promo

Blood Will Stream introduction video – up now on YouTube!

September 11, 2016 by Nick Bryan

So, since launching the cover and details for the fourth Hobson & Choi book the other day, I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing some YouTube videos to promote it – since the book is about a YouTuber being killed, it didn’t seem like the worst idea.

With time running down before the all-important 4th October launch date, I’ve decided to get stuck in and do an intro video to explain what the book’s about and what the big differences are between this one and the previous three. Hopefully if you’re on this website, you might be just the target audience for such a thing.

And yes, I also nervously fidget with my hands a lot. I know.

Anyway, here it is:

Hope you enjoyed that. If it’s enticed you to pre-order the book, I’ve added all the available pre-order options to the main Hobson & Choi page! (Not print, I know. They won’t let me offer pre-orders for print. Sorry.)

It was somewhat fun to do. I have plans for at least one more, which should be with you within the next week, and then… I don’t know, ideas welcome.

Tweet me at @NickMB with things to talk about! Or ask random questions and I’ll do a Q&A maybe!

Hobson & Choi Blog Tour – WEEK TWO

February 2, 2015 by Nick Bryan

It’s all over! Emotions were high, the pace was frantic, but the H&C Blog Tour is at an end. After two weeks of relentless H&C content written by myself and others, the whole damn enterprise is finally at an end. I thought I’d get the retrospective post out there, rather than squeezing it out in a few days, just so you can all feel like it’s really over and move on.

So, what posts did come in our second week? Could there have been… a change in media format?

Me, Myself & Blogging

As with last week, there were a few posts written by myself, the author, and I tried my best to provide a range of content to keep life interesting. First up, over on the K-Books site, I answered a few interview questions – this includes some thoughts on the very concept of writing advise, not to mention an answer to the ultimate self-publishing question: Why self-publish?

A couple of days later, I guest-posted on The Online Novel, with one of the most process-heavy articles of the whole tour. Want to know how I went from webserial to self-published, what I did on the way and exactly why the hell I made the decisions I did? The answers could well be in here somewhere.

Then, for some light relief, I wrote a short, jokey guest post for Nyx Book Reviews about the concept of YA Crossover and whether Hobson & Choi is that or not. I’m not sure if I actually answer that question, but I did make some great conceptual jokes about the “blog tour” idea.

Since H&C is a very serialised series, I worked out my Top Ten Book Series for Winged Reviews. I hear the internet loves lists, so why not go see if your favourite series is in there, then leave your disagreements in the comments if I left it out?

Lastly from me, another swing in mood, I did an in-character Q&A for Kirstyes’ site. Yes, this is me taking a few questions whilst pretending to be my characters from H&C. It’s a new one for me, but it was surprisingly fun, and if you’ve read the books, this does qualify as new material. (Although it does very slightly spoil a plot point in the first third of book one. Fair warning.)

Also, if you desperately want even more new material, remember you can get a free extra short story by subscribing to my mailing list.

Outer Limits Of External Thought

Meanwhile, in the strange world outside my mind, there were a few reviews. First up, Alastair of Nimbus Space penned his considered thoughts on the second book in the series. Did he like it? Did he hate it? Click and find out, I reckon.

Booktuber The Book Moo actually recorded separate videos for each H&C book, which is an impressive level of dedication. You can see her reviewing The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf here and also giving Rush Jobs the treatment here. Or, to save you having to click through and break up this wall of text, I’ll embed the first one here:

After that, there was another review from The Bookish Outsider, covering both books in the series in a single magnificent sweep.

Not to be beaten, Andrew of The Pewter Wolf did the same thing the next day, and that brings us to the end of the tour. Wow, that was a lot of blog posts.

Multimedia Mastery

Oh, and if you missed me talking about it at the time, I was on London’s arts station Resonance FM, chatting about H&C and my favourite London spots on the Daniel Ruiz Tizon Is Available show. You can see more details about that, including ways to listen back to the show, in the blog post I did about it the other day.

And that really is it, I swear. And now, playing us out, because I can, here’s The Book Moo again reviewing the second H&C book. This video includes the exciting spectacle of my face rushing towards the camera. END OF TOUR

Hobson & Choi Blog Tour – Book Two Blurb + Launch Plans

November 16, 2014 by Nick Bryan

It appears the launch of Rush Jobs, the second Hobson & Choi book, needs preparation. You can see an exclusive 100% real not-fake not-a-joke preview of the Case Two cover just to the right of these words. Enjoy!

But yeah, if you’re someone who dislikes making Christmas plans in mid-November, best duck and cover, because we’re about to talk late January 2015.

After The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf‘s relatively soft launch, we at H&C HQ are going bigger this time. Yes, it’s a blog tour. This means that if you, the reader, run a blog about books (or something else you can easily relate back to H&C), you can host a post around the time of the Rush Jobs launch. This could be your own review of the book or a piece I’ve written or some combination of the two. We can work something out.

However, if you wish to be involved at all, you should register your interest by filling in the form here, which does include checkboxes to determine what kind of post you might want to feature.

Get ye applying. Your blogs won’t tour themselves (because I will be doing that).

In order to get everything in order for this blog tour, we’ve also put the new book on Goodreads, so if you want to announce your formal intention to read it, you can do that too.

Oh, and to make the Goodreads page look less skeletal, I’ve released the blurb for Rush Jobs, which goes like this:

“Sometimes #crime feels like the Matrix. Or the #patriarchy or #porn. It’s everywhere, even in people you trusted, and there’s so MUCH of it.”
Angelina Choi returns for her second and final week of work experience at John Hobson’s detective agency, ready for anything after their first successful murder solve.
After all that online buzz, they’re in phenomenal demand. Can Hobson & Choi solve a kidnapping, play chicken with corporate crime, beat back gentrification, save a dog from drug dealers and head off violent backlash from their last case?
Or will grim revelations about Hobson’s past leave them floundering in the chaos?
Rush Jobs collects the second major storyline in the Hobson & Choi saga, #1 on Jukepop Serials and #2 in Dark Comedy on Amazon, adding brand new chapters and scenes to the case.
Also included: bonus story Infernal Accounting, exclusive to this book. An unfortunate accountant is terrified of his first day working for Rush Recruitment – but they’re only a temp agency, right? How bad can it be?

So there we go. The countdown has officially begun. Apply now to be a tour stop! And yes, the real new cover, from the creators of the first one, will be unveiled at some point. Exciting times.

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

July 7, 2014 by Nick Bryan

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.

Becoming An Internet Author – Week One

June 30, 2014 by Nick Bryan

The slow but determined march towards Hobson & Choi self-publication continues. A few days ago, I blogged a little about receiving professional edits on the text and my feelings on same. I think I reached equilibrium by the end, and I’m relatively okay with the direction it’s going.

However, there is obviously another side to the whole thing. If I’m self-publishing (or author-publishing or hybrid-authoring or whatever), I obviously have to do all my own promotion. Well, I’m hoping some good reviews will do a bit of the work for me, but I still have to get the book to some reviewers.

All of which means doing some tweeting, some blogging, some awkward-for-me self-advertising. Talking about myself. Becoming an Internet Author. Never mind my damn edits, how do I feel about that?

Fixed Books In Time – Even the Doctor can’t save us!

I do a little promotion for my stuff now, but it helps that I’m generally linking to recently updated items – a new post on this site, a Hobson & Choi update on Jukepop or whatever TV review I’ve recently scribed. The trouble with books – damn them – is that they’re pretty static.

Once the self-published volume goes up into the world, probably some time in July, I will need to keep plugging despite it remaining identical, no matter how self-conscious I feel about repeatedly mentioning a fixed point in time. Think I finally understand why they make Doctor Who so uncomfortable.

Still, there are thousands of authors in the world, self and traditionally published, and at least a few seem to get along without all their friends and internet followers deserting them. It must be possible. Just try and keep the ratio of ramble-to-promo strong. Don’t let the plugs get too dry and generic.

I’ll probably attempt at least some form of giveaway/competition once the book is out, so stay tuned if you want to get involved with winning stuff. It seems a nice way of doing a plug without boringly begging.

#MildyAmusing #Subheading

Aside from that, trying to improve this website. Make it clearer, more visually appealing and buy-my-stuff orientated.

Of course, anyone who has the words “writer” in their Twitter bio has probably been followed by a lot of random authors with a massive amount of followers, suspiciously similar number of people they follow, thousands of tweets about their book and almost nothing else.

To be honest, when I overthink myself to death about becoming an Internet Author, I’m mostly worrying about doing that. But only we can control our own destiny, etc. Most likely going to continue making poo jokes on social media even when I have a book published. I am a human being, not a wares-push-bot, and I’m pretty sure not everyone who follows me on Twitter is even that bothered whether I have a book out or not. Hopefully my fellow human people respect that I genuinely like what I’ve produced and am just trying to get along without being a pain in the arse.

Oh, and I might resist the urge to use ten million #hashtags as well. I kinda feel talking about your #book on the #kindle #ereader in the #crime genre might be too vague to get any traction? Correct me in the comments if I’m wrong.

But if anyone wants to try and get #HobsonVsWolf trending, that’d help me a great deal. (Little injoke for Hobson & Choi readers there…)