Catching Up…

Been so freakin’ busy lately, I haven’t had much time to update the blog here (which seems to be the trend – I’m away for a while and then rush to fill you all in on the happenings)…so here we go:

1. THE FIXER’s first teaser is showing up in a bunch of places on the ‘Net, which is very cool. The crew is hard at work doing post-production on teaser two, which will be very different from teaser one. How different? How about more cast, dialog, a few scenes, length – that sort of stuff. It’s a lot more to sink your teeth into (forgive the pun or don’t, lol) and get a handle on where we want the show to go. Just remember, this ain’t your standard woe-is-me-I’m-immortal-and-confused vampire crap that populates pretty much everything today. THE FIXER is hardboiled, violent, and sexy. Just the way I like it, dammit.

2. Word from the folks at Blackbetty GmbH in Vienna is that HELLstalkers, which I’m writing with my bud Joe Nassise, should be rolling out soon for both cell phone users on the Vodafone and Verizon networks. There have been some technical issues as they iron out everything but things should start rocking soon enough. There’s been some interest in doing a print deal for the series as well. Plus, a number of other countries seem to be interested in digital rights. With the holidays closing in, I don’t know if we’ll actually get a deal before early January, but you never know.

3. I’m still working on the remaining pages for my website – which includes fully integrating this blog with it. As you might have noticed, it’s actually hosted at the site, but isn’t quite customized to my liking. We’ll be taking care of that thanks to my web guru, Nick (who just launched his own site at Dissim.com so if you’ve got some work, he’s the man!). In 2010, we’ll start getting some videos up for the Ninjutsu sections that focus on self-protection. I’ll probably get my 5th degree black belt test up there at some point, although you can already see that over on Youtube if you’re interested in checking it out.

4. 2010 is going to be insanely busy. We’re slotted to film the pilot in January + thirteen additional episodes – and then get to the business of selling that bad boy, I’ve got to finish the first manuscript for the boy’s adventure series I’m working on, got another Lawson novel to get cranking on, HELLstalkers, and a bunch of other commitments I can’t really disclose right now. I’m supposed to head over to Japan for more training in the Spring, which would be awesome. So yeah, a lot on the plate. And I love it…

5. Still drumming up more fans for THE FIXER fan page over on Facebook so come on over and become a fan!

I’ll have another post before the holidays, so stay tuned. Hope you’re all doing well!

News from Jon F. Merz (Boston Nocturne – Aug. 2009)

Boston Nocturne
News from Jon F. Merz
Writer ~ Producer ~ Ninja
August 2009

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all having an amazing summer! It’s been weird in the northeast – we had lots of rain and now the heat and humidity have finally caught up with us. My boys go back to school in a few weeks and the seasons will turn again shortly. Funny how fast time flies!

First and foremost: I’m doing a book giveaway out on my Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/jonfmerzfans – one lucky winner will get a signed copy of my latest Rogue Angel novel: Footprints. It’s not due in stores until mid-September, but you can win a copy just by being a fan out on Facebook and commenting on the giveaway thread. In Footprints, Annja Creed hunts for the elusive Sasquatch in the Pacific Northwest and, as usual, gets herself embroiled in a ton of other danger along the way.

PARALLAX continues to sell nicely as an ebook, priced at just $1.99 on Amazon for Kindle readers or direct through me as a .pdf via my blog at http://jonfmerz.wordpress.com Interestingly enough, in the last few weeks, I’ve had interest from four producers out in Hollywood in turning the novel into a film. Nothing’s ever definite until the check clears, but I always enjoy speaking with folks in the movie biz. So we’ll see where that goes. I love the attention the book has been getting, especially since New York publishers won’t touch it (despite all the editors who have loved it) because they can’t label it as one genre or another. It would be pretty amusing to see it get picked up for a film and not even have a print deal.

I’m thinking about a new venture and would love to hear from you as to whether it would be something you’d be interested in or not. I don’t want to give away too many details yet, but if you’re interested in hearing about it, drop me a line at jonfmerz@gmail.com and ask. Your feedback is vitally important to this venture, so please don’t hesitate to contact me. The more people I bounce this off of, the better. Some of you have already been contacted about this, so no need to contact me again (unless you didn’t get back to me the first time). Confused? Yeah, me, too. Let’s move on, lol…

By the way, I’m giving away an old very short story of mine called “Rip.” You can get it as either a .pdf or .prc (Kindle) format just by emailing me at jonfmerz@gmail.com You can also check out the silly video I made on Youtube by going here: http://www.youtube.com/jonfmerz (make sure you comment and subscribe to my new channel!)

I’ll be yanking The Fixer Files ebook compilation down and will no longer sell this massive half million words compilation of all the Lawson adventures to date. Since I expect to sell the series to a new publisher soon, there’s no need to keep it up. But I will sell it a little while longer. Say, until next week. So if you want all four original novels PLUS the long-awaited 5th (the Kensei) PLUS the novella I wrote for Myspace.com (The Courier) PLUS two short stories all for a measly $9.99, then head out to my blog at http://jonfmerz.wordpress.com and grab a copy before it’s too late. No telling how long it will take NYC to get these things into print.

My website at http://www.jonfmerz.net continues to evolve nicely. Nick, my web guru is handling the work and I’m loving it so far. There’s going to be a LOT of content when we’re finished, so check by often!

Next month we’ll be getting going (finally) on THE FIXER TV series. So there’s going to be a LOT of news around that. We’ll be tweeting from the set and various other places. News will be via my Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/jonfmerz so make sure you swing by and join the 13,000 other folks who enjoy my various tidbits of tweetdom.

That’s all for now – thanks for reading! Have a great summer!

Best wishes,
Jon