My Short Fiction is Free This Weekend

I've put all four of my short works on free promotion status this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This includes:

They're all available via the links on the right hand side of the blog. Except for The Train to Calais, which has enjoyed surprising popularity thanks to its association with the Commando books, the other short stories have sold poorly, despite all-round positive reviews. I suppose I shouldn't worry too terribly, since the novels are now my bread and butter, so these promotion days are more for the sake of fishing for new readers with my short fiction, in the hopes of catching folks who would be interested in my novels.

If you haven't picked any of these up yet, please take a look and give one (or all) of them a try. Can you beat free? Well, I'm not going to pay you to read 'em, so free is as good as it's going to get.

Mack Maloney's WINGMAN Novels Now Available as Ebooks!

Click the Cover to see on Amazon

I read the WINGMAN series of post-apocalyptic aerial adventure novels in junior high and high school, and back then I thought they were the greatest novels ever written. A zany menagerie of characters battling on the ground and in the skies over a world devastated by the nuclear ravages of World War Three, the WINGMAN stories were filled with crazy adventures, battles on land, sea, and of course, in the air, as Hawk Hunter, "Zen Fighter Pilot" took to the skies in his customized F-16 fighter jet.

I read about 10 of the 16 WINGMAN novels before I lost track of the series, probably around the time I went off to college. But I'd read and re-read the books I had - especially the first four or five novels - several times. As time went on, I would sometimes wonder what ever happened to the series, and it turns out it languished in out-of-print hell for a long, long time.

But, like an F-16 rising up from the ashes of a nuclear post-war wasteland, the WINGMAN series has been given new life by the folks over at Open Road Media, a publishing house specializing in ebook publishing. They've given the series new covers and priced them competitively (smart thinking on their part), and as of today, the series is now live and ready for purchase on Amazon.

I was fortunate enough to get in touch with Mack Maloney, the author of the WINGMAN novels, a couple of years ago, and after some correspondence back and forth Mack was kind enough to do an interview for me, which I published in Hatchet Force Journal. I've also been working with Mack to build a new home for him online, and it can be found here, on his new Wordpress blog. As time goes on, we'll be adding new information, but there are links to all his books, as well as a lot of other information.

I could carry on about the series a lot more, but Open Road Media got together with Mack and made a promotional video for the release of the WINGMAN series - so I'll let the video do the talking:

Hatchet Force Journal Ebook is FREE this Friday

I know it's a late announcement, but today (Friday) Hatchet Force Journal #1 is free for the Kindle on Amazon. If you don't have a Kindle, you can still get it and read it online through Amazon's Cloud Reader or any mobile device's Kindle app.

This promotion week has been really impressive. I've had well over a thousand downloads of my various titles, and that's a thousand potential new readers and customers. I'm really impressed with how quickly and easily people who I'm sure have never even heard of me can find my works and pick them up.

Sometime in the next week or two I will have a promotion day for COMMANDO: Operation Arrowhead. When I do, I'll be sure to announce it ahead of time.

My New Publishing Imprint: PMP BOOKS

Okay, so it's not terribly original, but I felt that maintaining a consistency with the blog was important. From this point forward, all my e-titles will be listed on Amazon as "Published by Post Modern Pulp Books", and the PMP BOOKS logo appears on all the print copies. Notice is also given on the page with the copyright and so on in both the print and digital versions of everything.

These days, with the power that various DIY resources and social networking provides you, anyone can become their own small press, and I feel it helps to reaffirm that those of us who are not going down the traditional publishing routes can still create and distribute legitimate products without the stigma of it being handled through a "vanity press" or similar venue.

Below you can see the four trade paperback titles I currently have as part of the "PMP BOOKS" line:

Please Excuse My Terrible Cell Phone Camera Photo

And here are the backs of the three titles currently bearing the logo:

The Killer Instincts cover will get the logo in September when I begin to roll out other e-formats after the KDP Select license agreement runs out.

Some General Updates and Announcements

As of this week, I have tentative commitments from all the contributors I'll need for Hatchet Force Journal #2. I hope to e-mail all the contributors this weekend and get the ball rolling on submissions that I haven't already received.

My Twitter feed has gained a lot of steam this month, and I'm almost at 300 followers. If you've got a Twitter account, please feel free to add me (@jbadelaire). I don't automatically re-follow everyone who adds me, but if it's clear you're not a 'bot or just looking to generate a huge following for no clear purpose, I'll follow back.

I've been falling behind on my reviews, so I hope to put together a bunch and have them auto-post over the next couple of weeks. Lots of indie material as well as other titles.

Sales of NANOK and the Tower of Sorrows have been slow, but I've still been able to peddle a few copies beyond friends and family. If you enjoy some tongue-in-cheek, violent as hell Sword & Sorcery adventure, give it a try. Perfect for sitting out on your deck with a couple of beers one of these gorgeous spring days.

I'm going to go see The Hunger Games this Sunday. I've never read the books, but I will try to get a short review up here after the film. Stay tuned.

Hatchet Force Journal Issue #2 - Now Taking Submissions

The people have spoken, and the people want another issue of Hatchet Force Journal.

I received a lot of great feedback about the first issue, and I'm hoping to incorporate much of it into the release of issue #2.  I don't think I'll be able to accommodate everyone's wishes, but I'll do my best to make #2 a lot better than the first issue, which even I'll admit was a bit of a hot mess (although hey, people are still buying and borrowing it).

First off, submission guidelines!

• Length: Between 1,000 and 1,500 words.  If you color outside the lines a little bit that's fine, but I'm trying to cut down on the size of the articles - that was one of the main complaints I received about the first issue.
• Topic: Issue #2 has a theme! "21st Century Combat".  This can be combat operations, counter-terror, law enforcement, mercenaries, what have you.  But we're focusing on the 21st century, post 9/11 world view.
• Keep it Politically Neutral.  If you want to talk about private security company operations in Iraq that's fine, but if you want to turn it into an article about the privatization of the American military, I won't accept it.
• Pictures encouraged.  Since it'll be released on the Kindle, pick something that'll look half-decent in black and white.  I may have to play around with it in Photoshop to make it pop a little, but otherwise I won't alter anything other than file size etc.
• Fiction and Non-Fiction Reviews/Articles Welcome.  HFJ is about action and adventure stories in all forms; television, film, books, video games, real-world reference articles, excerpts - all is fair game as long as it's on-topic.

I'm looking for ~12 submissions, and I'm hoping to get them all in by March 9th.  I'm aiming for a release date in the beginning of April.  If anyone is interested in submitting an article, feel free to e-mail me (j dot e dot badelaire at gmail dot com).

Lies, All Lies.

I'm a big fat liar.  I claimed several weeks ago that I'd be getting back on the horse and posting more, writing more, yadda yadda yadda.  It hasn't really happened.  I spent most of my holiday vacation working around the home, overseeing the renovation of my bathroom and some other floor work, as well as dropping about a grand in new bits and pieces for the apartment.  Who's got two thumbs and sank $400 into just Venetian blinds and curtains?  This guy.

A few things, however.  First is that it appears we finally have a publishing date for the new Death Merchant novel, The Ways of Killing Men.  I may actually cave and buy myself an "autographed copy" of the book just for the novelty of it all.  The Death Merchant series is one of the catalysts for my interest in "post modern pulp fiction" and the fact that someone (or some people) out there liked the series enough to ghost write a sequel to the series tickles me to no end.

Let's see, what else?  I set up both HFJ #1 and my short ghost story Rivalry on Amazon Select, so they can be "borrowed" for free by Amazon Prime members.  Shockingly enough, someone's already "borrowed" HFJ #1.  Am I going to make bank off of Select royalties?  No.  Am I making bank off of just plain selling those two titles? No.  So, I'd rather go with the option that gives more of an opportunity to put my works in the hands of more people.  Money, if it comes at all, can come along later.  I am content with this right now.

I really really hope to get down to the nitty gritty of editing Killer Instincts over the next month or two.  I know what needs to be done, and I know what I need to do to make it happen, I just need to do it.  Six months away from the draft is more than enough time to separate myself from the work, I just need to move forward.  I need to tell myself it's not going to be perfect, it is going to be what it is going to be, and if there's problems with the novel, I just have to absorb those mistakes, learn, and move on.  Fingers crossed.

That's it for now.  I hope to get some book reviews coming along soon.

Hatchet Force Journal #1 Receives Warm Reception

My new action-adventure e-zine, Hatchet Force Journal, went live on Amazon.com a week ago.  I've been averaging a few sales a day, enough so I know it's not just a handful of loyal readers who're always commenting on this site.  It's an exciting but nerve-wracking feeling to know that people you've probably never even corresponded with are now buying your product, but that's what happens when you take the Big Leap and click "Save and Publish".

So far the responses I've gotten have been great.  Jim Cobb over at Survival Weekly declares that HFJ is "...awesome drenched in win".  Jim makes an especially insightful comment about my essay, The Children of Vietnam, noting how I discuss "...the interesting dichotomy of being part of a generation who grew out of the hippy and counter-culture movements, yet became fascinated with violent movies, gory books, and really what should be considered to be the early days of torture porn."

Adventure and westerns author James Reasoner writes over at Rough Edges that HFJ is "...a fine piece of work".  James was, as best as I can figure, the second person to purchase the Journal, and he was kind enough to give me a lot of good advice in private about what can be done to make it better.  I'm currently reading one of James' e-book westerns, The Hunted, and it's a lot of fun.

Special Forces veteran and weapons expert Jack Murphy, who can now add "Self-Published Badass" to his resume, gave a review of HFJ over at Reflexive Fire, noting "Overall, Issue One is a solid effort and much more worthy of a periodical reader’s time than what is frequently available on physical news stands".   Jack's new paramilitary action novel Reflexive Fire  went on sale the same day as the Journal, and if you're a fan of action, intrigue, and conspiracy, you need to check it out.

Paul Bishop over at his super-cool blog Bish's Beat put up a promotional post, and over at Amazon he was kind enough to give me a concise and almost embarrassingly good review.  Bish says HFJ "...kicks off a whole new world, not only for Men's Action and Adventure novels, but for the whole concept of fan-type zines for niche interests. That said, The Hatchet Force Journals is one of the most professional entries in the field. Good articles, great interviews, and strong reviews".  Bish has just re-released a couple of his own book as e-books, namely Hot Pursuit and Deep Water.  Do the man a solid and check 'em out.

I've received a number of other positive responses, both public and private, and they have all been very encouraging.  I've requested from a number of professionals that they give me an "extraordinarily blunt" critique of the first issue, and even when there were a number of suggestions for improvement, as well as praises for what definitely worked, all have said they thoroughly enjoyed the Journal's debut.

With Issue #1 barely out the door, I'm already planning #2.  From here on in, every issue is going to  have a featured theme, plus a number of regular columns focusing in various topics.  The theme for Issue 2 is going to be "21st Century Action & Adventure" and will focus on movies, books, and other adventure media from the last 10 years.  I'm aiming for a release date some time in the second half of August.

Thank you all again for your support!

Hatchet Force Cover Gets A Pro Makeover

What do I find upon waking up this morning? A couple of e-mails from Christopher Mills, a fellow whose blogs I've been following for several years now.

And what does Sir Christopher have for me in said e-mails?  Why, a professionally re-designed cover for HFJ#1, of course:

When I originally designed the Hatchet Force cover, I drew heavily from the old vintage paperback covers (the font I picked is as close as I could get to the font used for the Phoenix Force books) as well as old 70's and 80's Soldier of Fortune magazine covers. 

But it's not 1981 anymore, and Christopher saw that my cover needed a little modern pop! to give it some bite.  I couldn't be happier with the results.

I'm taking on Christopher as my cover layout and design artist from here on out, and will be sure to offer up my firstborn to a god or godling of his choice as a sign of my appreciation for his support.

My Decision to Price Hatchet Force at $2.99

When I originally decided to put together and sell an eJournal built around my interest in action-adventure fiction, my gut reaction was to make it as cheap as commercially possible.  You can't sell anything on Amazon cheaper than $0.99, so that was going to be my initial price point.

But in reading a lot about independent e-publishing and pricing, I have seen a number of people making solid arguments against pricing your wares "as low as you can go".  For one, the buyer will look at the price of the product as a reflection of the creator's value of their own work.  You sell something too cheap, the buyer is wondering if there's a reason you feel it is of such little value.  Selling something at $2.99 helps say "I think this is worth more than the absolute lowest price I can charge". 

Another, more personal argument is that giving the product a more respectable price means I am taking the project more seriously.  I've been promoting action-adventure fiction for ten years now, and what first started as simply a preference in reading and a desire to talk to other fans has now become a commercial venture for me.  Giving this product a serious price tag helps solidify in my mind that this is a serious undertaking, and I have been investing a lot of time and effort into learning as much as I can about e-publishing, contacting and communicating with contributors, and promoting the work as best I can. 

Also, I hate to say it, but $2.99 makes this venture much more profitable.  I've seen arguments for the theory that pricing a book at $0.99 means you'll get more sales and make up for the lower profits, but the arguments against this idea look much stronger.  The way Amazon sets the royalties for independent publishing, a product sold at $2.99 gives 70% of the profit to the author, while $0.99 only gives 30%.  This means pricing at the lower value, I'd have to sell more than six times the number of copies at the lower price to make the same royalties as a $2.99 product.  Many authors have actually seen sales figures (not profits, but actual numbers of sales) go up with the higher price; I think that is a solid argument for my first point above; that the higher price gives the buyer more confidence in a better product.

Finally, I don't really think for a niche product like HFJ a price difference between $0.99 and $2.99 is going to sway a purchase one way or another; either you think this is a product worth investing a few bucks to buy, or you're not the sort of person who'd probably read the Journal in the first place.  For those fence-sitters out there who'd actually reconsider - hey, skip the three dollar iced coffee, and invest in some quality reading material instead!

I'm still aiming for a June 20th release date, hoping to put the Journal up on Amazon Sunday night, but it may take 24-48 hours for it to process through and be available for purchase.  As soon as it is available, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Thank you all again for your support - I literally couldn't do this without you.

Hatchet Force Journal #1 On Deck For Next Week

After what has been a relatively short but incredibly encouraging journey, Hatchet Force Journal #1 is almost ready to land on Amazon's Kindle bookstore.  All the material is in hand, layout is mostly complete, and I hope to have the final editing finished by this weekend.  My hope is that the Journal will go on sale Monday morning.

As a little bit of a sneak peek, here is the cover for Issue #1:

Do I sound like a jerk if I say I'm really excited that this is coming together?

The Hatchet Force eJournal Is Gaining Support

Just a quick update for my readers.

This week I announced my intent to create an eJournal dedicated to the sort of serial "men's adventure" action fiction popular in the 60's through the 80's, books like The Executioner, Death Merchant, The Guardians, Black Berets, Vietnam: Ground Zero, and so forth. The journal will contain reviews of books, movies, and television shows, as well as interviews, editorials, and essays, plus short fiction and excerpts from larger works.

After some struggling to find an appropriate title for this journal, I settled on Hatchet Force, a term that hearkens back to the days of MAC-V SOG operations in Vietnam. Hatchet Forces were large assault teams of SOG commandos leading indigenous troops against enemy strong points in quick, brutal lightning raids.

When I had the idea to create this journal, I e-mailed a number of bloggers who covered similar topics, and the result was largely positive; a good number of them agreed to send me materials for review. Several of these individuals have already submitted articles, and now that I'm past one of my deadlines for work, I'll be digesting these in earnest.

More surprisingly, I've already had several unsolicited offers for articles, which I feel is a sign that there is definitely interest in a periodical of this nature. Many thanks to both those who I contacted directly and those individuals who contacted me on their own initiative; your support is essential for this project to get off the ground.

Right now, I'm setting a semi-firm submissions deadline for the end of May, and I'd like to get the first issue of Hatchet Force out the door mid-June. Since this is going to be an eBook and not a print magazine, a lot of the layout headaches I'd encounter with print publishing will be a non-issue; formatting is intended to be "low drag" so it can be compatible with the greatest number of e-readers.

I intend to sell the eJournal through Smashwords first, then push it to the Kindle as soon as I know things are up and running. The price for the first issue will be $0.99, although I don't know if it'll stay there for later issues; time will tell.

And that's where we stand so far. I've received at least half of the submissions that will go into the first issue already, with others shortly to follow. I'm guessing the last articles to be ready will be my own. If anyone is interested in submitting an article for review, please feel free to e-mail me (my address is located in the "About Me" page).

Thanks again, and I hope to hear from many of you soon.

The eJournal Project Now Has A Name

So around 1 AM last night, tossing and turning and unable to sleep, I was contemplating a name for this new eJournal Project. I wanted it to be something that sold the project, something that told the reader what they were getting into right away. I thought of titles like:

The Post-Modern Pulps Review Journal

or

The Serial Action & Adventure Fiction Review

But you know what? These are the sorts of convoluted title structures that you'll see on peer review medical journals that talk about skin disorders, or ecology periodicals talking about the life of the mealworm. That is not our kind of journal, no sirree.

This is a journal for people who love to read about automatic shotguns spraying terrorists with storms of high-velocity steel, chattering Uzis stitching drug dealers across the chest with streams of hollowpoint slugs, and karate kicks to the groin so powerful they shatter a bad guy's pelvis and send them into lethal shock.

That kind of journal needs a title with a little more bite, so to speak. Short, sharp, and to the point. Like a bullet punching through a bad guy's x-ring, or a blade biting into flesh. A title that resonates both with the sorts of titles we're dealing with, titles like The Executioner, Able Team, Phoenix Force, Black Berets, Hard Corps, and The Death Merchant. Something that pulls us back to the Vietnam-era roots that define, for me, the genesis of what I call Post-Modern Pulp Fiction.

A title like Hatchet Force.

Short, sharp, and to the point, indeed. It also hearkens back to the MAC-V SOG days, which I think is critically important when you're talking about a sub-genre of fiction that owes its genesis to the Vietnam War.

So now our journal has a name, it has contributors, and content is coming in. I will provide future updates, but I hope to get issue #1 out the door some time in mid June.

Again, many thanks to all of you who have provided your support - I literally couldn't do this without you guys.

Possible Project: A Post Modern Pulps Review eJournal

Blogs are great. I read at least a dozen of them regularly, and probably check in to another two dozen or so on an intermittent basis. The power that Web 2.0 has given the individual to express themselves and reach out to other like-minded individuals is extraordinary, and while there is always bad mixed in with the good, it has allowed people to form communities and share resources in ways that twenty years ago, you'd never believe were possible.

Part of the problem with blogs, especially blogs that are frequently updated, is that the content goes by so fast that you might just miss it if you're not paying attention. A lot of bloggers out there have scads of content in their "back issues" so to speak, but if a reader doesn't see it in the first couple of weeks, it will likely go unread thereafter, even if it is technically still available. This is somewhat mitigated if your blog is niche enough that a Google search of a certain topic will place your article at the top of the search listings, but that is a relatively rare occurrence.

The other day I was contemplating ePublishing and thinking of various ways and means to dip my toe in the water, and it occurred to me that one experiment might be to put together a simple, cheap, no-frills eJournal of blog content written by myself and other like-minded bloggers, sold through Smashwords and/or Kindle. I've seen other niche interest groups put together blog-inspired journals before, and the reception has actually been quite positive. It allows the buyer the chance to read content by people they might not have encountered before, and gives new life to old, but still relevant content that is sitting on the Internet, mostly forgotten.

So I am now in the process of putting out feelers to bloggers who have a strong interest in the men's adventure novels of the 60's through the 80's, what I term "Post-Modern Pulps". If anyone is interested in sending me materials for this journal project, please e-mail me (my address is available in my "About Me" page) and let me know. I'd love to see book reviews, movie reviews, even TV series reviews (Airwolf, A-Team, Knight Rider, etc.), essays and editorials, and even short fiction or excerpts from longer works.

I am considering about a dozen articles, each somewhere in the 1,000 word range, but this is a flexible word count. If I get more articles - great! If the interest is there, I can always put together more issues. My ideal would be either monthly or once every two months, depending on how much content I have to work with and the turnaround time for putting these eJournals in the pipeline.

If the project is a flop, well, c'est la vie. But if it is a success, I think it'll be able to bring bloggers of a similar interest group together, and introduce readers to writers they haven't yet discovered.