1/31/2023 - Hitting the New Year Running

Happy New Year Everyone,

I did make a point of singing “Long December” at karaoke before 2022 was over—though I did not end up filming it. Though 2022 had some awesome ups, I’ll still echo Adam Duritz of Counting Crows in hoping “this year will be better than the last.”

I don’t know if I have a favorite song of 2022 yet, but I can easily lock in my favorite TV series and film of the last year. For series—forgive me—I have to go with The Mole on Netflix; as an old-school Survivor superfan who’s also a sucker for Mission Impossible and other secret agent misdirects, this one felt like the perfect blend of behind-the-scenes meticulous planning and reality TV overreacting. My favorite film of 2022 is probably a more popular answer, which incidentally could be the title of my January: Bullet Train.

This includes updates on the new Four Horsemen Novel, my first convention of 2023, a book bundle giveaway with DJ Butler, a novella publication on Friday February 3rd, and—of course—Murderbirds.

Book Giveaway!

Naturally, I’m starting with the book giveaway drawing so no one misses it while scrolling. I’ll set out a mini-newsletter for this one when it’s gone live on February 5th, but in the mean time, here’s the link: http://davidjohnbutler.com/giveaways/february-2023-five-sci-fi-novels-giveaway/

And here’s the lineup:

Five winners will be selected to each receive copies of these five novels. (And if the winners like any or all of them, we hope they’ll rate them with five stars.)

New Novella

Though some of you may have read this in Kindle Vella form, I am launching A Man of His Word as a stand-alone novella on Friday February 3rd, as in this coming Friday. The eBook is available for preorder on Amazon, and the paperback is uploaded and read to go.

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Word-Mike-Jack-Stoumbos-ebook/dp/B0BT8LZB1F/

In its print form, the book is about 75 pages, so a read-in-one-sitting story. If you like folkloric fantasy with some dark elements and a healthy helping of heart, I highly recommend checking this one out.

Defenders Rise, an upcoming Four Horsemen Novel

A new 4HU book is on the way! I got to announce it at MarsCon 2023 in Virginia Beach with my publisher, Chris Kennedy, and some die-hard 4HU fans.

Defenders Rise is the story of an uplift alien uprising, in the style of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress meets Seven Samurai, but—you know—with heavier armor.

While you wait, check out On a Cloudy Day by Jason Cordova and Kevin Ikenberry, the most recent 4HU offering. https://www.amazon.com/Cloudy-Day-Phoenix.../dp/B0BT11JHWK/

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a place to start in the sprawling universe that is the Four Horsemen, check out Alpha Contracts. https://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Contracts-Revelations-Cycle-Book-ebook/dp/B0792WXGRT/

Murderbirds

The Murderbirds are circling in! And that is a damn fine cover. (Credit to Ruth Nickle)

One of the biggest early tasks this year was completing this book’s illustrations and then incorporating those into the interior formatting. This meant taking the sketches (which seemed pretty close to black and white) and actually making them black and white.

Once again, I think they look awesome. Check out the illustration for “Felix and the Flamingo” by David Hankins:

Overall, the initial formatting and printing was successful.

I say overall, because we did manage to hit a snag. Bear in mind, when putting together a book like this, we went through checks, and rechecks, and re-rechecks—and, inevitably, there will still be some errors on the initial release.

Well, in our case, the error came in a wrap cover update. We’d already gone through several approvals, but when we were getting ready for the first order, the spine text was flagged as too big. So we had to go back into our design program to reduce the text—which is fine, because that was the only thing changed… or so we assumed. For some reason, the text on the back had been affected in a way that didn’t show up on the editor or most of the files produced. But one specific new conversion from the image-editor to the static PDF didn’t like the bold or italicized text.

We found out when we received the first mini-order on Monday 1/30. It has since been fixed online for future orders, but not soon enough for the initial pre-order copies for the conference in February.

At least it’s only the first 75 copies. A bit of egg on our faces, but not too bad, since the front and interior still look excellent. After all, some people get a kick out of novelty misprints, so we'll keep some on-hand, even when we print the next set.

We live and we learn. (I can’t say the same for every character of a volume called Murderbirds, but the philosophy prevails.)

If you are within driving distance of Richmond Virginia in mid April, hopefully you’ll be able to join us for RavenCon 2023, where we will be officially releasing the Murderbirds anthology.

I’ll be in touch in between time.

Cheers,

Mike Jack Stoumbos