Your cart is currently empty!
Category: Uncategorized
Autographed Warlock Copies Available
Well, soon. 😀
We’ve updated the paperback and hard cover covers from the basic Amazon format I started with — another way in which the success of Warlock caught me by surprise. Just waiting on them to be approved by Amazon and I can order copies.
Now, the book itself is a bit cheaper on Amazon, but those don’t come with autographs — they especially don’t come with the autograph option of making me put on lipstick and kiss the page.
I shit you not, it’s an option. This is how I make my living now, I can’t afford to be proud.
Anyway, check out the books page if you’re interested.
A Carew Update
tl;dr – Carew 7, A Brief, Interminable Peace, is complete, in editing and revisions, and will release in January or February.
Is it some finely-honed piece of literature made great after four years of careful crafting? No. I think it’s a solid Carew story that acts as a good transition from the previous books to the next stage of Alexis’ career and story.
Why did it take so long? I addressed most of it in a previous post — and I’ll catch you up here.
After all that, I had a decent spate of writing, taking me into January 2024, and then it dried up again. The day-job went from the dysfunction it’s been for the last quarter century to full-Simple Jack. Now, again, all things are relative — even at its worst, it was a good job to have. But I realized I was never going to recover either my health or writing if I remained. That’s a me-thing, mostly, not some indication that I had a situation so much worse than most others. I’m still regularly angry with myself for not being able to recognize and get myself out of my problems on my own over the last few years.
Anyway, over the summer I realized something had to give — I either had to make a change, or accept that I was probably done as a writer or maybe just playing at it. I decided on the change and decided to YOLO — at 57, with no discernable other support, and my writing income at the absolute least it’s ever been, even the first month of Into the Dark’s release, I quit the day job and decided to write full-time.
It was the support of the Carew fans — those of you who stuck with me on Patreon for four years, receiving nothing in return but silence, those who emailed me, sent messages on Facebook … looked up my phone number and called me to see if I was okay (sir, I am never going to not mention that – thank you), and the knowledge that every one of those represented many, many other followers of Alexis’ story — that gave me the strength to make that leap of faith.
The change in my mental state since then has been indescribable. I’m writing nearly every day for the last five months, averaging 1000-2000 words a day since I made the change and, though still not my old self, I think, it’s getting there.
Why haven’t been better about posting updates here, Facebook, etc.? Dude, do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?
Anyway, hopefully this will be the last angsty update and they’ll all be better and more frequent going forward.
Carew 7 is coming within the next ninety days and Carew 8, tentatively titled Smoke and Silver is nearly done with plotting (so much plotting as I actually do, anyway) and I hope to have it done in 2025, settling into what I plan as a 1/year schedule for the series.
Daniel Kensington
Hey, everyone! I’m Dan and I’m thrilled to announce I’ve just been signed by Darkspace Press for my new series, Warlock!
Warlock is a Harem/Magic School Urban Fantasy, and, yes, it has sexy-times!
On my 18th birthday, I got kicked out of my house, nearly mugged, and killed a guy with my mind … then things got weird.
Noah Ashe thought aging out of foster care would be his biggest challenge, but he was wrong. Homeless, broke, and suddenly able to wield deadly powers he doesn’t understand, Noah’s life takes a wild turn when a gorgeous, mysterious woman named Melaina Blackwood pulls him into a world he never knew existed—a world of witches, warlocks, and magic.
As it turns out, Noah isn’t just a regular guy—he’s a warlock, one of the rarest beings in the magical world, and that makes him very desirable. But there’s a catch: warlocks are meant to serve one purpose—bonding with a coven of witches, thirteen powerful women who all need him as much as he needs them. And that’s where things get complicated.
With a coven full of beautiful and dangerous witches competing for his attention, Noah must navigate more than just magical battles. As their warlock, he must balance growing romantic entanglements with the need to master his newfound powers. Along the way, he uncovers ancient secrets, faces rival factions who want his magic for themselves, and learns that surviving in this world will take more than just luck—it will take loyalty, passion, and the ability to unite the thirteen witches around him.
In Warlock, Daniel Kensington introduces a world of magic, intrigue, and desire where one young man finds himself at the heart of a coven, struggling to control the powers—and women—he never asked for but can’t escape.
Perfect for readers who love magic school fantasies, intense romance, and captivating supernatural drama.
Buy on Amazon or order autographed copies:
-
Warlock: Book 1
$25.00 – $35.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Warlock: Book 2
$25.00 – $35.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
-
Why the preorder was canceled
Hey everyone, I know it is been a very long time since the last update and all of you are wondering what happened why the preorder was canceled, and what the status of the next Alexis Carew book is.
TL; DR It’s not done and I don’t know when it will be, but I’m going to stop trying to predict when it will be an stop giving time frames for it.
the longer answer is more complex and pretty personal.
So first, you’re going to see quite a few typos in this post. That’s because a couple weeks ago, just before I thought I had the energy to make this post, I broke a finger. At first I didn’t think it was broken I thought it was just bruised it swelled up and turned purple while the very tip — just the tip — swelled up and turned purple. So I figured it was bruised went about my business — I got a splint that I wore sometimes, because it hurt if it got bumped and I just wanted to protect it.
Well, as it started feeling better I started using it, and it didn’t really hurt. But I noticed typing with it was sort of like typing with a gummy bear. It… Flexed. Very disconcerting.
So I went to the clinic, the doctor took an x-ray, although she said it was just to be safe, because if it was broken it would’ve hurt a lot and I know.
Anyway, that’s the delay in this post explaining things, and I’m using DragonDictate which introduces a few errors, but at least I’m not using the base Windows 11 dictation software, which flocking sucks.
And neither of the flocking things will let me swear. Just George Carlin’s seven dirty words you can’t say on television, results in asterisks in the Windows 11 dictation software and Dragon just says: ship test flock can’t Cox sucker mother Fokker and hits.
Anyway back to the real reason for the post.
Things have not been right with me for a while. It took me a while to realize it, accept it, and realize that I couldn’t do anything about it on my own
it started back in 2020. When Cove it happened and we went into the lockdown, I thought at least one bright side of it would be that by working from home I’d have more time to write. I went into 20/20 in the lockdown thinking I was going to get three books done that year.
Well, I didn’t.
It started getting more and more difficult for me to do anything, really. Very little energy, very little ambition, and a certain fuzzy headedness where I really couldn’t keep things straight sometimes. That got progressively worse as time went on. I front tried to fight my way out of it, and I’d succeed for a few days, but I couldn’t get any traction with sustainably doing more and feeling better.
Some people close to me when I described the symptoms I was having told me I was depressed. Which really passed me off, because I honestly have a great life I’m I’m very happy with it I have nothing to be depressed about — but that’s not what depression is.
Then in 2022, my situation at my day job change dramatically. Management decided to do a bunch of work that everybody in the development department had been saying we should do since 2005 — but they decided to do it all at once basically in six months from May to December. I wound up having to run six development projects with 12 people reporting to me nine of them being contractors who were not known quantities, meaning they needed a lot of handholding and a lot of oversight to make sure that they were doing things right… Or in a couple cases doing anything at all.
That really wiped me out. I had no energy going into the year and definitely no energy during that time.
At the same time, starting in early 2022, I had to deal with the medical issue with my wife.
So in 2022 as well as suffering from depression, I was working virtually every day. For about six months the only actual time off I had, was the days I took off to take my wife her medical care.
When we got to the end of 2022 I thought I’ll have time to write next year — and I set up the preorder to give myself a deadline because that’s worked in the past for me.
It didn’t work.
Again, I’d have a day or a weekend or a week even where I felt better start writing, and sometimes post an update that said things are on track, because I thought they’d get on track.
It wasn’t until a couple months ago that I realized and accepted that even though I could do things to get me out of this for a day or a week, it wasn’t sustainable on my own.
So now I’m on meds. 🙂
Then there working, I do feel more like my pre-2020 self. Not entirely, but they’ve definitely helped.
I’m being open about this, because what I went through with having to accept that it was a problem and that I needed help, I hope that if even one of my readers one of you, is experiencing something similar and having similar struggles, please don’t feel that it’s a failure to seek help.
The difference I felt within a week of starting the meds, was night and flocking day.
So now I’m on the path, the journey, to get fully back from where I was to where I’m supposed to be.
I don’t know how long it’s gonna take, I don’t know when I’ll be able to start writing again (although, I hope I don’t jinx it by saying that I have been writing consistently the last few days).
I apologize to all of you who’ve been waiting for the next bit of Alexis’s story, and especially to those of you who ordered the preorder and then had it canceled and have been wondering what was going on.
I’m doing my best, trying to feel better, and trying to tell the stories that I desperately want to again.
No Good Writing News, But We Have Dogs
Yes, it’s been a long, unconscionable time since I posted a writing update. If I thought 2019 was a bad writing year, 2020 handed off a beer.
I’ve been told my lack of posts and unresponsiveness to queries has led some people to wonder if I’m dead … I’m really sorry about that. It’s a little new to me to have people following like this … those who aren’t friends and family, I mean … so it wasn’t something I’d considered. So I am sorry about that and I’ll try to have more frequent posts and updates.
Back around this time a year ago, covid was just a shadow on the horizon, it was out there, but we had no real idea.
It was about this time last year, maybe a couple weeks earlier, that I decided there was a chance it would be bad and stocked up on supplies: rice, beans, canned goods, etc. Basically my annual hurricane supplies a bit earlier and more. I never wait until the last minute to stock up on disaster supplies, having been through nearly half a century of Florida hurricanes. Buy early, hold through the season, donate to food banks in the Fall.
It was also about this time last year that we got two new dogs.
Kenya, the fawn one on the right, otherwise referred to as Scooby. came in as a foster through the bullmastiff rescue we work with. It was a divorce situation – husband moved out with one of their dogs, wife had to move in with her parents who were allergic.
She’s a 120# neurotic, clingy freak. Scared of thunder and wants to sit in my lap at the first rumbles … we live in Florida. We decided to go ahead and keep her to avoid her having to go through another change in housing.
Bosa’s the brindle on the left. He came in as a candidate for our service dog training. Someone gave him to a guy as a gift, but he already had an older dog and a young bullmastiff likes to play hard.
In between my last post and February of last year, we also fostered Tulie, who went to the fiance of someone we trained a service dog for.
She had a really sad story – she came into the rescue twice. First she was part of a backyard breeding thing where 20 dogs were rescued. Then she was adopted out and the guy died a few years later, which she and another dog were abandoned in the backyard for several months. Then she was rescued and fostered from that, but she killed some neighbors chickens, so had to be moved.
I, frankly, don’t believe the chicken bit. This is a very tubby dog and I find the claim she could catch a chicken somewhat dubious.
Luckily she’s got a good home now with good people and no chickens nearby.
So then March comes along, and covid really became a thing.
My day-job changed changed us to work-from-home early on. I thought one bright-side of that would be more time to write, right? No commute = more time. Lockdowns = more time.
I think a lot of writers thought that. We were wrong.
There’s time, but something’s … missing.
A lot of writers have commented that they’re having trouble writing this last year. With no, or significantly less, chance to get out, there’s no opportunity to, what we call, fill the creative well.
For me, that was always going to museums, or walking through cities, or hiking in the woods.
All Days Are the Same Now, as I say to my work colleagues.
Anyway, we’ve come through the last year better than many, I think. My friends and family are all healthy and doing well, so can’t complain. A lot of people have been facing a lot worse than being unable to write books.
Now, this isn’t to say that there’s been no progress on writing at all — there’s been some. Dribs and drabs, bits here and there. I have a good outline for Alexis Carew #7 and maybe 25% of the words, a decent start on a sequel to Of Dubious Intent, tentatively titled A Profound Realization, and a good plot idea for the next Dark Runs book, Running on Empty.
I did manage to get the site’s store working again. I had issues with Square and had to switch to a self-hosted solution. Anyway, paperback and hardcover copies are now available from the site again, so if you want autographed copies you can order here. (Shipping out of the US is ridiculous – I’m looking at options, but for now it’s probably too much.)
So the bottom line is, I’m alive, I’m still working on new books, it’s slow, but happening.
I hope you’re all well and happy, and I’ll try to keep you updated more often.
Alexis Carew #7 Update and a Really Bad Writing Year
tl;dr – The next Carew book isn’t going to be released this year. The story’s simply not coming together yet, and it’s been a really rough year for writing.
It’s mid-October, well past the time that a new Alexis Carew book would typically be available for preorder and scheduled for a November release. For four years, that’s been the schedule, and it’s what I was expecting to keep up in the future, as well.
Best laid plans, and such …
The story’s just not coming together, partially because there are a lot of long-running threads that need updating or resolution. I could probably write a whole book that only did that, but it wouldn’t be a very exciting book when you got right down to it.
This is a problem with long-running series, and at six books we’re getting there. I recall a series I really love where Book X ended with the king being killed, then Book X+1 came along. Basically Book X+1 came along, at nearly 700 pages, and tied-up or pushed forward some long-running subplots, but as for the main storyline or any real story just for that book?
Hey, they killed the King, we should go get them.
That was the main plot of the 700 pages — moving from the dead king to starting an expedition of revenge.
I don’t want to put something like that out in the Carew series, and I don’t want to rush the story either. Privateer was a bit rushed, and, while many of you really liked it, many didn’t like it as much. So I’d rather put off the release and have something I really like and can be proud of, like I am of Queen’s Pardon, than put out something I’m not 100% happy with.
So at this time I have no projected release date for Alexis Carew #7, and I won’t be suggesting one until I’m reasonably sure it’ll happen.
2019 was a bad year on the writing front. Yes, there were releases — Smuggler, Running Start, and Running Scared all released — but those were all written over the course of 2017 and 2018. 2019 hasn’t seen the same productivity, for a variety of reasons. A lot of times, life happens and impacts the time and mindset required for writing.
The day job’s been a bear. I’m sure yours is too — that’s their nature, I suppose. Some early mornings and late nights involved, along with projects and co-workers that are … suboptimal. Again, that’s everybody’s life, to one degree or another, but it does weigh on the creative process.
There were some sad, difficult times as well.
This summer I had to say goodbye to the Big Bad Wolf.
She held on as long as she could, but it’s been a rough few years for her. She was attacked by another dog a few years ago and severely injured, then we found out she had diabetes, followed by cancer.
The cancer came in 2018 and they gave her six months, but she got a good eighteen, so that was good until the end.
Throw all the balls and give all the treats when you have the chance, folks, because there is nothing worse than seeing that pink syringe go and realize all the times you can never get back.
We had some issues with my wife’s service dog, as well.
Mr. Man developed an eye issue which required multiple surgeries and quite a bit of time in the cone of shame.
Good things happened, too, of course.
I signed separate deals with both Podium Publishing and Tantor Media for the audio rights to Spacer and Smuggler, and Running Start and Running Scared, respectively.
These will be out soon for those of you who prefer audio, and Tantor got Elizabeth for the Dark Runs series, so we’ll get to have her add Punjabi curses to the list of things I’ve made her do.
I also finished the hardcover formatting and setup for the Carew series.
These turned out really nice, and you can order them, autographed, directly from me.
A lot of things have settled down now. The day-job’s on a more reasonable schedule, and I’ve taken one more step toward ditching it completely and taking the leap to full-time writing.
That’s the last new Roadtrek Zion Ecotrek in the country right there.
Hymer, which owned Roadtrek, went out of business last year due to some financial irregularities at the executive level. They’ve since been bought by another company and warranties on existing stock are up in the air — not supported, but there’s some talk the new owners will start honoring them.
Due to the uncertainty I got a better deal than such a thing would normally go for.
So the full-time writing plan is one step closer. Pay this off and get some decent savings in the bank, then sell my current house (which is close to the dayjob) and buy a new one farther out, maybe with a decent bit of land.
The first trip in this beast is next weekend, so we’ll see how writing in it works out. I might do a series of posts on outfitting the thing and transitioning to write in it.
Anyway, that’s the status update. I know everyone’s going to be disappointed that Carew 7 isn’t coming next month, but hopefully you’ll think it was worth the wait when I do get it done.
Thanks for reading!
Creator Review: LegalEagle – Youtube
I maintain that this is the best time in history to be a creator – author, poet, artist, or, in this case, video. So I’m going to start a series of reviews/recommendations, starting with LegalEagle’s youtube channel and his movie reviews.
I found the channel via his review of My Cousin Vinny, one of the best legal comedies I’ve ever seen and, of course, my opinion of the channel is not influenced by the fact that the creator agrees with me. 🙂
LegalEagle works well on video. He’s a good looking guy, articulate, and seems to know his law. He comes across entertaining, not dryly lecturing, and he has real, not exaggerated, reactions to the scenes.
His legal explanations are clear, and at a level I think is understandable to someone with little knowledge of the law, but not so basic that someone with some knowledge will be bored.
One thing I really like about the channel is that he works his affilliate links in with a cheerful, blatant manner. In the My Cousin Vinny review, he’s shilling Indochino suits — but he does it in a way that’s both funny and works within the context of the review.
He also has other series of videos where he explains the laws broken in movies, real-life law issues, and law 101.
I’m a subscriber, and you should be too.
Reader Question: Kindle Unlimited & Loss Leaders
My last post on ranking garnered a great comment that deserves an answer long enough to be its own post:
I have a number of favorite authors who offer all of their books through Kindle Unlimited. How does writer compensation work with K.U. does the availability of work to loyal readers pay off? I loathe loss leader marketing schemes that offer the introductory books for free the following books for a more or less fair market price, with the final book at a ballooned pricing to make up for the free first book. When I find these schemes I put it in the review of the first book. Do you believe that loss leader marketing works for most readers or authors?
Great questions, Scott.
So KU has an interesting compensation model.
On a straight-up sale of one of my books at $4.99, I get a 70% royalty — about $3.40 (there’s a few cents Amazon charges on top for a “delivery” charge – basically for storage and bandwidth).
For KU, it’s a per-page payment, based on the pages read. A “page” is determined by how the book would render on a predetermined Kindle device. Queen’s Pardon, for instance, is considered to be 682 standard Kindle “pages”, no matter how you display it on your personal device. In general, we get about half a cent per page, so Queen’s Pardon gets me, roughly, $3 for a KU read. Very close to the full sale royalty, and an amount I’m happy with.
There’s a bit of an unknown each month, though, because KU is a sort of a split-the-pot game. The actual amount per page varies month-to-month, but stays around $0.0044 and $0.0051 per page. Even that little tiny change can make some big swings in total royalties for an author with hundreds of thousands or even over a million page reads a month. Queen’s Pardon,for instance, got just over a million page reads in its release month.
What Amazon does is setup a “pool” of money each month and then splits that pool by the total page reads for all authors to determine that month’s rate. They don’t actually say so, but I think it’s sort of a percentage of all the KU subscription dollars for a month, less their cut, then sometimes they add to it to keep the page rate up and keep author’s, if not happy, then satisfied.
Not
a lot ofany transparency on how that pool’s really determined though.The thing about KU is that it makes it really easy for readers to try new authors with little or no risk. That’s what I like about it. I’ve found a number of great authors for my own reading through it, and I know it contributes to people being able to access my own work.
It’s the same with my use of a loss leader on Into the Dark by making it free. It lowers the barrier to entry for a new series considerably.
Both KU and the first book being free also increase visibility, because even if someone’s just collecting free books and never reads Into the Dark, I get the “sales” ranking boost as soon as they click the download button. That gets me more visibility to other potential readers.
With regard to pricing on later books, I don’t think authors make the latest book a higher price to make up for the free one, but I do think there’s a tendency, led by publishers, that the newest book is more expensive. It’s sort of an early adopter thing — those who don’t want to wait will generally be willing to pay more.
Now, I’m of two minds on this, and I had to give it some thought to clarify even that.
Yeah, I’m all for more money, and the latest, greatest thing generally costs more, but these are books, not iPhones or even first-run movies. There’s a certain author-reader thing that makes that unpalatable to me. The readers who preorder my next release, who start reading at midnight on release day, who’ve made the last four years, honestly, the best of my life — I can’t see gouging them for a few extra dollars for the latest because they love Alexis’ story that much.
On the other hand, I can see publishers doing this sort of thing because they really don’t care about anything but the money. As evidenced by the outrageous ebook prices on traditionally published books. Personally, I won’t pay more than $9.99 for an ebook and use eReaderIQ to track and notify me when those drop to my price point.
For my own work, I think $4.99’s a fair price for both me and the reader, even for a new release. In fact, being self-published means that I see more from that $4.99 than a traditionally published author sees from a $9.99 ebook sale. To me, that’s a win-win for both author and reader.
Business of Writing: We’re #1!!
Well, no, not really. As of this writing, James Patterson is #1, but it would be nice, right? Number one seller in the Amazon US store?
Maybe.
It would certainly mean a lot of sales, and a lot of visibility, but, for most authors, it would come at a cost in advertising dollars. Dollars that might be better spent in maintaining a longer placement somewhere else in the Amazon ranks. Number one on Amazon, even number one in many categories and subcategories, might not be the optimal goal.
Okay, an aside: Yes, it’s a satisfying thing, and I have a collection of screenshotted orange badges for #1 in categories — Steampunk, Space Opera, Space Fleet — as well as some screen shots of the times I’ve hit the top 100 SciFi authors list on Amazon, if only for a brief, fleeting moment. I pull those out from time to time and it makes me feel good. Sometimes, I print them out on little bits of paper, fill the bathtub with them, and …
Never mind.
This series of posts is about business, and business means money. Money comes from sales, not prestige, though there’s a certain correlation between the two.
So, what rank should you be trying for in your advertising? Well, first, why are you advertising at all? What’s your purpose?
If you have one book, or even, maybe, a number of stand-alones, then you might be after sales, and this post probably isn’t for you. This post is for the authors, like me, who have a series.
When we advertise, it’s usually with a free or discounted book. That’s the hook, right? Check out this book and you can do so on the cheap. We’re hoping that a reader, entering on the cheap, will read through the rest of our books at the full price.
My own advertising is generally of Into the Dark, which is currently $0.00. So conventional calculations of ROI are pretty pointless — there’s 0 ROI on someone picking up Into the Dark. Read through is where the money is — and there’s a calculation to figure it out.
(book2royalty x book2readthrough) + (book3royalty x book3readthrough) + ad catalogum
The expected dollar value of a new reader comes from that.
But there’s another value that comes from the ad responses, which is our books’ rank. We know that rank equals visibility, and visibility equals sales. But how high a rank is good enough?
My books are not mainstream. They’re quite niche. A little bit of Steampunk feel, in the late-18th century naval environment. A little bit of Space Fleet, for those willing to put up with the late-18th century naval environment. A dash of Space Opera, in that they’re so character focused.
If I were to hit #1 in the whole store with an ad blitz and knock James Patterson
‘s ghost writerout of that spot, would it really do me any good so far as visibility goes?I don’t think so. I think above a certain rank is wasted for me. The folks looking at the Amazon Top 100 or even the Science Fiction Top 100 are probably not my market. They aren’t folks who’ll like my books, or, if they are, there aren’t enough of them looking there to make it worth the effort and expense.
I want to keep Into the Dark in the top twenty or so free books of my main categories: Steampunk, Space Opera, Space Fleet, and, on a good day, Military as a whole — and I want to stay there as long as possible, not flash up to #1 in SciFi and then be back in the doldrums a week or two later.
I want the eyeballs of someone who’s looking in those categories, specifically, today, tomorrow, next week, a month from now, and six months from now. So I keep my ads and the spend on them tailored to do just that.
If it was all about big visibility instead of targeted visibility, after all, then we’d all be advised to take out
SuperbowlBig Game (edited on advice of trademark counsel) ads for our books.