Loose Ends is now available

Loose Ends is now available on Amazon in ebook format, the print version will be coming soon. It will also be available on other ebook stores soon, once I get those accounts restarted.

Coming Soon

Pulling out of Kindle Unlimited

I think I'm pulling out of Kindle Unlimited. Why? Well, it's really hurting me. I lose one third of my royalty on every book sold via KU. Because so many of my readers have moved to KU, the loss in income for me has been close to fifty percent.

That's a lot of money.

So my choices were, either raise the price of my books on my non-KU buyers, artificially pad my ebooks with stuff to inflate the word count and increase the KU rate (which would only work if people actually read the inflated stuff), or pull out of KU.

Also pulling out of KU will allow me to sell my books in places other than Amazon, and while I don't think I'll see a lot of sales via the other markets, if I see a one third increase in sales on my paid (non-KU) sales, I'll be making just as much money as I am now. If I see a 50 percent increase (which means I keep only half of my KU readers) I'll see an increase in my income, to last year's level.

Honestly, I'd rather not pull out of KU, but financially, KU is killing me. I just can't afford it anymore. Yes, this move could do me in as a full-time author, I'm sure I will see an initial drop in my sales. But I won't know until I try. I know the books coming out of the publishing houses are never in KU, however they seem to do just fine on their sales.

If Amazon was to offer more than half a cent per page, I think I would stay with them, the problem however is just that the KU program has been very successful for them. But not so much for me.
I hope I don't lose any of you in the process, I think my price of 3.99 is a bargain, I honestly think that even at 4.99 I'd still be a bargain, but I'm committed to try and stay at 3.99 for as long as financially possible.

Thank you all for your patronage,
-John Van Stry

The first draft is now complete for the next Hammer Commision novel

Just finished the first draft of the next Hammer Commission book: Loose Ends. A hair shy of 80K words. I suspect it will grow a bit more in the first re-write as there are two chapters I need to drop into it. Short ones, but they've still got to be added.

Now to commission the cover while I get it ready for publication. I'm aiming for the 15th. Let's see if we can hit that target.

I'm Thankful for all of you

With Thanksgiving having just passed, and with Christmas on the way (and with the last book I'll be putting out this year nearing completion), I've had a few minutes to think about things. Like this last year, and the year before that.

So, I just wanted to say 'Thank You' to all of my fans, all of my readers, everyone who has bought one of my books, and everyone who has enjoyed what I have written in these last few years.

All of you have made this very worthwhile for me, and I really do appreciate you all, very much. Thank you, again, all of you. I hope 2016 was a good year for you, and I hope that 2017 is a better year still.

-John Van Stry

Missed Black Friday on Amazon? Here's another sale on print books!

To all of my readers, Amazon is currently running a sale on print books. If you buy more than $25 dollars of print books, enter the code "HOLIDAYBOOK" under the promotion code for $10 off the price!
 (Please note that I'm not sure if this offer applies to my books, but I thought you might like to know regardless)
Update: Apparently my books ARE in the offer :-)

Here is the offer details:

▪ To use this promotion, you must enter "HOLIDAYBOOK" at checkout under the "Gift cards & promotional codes" section to receive $10 off any books purchase of $25 or more.

▪ This offer is valid on print books only. Excludes eBooks and Audiobooks, Book Rentals and Amazon Gift Cards.

▪ The promotion is valid for a limited time, on orders placed between November 24, 2016 at 12:01am EST and November 28, 2016 at 02:59am EST. Amazon reserves the right to modify or cancel this offer at any time.

▪ Offer only applies to products sold and shipped by Amazon.com.

▪ Limit one promotional code per customer and account.

▪ Each code may be used only once and may not be combined with other offers.

▪ The maximum benefit you may receive from this offer is $10.

Thanksgiving Day Sale!

I am running a Thanksgiving day sale on Amazon (US & UK). I have eight books on sale! Five of the books are at 99 cents until midnight on Sunday, which includes the first two Portals of Infinity ebooks, the first of the Hammer Commission ebooks, and two from the Children of Steel universe: Danger Money and Dialene. The other three are on countdown deals starting at $1.99!

www.vanstry.net/vanstry/Sale.html  to see the full list.

I guess I am starting to make it...

Interesting, eBookDaily is promoting my book today, and I didn't even pay or ask them! That's kind of cool.

http://ebookdaily.com/bargain-kindle-books/2016-11-19/B01MEFK8WJ

Audio Book version of Wolf Killer is now out.

The audible version of Wolf Killer is now available from Amazon or ACX. This just came out today, check it out if you're into audio books!

http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Wolf-Killer-Audiobook/B01N07TDK2

 

The audio version of Days of Future Past - Past Tense, should be out before Christmas. 

For those of you into Audio Books

How would you react to a narrated version, versus a voice acted version?
This is in regards to the POI books only, namely the ones that have not yet been turned into audio books.

If this goes forward, samples will be put up for your critique. I want to satisfy my readers who want books three and on in audio format, so I'm trying to make it happen. I just don't know the format yet.

Let me know, please.

I usually don't talk things political here anymore, but sometimes...

This was triggered by reading yet another clueless lawyer who has no understanding at all what the law is, or why it exists, or how it is supposed to work, or why it even does.

In short, they were upset that the guys who took over the wildlife refuge in Oregon were all acquitted in court, totally ignoring the complete farce of laws and legal proceedings that led to the situation in the first place. Oh sure, no 'laws' were broken in that farce, but only because the laws involved are completely unjust, and the people behind the entire situation are in a word, evil. Not just misguided, but evil. I used to live in Oregon, I'm totally familiar with the history of what led to the situation, and a bigger abuse of government powers you will hopefully never see in your lifetimes.

That being said:

(this is being written as a monologue as it is addressed to a particular big name lawyer)

On the Law.

The problem with you, is that you have no idea why laws work. You think that because you're a lawyer and you know what laws are and how they're supposed to work, that you understand laws and the reasons we have them. But that is just all that crap you learned in law school, taught to you by other clueless idiots who think that abusing the fabric of society for their own personal gain is a good thing.

You have no understanding of how civilization works. You have even less of an understanding of how republics or democracies work. You do not understand the basic reason for law, and how laws work in a society or more importantly in our society.

You do not, at all. You are completely clueless and stupid on the subject.

Allow me to explain. The law itself means nothing; the law is just a series of rules, like the rules of a game. In fact that is exactly what laws are, they are the rules to this game, which we call civilization. In order for the game to work, the rules must apply equally to everybody. Got that? Everyone has to follow the same rules and have the same rules apply to them equally. Everyone.

Now we've all played games as children with the one kid who decided to keep adding more and more rules, bizarre rules, rules that only applied to them, or to others, or their friends, or forced people to do something that they, the kid in charge, wanted done.

And what did we do in response? Right, we all stopped playing the game. Well, that is exactly what we are seeing here. The lawyers, who are in fact just 'rules lawyers' people whose only purpose in life is to twist things so that they make money and get their way, have created so many rules, or laws, that they can do whatever the heck they want, whenever the heck they want, and they will mess you up if you don't bow to them and their little 'game'.

So some people have fallen back to older rules, rules that will always apply: Force. They have taken their guns and they have said NO. The fact that you cannot seem to understand this most basic of laws proves that you really have no understanding of the law at all. Or why the law exists. Or why the law even works. Like the spoiled eight-year-old brat you have bent and abused the law to the point where the rest of us do not want to play your game anymore.

It starts with us not following some of the laws and ends with us not following any of the laws anymore, except those that are the most basic to the human condition. It ends with the game we have been playing here called 'civilization' and 'government' coming to a screeching halt, and with those of us who refuse to play anymore brawling with those of you who ran the game and those friends of yours who you gave the special rules, to try and force us to play longer.

And now you're crying because the time has come to face the consequences for all of your crap. Any law that the average man cannot understand, is a law not worth having. Any law that singles out one person or one group for special privileges or punishments is a law not worth obeying. When men in freaking robes with special degrees who have to pass an exclusive test in order to 'interpret' the law, it's not law anymore! It's religion!

You want people to follow the law? Then stop gaming the system. Stop making thousands of laws for the sole purpose of allowing you to bend them. Stop raising up a special class of people who are the only ones allowed to 'practice' law, hell we don't even do that with preachers!

And when you completely fail at keeping the rules fair and just, don't complain when someone shoots you in the head. Because you deserve it.

Bob Hoover passed away today.

I just learned that Bob Hoover passed away today. I only got to meet him a couple of times, and shake hands with him. I did get to see him fly many times however.

Bob Hoover is a legend in the field of aviation. He is definitely in the top 3 people of aviation of all time, he's done that much. I would say to look him up in the history books, online, and other places. This man was the pilot's pilot. I don't think there has ever been a better pilot than him, and there may never be one.