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The con is over...

Space City Comic Con is over. We were relatively untouched by the drama that happened over the weekend, but unfortunately couldn't avoid the rain and flooding.

The convention was sparsely populated on Friday and Saturday, and it looked like the it as going to be a very disappointing weekend. Fortunately, Sunday more than made up for it, and I met a lot of friends and potential new fans. The USB wafer drives were as big of a hit as I was hoping that they would be!

I have a few pictures from the con, but not nearly as many as I'd like. I spent most of my time talking to people about my books and about the writing and publishing process. I did take a lot of pics with fans after signing books, but I never thought to ask for copies...I'll try to be more on the ball next time!

Space City Comic Con 2016


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Selling Ebooks at Space City Comic Con

I'll have a whole mess of books to sign at SCCC, but I thought I'd try an experiment, too.

I've taken delivery of a bunch of generic USB drives that I got at a decent price. I've tested them out, and they seem reliable and the prefect size to hold all of my works (the two Llandra novels, the 10 Celtic music books I've written, and the one book on brewing mead). I thought I'd experiment with selling those for $10.00 each at the convention too. But, they're a bit bland and generic:



I've gotten a quote for some "wafer" (credit-card sized) USB drives that look really freaking awesome. They'd look like this:



I really like the ability to get the cover onto a USB drive. I think that'd have a lot of real value for some people. And I especially like that the back is blank/white so that I can sign them, just as I would a paperback.

The problem is, I'd have to sell them for $15.00 each in order to make the cost worth it. My question to you, my fans, is: Would this be something that'd be worth it to you? Please send me an email or comment on the blog post and let me know. I'd have to spend a lot of money having these things printed up if the interest at that price was really low. But, on the other hand, if people think they're as cool as I do, I would want to have them made right away, in time for the Con.

Please, let me know what you think!

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Space City Comic Con, NRG Center Houston, Memorial Weekend

My merch and advertising stuff has started to arrive. This banner is so much bigger than it seemed in my mind when I ordered it!

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Michaels Cares

Every year, I donate some books to Michaels for their Michaels Cares charity drive, to be auctioned off in the store where my wife works. As part of the package deal, I agree to come in, sign them, and chat with the winner. Every year, they've gone for well above retail cost, which makes me feel good about doing it, because I know the money's going to people in need.


This year, the winner wanted the books to go to his daughter (shown in picture), and she was smart as a whip! For a young person, she asked very insightful questions about the writing process, publishing, etc. I must have talked to her for a good half an hour, and it was a genuine pleasure.


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Going to Space City Comic Con, Memorial Day Weekend 2016

Books ordered, Booth reserved, Texas Sales Tax permit ordered.

It looks like Space City Comic Con is a go :D
http://spacecitycomiccon.com/

If you're in or around the Houston area Memorial Day weekend, I'd love for you to drop by and say hi!
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New weekend schedule

So, I recently changed up my weekend schedule to get more writing done. It's worked out really well. Gotten about 5K words finished in the last two weekends, and I'm hoping to get another 3,000 or so done today. I'm on track to have the first draft of the book done in December, and should be done with editing some time after the new year.

Which is lame, because Christmas sales rock. But what can ya do?

On another note, I was having a discussion on Reddit about book sales. Some people love to buy directly from the author because we get much more of the sale price of the book into our pockets that way. But I still prefer people to buy my books on Amazon--and review them if they feel the urge. Here's why: Read More 
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Military discounts online

Everything is so dang interconnected now. I'm starting to feel my age. But this is not a whine.

I went to McDonalds today, because I got a free burger on their mobile app. McDonald's is running some sports-themed sweepstakes/contest. I got a 15% off coupon to the NFL store.
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Llandra saga book 3 update, 99 cent sale

Many people have asked me about book 3 of the Llandra Saga lately. I am working on finishing up the story, and am maybe 2/3 of the way through. I've never been a fast writer, but this one has taken a little longer than usual. I had a bit of writer's block in the "dreaded middle" (which many authors struggle to get through), but I think I've worked myself out of it.
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Mark Lawrence's Self Publishing Fantasy BlogOff

Mark Lawrence is a powerhouse in the fantasy genre. All three books in his Broken Empire trilogy (published by Harper Voyager) have either been nominated or won David Gemmell Legend awards, and have also won Barnse and Noble's and Goodreads "Best Fantasy Releases". He's also probably one of the most social-network savvy authors in existence today.
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Randall's psychological profile

So, I couple of paragraphs of Randall's internal monologue from the beginning of the first book into the Watson User Modeling service which "uses linguistic analytics to extract a spectrum of cognitive and social characteristics from the text data that a person generates through text messages, tweets, posts, and more."
http://watson-um-demo.mybluemix.net/

It actually came out really close to how I envisioned a young, idealistic Randall!
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