Parallax & Vicarious Now on iTunes!

I’m happy to announce that both PARALLAX and VICARIOUS are now available as apps for both the iPhone and iTouch over on the iTunes store. Go forth and buys gobs of copies! 🙂

Buy PARALLAX at iTunes

Buy VICARIOUS at iTunes

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Bacchanalia, Baby…

On the ancient Roman calendar, today marks the start of Bacchanalia, the 2-day festival to worship Bacchus, the god of wine and debauchery. To commemorate this auspicious event (and frankly, because it’s Tuesday and not the weekend) I thought I’d invite people to post their favorite drink, drinking game, drinking story (one that involves you personally), or most delicious drink recipe in the comment section below. On Thursday, I will draw three winners at random from all the comments received and each person gets a signed book as a prize. And please be sure to invite your friends to come on over and take part (you’ll see easy-to-use “share” buttons below this post).

So I’ll start things off by talking about my love of Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics. I first heard of Bombay Sapphire after reading Richard Marcinko’s ROGUE WARRIOR books and his love for the gin (which he usually drinks over ice). Already a fan of gin and tonics (but never able to find a gin I really liked) I tried it with Bombay Sapphire and the rest is history – and Lawson’s favorite drink was born. I like a healthy wedge of lime squeezed into the drink (y’know, for fighting off scurvy, lol). First I’ll get a nice pile of ice cubes, pour a good 1/4 to 1/3 Bombay Sapphire over that so it can start to chill, then add the tonic water and finally top it off with the squeeze of lime followed by the lime itself into the glass.

Your turn! Have fun and remember to toast Bacchus!

PS: I’m also looking for questions to fill in over on my FAQ Page so if you’ve got any pressing inquiries about me, my work, my training, my production company – what have ya, feel free to leave a comment below as well. I’ll do a “formal” blog post about more FAQ solicitations, but for now, if you’d rather ask a question, that’s cool, too. And yes, you’re still eligible for the book drawing. 🙂

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Welcome to the New Website!

So today marks the first day we’re live with the brand new website design (now using a WordPress theme instead of Joomla) courtesy of my amazing web design guru Nick Abbondandolo & his company DISSIM.com Based in Los Angeles, they do some terrific work and I can’t recommend him highly enough. We’ve still got some tweaks to implement and content to shift over, but we are very much live and I hope you enjoy checking out all the pages. Lots more to come in the months ahead…

Make sure you’ve gotten your hands on all the ebooks I’m currently offering! All the other pages except this one and the home page have a handy sidebar to the right where you can click on a cover image and be whisked away to Smashwords to purchase them all. And very shortly, we’ll be unveiling some hot new swag, including T-shirts and sweatshirts.

Hope you enjoy the site – let me know what you think!

BOOK GIVEAWAY!


To celebrate the new website, if you leave me a comment below, I’ll enter your name for a chance to win a signed copy of my latest Rogue Angel novel SACRED GROUND! This is a quickie event, so chime in and you might win when I draw a name tonight!

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The Shape of Things to Come…

So there are a lot of things afoot (as usual) and I wanted to let you know about them and ask for some input as well…

First of all, the website is being redesigned (again) and moved from the Joomla platform over to a WordPress platform, because I need more flexibility with the design. Expect an unveiling within the next few weeks.

As part of the new design, I’ll be offering a lot of things for sale on the site. Obviously, the majority of this will be related to my writing. I already offer a number of ebooks for sale, but expect that number to increase substantially. You’ll be able to buy ebooks from me directly (using PayPal), over at Amazon, over at Smashwords, and within the next few weeks the first of these offerings will be available for purchase over at iTunes as an app for your iPhone/iPad/iTouch. I’ve already seen the app for Parallax and it looks great. The app is entirely self-contained with ereader software so there’s no need to download anything else.

As part of this ebook push, I realize a lot of you will still want printed versions of my books. I can’t say I blame you since I still very strongly about having things actually “in print.” So I’m looking into a number of print-on-demand services to satisfy this need. Obviously, I don’t want to do a huge layout of cash for offset printing and then have to deal with inventory, shipping, postage, etc. That takes away from everything else I’m doing. So, as far as I know (and feel free to chime in if you know differently) POD looks to be the answer to this problem. I want everything that I have to sell to be available in as many ways as possible. So, I hope a lot of you will comment below and let me know about your experiences with any POD services (Createpspace, Unibook, Wordclay, Lulu, Blurb, etc.) below.

Also, as part of the POD question, would you be more inclined to purchase a trade paperback or a hardcover if you were offered one or the other. Some of the places I’m investigating offer hardcovers for only a few bucks more than the paperback. Figured I’d see where your inclinations lie in this regard. So don’t hold back! 🙂

Additionally, we will start selling some other swag: specifically sweatshirts, T-shirts, and stuff like that. All of this is going to be available via this site through a 3rd party vendor. So I’m also looking for your input on this front. I *think* I know who I’m going with for this function, but again, feel free to chime in below.

More news is coming soon, but for now, I hope you’ll share your thoughts below. Thank you!

THE MADAGASCAR MATTER – Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

The interior of the store reminded me of a museum, just a whole lot dustier. I sniffed the air, aware of the dust bunnies, and very nearly launched a nasal assault of sneezes.

He also kept the inside of the store dimly lit with the blinds drawn. He would probably say that the intense sunlight might harm the paintings that hung on the wall. I thought it would be because he wanted as much privacy as possible.

A little jingling bell went off as I walked in; a two-dollar alarm that worked better than the musicians Hjelm paid to set up shop outside. I smiled at the irony and waited for him to show himself.

While I waited, a quick glanced told me that the vast majority of people entering this place didn’t have the necessary coin to afford any of it. I saw a Japanese katana that looked like it bore the tang stamp of Masamune, supposedly the finest swordsmith that Japan ever produced. It was probably the only thing in the entire store that didn’t have a thin layer of dust coating it.

“You have an appreciation for swords?”

I turned and found myself staring at Hjelm only three feet away. However old the guy might have been, he was stealthy as hell. I’d have to remember that in the future or else he might easily get the drop on me.

I pointed at the blade. “It’s a Masamune, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” said Hjelm. “Do you know of his work?”

“Just that his blades are supposed to be quite good.”

Hjelm sniffed as if I’d just suggested he take up proctology as a hobby. “Forgive me, but saying that his blades are supposed to be…quite good, as you said, is like saying Albert Einstein was supposedly good at science.”

I smiled. “Well, perhaps a bit of schooling would be in order.”

Hjelm grinned. “Goro Masamune is widely considered the supreme swordsmith of Japan. Most of his work was done in the fourteenth century and his blades – both the longer graceful curved tachi and the short tanto knife style – were reputed to have been forged with the inner peace and calm so often missing from other smiths of his day and later years.”

© 2010 by Jon F. Merz All rights re­served

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