Signing Events and Other News

For anyone in the Dallas Forth Worth area, I’ll be at the Highland Village Barnes & Noble this Saturday, October 22, from 2-4.  Come by, say, “Hello,” and get your books signed.

If you can’t make it to that, I’ll also be appearing at the Lewisville Texas Barnes & Noble on Saturday, November 12, from 1-3. I’d love to see you.

Black OpsIn other news, pre-orders for Cohesion Press’ SNAFU: Black Ops anthology are now available. Inside you’ll find my Valducan story “Raid on Wewelsburg.” Set during the final days of the Second World War, Lady Helen Meadows leads a team of knights behind the lines into Nazi Germany to retrieve several stolen holy weapons before the approaching Allied army can seize them. Needless to say, they find more than they bargained for.

The anthology price will go up when it releases December 8, so order it now.  You can order it HERE.

I’m also in the final three chapters of writing Redemptor (Valducan #4). Hopefully I’ll have it edited and ready to turn in to my publisher before the end of the year. I’ll be posting more about it over the next few months.

 

2015 in Review

2015

This year has been incredible. In the 10 years since my first sale, 2015 was the first time I openly referred to myself as an author. Before that, it felt sort of weird, like I was some wanna-be pretending I was something that I wasn’t.  Even after Dämoren released in 2014, I was apprehensive about throwing that title out because I remembered some opinion piece that said to be called an author, one must have two published book.  It’s silly, I know, but I was never able to really put my chin up high, walk up to a total stranger and say, “I’m an author,” until this year.

Hounacier was released in March with a wonderful reception. I’d been very nervous about it because it was so drastically different than Dämoren. But for the most part, readers have loved the sequel.

After years of close calls and false starts, the Black Raven made his literary return with Mountain of Daggers in March and Sea of Quills in September.  Reception has been mixed, but most readers appear to enjoy it.  We always knew it was going to be a niche-market, but Black Raven is my baby.  They’re my popcorn adventure fiction and I couldn’t be more proud to have him out there.

RC. BrayDämoren was an Audie Finalist for Best Paranormal Audiobook.  It was my first major award nomination and while we lost to M.R. Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts, I’m honored that my little debut got to rub elbows with so many great works. I got to go to my first award ceremony and meet R.C. Bray in person.  He’s now narrated four of my books, and I’m terribly proud to get to work with a narrator of his caliber, and he’s also a great guy, which makes it even better.

My first anthology release in five years happened with The Serpent’s Army.  I have two more coming in 2016.TCC

I gave my first Guest Author presentation at All-Con 2015, soon followed by FenCon 2015 and the TCC Library.  Evidently those went very well because I was contacted by the DFW Witers Conference and asked to come speak as a Guest Author for 2016.  It’s a huge honor. The last time I attended the conference I was an unpublished author desperate to sell Dämoren. 

I enjoyed many great books this year. In fact, I read more in 2015 than in any other year.  My favorites include:

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I loved this series so much that I have a blog about it.

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey. After losing the Audie to it, I had to check it out.  Great book.  It’s also the only book told in Present Tense that I didn’t find distracting or awkward. 

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Fantastic and fun book. The audiobook was read by Wil Wheaton, who not only gave a perfect performance, but was beautifully appropriate as the narrator of the greatest nerd-culture book I’ve ever found.

The Martian by Andy Weir.  Absolutely lived up to the hype.  And while my opinion of R.C. Bray might seem biased, believe me when I say that he absolutely killed it with this performance. Awesome audio book.

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.  I listened to the audiobook read by the late, great Frank Muller.  Muller was hands-down my favorite narrator ever and I picked this book up just as much for him as I did in my interest in the novel itself.  As someone who has seen the movie-version uncounted times, I was amazed to see how wonderful the source material was.  Highly recommend it.

In addition to book releases and a ton of reading, I wrote Ibenus.  While we’ll have a lot of editing and polishing to do, it feels so good to finally have that story out of my head.

With one novel release, two short story releases (and a likely third that I’m just waiting on the contract for), and Ragnarok’s recent distribution deal, 2016 is poised to be another great year.

Thank you, everyone, for you support.  May you all have a healthy and prosperous New Year.

 

Story Acceptance – Hungry Eyes

SNAFU HuntersI’m very happy to announce that my short story Hungry Eyes has been accepted by Cohesion Press for their upcoming SNAFU: Hunters anthology. 

Set in 2009, this will be part of my Valducan Archive Adventures. It follows Malcolm, Colin, and Nick as they explore the Paris catacombs in search of a demon. I had a lot of fun with this one since Colin was one of the characters in Dämoren that I just didn’t have enough time to really expand on. Nick has been referred to several times, but we never got to meet him. So now we’ll get to see why the Valducans remember him so fondly.

In other news, Sea of Quills is set to release next week and I am pumped to see it out there, finally.  In honor of the occasion, I had an interview with the United Federation of Charles where we discuss Black Raven as well as Ibenus.

Also, my long-time friend, and fellow author, Clay Sanger has begun a series of blog posts counting down to Sea of Quills’ release. This first one (Here) goes over Dämoren, as well as some personal anecdotes from back when I was first chatting and bouncing ideas off him about the novel several years before I started writing it. His help back in those early days was instrumental in how Dämoren came out. It’s no accident that Matt’s mentor was also named Clay.

Finally, this coming weekend I’ll be a guest author at FenCon XII.  I’ll be on a couple panels as well as reading Dämoren.  FenCon is a very special place for me because the Writers Workshop there was where I decided to put down my old practice novel and finally write Dämoren (which Clay and I had been talking about for a couple of years at that point).  If you’re in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, come by. My event schedule is Here.

As you can see, everything has been busy. I’ve been writing some guest blogs that should be going live soon in honor of next week’s big release, so I’ll be posting links to those as they come.

-Seth

 

Guest Blogs and Events

With two book releases in a single month, everything has been busy.  However, I’ve found the time to write several guest blogs concerning my new books as well as my thoughts on the genre.

At RisingShadow I have, Pulp Heroes: Why We Love Them.  I discuss how pulp heroes are not just some forgotten heroes of a bygone era and why they appeal to us (hint: I talk about James Bond).

SF Signal hosted , Sword and Sorcery: A More Intimate Fantasy, where I explain why I think Sword & Sorcery is a much more fun and relatable genre than Epic Fantasy.

Over at The Quillery, I shared, So We Saved The World…Now What?. There I discuss how sequels needlessly have to up the stakes in every installment and why I rebelled against that in Hounacier by simply changing them. 

At Singular Points I have, Story Inspirations: The History and Hidden Places of New Orleans.  Here I share the story of how I hadn’t planned to write Hounacier as Book 2 until a trip to New Orleans completely changed my mind.

Check them out.  If you like them, or have anything to add, please leave a comment.  I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts.

Ragnarok Publications is hosting a Facebook Release event on Monday March 21st 8-10EDT.  We’ll have some guest authors (Cat Rambo, Kenny Soward, Jaym Gates, Tim Marquitz, and Lincoln Crisler), give away some free books (I’ll be giving out an Audible version of Damoren and a Black Raven pendant), and have ourselves a good time.  Come by. Laugh with us. Score free stuff.

Finally, for anyone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I’ll be speaking at the Tarrant County College Trinity River Campus on April 16th at 2:00.

That’s all for now.

Hounacier Is Out!

The wait is over, Hounacier is out today on Amazon Kindle.  Other formats will be following soon.

Hounacier Cover

The first review is on The United Federation of Charles, which gave it an 8.5/10.  Since they gave Damoren an 8/10, I take that as a very good sign.
He says, Hounancier is a very different book from Damoren but not a bad one. Those looking for a continuation of Matt Hollis demon-slaying adventures will have to wait for future installments of the book. Those interested in a Voodoo-practicing demon-hunting stalking werewolves and succubi in New Orleans, however, are in for a treat.”

In other news, Fictiongarden.com reviewed Dämoren, and made it to their Recommended Reading List.
They said, “Damoren is an exciting first venture from a talented new voice, and I will definitely be picking up the sequel. You should too.”

Also, I just got back from All-Con where I gave my very first Author Presentation. It was called, “The Things No One Tells You About Querying a Novel,” and it went outstandingly well.  It was a bit surreal to actually be the one presenting at one of these events. The piece was a more in depth look at the topics I discussed in my “5 Lessons I Learned When Querying a Novel” post.  Now that I’ve done it, I plan to hone it down and share it at further conventions.

In the meantime, I look forward to seeing how everyone responds to Hounacier and to Mountain of Daggers.  I’ll be posting up some guest blogs and author appearances soon.

Thank you, everyone, for all your support.

 

 

 

 

 

New Interview and Book Giveaway

I’ve been neglecting my blog again.  But never fear, I’ve been working hard.

 

Nocturnal Library

I have a guest blog over at the Nocturnal Library which includes a contest for a free copy of Dämoren.  Contest ends 10/26/14, so be quick.

Also The United Federation of Charles gave a very very good review.  He also interviewed me about Dämoren and the Valducan Series.

If you’re in the Colleyville Texas area, I’ll be signing books tomorrow at Clockwork Gamer between 4:00 and 7:00. So drop by and say hi.

On the writing front, Hounacier is almost done.  I have about 2,000 more words to go and it feels wonderful.  I’m really happy with how this one has shaped-up.  It is by far the darkest thing I’ve ever written.

That’s all for now.  I hope to back up soon with more updates.

 

-Seth

 

 

 

HOUNACIER Plot Revealed

The past few weeks have been extremely eventful.

On May 10th I had my first signing event and book release party at Area 51 Gaming & Collectables in Grapevine Texas. The signing event went extremely well. After it was through, we kicked off the party. My friends surprised me with a beautiful shadowboxed copy of Dämoren enclosed with an engraved shell. They also got me a matching Dämoren shell pendant.

Damoren Signing Event

Shadowbox
I’ll have another signing event this June at Clockwork Gamer this late June. The date isn’t set yet, but I’ll post it once it is. If you’re in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area, please drop by.

Dämoren has had a very successful first month. As of now it’s still at #59 on Amazon’s Top 100 Urban Fantasy list.

It also received a very good review on TheDarkEva.com. It said, “So, to sum things up, as some other reviews have pointed out, if you’re a fan of Jim Butcher’s style of urban fantasy, you can’t get enough of Supernatural and you like original urban fantasy that places less emphasis on the romance and you like your world-building, but you especially like your demons, buy this book.”

 Also, I took part in a podcast interview with Adventures in SciFi Publishing, alongside the rest of the Ragnarok Publication team. We discussed our Grimdark character arcs. You can listen to it Here.

In other news, Hounacier’s description has officially been announced on the Ragnarok Publications website, and also on the Official Valducan Series Facebook Page.

HOUNACIER (Valducan #2)

Eleven years ago, atheist Malcolm Romero met a god. Now he’s a demon-hunting voodoo priest armed with a holy machete named Hounacier.

After the murder of his mentor, he returns to New Orleans to catch the killer. But more is at stake when Malcolm finds himself betrayed, cursed, and his holy blade stolen. Now Malcolm’s only hope to save his soul and to recover Hounacier, is the Valducan knight sent to kill him, Matt Hollis, the wielder of the holy revolver Dämoren.

So…what do you think? We’ve got murder, a few familiar faces, voodoo, and the city of New Orleans. Now I just need to finish it.

-Seth

Dämoren News and Writing Updates

Damoren Banner 2

Dämoren‘s reception has been outstanding.  I’m amazed at how well everyone has been receiving it.

It spent the past week and a half in three of the Top 100 Amazon categories for Urban and Paranormal Fantasy. It also broke the 1,000th sale mark in 23 days. That’s fantastic! Thank you, everyone.

Reviews and Interviews

The BiblioSanctum said, “Rest assured Dämoren will satisfy all your needs in the action and thrills department, but what I was most impressed with was the world building and unique body of lore Skorkowsky has created, which offered a fresh new take on the angel/demon mythos.”

Self Publisher’s Showcase said, “That Mr. Skorkowsky’s debut release is so utterly consuming, leads me to believe that before too long bookshelves across the globe will be accosting and brutalizing their owners if his name does not reside on their shelves…”

I also recently recorded a podcast interview with Adventures in Scifi Publishing along with some more of the Ragnarok Publications Team. I’ll let you know when that’s edited and released.

Signing Event

I’m also extremely happy to announce that I will signing books at Area 51 Games and Collectibles in Grapevine Texas on Saturday May 10th. If you’re in the DFW area, please come by and check it out.

Writing

On the writing front, everything has been going great.  Jason Waltz of Rogue Blades Entertainment sent me the final cover sketches for Sea Of Quills and I’ll be honest, it is going to look fantastic.  Artist Didier Normand is incredibly talented and I can’t wait to see the final painting.

Hounacier is still coming along.  I’ve broken the 35,000-word mark and things are speeding up.  I’m very pleased with how it’s coming together. 

Lastly, I’ve finally gotten around to making a Valducan Series page on Facebook.  Please drop by and give it a ‘Like’.

That’s all for now.  Thank you for all your support, everyone.

-Seth