Michael McCloskey's Blog - Posts Tagged "mccloskey"
Dave's Free Press Review of Trilisk AI
A very cool review of Trilisk AI at Dave's Free Press over in the UK!
http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/revi...
http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/revi...
A review of Trilisk series at The Unwritable
A review of the first two books of the PIT series (Trilisk) out of Australia. I so love being able to sell books around the world.
http://unwritable.blogspot.com/2012/0...
http://unwritable.blogspot.com/2012/0...
Trilisk Hunt Released
The Trilisk Hunt has been released.
On the cover: Caden, Siobhan, and Arakaki.
http://www.squidlord.com/home/writing...
On the cover: Caden, Siobhan, and Arakaki.
http://www.squidlord.com/home/writing...
Sales Milestone
Today passing my 50,000th sale. My latest PIT book, The Trilisk Hunt, is in the top ten in Science Fiction --> Space Exploration category at the US kindle store, and top ten in three categories in Amazon UK.
Big thanks to all my fans, I'm so glad I got to write these books and sell them. I also hope at least one young person out there has been inspired to achieve great things in their life like being an astrophysicist, space explorer, or even just a novelist :)
Though I am bragging today, and celebrating, I guess I will take this opportunity to remind my readers that characters in my books are often blown up, eaten, or exsanguinated.
http://www.squidlord.com/home/writing...
Big thanks to all my fans, I'm so glad I got to write these books and sell them. I also hope at least one young person out there has been inspired to achieve great things in their life like being an astrophysicist, space explorer, or even just a novelist :)
Though I am bragging today, and celebrating, I guess I will take this opportunity to remind my readers that characters in my books are often blown up, eaten, or exsanguinated.
http://www.squidlord.com/home/writing...
Passed 500 ratings on Goodreads
I passed 500 ratings on Goodreads today. THANKS everyone for reading, rating, and reviewing.
Trilisk Revolution and Archon Than should be out around Dec 25th. Flutes of Aeran will take a few days longer to get fixed up and ready to go, so it might be January 2014 before that one goes on sale.
Trilisk Revolution and Archon Than should be out around Dec 25th. Flutes of Aeran will take a few days longer to get fixed up and ready to go, so it might be January 2014 before that one goes on sale.
New Releases
Three recent releases:
The Trilisk Revolution, book 5 in the PIT series.
Archon Than, my first superhero book.
The Flutes of Aeran, a fantasy novel.
All available for sale at
http://www.squidlord.com/
The Trilisk Revolution, book 5 in the PIT series.
Archon Than, my first superhero book.
The Flutes of Aeran, a fantasy novel.
All available for sale at
http://www.squidlord.com/
smuggling != xenoarchaeology != archaeology
Over the years, some have noted that Telisa does not act very "archaeologist-like" in the Trilisk Ruins. Here is my response. Some minor spoilers, though not major ones.
1. Telisa isn't acting as a xenoarchaelogist in the book, she's a smuggler. She was added to the team partially because she could identify what might be valuable; not because of her ability to sift through dirt inside cordoned off squares.
2. Telisa does not have access to the expensive equipment a full UNSF expedition would have. So she has to do without extensive scans down to the molecular level and powerful AIs to analyze everything on the spot.
3. Telisa is working under severe time pressure because the team knows they will get caught if they linger.
4. Everything they find is being recorded as they find it by links and robots; no need to sit around taking pictures before you touch anything.
5. Nothing is buried beneath the ground and needing sifting through; what they find is quite durable and not likely to shatter upon picking it up.
6. You may have to resort to putting together pieces of pottery in archaeology; in xeno, finding one high tech artifact could tell you more about someone faster than studying one of our ancient sites here on Earth for a year could do to tell you about our ancestors.
7. It's not a very exciting book if they cordon the area into quadrants, take pictures, and start sifting through dirt for five weeks.
8. Yes it's dangerous; they all know that and decide to do it anyway because the rewards are very high.
1. Telisa isn't acting as a xenoarchaelogist in the book, she's a smuggler. She was added to the team partially because she could identify what might be valuable; not because of her ability to sift through dirt inside cordoned off squares.
2. Telisa does not have access to the expensive equipment a full UNSF expedition would have. So she has to do without extensive scans down to the molecular level and powerful AIs to analyze everything on the spot.
3. Telisa is working under severe time pressure because the team knows they will get caught if they linger.
4. Everything they find is being recorded as they find it by links and robots; no need to sit around taking pictures before you touch anything.
5. Nothing is buried beneath the ground and needing sifting through; what they find is quite durable and not likely to shatter upon picking it up.
6. You may have to resort to putting together pieces of pottery in archaeology; in xeno, finding one high tech artifact could tell you more about someone faster than studying one of our ancient sites here on Earth for a year could do to tell you about our ancestors.
7. It's not a very exciting book if they cordon the area into quadrants, take pictures, and start sifting through dirt for five weeks.
8. Yes it's dangerous; they all know that and decide to do it anyway because the rewards are very high.
Current Projects
I finished the rough draft of The Dreamslayer today.
Tomorrow: Editing the Celaran Ruins.
I hope to release these two novels soon. The final word counts will be greater than they are now; unlike most authors, I add words in the edit phase rather than cut.
Then, I have a pile of errata to process for the Synchronicity Trilogy. I will re-release those three books with a lot of fixes.
Finally, I might be able to release The Eimar Beacon by the end of the year.
As usual I will send out announcements on my mailing list as these become available.
These projects are described on www.squidlord.com
Tomorrow: Editing the Celaran Ruins.
I hope to release these two novels soon. The final word counts will be greater than they are now; unlike most authors, I add words in the edit phase rather than cut.
Then, I have a pile of errata to process for the Synchronicity Trilogy. I will re-release those three books with a lot of fixes.
Finally, I might be able to release The Eimar Beacon by the end of the year.
As usual I will send out announcements on my mailing list as these become available.
These projects are described on www.squidlord.com
The Celaran Ruins Released
The sixth PIT book is out, The Celeran Ruins. It is my 17th novel.
http://www.squidlord.com/home/writing...
It is active at Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, and Google Play. Still waiting for iBooks to release it.
Thanks all for reading and reviewing my books!
http://www.squidlord.com/home/writing...
It is active at Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, and Google Play. Still waiting for iBooks to release it.
Thanks all for reading and reviewing my books!
Why I Left Google Play
I've had it with Google Play. All the other vendors I work with, Amazon, Apple, B&N, Smashwords, they all sell my books for the price I specify ($2.99 USD). But Google Play won't. They discount the books, presumably to gain market share.
Which does not work, because Amazon just price matches them or pulls the books. (Why don't they just be a great vendor and platform and gain market share that way?) Then I have to go in and set my prices higher on Google Play, so that their discounts end up at the "correct" price to prevent this.
Recently, one of my book prices got stuck at Google Play so I could not update it (anytime soon). Instead of admitting to this problem, their rep just said "Google discounts the list price on its own discretion".
Wrong. You can't set the price to whatever you want, because you don't sell my books anymore. Goodbye Google Play.
Which does not work, because Amazon just price matches them or pulls the books. (Why don't they just be a great vendor and platform and gain market share that way?) Then I have to go in and set my prices higher on Google Play, so that their discounts end up at the "correct" price to prevent this.
Recently, one of my book prices got stuck at Google Play so I could not update it (anytime soon). Instead of admitting to this problem, their rep just said "Google discounts the list price on its own discretion".
Wrong. You can't set the price to whatever you want, because you don't sell my books anymore. Goodbye Google Play.
