Let’s assume you like books

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I assume you do. Let’s also assume you have loved ones who like them, and with the holiday season coming up, you’d like to give books as gifts this year.

No, I’m not going to push my own stuff.

But remember Q.R. Markham’s Assassin of Secrets (Jesus, even I wouldn’t have gone for that title) the almost entirely plagiarized debut novel that was recently yanked off the shelves? Did you know that copies are going for fifty bucks on eBay? I sorta wish I’d bought one now.

Anyway, you can’t read his book–and why would you want to?–but you can read all the books he ripped off. So here is a holiday shopping list of books and authors that were wronged, and who better to throw your money at:

All citations found here.

Know someone who likes spy novels? Or, even better, if you’re looking to read something a little out of your usual, these books are certified good enough to steal from.

Randomness for 12/5

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1) 5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think

2) Awkward Christmas Photos.

3) Before and after Photoshop. (Hit the Toggle button)

4) Scholasticism of the Seventies.

5) Texts from Bennett. Hoh. Lee. Crap. via @laura_hudson

6) Skyrim reimagined as a Saturday morning cartoon in the 80’s. Video

7) Worst Nativity Sets. So many bad choices here, it’s tough to single out just one. Naked trolls? Bacon and sausage? Mexican mermaids? Damn, that doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Pros and cons of Livestrong (a weight loss post)

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I don’t think I could be losing weight without this program, so why do I resent it so much? Continue reading

Upcoming Books

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I’m going to link to this through the main page on my blog and make it an “evergreen” post, but it’s not going to be what you might think.

One issue I hear from readers (and other writers) is that someone will really enjoy a new series but miss the new books when they come out. (This happens to really well-known writers, too, and I’m talking about big names you might not expect.) Maybe it’s because so many books are released now? Maybe it’s that so many people buy online that they spend less time browsing shelves?

I don’t know. I talk about this sort of thing on my blog, but I also put all sorts of other stuff there, too, and not everyone is interested in all that shit. So do I rely on readers’ willingness to follow my blog when all they care about is book news? Do I rely on the odd “Whatever happened to…?” moments that prompt someone to look me up?

I don’t think so. Here’s my plan: I’ve set up an email newsletter. It only goes out when I have new work available. It’s not monthly. It’s not quarterly. I won’t put in pictures of cats or recipes or anecdotes about my life. You can get that here (except the cats). This is only to let you know when I have something new out.

Should you sign up, you will receive a confirmation email asking you to confirm that you want to receive the newsletter. If you don’t see it, check your spam folder. If you don’t confirm, you won’t be on the list and won’t get notified of new work.

(UGH! The confirmation process is throwing out error messages to folks who sign up. Don’t worry. I’ve checked several and despite the messages, you will be confirmed. I’ll be updating this bit of software at some point, but not right away. Many apologies, and please ignore the error messages.)

Sign up here:

 

Have a white list for your email account? The address to add to it is newsletter@harryjconnolly.com

UPDATE
As of today, 9/26/22, five Twenty Palaces novels and one novella have been released. I also have a short fiction collection that contains a Twenty Palaces novelette.

I also offer a grimdark epic crime-fantasy, an epic fantasy trilogy, a pacifist urban fantasy, and a game tie-in novel. More details here. Just click on those book covers.

I’m sure I’ll forget to keep that paragraph updated. Sign up for the newsletter if you want to stay up to date.

By the way, this is my 1,500th post on this blog. Perfect.

New site bookstore, and other things

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1. The plugin I was using to sell Twenty Palaces directly from my website wasn’t working correctly, so I’ve switched to something else. This new thing is quite complicated, almost like getting an iPhone just so you can tell the time, but I hope soon to have more fiction to sell from my site, so here it is.

The only problem is that I can’t make the PayPal Sandbox work so I can’t test drive the whole thing first. It’s annoying, but if someone wants to buy Twenty Palaces through the site, would you let me know how it goes? I assume I’ll hear from people who have problems, but… you know. It’d be nice to be sure all this works. (Added later: It doesn’t.)

2. [Deleted]

3. I have the first eight(ish) chapters of A Blessing of Monsters ready to send to my agent. My wife is reading them first to catch anything deeply stupid (not that… ahem… there’s anything… oh hell). She’s not what you’d call a fan of epic fantasy, but she’s giving it a go anyway.

4. And having the new book is helping me deal with self-publishing Twenty Palaces. I can’t say I’m pleased to be releasing it this way. Yeah, I’m glad readers who love the series get this story, too, but it also makes me mourn a bit more.

Which is why it’s good to have something fun and cool to work on.

5. If I can get decent cover art together, I’m going to add short fiction to my online bookstore. Assuming the bookstore is any good.

6. And yes, I’m up late. My son is having a bit of trouble getting to sleep.

Error messages

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I’ve received a sudden influx of error messages. If someone out there is having trouble buying the book through my site, please shoot me an email at harry at harryjconnolly period com. I’m not sure what’s happening and I’d like to find out.

Thanks.

Randomness for 11/27

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1) We Watch It For You: Rage of the Yeti. OMG, why didn’t anyone tell me this exists!

2) Walking through doors causes forgetting, study determines.

3) Ultra-serious Amazon.com reviewers take on pepper spray.

4) Reuters Best 100 Photos of 2011. Some of these are gorgeous. Some of these are difficult to look at.

5) Famous paintings with irreverent new titles.

6) “Twe-twe-2016!” A truly terrible trailer for a movie from Ghana. So awful and so compelling. Video.

7) The series bible for the old D&D cartoon.

Twenty Palaces update

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Sales through the website have continued, and I’m grateful to everyone who has bought a copy from me. At this point, as soon as I see the payment notification from PayPal, I’m emailing the file to the reader. I’m sorry that there’s that delay, but I will do my best to get it to you as soon as possible.

 

Also, by this point, everyone who has purchased a copy of the book should have received one. If not, please let me know. I’ll do my best to fix it quickly.

One more thing: if you bought and read Twenty Palaces, would you consider reviewing it, please? I would appreciate the help.

Today I have to get the hell out of the house and work on A Blessing of Monsters. What with the plugin/direct sales ordeal and the holiday, I haven’t worked on it since Tuesday. That’s bad. So I’m going to run some errands, have more pie for breakfast, and sneak out to the Starbucks and the library so I can make a few words. Wish me luck.

For folks ordering Twenty Palaces through my website

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I’m finding that about 15% 20% 24% 50%(!!) of the people who order Twenty Palaces are contacting me afterwards to say they haven’t received an automatic email with a download link. What scares me is that there might be folks who are waiting for me to send it manually.

Guys, if you ordered the books and didn’t receive an email in ten or fifteen minutes (and it’s not in your spam trap) contact me directly. I’ll be happy to send you the files directly.

Added later: Damn. I need to find a new sales plugin for WordPress. I’d tried eShop but it was too complex and had too many screens to click through. That’s annoying. However, the one I chose seems to be TOO simple, and it doesn’t work.

Because this is how I want to be spending my writing days… grumble grumble.

Better yet, when I get the PayPal notifications for the sales, I’ll just email the file to you directly the next time I check email.

Later still: I have some errands I absolutely need to run, but I’ll do my best to find another way to sell these tonight, if I can. Has anyone used http://www.e-junkie.com/ ? A reader over on LJ suggested it as a smart alternative.

The Twenty Palaces post

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As promised, finally, I have the Twenty Palaces prequel ready for sale.

Here’s the cover:

Twenty Palaces cover, small image

Here’s the book: When Ray Lilly was 13 years old, a handgun accident landed his best friend, Jon Burrows, in a wheelchair and turned Ray into a runaway and petty criminal. Fifteen years later, Ray returns home after a stint in prison; he’s determined to go straight, but he knows he can’t do that without making peace with his old friend.

What Ray doesn’t expect is to discover that Jon has just received a mysterious cure–not only is he out of his wheelchair, he seems stronger and faster than… well, pretty much anyone. Worse, his cure has drawn all sorts of unwanted attention: the media are camped out on his block, the police are investigating him for insurance fraud, and weird shadowy figures have begun to draw closer, figures who clearly do not mean to do Jon any good.

Can Ray atone for the biggest mistake of his life by protecting his oldest and best friend? What’s more, should he?

Yeah, this is the book where Ray meets Annalise, creates his ghost knife, and sees a predator for the first time. It’s also going to be the last Twenty Palaces novel for a while.

Buy here:

Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords

Thanks for reading, folks.