Carpathia’s Centennial

The Titanic went down in the North Atlantic 100 years ago yesterday, something I’ve thought about for a long while. As you know, my latest novel, Carpathia, is set on both the RMS Titanic and the RMS Carpathia itself (the ship that picked up the disaster’s survivors), and I’ve done a ton of research about the disaster, trying to figure out what it must have been like to have been aboard that ship in that time.

Despite the fact that the timing of Carpathia‘s release was set to coincide with the tragedy’s centennial, I didn’t much feel like pimping the book at the exact moment of that anniversary. The novel’s meant to be a fun, scary, thrilling tale set against the backdrop of one of the most dramatic moments in naval history, but at that point that moment seemed better set aside to remember the horrors those real people faced and to which many of them lost their lives.

Of course, now that the real-life RMS Carpathia is steaming back toward New York, go grab yourself a copy of the book. If you’re a Kindle reader, Amazon has the ebook on sale for only $3.03 for some unfathomable reason. I’m told it’s also on the front table in Barnes & Noble stores across the nation, and you should be able to find it at just about any reasonable book retailer.

(Speaking of which, I’d not thought to check this before now, but you can even pick up Carpathia through Target and Wal-Mart. How wild is that?)

Signing Ebooks

Over the weekend, I released the first ebook editions of Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World: Revolution. These went out to the backers of my Kickstarter drives, and a good number of them (over 200) were autographed. This took me forever to pull off, but it gave my backers something unique and special, so it was worth it as a way to thank them for their support.

When I first promised to sign ebooks for my backers, I really had no idea how I was going to manage it. Since I planned to publish the books myself, I knew that at the worst, I’d take the brute-force approach.

To pull that off, all you need is a stack of blank paper, a scanner, and a lot of time to get the images of the signatures into your computer and then generate unique copies of the ebook one at a time. It’s clearly doable, but painstaking and slow.

Fortunately, Paul Cooley contacted me about an iOS app he’d produced called MyWrite. It’s a clever solution to the challenge of signing ebooks. You just send Paul your ebook in epub format and pay a small fee to register it. Then you purchase blocks of signatures from him so that you can use the app.

In the app, you select the ebook you want to send out, then enter the name and email address of the person you want to send it to. The app then gives you a blank page on which you can draw or write anything you like. I used a stylus and wrote a short thank-you note and signed it with my notoriously illegible signature. Once you’re done, you tap a button, and you’re done.

Paul’s servers then generate a unique copy of the ebook in both epub (iBooks, Nook, Kobo, etc.) and mobi (Amazon) formats, with the personalized sheet as the last page in the ebook. If the files are under 1 MB, the servers send the files straight out. Otherwise, it sends links that the reader can download the files through instead.

Because I’m handling my 12 for ’12 books as an indie publisher, Paul offered to cut me a break on the pricing. It wound up costing me less than 20¢ in total for each signature. Given the amount of time it saved me, it was well worth it.

Despite that, it still took me hours to get through it all. Even if I spent only two minutes on each note, it was bound to take me nearly seven hours to finish, after all. When I started out, each one took me more than that, but as I smoothed out the workflow of copying the necessary data out of Kickstarter (bluetooth keyboard really helped), that average time went way down.

MyWrite helped make it as painless as possible, and I think it was well worth the effort to sign all those books. I hope my backers agree.

Two New Covers

I have a pair of beautiful but very different covers to show to you today. The first is for Don’t Read This Book, a new anthology of short stories based upon Fred Hicks’s Don’t Rest Your Head RPG. Chuck Wendig put the whole thing together, and he lined up some fantastic talent to bring it to life, including Stephen Blackmoore, Harry Connolly, Rich Dansky, Laura Anne Gilman, Will Hindmarch, Mur Lafferty, Robin D. Laws, Ryan Macklin, C. E. Murphy, Josh Roby, Greg Stolze, and Monica Valentinelli, as well as me.

My story for this one’s a bit of a departure for me. I usually like to write about heroes, people who suck it up and do what they have to, despite the odds stacked against them. The main character in this tale’s a bit weaker than that, and because of that the ending sucker punched me good. Here’s hoping it does the same to you.

The second cover is for Magic: The Gathering: The Spell Thief #2. This features the main villain from the first miniseries, Sifa Grent. Artist Dan Scott does a great job with Martin Cóccolo’s design, making her look both sinister and powerful.

This tale continues our hero Dack Fayden’s hunt for Sifa. It takes him through many planes and reveals a good deal of the history behind both him and Sifa and what’s drawn them together into their fatal dance.

I can’t wait for you to read both stories, as different as they are.

Carpathia Review and Kindle Sale

Over at Wired’s Geek Dad blog (for which I sometimes chip in a bit or two), James Floyd Kelly gave Carpathia a wonderful review:

Yes, Matt Forbeck went there. He took those poor souls that survived the Titanic‘s sinking and decided to make their lives a little more terrifying. He mixed history with horror, and probably did it with a sly grin on his face as he typed up Carpathia.

Very dark. Seriously twisted.

I enjoyed every bit of it.

The Salted Peanut agrees, saying:

What happens when you take the most famous shipwreck of all time and toss in some gothic horror?  You get Carpathia, a winning mix of historical drama and vampire lore.

Coincidentally, Amazon has the Kindle edition of Carpathia on sale right now for only $3.03. They also have Amortals out for only $2.99, making both books fantastic deals. I don’t have any idea how long this might last, so grab them for cheap while you can!

3 for 3 (for ’12) So Far!

On Saturday night, I wrapped up the first draft of the third book of the 12 for ’12 project: Brave New World: Resolution. That makes three novels written for three months in a row, which makes me happier than I can probably say. First drafts have already gone out to early readers and high-level Kickstarter backers, and I’m now returning to Book 1 to revise it and get it ready to go out the door.

To highlight this, I wrote a guest post for Suvudu on Saturday morning. It’s a primer for those who don’t know much about the project yet, of course.

While I get Book 1 out the door, I’m also outlining Books 4, 5, and 6. Since I have to start writing Book 4 straight away, these things can’t wait. In ways, this is a murderous schedule, but it also keeps me on track to get things done, and I like that. Once you read the books, I hope you will too.

Magic #3 Out Today!

Issue number 3 of the Magic: The Gathering comic I write for IDW hits stands today. See below for a free preview, then head out to your friendly local comic shop for a hard copy (complete with playable game card) or click over to Comixology to grab the electronic version. (Bargain hunters: note that downloads of issues #1 and #2 have now dropped to half price.)

I’m having a great time working on this series with editor Carlos Guzman and our Wizards compatriot Brady Dommermuth. Much of that’s down to seeing the artwork Martin Cóccolo and colorist J. Edwin Stevens turn in every month. Having another snazzy cover by Christopher Moeller always helps too.

Hope you enjoy it!

Origins Awards Nominations Out

The nominations list for this year’s Origins Awards just came out. I’m proud to see two projects I worked on make the cut this year: Leverage: The Roleplaying Game and The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design.

Of course, I only wrote small parts of each. The lion’s share of the credit goes to Cam Banks for developing the Leverage game and to Mike Selinker for editing the Kobold guide. They both did fantastic job shepherding multiple authors through their respective projects and fusing them together into amazing books.

Congrats to both Cam and Mike and to all the creators and developers behind the other nominees as well!

Want to Be a Gen Con Guest?

If you’re part of the tabletop games industry and plan on attending Gen Con, you can now apply to be an Industry Insider Guest of Honor at the show. I’ve been a part of this program ever since the show moved to Indianapolis back in 2003, and it’s fantastic fun. In the past, there’s been no clear way for people to get into the program, though, and Gen Con has decided it’s time to blaze that trail and set landing lights along it.

So, if you’re a professional in that industry and think you’d enjoy sitting on a number of panels during the show, you can now head over to the Gen Con site and apply for consideration. The spanking-new selection committee consists of three stalwarts of the program: Ken Hite, Stan!, and me. Please spread the word to anyone you think might be interested, as we’d love to have a large and diverse slate of guests to chat with on the panels. Thanks!

Twitter Chat on March 21 #SFFWRTCHT

Tomorrow evening, starting at 9 PM Eastern Time, March 21, I’ll be a guest on #SFFWRTCHT. That’s the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer Chat held on Twitter every Wednesday night and hosted by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. I’ll be answering all sorts of questions and chatting about many things, including Carpathia, 12 for ’12, the Magic: The Gathering comic, Kickstarter, and anything else people care to bring up.

To join in, all you have to do is get on Twitter and look for the #SFFWRTCHT hashtag. You can swing in and out as you like, and if you can’t make it, a transcript will be posted soon afterward for your reading pleasure. Hope to chat with you soon!