not find one in the Game of Thrones TV series either. But The House in the Old Wood, the first book of The Day Magic Died,does. Just like all those other pieces of great literature with baking scenes. I can’t think of any right off the bat, but I’m sure they’ll come to me.

8. Use your imagination: You can watch Game of Thrones on TV. But there’s no TV series or movie version of The Day Magic Died, so there’s nothing to keep you from using your own imagination to picture the characters and scenes as they play out. However, I should add in case any producers are reading this, I’d consider sacrificing my readers’ imaginations for the right amount of money.

9. Speaking of imagination: The Day Magic Died has better mythical creatures. I’d put a ferebeast or a redbear up against a direwolf any day. But A Song of Ice and Fire has dragons, you say? Well, I’ve got a dragon too – and she’s immortal. Take that! Wait. She’s also dead. Sort of. Hang on, my immortal dragon is sort of dead? Boy, I wish I would have noticed that before I was four books in …

10. But in the end: My dwarf is taller. Need I say more?

You ought to run right out (or really, open another tab) and get your copy of my series today. Available in paperback or for Kindle:

The House in the Old WoodKaria's Path

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10 reasons ‘The Day Magic Died’ is better than ‘A Song of Ice and Fire,’ part one

14 Jul

As long as I’m talking about George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (that’s the books on which HBO’s Game of Thrones is based, in case you missed that), I should tell you, I am tired of hearing that it is the best fantasy series of our time.

I’ve come up with 10 reasons my series, The Day Magic Died, is better. Here are the first five:

1. Peace and quiet: People seem to be talking about Game of Thrones and the books it’s based on, A Song of Ice and Fire, a lot. It can get really annoying. So next time that bothers you, mention The Day Magic Died. Aside from the odd looks and the occasional, “What?” you’ll get the peace and quiet and solitude you want.

2. Readable length: When it’s all done, A Song of Ice and Fire will be roughly 47.635 million words long. Who can read that much? In fact, at an average pace of 10,000 words an hour, that would take 200 days to read. Without stopping to sleep, eat or do anything else. The Day Magic Died will be about 500,000 words. That’s a nice round figure that, read through without stopping, would only take one weekend. You can survive that. (Note to self: “You can survive my books” goes in the bin of rejected marketing slogans.) I mean, you’ll enjoy that journey.

3. Northwestern University: George RR Martin went to some elitist Midwestern college with pretensions of Ivy League-ism. I went to … wait, never mind.

4. Playing the percentages: A Song of Ice and Fire is 71 percent complete, and if it goes to eight books instead of seven, as George has hinted, it’s only 63 percent complete. The Day Magic Died is 80 percent complete, and the final book is set to come out this year. Yes, whenever I am reading a book series, I calculate percentages. Don’t you?

5. Faster is better: George RR Martin’s first book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire came out in 1996, and the fifth book came out 2011 – 15 years later! And it’s not done. The House in the Old Wood came out in 2013, and The White-Silver House, the final book in the series The Day Magic Died, comes out in 2014. And everyone knows faster is better, right? How else do you explain why so many people eat at McDonald’s?

Check out reasons six through ten. And please check out my series, available in paperback or for Kindle:

The House in the Old WoodKaria's Path

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Dad always said …

13 Jun

The House in the Old Wood coverDid your dad have favorite sayings? Things you heard all the time?

Or were there things that he may have said only once, that you really remembered because they were so pithy, or meant so much to you?

Karia – whose story is told in the series, The Day Magic Died – seems to remember one sentence that her dad said more than any other. It’s because she needs to keep reminding herself of it.

You see, Visili is a deceiver. He’s not just a liar. He’s a conniver. A self-serving illusionist and manipulator. And he’s really good at it. So that’s why she keeps reminding herself of the words of her dad:

“This kind always lies.”

It’s not the most profound thing Reva ever said to her. That distinction probably goes to his response when she declared that it wasn’t right that she had to work in the mud while the boys got to go to town:

“Right and wrong have nothing to do with what you want or what you feel, Tsil.”

Sometimes dads say things that remind of what we should have done, like when Karia remembers her dad saying,

“You and me, Karia, we do things the right way.”

And at other times, dads say things that make us stop and think. That’s what happened when Reva said,

“Karia, I figure if other people can forgive all the mistakes I’ve made, I can forgive one or two by them.”

These are the things that guide Karia as she takes on a huge challenge. I hope you’ll come along with us and enjoy the journey.

The House in the Old Wood is available in paperback and for Kindle from Amazon.

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Your dad is not stupid

11 Jun
My mom and dad

My mom and dad in New York in 1946, after their return from India

I seriously doubt that your dad is or was stupid. My dad sure wasn’t. And three out of my four children don’t think I’m stupid. (Now they’re all thinking, “Which one of us thinks he’s stupid?” What fun!)

So with Father’s Day approaching, that got me wondering: Why are insipid, or absent, or malevolent dads a staple of young adult literature?

Look, I’m not claiming to be a perfect dad. My dad wasn’t perfect either. But stupid? No. Not clueless, either. Or missing. And certainly not evil. (Unless you consider it evil to make your kids wonder which of them thinks you’re stupid.)

I’d say the same thing about most of the dads I know.

So instead of embracing the cliché – instead of taking the easy way out – I tried to write a story in which the main character’s dad is more true-to-life. I wanted to model a healthy relationship as I wrote about Karia and her dad, Reva, in The House in the Old Wood. And I think I did it without coming across as preachy or moralizing.

This Father’s Day, if you’re looking for a book that has a little respect for dads, please take a look at The House in the Old Wood. I thank you, and I think your dad will thank you too.

The House in the Old Wood, the first of five books that tell the story of The Day Magic Died, is available from Amazon.

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