Nick Bryan

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The Man Who Tweeted Plugs – Last Stop Before Publication Junction

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The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, my first effort in self-publishing books, emerges on Tuesday into the world of ereaders! The cover is off to the right, and if you want even more details, review opportunities and the like, this blog post has you covered.

But if you’re interested in some project news, or in what sort of thing fills the days of a man when his book is on the verge of people-powered publishing, here’s the latest update. Probably the last major one before release day. Includes video content. Gasp. Best read on.

Let the internet be your robot butler

First up, because I gotta sell books somehow so should put these in before anyone loses interest. You can now pre-order the book on a couple of e-outlets, in case you want to make sure it appears on your device ASAP.

Here are those links:

And that’s it for now. Makes it all seem pretty real, eh?

Start the presses!

Still only the ebook versions coming out next Tuesday, but progress continues on the print edition, which is going to be lovely. I’ve approved the back cover and the proof version is scheduled to arrive with me a week or so after the ebook comes out.

So, in the event I haven’t fucked up substantially, I’ll hopefully be able to approve that and get that up for your ordering pleasure as well. Or, if there are major mistakes, alas we must wait another two weeks.

But yes, print fans, it is coming. I would’ve waited until both were good to go, but I wanted to make sure I had the e-version launched for when I went to Nine Worlds in a few weeks. If everything goes flawlessly, we may have both for that. Score.

My card, anyone?

I have new business cards for the book release! Not overly exciting for you maybe, but I just wanted to show off the design I did for the back because I think it came out quite well – it’s just above this section. The front is the book cover. Come and say hello at Nine Worlds and I may give you one of these cards.

A series writer’s work is never done

So, amid all this admin, I’ve managed to find some writing time! And what am I working on? Well, among other things, the Hobson & Choi Case Two book edition!

After all, the big thing they told me at London Book Fair was to keep building up the series, so I’d best crack on. Coming to you… either late 2014 or early 2015, hopefully. It’s scary how fast time disappears with these big projects.

And that, I suppose, is that. Depending on time and inspiration, I may not blog again until publication day. Get your two pounds ready folks, it’s gonna be good.

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – Hobson & Choi: Case One! Cover! Blurb! Release date!

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So. In the not-too-distant future, the first case of Hobson & Choi, my mismatched detective duo London crime series with a darkly comic tone, will be self-publishing. I have a nice cover, a sales blurb-type-thing, a new title, a release date, and I am about to declare all of those things.

Exciting stuff. Probably best to just get on with it. First up, then, is the real meat: cover and blurb time.

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf

“If we get 400 followers, John Hobson will solve that nasty wolf-murder case for free! Fight the thing himself if he has to! #HobsonVsWolf!”

Angelina Choi was only trying to drum up some Twitter followers and make a good impression on her first day interning at John Hobson’s one-man detective agency.

But the campaign went viral and now they have a murder to solve, no money coming in, and an unwilling Hobson faced with battling some enormous beast.

With both follower and body counts rising, can they crack the case without offending everyone or being eaten by a huge dog?The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is the first case starring Hobson & Choi, a bickering, mismatched detective duo for 21st century London. This book collects the debut storyline of the hit darkly comic crime web serial, extensively rewritten and improved for this definitive edition.

Also included: book-exclusive bonus story The Left Hand Is Always Right, grim tale from a dark corner of Hobson & Choi’s London – The Left Hand, budget pub of crime.

The What-When-How

So, that’s the what. Next important bit of news, I suppose, is when: The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf will be out on Tuesday July 22nd 2014 in electronic formats. It might take a day or two to get through to all of them, but I’m aiming to be up on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iBooks and whatever else Smashwords will punt me onto.

For print users, there is a standard paper edition coming in August just as soon as I’ve finished back-and-forthing with proofs. Rest assured, I’ll try my best to make a big deal out of that too.

“But what about me, Nick?”

If you want to get involved now, The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is up on Goodreads so you can add it to your to-read list and such. Also, if you have a book-review blog or enjoy posting reviews on Amazon/Goodreads/anywhere else book reviews are posted (or both of the above), email me and I may be able to sort out a proof e-copy of the book for consideration in truthful review.

In a similar vein, if you have a blog/other outlet and want to get even more involved, I am well up for talking about the release anywhere that will have me. For discussion of guest posts etc, just email me. I’m sure we can work out some kind of fair arrangement.

And if you want some new H&C material right the hell now, you can still get a complete two-thousand word done-in-one (not part of this book, an entirely standalone new thing) by signing up to my mailing list here or via the form which should appear in the right sidebar of this blog. This will, as you may have guessed, guarantee you an email when I publish The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf.

That’s probably it for now – if I’ve missed any crucial details, let me know in whatever medium pleases you. For now, let’s just take another look at the cover in attractive 3D-rendered form. Thanks to Design For Writers for their lovely work on the actual design, by the way – do contact them if you need anything similar, they’re good.

New Hobson & Choi story! Free to mailing list subscribers!

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Hobson & Choi #74: "Agendas"

Want more Hobson & Choi? Fancy seeing the pair solve a whole unfaithful spouse case in a mere two thousand words?

Well, you’re in luck, as I’ve just written Current Affair Commentary, a new short story in which that exact thing happens. And you can read it right now simply by subscribing to my mailing list and nowhere else. Just fill in the form to the right and you’ll be sent the download link once you’ve confirmed your email.

If the form below isn’t appearing for whatever technical reason, click on this link here to be taken to an unfailing full-page version.

Regardless, hope you enjoy the story. I think it’s a nice little work, it’s been a while since I did a short done-in-one and it was good to return.

 

Story “Troubling UnderCurrents” to appear in Superhero Monster-Hunter anthology!

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The Good Fight - from Emby Press

New fictional anthology appearance! My short story Troubling UnderCurrents is appearing in the upcoming collection The Good Fight from Emby Press, a fun new publisher amazingly devoted to stories about monsterhunting.

The theme of this particular book is superhero monsterhunting, as you might guess from the cover off to the right. And let’s all just take a moment to look at that cover, because I love it.Okay, enough slack-jaw for now. Here’s a summary:

Troubling UnderCurrents is about a poor man who grows a second personality called UnderCurrent after an accident. They share a body, they squabble, sometimes UnderCurrent takes over and goes for a joyride. But the host persuades him to channel his constant aggression into punching criminals, as it’s better than any alternatives they come up with.Still, violently stalking people on the street isn’t ideal. What these guys need is a punching bag. Some kind of big, straight-up evil… monster.

Publication apparently scheduled for autumn 2014, which is exciting. Rest assured I’ll talk about it more nearer the time as I enjoyed writing this one – it’s a good meaty piece too, over seven thousand words. Hell, I might even bring UnderCurrent back some day, he’s got a certain something.

(Me and my constantly squabbling duos, I know. At least these two share a single body for added efficiency.)

So, that’s the big announcement for now. You can see the full list of included stories over on the Emby Press site, and if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some kind of gleeful dance at the prospect of finally getting to write a superhero. Feel free to gaze at the cover again, god knows I will.

TWO new stories by me in Seventh Star Press anthologies!

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It’s been a while since I had any new fiction out there except for regular Hobson & Choi updates, but the wait is over. Pleasant genre-merchants Seventh Star Press have included my stories in two (yes, two) of their upcoming anthologies. They’ve done cover reveals at their own blog in the last few days, we’re definitely all public now, so let’s talk about it a bit.

First up, in the Hero’s Best Friend anthology, I have a story called The Violet Curse. The theme of the book is animal companions – all manner of hero-helping creatures from cute internet-ready cats to that armoured lion thingy on the cover. Find out more here.

My specific piece is about a loyal dog who wants nothing more than to help its owner – the resident fantasy hero – but discovers she might be a crucial part of his undoing instead, thanks to a pesky purple magic spell. Bummer, right?

And you can now buy Hero’s Best Friend in electronic format in the following places by clicking on their respective links:Amazon US – Amazon UK – Nook US

Elsewhere, in A Chimerical World: Tales Of The Unseelie Court, there are some evil fairies about. Note that this is a two-book set of anthologies, with the good section of the fey appearing in Tales Of The Seelie Court, but I am only in the Unseelie volume. This is because I am a terrible person. Full details of both books right over here.

My story is called The Fool And His Money and is thoroughly contemporary. You know how that economic crash happened recently, and everyone explained it as “Well, they thought there was all this money, but it didn’t really exist”? It turns out there’s a fairy-based explanation for that…

And you can now buy A Chimerical World: Tales of the Unseelie Court in electronic format in the following places by clicking on their respective links:Amazon US – Amazon UK – Nook US

Both books should be available for print ordering a week after that – rest assured I will be posting the links up when that happens. In the meantime, if you want a brief preview from the actual text of both stories, I intend to put out such a thing on the new mailing list soon, so definitely subscribe to that, either in the blog sidebar or by clicking on this link right here.

Woo! Publication again! Twice! Pretty excited by this, guys. Now, back to angsting over my editing/synopsis/choice of socks…

"Blood Will Stream" – New story available in actual book!

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Hi! I have news!

A medium-length story I wrote called Blood Will Stream is in a new anthology called Standing In The Kitchen At Parties, from indie publisher Deserted By Dignity. (Yes, both those names do work pretty well for me.)

The story itself is about one woman’s quest to kill her boyfriend and stream it live over the internet. And I work part-time in IT and use a lot of social networking sites, so it’s obviously going to be 100% technically accurate.

Anyway, this does mean you’ll need to spend some currency to get hold of it, but the story is 12,000 words long, so you’re getting a decent chunk of me for your money. (That’s twelve times as long as the stories I post here on Fridays.) The publisher has posted a brief preview of my part on their website.

You can buy the book from Amazon UK, Amazon US, probably other branches of Amazon too. For those of you who are not made of money and don’t care about having a real book, you can also get it in PDF format from Lulu for a much cheaper price.

(Although, for what it’s worth, I have the proper book and it’s a nice package. I’m rather pleased.)

Anyway, this is a big step for me, so I’m excited. If anyone buys the book and wants to let me know what you thought, there is a comment section below, or I also have an email address.