The next blurb for Amortals came from my longtime friend Monte Cook. He’s probably best known for his work as one of the co-designers of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, but his career has spanned much more than that. He started out in the gaming industry back in 1988, working for Iron Crown Enterprises. In 1990, he became the Hero System/Champions …
SLC Report
I had a great time at the Stateline Literacy Council‘s annual awards banquet at La Casa Grande, here in Beloit tonight. I was only there for about an hour and a half, but I got to meet a lot of wonderful people and catch up with my neighbor Tony Grover, who lives down the street. I also chatted with the two other authors …
Blurbs: Ben Templesmith
As I’ve mentioned, I hit up a lot of great people for blurbs. One of the early replies came from Ben Templesmith, one of my favorite comic-book artists of the last decade. I met him through our mutual friends at IDW a few years back. About Amortals, he wrote: “It kicks like a mule & whispers sweet nothings in your …
An Interview with Gamer’s Haven
Ethan Parker of The Gamer’s Haven podcast called me up for a chat last week. The interview covered all sorts of topics from my career, going back to how I got started as a gamer and running all the way up to the impending launch of my first original novels this summer. I had a lot of fun talking with …
Blurbs: Mike Stackpole
In my quest for gathering blurbs, I turned to Mike Stackpole too. I’ve known Mike for maybe 20 years, and when I was fresh out of college, Mike was already chasing down the kind of career I wanted for myself. He’d started out as a crackerjack game designer, both for tabletop and video games, and he parlayed that into a stellar …
Gary Con II Rocked
Saturday afternoon, Marty and I drove out to Lake Geneva for Gary Con II. This is a small gaming convention that the Gygax family and their friends have held on the anniversary of Gary Gygax‘s death for the past two years. It started out as a gathering of such folks at the wake after Gary’s funeral. The family decided it …
Stateline Literacy Council Banquet
This Thursday, March 25, the Stateline Literacy Council is holding its annual awards banquet at La Casa Grande, here in Beloit, Wisconsin. At the SLC’s request, I’ll be there for the social hour, from 5:30 — 6:30pm. They will have some copies of my books for sale, and 100% of the proceeds will go straight to the SLC’s benefit. I’ll …
Blurbs: Billy Campbell
With the blurb from Dan Abnett in hand – which Marc Gascoigne of Angry Robot had lined up for me – I set off to scare up some blurbs on my own. Asking someone for a blurb is the literary equivalent of asking them to help you move. You only ask it of people you know well enough to hope …
Blurbs: Dan Abnett
To help kick off my hunt for kind words in advance of the publication of Amortals, the publishing director at Angry Robot – Marc Gascoigne – sent me a starter blurb from Dan Abnett. It reads: “Matt Forbeck does near-future so well, I think he’s been there. Actually, I think he designed it. Then he kicked its ass.” – Dan …
Gathering Blurbs
I’ve had a dozen novels published to date, but everyone of them has been a tie-in. That means that the marketing for them has mostly on the strength of the brand to which the novel is tied. With my upcoming Guild Wars 2: Ghosts of Ascalon novel, for instance, Simon & Shuster is betting that the players who have ponied …