What's Coming This Year

The other day I posted the cover for a new novel coming out shortly called Bullet Rain. What the heck is that? Well, I thought I'd share some of the books I plan to release this upcoming year ...

  • LEGION - a standalone novel that takes place in the Man of Wax universe. In many ways it works as a prequel to the trilogy, and characters that appear in this book will show up in the third book. So I guess when this whole thing is complete, it won't be a trilogy at all but a ... saga? Those who have read the book already tell me it's one of my best, so that's certainly promising.
  • BULLET RAIN - a standalone novel that's part of the Holly Lin series, and in fact is set right after the events of No Shelter. Basically we catch up with Nova and the trouble he gets into while driving across the country. There's a lot of action. In fact, I think there's almost too much action. And in the end it sets up the next Holly Lin book called ...
  • THE DEVIL YOU KNOW - second Holly Lin novel, which takes place right after the events of No Shelter.
  • DOWN IN A HOLE - third Holly Lin novel. I actually started writing this over a year ago, but then realized I needed to write The Devil You Know first because, well, the second book should come before the third book, right?

I'm also going to attempt to squeeze in a novella and short horror novel if possible, but mostly I'm concentrating on novels because novels sell the best for me, and as a writer, I want to sell books. Plus, Legion and Bullet Rain are pretty much done, so those should be out relatively soon.

What about the third Man of Wax book? many of you are no doubt wondering.

That will probably be next year. In fact, after the books listed, that's what I plan on tackling. Someone asked me on Twitter the other day if I'll ever conclude the trilogy, and the answer is yes. It's just right now the Man of Wax books sell decently, but nowhere near a demand that would force me to get the third book out ASAP (so, um, if you love the books and haven't reviewed them on Amazon, please consider doing so as that really helps!). No Shelter is actually one of my worst selling books, which is odd, because pretty much everyone who reads it loves it. I think the reason is I originally published it under a pseudonym, and then when I announced it was me, I didn't change the cover, so it still says Z. Constance Frost, who doesn't exist, so maybe there's confusion? The reason I didn't initially change the cover is because the plan was to rebrand the entire series ... but I wasn't going to do that until the second book came out, and again, demand trumps desire. As No Shelter is my slowest moving book, there hasn't been much hurry to continue Holly's adventures. But I'm hoping this year with more books, the series will pick up steam. Also, I mentioned how last year I didn't release much? That's entirely on me. Some stuff in my personal life has been keeping me from producing as much as I'd like, but this year I'm going to do my damnedest to write and publish as much as possible.

Coming later this year, too, is a short story I wrote for a David B. Silva tribute anthology being published by Cemetery Dance. The anthology is called Better Weird and my story is called "Muse." I'm really happy with how the story turned out, and I'm honored to be included in the book.

So that's it for now, though if possible I might even surprise you with more stuff. Or who knows, maybe I will only get to half of this. Basically I'm putting this here as motivation for myself to get my ass in gear. So now, with that out of the way, it's back to work ...

Books I Enjoyed In 2013

I read (or listened to, which I count as the same thing) 60 books in 2013. As I do every year, I'm not going to make a "best of" list, but rather simply list the books I enjoyed reading. There is no particular order other than which they were read/listened. Not surprisingly, the bulk of my reading was done via Kindle. Just recently I picked up the ebook of a book I already have in hardcover, because I want to read the book and know that I'll get to it sooner on my Kindle. What does that mean for the industry at large? Absolutely nothing. That's just my own taste. Anyway, I've broken the list down accordingly. Last year I included a category for short stories, but I only read one short story collection this past year, apparently (I did read several literary journals and ebook singles, however). I hope to fix that wrong this upcoming year (in fact, I just started  Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, which is great so far). Here we go ... Novels

  • THE GIRL ON THE GLIDER by Brian Keene (ebook)
  • THE TWELVE by Justin Cronin (hardcover)
  • LIVE BY NIGHT by Dennis Lehane (ebook)
  • THE BLACK BOX by Michael Connelly (ebook)
  • SANDMAN SLIM by Richard Kadrey (ebook)
  • A FRIEND OF THE EARTH by T. C. Boyle (hardcover)
  • THE MESMERIST by Joseph D’Agnese (ebook)
  • WAYWARD by Blake Crouch (ebook)
  • DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King (ebook)
  • WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY by Brian Hodge (ebook)
  • UNDERSTUDIES by Ravi Mangla (paperback)

Audiobooks

  • ODD APOCALYPSE by Dean Koontz, read by David Aaron Baker
  • THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green, read by Kate Rudd
  • YOU’RE NEXT by Gregg Hurwitz, read by Scott Brick
  • FIGHT CLUB by Chuck Palahniuk, read by Jim Colby
  • 14 by Peter Clines, read by Ray Porter
  • THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by Neil Gaiman, read by Neil Gaiman
  • DELIVERANCE by James Dickey, read by Will Patton
  • KILL THE DEAD by Richard Kadrey, read by MacLeod Andrews
  • LIGHT OF THE WORLD by James Lee Burke, read by Will Patton
  • MR. PENUMBRA’S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE by Robin Sloan, read by Ari Fliakos
  • TAKEN by Robert Crais, read by Luke Daniels
  • TELL NO LIES by Gregg Hurwitz, read by Scott Brick

Non-Fiction

  • NO EASY DAY: THE FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF THE MISSION THAT KILLED OSAMA BIN LADEN by Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer, read by Holter Graham

Graphic Novel

  • THE STRANGE TALENT OF LUTHER STRODE by Justin Jordan, Tradd Moore, and Felipe Sobreiro (paperback)

So, what books did you enjoy this past year?

Looking Back At 2013

2013 was an interesting year. From a professional standpoint, it certainly had its highs and lows. Let's highlight some of them chronologically:

Throughout the year there were, of course, many, many podcasts.

I also talked about neglecting the blog, and how I was going to try to update it more. I don't think I ever really reached that goal. I saw a news article recently that talked about the death of the blog, and I guess that's what's been happening here. I use it to make announcements and that's about it. In the past I would blog about a lot of different things, whether it be pop culture or what was happening in publishing, but it became tiresome. I began to limit my comments to 140 characters on Twitter, where I'm most active. And, quite honestly, I started to become bored with the blog. I see other writers sometimes blogging about one issue or topic or another, and I think, who cares? And with that in mind, I don't feel like throwing my two cents in when nobody ever asked me in the first place.

I'm not the only one, I've noticed. Many other writers have been blogging less and less. Is it true, do you think -- is the blog dying for good now?

Anyway, despite the ups and downs, 2013 was a good year. What it wasn't, however, was very productive. Don't get me wrong, I've been writing, but I didn't release nearly as much as I would have liked. And my sales this year have suffered for it. They're still good, but they weren't nearly as good as they were in 2012, when I was releasing many more books. That's the thing in publishing, whether it be indie or traditional -- velocity matters. The more books you release, the more you'll sell. That's just how it is.

But I have been working. 2014 should see the release of many new books. Besides an omnibus of Refuge, which will collect all five books of the series, I hope to release Legion, Bullet Rain, and at least one new Holly Lin book, if not two. I also hope to throw in a short horror novel or novella if time permits. And I might even try to write a few new short stories.

Yes, 2014 should be quite an interesting year.

This won't be my last post of 2013, though; that will be in the next day or two, when I'll list the books I really enjoyed reading this year.

Until then, happy Sunday!

Nomad Is Here

Today is the release of my novella Nomad. It's part of the Wayward Pines world that Blake Crouch created with his novels Pines and Wayward (and which is being turned into a mini-series for Fox to air this summer). Blake entered the series into the Kindle Worlds program, and he asked me and a few other writers to contribute stories. I'm really proud of the novella, and I hope everyone likes reading it as much as I liked writing it. Because Nomad is part of the Kindle Worlds program, it's only available on Kindle (US right now, though they should be expanding into the UK soon). If you don't have a Kindle, that's no problem -- there are a ton of free apps that you can read Nomad on practically any device. You can also mark it as to-read on Goodreads. Enjoy!