Nick Bryan

Archives for 2014

GUEST POST – Fight Or Flight Prologue by Chele Cooke

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Today, possibly a first for this blog, we have a guest: Chele Cooke, excellent independent sci-fi author.

I met Chele at the Big Green Bookshop writing group (also pretty cool), she’s been a great source of advice during this whole self-publishing process. Not to mention, she hosted a guest-shot from me around the launch of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – so really, this is the least I could do.

Coming up below is an extract from the prologue to Fight Or Flight, the second book in Chele’s Out Of Orbit sci-fi series. I’ve read them both, they’re great fun, and the first one – Dead And Buryd – is currently free.

The Out Of Orbit covers are also designed by Design For Writers, the same crew who did mine, so naturally they’re excellent.Anyway, let’s get the prologue going.

From Prologue: The Projection

“You’re late,” he said, stepping around the door frame and circling the backs of the chairs.

“Yes, I’m sure I am.” She offered no explanation, nor any appearance of apology.

“Yet you called this meeting.”

“If you would like a full run-down of my day…”

She left the suggestion hanging in the air. When he didn’t answer, she snorted in derision and turned, taking a step away from him. He winced, looking away.

“Step to the left.”

She turned on her heel, glancing at him before looking down.

“Am I in the chair again?”

“The table.”

She took a careful step to the side, her shin sliding seamlessly through the polished metal. Placing her hands on her hips, she stared at him while the orb pulsed and shimmered, lilac and crystal-blue waves cresting over its surface.

“Well?”

“Well what?” he asked. “You contacted me, Olless.”

He met her ice-blue gaze and crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. She scowled at him.

“Because I thought you had information.”

He thought for a moment.

“It’s getting worse,” he said finally.

“What is?”

“Everything.”

“Are they moving forwards?”

“Not yet, but attacks are coming. Patrols have increased and there’s talk of revoking travel passes.”

Olless frowned and turned away from him again. Despite his warning, she walked straight through the table and the saelveh orb that created her appearance for their meeting. He winced at the sight but held his tongue. No matter how many times they met like this, he couldn’t get used to the way she moved through solid objects.

“You can’t slow it?”

He shook his head.

“They are itching for the fight,” he said. “Everyone can sense it.”

“And they can’t be persuaded to back down?”

“Can you?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, revealing a sly grin and the arch of a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“You know it isn’t that simple. There are rules that have been broken. The preparation has already begun.”

“I can’t do anything here.”

“Because your father is such a nobody?”

He scoffed.

“If you think he would step back, or ignore an assault simply because I ask, Olless, you are even more of a vtensu than…”

“Use that word again and I will cut this communication this instant.”

Rolling his eyes, he sneered back at her.

“Well, it was a ridiculous suggestion.”

She shook her head in a wave of red hair, striding back through the table. He slid down onto the edge of a chair.

“We are not ready to move, there are too many elements in play. You know this.”

“That, Olless, is your duty, not mine.”

—–

Chele Cooke is an English-born writer based in London. Starting out writing fan fiction, she soon moved onto her own fiction, releasing her first novel, ‘Dead and Buryd’, in 2013, the sequel ‘Fight or Flight’ following less than a year later.

She is currently working on the Out of Orbit series, a number of short stories, a circus based sci-fi, and a paranormal serial currently released weekly on Wattpad.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Wattpad

And, last but not least, here’s a chance to win a copy of Fight or Flight by doing some internet things in a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – NOW IN PRINT

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So, after a few weeks of slow roll-out, the final step of publication is here: my first book The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is now in print! Next time, I may try and do it all at once for maximum impact, but this time, here it is a week later.

Basically: it’s a darkly comic London crime novel, the first in the Hobson & Choi series. More details about the book, along with enthusiastic review quotes and such, on our very own official Hobson & Choi homepage.

But long story short, the print edition is available from Amazon here, or the Big Green Bookshop if you happen to be in London (and I’ve remembered to give them some stock).

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – Week One

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So, it’s been a week since The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf debuted on all major ebook platforms, and how has it been? Have I done anything other than check my sales stats? How good are those stats?

And, yes, the print edition is hovering steadily into existence – look, there’s a picture of it off to the right next to a cup of coffee.

It’s a strange experience, having work out there and in the hands of people other than me. You might be one of those readers, and if so, I hope you are enjoying it – considered doing a review somewhere?

If you’re not yet a my-book owner, here’s the original post with the buy links.So, here are my observations, other happenings, a short video, a linked preview of the actual book and anything else I can squeeze in…

Bad Breakfast – Director’s Cut Edition

Want to read a short snippet of the classic Bad Breakfast Hobson & Choi chapter, re-edited for the all-new novel edition? Well, as luck would have it, you can see it on Chele Cooke’s blog now, in a guest post I prepared.

Chele’s been a great source of advice in the publishing of this book, and I’ll be repaying the favour in a few days, as her second action-scifi book is about to come out. You can grab her first one for free here.

Pretty Rank

Of course, my main leisure activity has become checking my sales figures, and I can confirm they’ve been… alright. The expected first-day rush, followed by a slow trickle since then. Hopefully I can convert this into a bigger stampede of strangers – as I said earlier, if any of you who already like my stuff fancy doing a review on Amazon/Goodreads/your blog, it would be of vast use.

In the meantime, I managed one big rank-based achievement, and here’s a picture of it:

Number two in two separate categories! Firstly, Dark Comedy, which is one of my main genres and therefore an excellent personal achievement. And second, it’s…. yeah, Irish Crime Fiction.

Just to be clear, there is no Ireland or Irish people in Hobson & Choi. This is an Amazon labelling issue which appears to have now been resolved.

But hey, if I sold a few extra copies to the Irish crime fanbase before that, all the better. Strong start.

Fresh Prints of Vid-Share

The print edition is so close that… to be honest, I could probably have stalled the release a week or two and launched both at once, but I wanted to be out there by Nine Worlds, the weekend after this.

As things stand, barring a total godforsaken catastrophe, we are 1-2 days processing away from the print edition being fully live. There will be a blog post about that soon, along with a nice big picture of the lovely full wraparound cover.

And that, I think, is it. For those of you waiting for the print edition, not long to go now.

OUT NOW IN EBOOK: The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – Hobson & Choi: Case One

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The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is out in ebook!

This is the first volume in the Hobson & Choi series, a crime saga with a heavy twist of dark comedy. It shows how my two mismatched detectives begin bickering, whilst also solving their first murder. This involves Twitter, a wolf and food – loads of food, in fact.

I’ll include the full blurb in the remainder of this post, but for those who have heard the H&C sales pitch a bunch of times, let’s cut to the all-important buy-buttons. Hope you enjoy the book, I’m very proud of it, and if you do go for it, consider reviewing it somewhere, be it Amazon, other book-buying sites, the book’s Goodreads page, your own blog, social media, or anywhere else which lets you have a book-opinion.

And remember, if you’ve read Case One on the H&C webserial already, there is an eight thousand word book-exclusive bonus story here to make it worth your while. Print book fans – that edition shouldn’t be too far away now. Proof is en route for my approval.

The Full Sales Pitch

“If we get 400 followers, John Hobson will solve that nasty wolf-murder case for free! Fight the thing himself if he has to! #HobsonVsWolf!”

Angelina Choi was only trying to drum up some Twitter followers and make a good impression on her first day interning at John Hobson’s one-man detective agency.

But the campaign went viral and now they have a murder to solve, no money coming in, and an unwilling Hobson faced with battling some enormous beast.

With both follower and body counts rising, can they crack the case without offending everyone or being eaten by a huge dog?

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is the first case starring Hobson & Choi, a bickering, mismatched detective duo for 21st century London. This book collects the debut storyline of the hit darkly comic crime web serial, extensively rewritten and improved for this definitive edition.

Also included: book-exclusive bonus story The Left Hand Is Always Right, grim tale from a dark corner of Hobson & Choi’s London – The Left Hand, budget pub of crime.

Even more details on the dedicated Hobson & Choi homepage! If you have any unanswered questions about anything Girl-Who-Tweeted-Wolf-related, email me and we’ll hopefully be able to come to some accord.

Thank you and goodbye for now. I’m off to enjoy the day. In case the buttons up top didn’t work for anyone, here are all those book-buy links in old-fashioned text form.

The Man Who Tweeted Plugs – Last Stop Before Publication Junction

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The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, my first effort in self-publishing books, emerges on Tuesday into the world of ereaders! The cover is off to the right, and if you want even more details, review opportunities and the like, this blog post has you covered.

But if you’re interested in some project news, or in what sort of thing fills the days of a man when his book is on the verge of people-powered publishing, here’s the latest update. Probably the last major one before release day. Includes video content. Gasp. Best read on.

Let the internet be your robot butler

First up, because I gotta sell books somehow so should put these in before anyone loses interest. You can now pre-order the book on a couple of e-outlets, in case you want to make sure it appears on your device ASAP.

Here are those links:

And that’s it for now. Makes it all seem pretty real, eh?

Start the presses!

Still only the ebook versions coming out next Tuesday, but progress continues on the print edition, which is going to be lovely. I’ve approved the back cover and the proof version is scheduled to arrive with me a week or so after the ebook comes out.

So, in the event I haven’t fucked up substantially, I’ll hopefully be able to approve that and get that up for your ordering pleasure as well. Or, if there are major mistakes, alas we must wait another two weeks.

But yes, print fans, it is coming. I would’ve waited until both were good to go, but I wanted to make sure I had the e-version launched for when I went to Nine Worlds in a few weeks. If everything goes flawlessly, we may have both for that. Score.

My card, anyone?

I have new business cards for the book release! Not overly exciting for you maybe, but I just wanted to show off the design I did for the back because I think it came out quite well – it’s just above this section. The front is the book cover. Come and say hello at Nine Worlds and I may give you one of these cards.

A series writer’s work is never done

So, amid all this admin, I’ve managed to find some writing time! And what am I working on? Well, among other things, the Hobson & Choi Case Two book edition!

After all, the big thing they told me at London Book Fair was to keep building up the series, so I’d best crack on. Coming to you… either late 2014 or early 2015, hopefully. It’s scary how fast time disappears with these big projects.

And that, I suppose, is that. Depending on time and inspiration, I may not blog again until publication day. Get your two pounds ready folks, it’s gonna be good.

The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie – A Recommendation

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Joe Abercrombie - First Law Trilogy

I am self-publishing a book soon, so will be talking about that quite a lot. You can see all the details of that venture here, but to mix things up, I thought I’d recommend someone else’s books in this post.

To be specific: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings, aka The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. It’s a fantasy trilogy, revolving around the politics, prejudices and (eventually) magic in a world not quite our own and it’s really good. I was recommended it whilst in the midst of Thrones-fever, fancying something else in the fantasy arena, and it really hit the spot – smart, character driven action with the fantastical elements playing around the edges, sometimes screaming into the forefront.

So since those who started reading the A Song Of Ice And Fire series with the TV show are probably finishing soon, I figured I’d point this out as a next step.

In fact, The First Law might even be a better bet for readers who enjoyed the Thrones TV series than the George R.R. Martin books themselves – it’s a short, accessible, witty read and with a conclusion that already exists.Although it is potentially even more depressing than Thrones at times – Abercrombie is LordGrimdark on Twitter, after all.

Anyway. It has a large, memorable cast tied together through clear threads, including the obligatory love-to-hate character in Inquisitor Glokta. He does all the worst things yet gets the best lines, as always. Although, to be honest, there are a few reluctant favourites to go around – I’d take another Logen Ninefingers book in a heartbeat.

There’s a little of the inevitable mid-trilogy sag in book two, but the big set-pieces in that book are so impressive that it hardly bothers you. Great work as a whole, hits the right balance of epic sweep whilst remaining rooted in character, and manages a three-dimensional universe without bogging down in detail. Abercrombie also writes a great fast, meaty fight scene.

And even better, there are three standalone books in the same setting to read next. Sadly, though, they seem to centre on characters outside of the primary ones from The First Law, and I loved those folks. Still be reading them though.

Oh, and Abercrombie also just released Half A King, the well-reviewed first chapter in a whole new series. Excellent.