Betrayed Is Now Available In Paperback!

Greetings all,

A short but sweet post today! I’m proud to say that Betrayed is now available in paperback!

If you are wondering about the audio version, I honestly have to save up a lot of money for it. You see, I want to be able to pay the narrators up front. I hope to bring both Shawn Compton and Jennifer Wooster back. That depends on a whole lot, but the money is the first part. To help, I’d sure appreciate it if you headed over to Amazon and bought Betrayed or any (or all) of my titles. If you’ve done that, maybe recommend it to your friends?

I still have a goal to sell 189 copies. Why? Well, if I sell that many, I hit #1 in my category. I have more than 1,000 followers here, so that means I only need about 20% of you (less than that actually) to help a friendly neighborhood self-published author out. Would you be so kind?

I’m already hard at work and more than 71% through the discovery draft of Discovered, the final book in the Oneiros Log. So far, I’m very pleased with how it’s coming out. I’m sure there are a few rough patches because of how often I had to stop to get Betrayed out, but that won’t be an issue now that I’m not freaking out over having readers wait years for a book. I’ll always be grateful to you all for your patience.

Thank you all for reading,

Matt

Betrayed is out!

Greetings all,

I’m so happy to report that Betrayed is live! You can head over here and pickup the ebook for $3.99. It’s been a long time coming, and I’m so thankful for your patience.

The print book isn’t far behind. It’s way easier for me to get an ebook out than a print version, but I’ll work on that over the next few days. I’ll have to format it. Then I’ll need to have a proof sent to make sure it looks good. Once that’s done, the print version will be out.

For now though, I hope you’ll consider giving Betrayed a chance. If you liked Caught, I honestly think you’ll love Betrayed!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Today’s The Day! Join Me For The Cover Reveal of Betrayed!

Greetings all,

I’ve been eagerly awaiting this day! Today at 2 p.m., I’ll be on Zoom to answer some questions. As I type this, I’m not sure if Carlos (the artist) will be able to make it or not, but I hope he will be. We’ll talk about the artistic process behind the cover, and then we’ll show it off.

If you want to be there to ask questions or talk to me about my work or Carlos (if he can make it) about his work, you can still shoot me an email with your name, email, and Zoom profile name so I can send you the link.

You can also post any questions you want me to answer in the comments below.

I’m excited to give this method a try, and I hope to see you there.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Finalizing the Plan for My Zoom Cover Reveal for Caught! (and learning some unfortunate lessons)

Greetings All,

So last week I tried my first online cover conversation. My dream was to have this cool chance to talk with people about book covers. To a degree, it was a success. I found seven cool covers, and you can vote on your favorite here. (You’ll have to sign in on Google to vote.)

But to a much more unfortunate degree, I learned that where there are people trying to do cool things, there are people who are horrid.

I had to switch to Zoom to allow for recording. I shared the link. I was very happy to see people stopping in. That is until one person appeared on camera without clothes. I told him I wouldn’t stand for that sort of thing and immediately removed him. But that doesn’t mean that myself and those who were on with me weren’t subjected to completely inappropriate and unsolicited material. If there’s a way to preview who is allowed into a call, I’m not aware of it.

I reported the incident to the police, who (I am told) are investigating. This means I have to be more careful.

To that end, I am still hosting Zoom meetings where I talk about covers. I will happily share the links to any who send a request via email. That request must include your email and your Zoom profile name so that when I see your request, I know it’s you and not some pervert.

I’m honestly disgusted I need to take such measures, but I can’t risk that sort of thing happening again. I still dream of being able to sit and chat with people about several things. I just have to be sure that the people I allow into those meetings are joining to talk about books and things like books rather than just shock people.

I’ll still share the links with some of my author groups and the like, but I’ll be more careful who I actually allow to join.

That said, the plan is still to do a Q & A followed by the long anticipated cover reveal for Betrayed. The date and time are still set for 2 p.m. (EST) April 10.

I have contact Carlos to see if he’ll be able to make it, but the hope is he will be. But I do hope you will post questions (below) for me to answer and join me on Zoom to celebrate the new cover. I do intend to do weekly talks as well. So again, if you want to be a part of them, shoot me an email providing your name, email and Zoom profile name so I have a record of who’s coming. Remember, I will be posting these reviews on my YouTube channel, so don’t join and don’t turn your camera on if you don’t want to be on YouTube.

I’m actually typing this April 2. I have quite a lot to do leading up to the tenth, but I still hope to do Week 2 of my Book Covers talk (or whatever I’ll end up calling the segment). I hope to add to the talks too, but for now, we’re starting small. I hope you’ll join me whenever you can, and I truly hope you’ll at least stop by for the reveal to Betrayed.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

I’ve Started the Alpha Draft of Betrayed!

 

Greetings all,

You can buy Caught (the first book in the series) on Amazon or Audible. 

Betrayed is coming along. I’ve started the Alpha Draft, which is the draft I do after my alpha reader (in this case) has had a chance to look at it.

 

First thing’s first. I want to take a moment to thank Grace for taking the time to read this rough draft and provide the feedback she did. For us self-published authors, finding readers is hard enough, let alone finding a reader who’s willing to read a rough draft.

Now is the time I take her feedback into consideration and do another chapter-by-chapter pass on the book. This cleans the mechanics of the story up, but more importantly it gives me a chance to locate plot holes and timeline issues. This trilogy spans something in the neighborhood of seven years, and there are a lot of things that happen that have to time out correctly.

The other issue is character development and plotting. Kaitlyn and Kira in particular have some critical areas of growth. There are a lot of foreshadow elements that should pay off in Discovered. So while I work on this draft, I’m looking for ways to establish critical character development aspects without being heavy handed.

I felt a touch of discouragement as I started the Discovery Draft exactly a year ago (as you read this Dec. 7). The truth is, writing is a war of endurance. When it’s not full time, you sit down and take what time you can. I’d expect to get through the Alpha Draft sometime in January. Then it’s off to Sara for the Developmental Edit. Assuming she gets it back to me in two weeks or so, I can start that draft in March. Then it goes off to Beta Readers.  They get a month to read it and provide feedback, so I should work on my Beta Draft in June. That means I get Sara another crack at it for proofreading in July, and so September or October 2020 is a likely neighborhood for the official release.

Things could go faster as I get time here and there, or they might slow down if finances make it hard to send the book out to Sara for either of her two rounds of edits. I feel confident that those dates are pretty solid.

While I’m waiting for feedback, I’ll keep plugging away on Discovered. I’m still outlining it at the moment. Using the timeline above, I think I could maybe get the Discovery Draft done around when Betrayed comes out.  My math says there will be about two months where I can’t move forward with Betrayed because I’m waiting on feedback. That’s way less certain than Betrayed’s fall 2020 release.

I know this is a big slowdown from the eight titles I’ve released in the last two years, but a lot of those releases were portions of other projects. I have other projects that are further along, but I’ve been trying to get the Oneiros Log finished for years now, and I owe it to those readers to get that finished before I start bouncing around as I’m want to do.

I promise I’m working as hard as I can, and I’ll keep putting out the best stories I can in hopes that you will find them entertaining.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

I’ve Finished Plotting Discovered!

Greetings all,

You can buy Caught on Amazon or Audible. 

As promised, I’ve completed the plotting for Discovered, which is the final book in the Oneiros Log.

I don’t know that I’ve ever announced that I’ve finished plotting or not, so this is a good chance to tell anyone interested what that is.

When I’m working on my process, I always start with Character Generation.  Once that’s done, I plot out the stories of the main characters. For this, I ask myself what type of plot this character is going to have (or plots), and I ask myself what sort of character journey that character is on.

Then I type out brief scenes and moments of that journey. This lets the discovery writer in me play while still getting organized. For instance, in this story I gave a lot of thought to who would survive the story. This book ends in a pretty big psychic showdown (a few of them actually), and it’s hard to imagine a conflict going on like that without any casualties.

In stories, it’s one thing to know the plot points (what happens), but an author also has to know what’s going on with the characters. What do they learn? How do these events change them?  When I plotted Betrayed, one of the characters makes a very important decision. That decision impacts how things develop in this book as well.

Betrayed introduces two very important characters (not just those two, but two you’ll want to know about).  I can’t tell you about one (spoilers), but I can at least name the other. Mariana is critical to the trilogy. She’s a great counter to Kaitlyn because there are also similarities. Mariana only has about one chapter in her point of view in Betrayed, but she plays a prominent role in Discovered as one of the main characters. You will also get to meet Daniel, whose story I love.

Hopefully, Discovered brings the story to the place I’ve always imagined it, opening a new world with endless possible stories. Will I write them? Probably not. If I’m being honest, I have far too many other ideas I want to play in. My honest hope is a Netflix or Youtube or Hulu will take what I built with the Oneiros Log and decide it might make an interesting super hero series.

It does close out the story of Oneiros though. Other main characters for Discovered are Sal (of course), Kaitlyn (of course), and Kira. Where Dom got the love in Betrayed, it’s time to show the story from Kira’s point of view. Given how important these events are to her, it would have been unfair to take her moment in the spotlight away. Though this story has been (and will continue to be) pretty brutal to her.

I’ve started the outline for Discovered, which is when I take all the plot lines and weave them together in a much more traditional outline. This gives me the main thread before I start my discovery draft. I don’t imagine I’ll finish the outline before I start work on the Alpha Draft of Betrayed, but having the plotting done is probably 40% of my work on any story.

I have every hope that Betrayed will be out sometime in 2020, though when has more to do with finances and book sales (you all can help with that) than workflow. If I can’t afford the editing and art fees, I can’t move forward. It’s my sincere goal (especially now that Discovered is plotted), to finish the saga in that same year.

That will mean I can jump back to The 1,200 and start working on Mercer (my little procedural cop show with a Harry Potter twist). Then I’ll get to work on the rest of my to-do list.

As always, I just want to thank you all for the help and support you’ve given. I think that while my readership is small, you all are so loyal and supportive. It gives me hope that this readership will only continue to grow.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

The First Draft of Betrayed is Done! A Call for Alpha Readers

Greetings all,

Happy news! I’ve just wrapped up the first draft of Betrayed! That means I’m looking for people willing to read this story at this stage and provide feedback.

Alpha Readers are guys who catch issues with events in the story. In this particular draft, I’m looking for former or current military who are familiar with close quarters battle (CQB) and other military things. If you like high-octane action, this is something you should have fun reading.

I’d need your feedback by Dec. 1. In fact, I’d like it sooner, but I genuinely try to give alphas and betas a month to read anything.

If you’re interested, please shoot me an email.

In the meantime, I’ll get back to plotting Discovered, which is the third and final book of the trilogy. Discovered will also probably be the largest book too. We meet a few new cast members and finish the evolution of this story. My hope is to finish the trilogy in 2020. I’d also like to get some smaller projects out, but I’ve been promising more from Oneiros for years now since I published Caught, and I simply owe it to those who loved the story show them where it goes from here.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

An Update on Hazel and Other News!

Greetings all,

I’m happy to announce that Hazel is scheduled for shipping in February (I don’t have an exact day yet)!

To maximize exposure and get the product out there as quickly as possible, we’ve teamed up with another creative team. That means both of our stories are going to be split up over more issues. We’re still going to print each issue as a solo product, but that will come later.

We’re keeping the name of the flip book out for a while longer, but I’ll be sure to announce that when we’re given the green light as a whole. Issues 1 and 2 of Hazel are done, and Collin is a few pages into Issue 3.

So splitting these stories up allows us to get the story out more quickly while allowing Collin the time he needs to do all the insane work he’s doing.

We’re proud of Hazel and what her story is. I’m personally hopeful this endeavor is successful enough that they are willing to advance Collin for the other Hazel story Collin and I worked on. Whatever comes of it, I’m glad to see another project hitting the tables.

Want to help? The best thing to do would be (if you’re a fan of comics) to contact your local comic stores (when we release the title of the project). Tell them you’re interested in the comic. Tell them to bring copies in. The more stores who order copies of the book, the more successful the book will be.

I’ll naturally have copies available at any conventions too.

I hope you’re all looking forward to seeing it as much as I am.

I’m also happy to announce that Stealing Freedom is officially available on Audible!

This is just Lisa and J.M.’s narration from The Power of Words, but it’s only about two and a half hours. So if you have a drive that long, I think it’s a perfect audiobook for the trip!

Last but not least in any manner is that in honor of the Halloween season, Caught is on sale for 99 cents! If you haven’t given it a try yet, this is a pretty good chance to read a great book for less than a dollar.

On a final note, I made a commercial! This is a commercial I made for Bob Drifter. It’s just another tool I want to sharpen to see if I can’t spread my name out there in another way.  Give it a look and offer me your thoughts. If you’re an author, and you’d like me to make one for you, I’m willing to do so for $30 (It does take a few hours to put these together, and that price is just a bit under minimum wage).

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Betrayed’s First Draft Is Under Way

Greetings all,

As you can see in the title, I’ve started the first official draft of Betrayed.

My Process: Just last week, I talked about getting that first draft down. I’m so aware of the issues with mustering up the courage to put a story on paper that I’ve developed what I call the discover draft. It’s my way of cheating the system. When I’m writing this draft, I’m just getting the story down, and I’m not held up on anything because I don’t really think about it as a draft. That discovery draft is a very rough version of the story (some are more rough than others).

So what I did was get Betrayed’s general story down. Then I started re-reading the story. I made notes. Some were just me telling myself to check certain details. Most, because this is an area I struggle in, of my notes are just me telling myself how much more description I need. I also take a close look at the plot points and the characters to be sure everything is satisfying.

So without giving too much away, my biggest (non-description-related) notes were about making each scene more satisfying. There’s definitely one character who needs more screen time. I also need to push in on  some of the relationships and how they’ve evolved.

I’m pretty happy with this draft, and I’m excited to see what people who liked Caught think of how the story progresses.

The horror element is dwindling, but that’s by intent. This is much more action and drama oriented than Caught. The struggle is making the opponent seem worthy when Oneiros is a group of psychically enhanced people. I think I’ve done that.

Betrayed features Dom. Sal is still there, and Kaitlyn begins to take more of a lead role. I explore the relationship between those three characters and Kira. There’s a lot of friction in there, and poor Brandon and Chris have to try and keep things together. The government has finally decided to react to Oneiros and its vigilante operations. An old friendship gets shattered, and (as always in this series) more secrets are uncovered.

Betrayed currently has a prologue and 31 chapters, so I expect it will take 1-2 months to get this draft done. Then I’ll put out the call for Alpha Readers. With my family life, it could be some time before I finish the final draft. I have to take the time it requires to make this a quality story for you, but I promise I’m dedicating whatever time I can to the project.

If you haven’t read Caught, I’m hoping you’ll give it a shot. Repressed is a short story based on Kaitlyn, and it’s a nice little update on things. I have free Audible download codes if you’d like to give one or both a try (seriously, I have 100 for each). You can email me for those.

I’ll get Betrayed out as soon as possible, and I’m outlining Discovered, which will complete the trilogy.  Please be patient as I continue to adjust from being a single guy with little to do but write, to a married man and a father. I will figure it out. Things might not get out as quickly as I’d have liked, but they are coming.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Repressed is Live! Get A Copy Today!

Greetings all,

Last year, I set a pretty high goal. I wanted to publish four titles in the year. Today marks the fulfillment of that goal. Honestly, I count it both as the end of one year and the first of the next. I’m simply so excited to hit “publish book” so many times.

I’m proud to present to you all Repressed: An Oneiros Log YA Novella. I put that in the title so fans of Caught wouldn’t be too jarred. This is a YA story with YA themes and style. That means it’s a different feel than Caught. The characters are there, and you do get to see where they are between Books One and Two of the main arch, but this is all about Kaitlyn.

She’s one of my favorite characters overall, so when this idea took hold, I figured it’d be something nice to give fans of Caught to tide them over while I get Betrayed set up (I’m 14 percent through the discovery draft of that book by the way).

I’m thankful to those who preordered the book, and I hope any seeing this decide to give it a try. It will remain 99 cents until the 15, when it goes to it’s regular price of $2.99.

Here’s the official blurb:

Some girls grow up watching cartoons of princesses and unicorns. Some girls grow up wearing pretty dresses and dreaming about meeting a nice boy. Some are even tomboys, taking more active roles in sports or getting their hands dirty with the boys.

Kaitlyn Olhouser didn’t have any of those options. She was a long-term experiment that resulted in becoming an empath. She was rescued by her now adopted family, a team of people each gifted with psychic powers that calls itself Oneiros. She has abilities just like them. She’s even more powerful than all but one of them, but she’s 16, and her caretakers seem more interested in making sure she graduates high school that letting her use her abilities to join the team.

A short encounter with some bullies inspires her to find her own opportunity to be the hero she knows she’s destined to be. But being a hero isn’t exactly what comic books make it out to be. Her actions put an Oneiros mission in danger, and her antics in school create more problems than she could imagine.

Kaitlyn must embrace what it is to be a hero to make a real difference, not in the war against bad guys, but in the lives of her friends.

 

(END BLURB)

So there it is. I’m proud of this story for a number of reasons. First, it’s a new title, and that’s always an achievement. Next, I wrote outside my comfort zone. Most of you who follow my blog know I’m not a YA fan. Sure, I liked the Divergent series, and I think the Chaos Walking Trilogy was extremely underrated, but on the whole, I’m just not a fan. So I wanted to think critically about what I liked and didn’t like and put my money where my mouth was. The Audible version is under production now. I think the story is charming. Most importantly, I think it covers some very important issues, primarily racism and bullying. I sincerely hope you’ll give it a try and offer a review. I’d be thrilled if I had 20 people pick up a copy today. It would honestly help me so much with the Amazon machine, and simply knowing 20 people gave my work a try would be a great way to start off the year.

You can click the above link, or this link here to purchase your copy.

Thanks for reading,

V/R
Matt