Cover Reveal: Stealing Freedom Ebook (and Audiobook)

Greetings all,

About a year ago, Heidi Angell, T.W. Iain, Richard Drake, and I released The Power of Words, an anthology dedicated to the First Amendment. My story for that collection was Stealing Freedom, and fun heist story about a mother who’s planning to shut down the servers that ruthlessly enforce the prohibition of speech and communication on her planet.

As per the agreement we had on that anthology, we’re allowed to release our individual stories (the anthology will remain available) after a year.  In preparation for that, I’ve commissioned my artist, Carlos Villas, to do the cover.  So, without further delay, I proudly present to you the cover to Stealing Freedom, scheduled for release Oct. 1, 2019.

 

It always amazed me to see what Carlos does with my concepts.  For those who are interested, take a look at my request and little thumbnail:
I told him, “The frame is from the bridge of a girl-child’s nose to just below the collar bone. Around her neck is a metal (techno-looking) collar about an inch thick. Blue electricity is arcing around the collar which is visually undone.”

Carlos patiently went through 13 drafts of the image until we got to the image you see above. The bulk of the revisions were in getting the collar to where we wanted it and then getting that arcing light to look perfect.

He did all that work in perhaps a week? If you’re an author looking for a dedicated artist who will eagerly take direction and produce that level of work quickly, I couldn’t recommend Carlos highly enough.

Once I got the final image, I located a font I liked and designed the overall cover with the author and title text. One may argue my author text is a bit dark, but on a monitor it works out fine. I’d be more worried if it were for a print cover (as printing brings up color and density issues), but if my color-challenged eyes can make it out, I’m confident others can see it. I downloaded the font (for free) and placed everything.

The Audible cover (yes, the audio version of this novella will also be available (I hope) Oct. 1.) was more challenging.  In order to keep everything I wanted, I had to place the text over the face. My options were to put text over the face or crop the face out. I opted for the first choice.

Once more, you can expect Steal Freedom to be available on Kindle and Audible Oct. 1 (give or take a day or two).

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Sojourn in Captivity is Live! Here comes a

Greetings all,

This is no April Fool’s joke; Sojourn is live and ready to be read! I’d like to thank those of you who preordered the book. It should automatically have landed in your Kindles.

As I said a few days ago, I’m very proud of this story. It’s unlike anything I’ve read or written before, and I think it does some interesting things in the scifi genre.

But, that’s not all! I wanted a way to provide people who like physical books to get stories, so what I’ve done is put Repressed and Sojourn in a paperback. I wanted to do a flip book, and after a week of struggling to find out how to make that work, Amazon told me I can’t do flip books :(.  Also, when you click the link, it will appear as if it’s just a physical copy of Repressed, but that’s because Amazon also wouldn’t let me name the book in such a way that indicates both titles. I suppose I could have designed a unique cover for both and named it for both, but I just didn’t think that would be timely. With AwesomeCon coming up, I wanted this book ready in time. I promise though, both books are in there.

I’m not that upset. I still have the two books in one volume, and I’ll still be able to add those titles to the others I sell at conventions. So if you’re more of a hands-on type of person, feel free to try it out. This book is $7.99, and I think that’s a pretty fair normal price for about 70,000 words of fun. As always, I’ll have deals for when I’m at conventions, but that will be the normal price for that edition.

As always, I’m stoked to see more and more books hitting the shelves (both digitally and physically). I hope you all give it a try. If you were one of those who preordered it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads or both.

Thank you again, all of you, for your support and encouragement. I look forward to all the new stories I have yet to share with you.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Happy Birthday Bob! Free Stuff!

Greetings all,

Just as I did with Caught and it’s birthday giveaway, I’m celebrating Bob’s fourth birthday! (WOW! I’ve been a published author for four years!?)

So, The Journals of Bob Drifter will is free March 1-4 (11:59 p.m. PST).

I’d be thrilled if any of you give the book a try and perhaps recommend it to the readers you know. I think fans of Dean Koontz (especially Odd Thomas) would appreciate this book.  When I pitch this book at conventions, I call it Dead Like Me meets Supernatural.  I still think it has some of the best characters I’ve created in it. It has great depth, but those are all my opinions. Still, no one has ever called me out on them.

Again, what I’m attempting to do is generate reviews. If you’ve already read it, I’d be ever so grateful if you consider giving it a rating and review on Amazon, Goodreads or both.

You can grab your free Kindle version of the book here or the link above where I first give the title.

Now, as if that’s not enough, I have more good news. The Audible version of Repressed is officially live. Like with my other titles, I have 25 free versions of that title ready for any who are interested. So if you like YA stories, this might be for you. It is indeed a part of the Oneiros Log cannon, but it’s not nearly as dark as Caught was. If you’d like a copy, please email me.

It seems more and more hard to believe how far I’ve come in the last four years. I’m about to release yet another title (more on that next week), and I’m working hard on Hazel and Betrayed. I thank God for this gift he’s given. I love this craft so much, and I can’t wait to see where the dream takes me through the next four years.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Free Book! Happy Birthday Caught!

Greetings!

I’m not actually that big on birthdays, but I like accomplishing things. Caught’s birthday is Jan. 28, and to celebrate my book’s second birthday, I’m giving it away for free!  The Kindle version of Caught will be free on Amazon from today until Jan. 29 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

I sincerely hope you give the book a try. Please recommend it to readers. I’d recommend this book to fans of horror, paramilitary novels, or superhero movies. It’s easily the most action packed book I have. It’s also easily the darkest book I’ve written. I think all the reviews for this are high (I don’t remember many bad ones. There was one that was deleted.)

Which brings me to my hope. I’d be eternally grateful for any reviews. One of the reasons I wanted to give away books for free on their birthday was to hopefully generate some reviews. If you’ve read it, please consider a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or both.

I look forward to hearing what you think. It’s so cool to think that I’ve had one book out for about four years and Caught has been out for two.  Now I have seven titles available and three more heading your way. It’s so cool seeing what God’s grace has provided. I look forward to this year and the rest to come. I hope you do too.

You can grab your copy here or the link above where I first name the title.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Book Review: Lantern by Chess Desalls

Spoiler Free Summary: Lantern by Chess Desalls is a short story of a teenage girl, Tori, who’s visiting her grandmother’s estate. She encounters a magical lantern with more inside than a decent bulb. The mystery of the lantern forces her to choose whether to believe in magic or not. It also tests her close relationship with her parents. NOTE: I bought the Kindle edition, but because my reading list got enormous at light speed, I chose to grab up the Audible edition since I had a road trip ahead of me.

Character:  Tori is a believable teenager. She has enduring qualities of adventurism and a strong affection for her baby brother. I’ve mentioned my personal bias against teen novels, but Tori made this book easier to go through as her choices and actions were a little less wayward than is common in the genre. I’m not saying that is completely absent in this book, but I will say I had far less trouble believing this story and connecting with Tori than I usually do with book of this sort. I also like that the parents weren’t complete morons (which is another common trait in teen novels).  Listen, I get that in teen stories, you have to account for the question, “Why don’t parents get involved,” but I appreciate an author who doesn’t negate a parent’s role or mitigate that issue by making the parents completely oblivious. Yes, Tori had to get out to adventure, but there were explanations and consequences for Tori’s actions that, to me, give this story a more realistic feel. That made the story resonate. Plus, her relationship with her parents was a plot line, and her choices that stressed that relationship weighed on her mind. I appreciate that about this story.

All images of Chess Desalls and her work were taken from her Facebook page or WordPress website for review purposes under fair use.

Exposition: I’ll talk a bit more in regard to dialogue (as usual), but this was an absolute strength for Desalls, who I’ll confess is a friend and fellow member of the Slush Brain. (Being open about my friendships is something I find important. This allows readers of this review to add whatever amount of salt they want to the review.) One of the reasons this book was able to be so condensed is because Desalls doesn’t beat us to death with exposition or back story. The narrative in this story is tight, allowing the reader to flip through the pages without a steep learning curve. She used the questions the reader had to build tension as the story unfolded.

World building:  I have to tell myself this was the first book in a planned series. There were magic system and world building questions that I wanted the answers to that I didn’t get. Some readers love this. I’m frustrated by this as much as I am by cliffhangers (both techniques do have their place in storytelling, but they always annoy me). The open questions don’t slow down the plot or negate the reader’s ability to enjoy the story. Yes, they exist, but they exist more to show the scope of the story than they are holes to be filled in.

Dialogue:  Desalls used dialogue to get around a lot of the exposition issues. I noticed it, but the dialogue was still effective. Desalls countered the potential info dump issue with nice descriptive beats and character building quirks, which broke up the dialogue and gave it a more natural feel.

Description: This was a strength of the story for me. The character (which is number one on my book) was the strongest area for Desalls, but I like a fast-moving story with well placed adjectives and descriptive beats. I was able to see what I needed to see and allowed to use my imagination to fill in the rest. The hard-core scifi guys probably will want more intricate detail, but that’s just not my flavor ice cream.

Overall: This was a charming story that opened the door to an interesting world. Any teen story that has the usual themes but also allows for realistic reactions and consequences sets itself above the rest. Lantern does that for me. It’s a nice quick read I think adventurous young teens would enjoy.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Caught is out!

This is truly the best feeling in the world. My second novel is finally live and out in the world.

Most of you who’ve been following me have been so amazingly supportive. Now the book is out and being delivered to all those who have preordered.

You can still purchase the ebook for just 99 cents on Amazon.

You can also purchase the paperpack through Amazon.

If you want a signed copy, you can get one through my online store.

I decided not to go with hard covers this time around. With Bob, hard covers were rarely something readers wanted, and I wanted to give readers what they want.

I also got the first review back for Caught, and it’s so kind.  I want to send a special thank you to Sinisterdarksoul for the kind review!

Thank you all again, and I hope you enjoy the book. Whatever you think, please be kind enough to leave a review as they’re invaluable to authors, especially independent authors like me.

As always, thanks for reading,

Matt