Nick Bryan

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ADMINARAMA – H&C on Wattpad! Competition answer! BOOK THREE LOOMS!

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Sundry bits and bobs on the blog today – might try for a full-length post in a few days, but for now, sundry newsbursts from Nick-land…

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf on WHAT pad?

If you want to read The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, the first book in my darkly-comic crime Hobson & Choi series, without shelling out cash, I’m currently serialising it on Wattpad, the popular story-sharing site. Plus you can read H&C old-school, serialised with cliffhangers, a format I still have a huge amount of affection for.

Chapters are going up every other day (next one tomorrow) and there’s only fifteen of them, so it should be all there fairly soon.

Check it out and if you have a Wattpad account and feel like throwing in a vote or comment, go for it.

Phantom of the Space Opera – Competition ongoing!

Remember my competition from last week? The one where you had to guess which chapter I wrote in the team-written book from Nine Worlds? Well, no winners yet, so because I feel like it, rather than tell you the answer, I’m going to just leave it hanging.

Once one human being (not one of the ones who has told me they got the answer in a way other than reading it) emails the correct answer to nick@nickbryan.com, I’ll send them a copy of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, signed or unsigned as per their will. Maybe some other gift as well, I’ve got a few spare comics and stuff hanging around.

Once that happens, I’ll post the right answer here. Check the original blog post for the full details of what that’s all about.

Trapped In The Bargain Basement soon to be released!

Last and definitely not least, the third Hobson & Choi book Trapped In The Bargain Basement is finally more or less ready to be released into the community! It’s taken some work – specifically, a set of rewrites so massive that I’ve had to remove the original webseries version from the internet because it embarrasses me.

But we have a final text, nearly a final cover, it’s all very close. I’m not going to say anything specific like a date yet, but Trapped should be with you by this time next month, let’s put it that way. So even sooner than that, there might be a cover reveal. Gosh.

However, if you have a blog and would like a review copy so you can post something near the release date, do email me or something and I can probably get it to you reasonably soon. If you definitely have a blog/other outlet for reviews and desperately want to cover the whole series, I may even be able to supply all three.

Hobson & Choi – Updates & End-dates

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Hobson & Choi, my ongoing webseries about two mismatched detectives and their weird adventures in a horribly corrupt modern London, has experienced a strong few months. We’ve done well on Jukepop Serials, the first collected book edition has come out and also put in a strong showing. So since we had a big positive announcement today, it seemed a good time to do a general H&C post, talk about stuff, make some declarations.

Hopefully it’s all ultimately going to be good news. But be warned: your emotions may vary. Let’s start with the really obvious flag-waving upbeat section.

VICTORY PARADE

So, not only have we been #1 in the monthly Jukepop Serials charts for the last couple of rounds – which would be pretty excellent in itself – but we recently crossed a pretty big boundary: Hobson & Choi now has the most votes of any serial in the history of the site.

Look, here’s a screen grab of that fact, taken on the evening of Oct 16th.

To be honest, that’s basically our biggest single achievement on that site – it’s amazing that the many and varied readers of Jukepop have embraced the story, and thanks to everyone and anyone who voted, commented, reviewed or recommended us anywhere and other such things. Hooray.

We also won the biannual prize, finally announced today, for getting the most votes in the six months between April and September. This win was helped by big boosts from the book launch and releasing twice-weekly chapters for ten weeks. All of which means we win $500, which is almost all going into promo/expenses for the H&C novels. Brilliant stuff, thanks again.

And now, to conclude this victory lap, here’s a short video by fellow JP author, recent successful Kickstarter organiser and friend-of-the-serial Virginia McClain.

Crossing The Finish Line

Here’s another announcement I’ve been sitting on: the Hobson & Choi webserial is finishing with the upcoming gala-sized H&C #100. That should be with you in late November, unless I injure myself.

It’s not the end of the Hobson & Choi story, that will continue in book form, but it is the end of Angelina Choi’s two-week work experience, the wrapping up of a few major subplots and, I’ve decided, a reasonable place to draw a line.

Basically, I’m doing this to focus on the book editions. That was always the plan, and since I’m approaching a clear breakpoint and am on a high in terms of Jukepop achievements (see above), this seems the right time to burn out rather than fade away.

The serialised nature of the original chapters is only causing more work when editing them into book form, not to mention I might sell more copies of later books if I stop giving all the material away for free (even if in a less polished form).

So this is it. Six chapters to go, four of which I’ve already written, and then we’re all done with the serial. Leaving us only with…

Hobson & Choi: The Glorious Book Editions

Since I’ve just announced I’m ditching the webserial for them, let’s have an update on the H&C novels. Book Two came back from the editor a couple of weeks ago, and I am hoping to enact the changes by the end of this month, just in time to consider whether I want to do NaNoWriMo after all.

The cover is also coming soonish, but to make sure I have enough time to deal with the actual technical self-publishing stuff, get the print and ebook editions out at the same time, plan some promotion and avoid competing with Santa, the actual publication date will most likely be in January.

Book Three to follow, probably in late spring/early summer, and then we’re into all-new book-only material.

Phew. So yeah, it’s a pretty busy time in the H&C section of my schedule. I also have a fantasy novel which I’m nursing through various latter-stage drafts, so I’m keeping occupied.

If you want to encourage me in my dreams, feel free to buy The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf (aka H&C Case One) from one of the many buy links on this page. If you’ve purchased your copy already, why not leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads? Or subscribe to the mailing list and get a free all-new H&C short story?

If you’ve done all that, you’re probably alright. Thanks for reading. Time for a nap, I think. Feel free to leave any heartfelt eulogies for the Hobson & Choi webserial in the comments, I’ll probably write my own once the end comes.

Story “Troubling UnderCurrents” to appear in Superhero Monster-Hunter anthology!

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The Good Fight - from Emby Press

New fictional anthology appearance! My short story Troubling UnderCurrents is appearing in the upcoming collection The Good Fight from Emby Press, a fun new publisher amazingly devoted to stories about monsterhunting.

The theme of this particular book is superhero monsterhunting, as you might guess from the cover off to the right. And let’s all just take a moment to look at that cover, because I love it.Okay, enough slack-jaw for now. Here’s a summary:

Troubling UnderCurrents is about a poor man who grows a second personality called UnderCurrent after an accident. They share a body, they squabble, sometimes UnderCurrent takes over and goes for a joyride. But the host persuades him to channel his constant aggression into punching criminals, as it’s better than any alternatives they come up with.Still, violently stalking people on the street isn’t ideal. What these guys need is a punching bag. Some kind of big, straight-up evil… monster.

Publication apparently scheduled for autumn 2014, which is exciting. Rest assured I’ll talk about it more nearer the time as I enjoyed writing this one – it’s a good meaty piece too, over seven thousand words. Hell, I might even bring UnderCurrent back some day, he’s got a certain something.

(Me and my constantly squabbling duos, I know. At least these two share a single body for added efficiency.)

So, that’s the big announcement for now. You can see the full list of included stories over on the Emby Press site, and if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some kind of gleeful dance at the prospect of finally getting to write a superhero. Feel free to gaze at the cover again, god knows I will.

Twenty Thirteen And All That

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So, happy new year! As you might notice, I’ve made some 2013 changes. As in, we’re now on Blogger (because Tumblr kept crashing), and the site has a new look. For anyone reading this on the RSS feed, why not go check out the new design?(And if you’re not yet on the RSS feed, why not subscribe? It’s easier than remembering to check the site. Previous subscribers should have come across.)

Anyway. Aside from a new look website, with added staring eyeball, what else is new?

Editorsomestow?

One big change, which I didn’t really plug on here much: I am now Editor of the Television @ The Digital Fix section! Yes, a promotion. I now get to write about whatever I want, or at least, whatever the TV channels dump in front of me. Also, if you desperately want to review TV for a website, get in touch.

Writers always welcome.In other news, I finished one novel, started another. I also have an array of short stories left over from my MA, which I am hoping to get out there soon.

Oh, and I moved out of South London to Walthamstow, home of East 17 and the dubious nickname “Awesomestow”. That might’ve been the biggest adjustment.

So, that was your new year news post. I might try and get the weekly writing posts going again next week, it seems a shame to have a new website with nothing on it except links to other websites. For now, hope you like the site, let me know if you spot a broken link. I have already spent quite a while trying to eliminate them, but Tumblr links are a tricky breed, they get everywhere.

Anyway. Hope the rest of you also had a fabulous new year, I know I did. May 2013 be good and joyful for us all.