Book Three in the Days of Future Past is now an audiobook!

So the third book in the Days of Future Past trilogy, 'Future Tense' is now live on audible, Amazon and iTunes. For those of you who have been waiting for it, the wait is over:

Future Tense on Audible

Here's the link from Amazon:

The Valens Legacy Audiobook is out!

For all of you who have been waiting for the audio version of the Valens Legacys series, the first two books are now available on Aubible:

The Valens Legacy

Here's the cover:

Just a general Update and POI #8 Status

So, I realized this morning that I hadn't posted here in a while. So I figured I'd make a general update. POI #8 (working title: On The Border) is currently being written. I'd hoped to have the first draft completed last week, but I had outpatient surgery last Tuesday and I ended up getting very little work done after that. So I'm hoping to be first draft complete by the end of this week. I don't have a target date on release for that one yet, it will be sometime this month.

On the Valens Legacy. I'd hoped to start writing that this week, but odds are that won't happen until next week. I'm still hoping to get that out by the end of this month, but with losing a week that may slip a little.

Black Friday was nominated for an 'Ursa Major Award' so if you want to go vote for me, (or rather Jan Stryvant) I'd appreciate it. True it's not a big award, but I've never gotten an award for writing before.

So that's where things stand currently. Hopefully I'll have some more interesting stuff for you soon.

Hard to believe that these are live pictures

New Valens Legacy book, now live

The new Valens Legacy book: Stand On It is now available on Amazon:


Stand On It

A Few Words on Page Count

A few words on 'page count'.

Page count, the number of pages in a paperback book, is not really much of an indication of just how many words are in a novel. For example, I have one series where I formatted the books at 6x9 and another done at 5x8. Mass-market paperbacks are at I think 4x7.

The difference in the amount of words you can put on a page between just 6x9 and 5x8 is fairly significant, and that doesn't even begin to take into account the size of the gutter (space between the text and the spine) the outside margin and the top and bottom margins. Then, on top of that you have font size and font style. I have seen mass-market paperbacks where the publisher used an 18-point font in order to increase page count, to make a novella look like a novel, or a short novel look like a longer one.

Now for POD (Print on Demand) books, page count is the primary factor in determining the price of your product. So if you want to be competitive with mass-market paperbacks, you need to get the number of pages in your book down. It's as simple as that. So you go for the 6x9 format, you shrink your gutter and your margins, you go with a smaller font size and say a font like Georgia instead of Times New Roman. To make my novel 'Children of Steel' saleable, I had to shrink the font down to a ten-point and squash the margins as much as possible. The book is still very fat in the 6x9 format even after doing all of that, but it let me sell it at 10.99 and still make a quarter (as in 25 cents) on each print sale.

On some of my more recent stories I did similar stuff to keep the page count low. Sure, I could easily push all of them over two hundred, or even three hundred pages, but then I start pricing myself out of competition. People forget that it's how many words are in a book, not how many pages. Words per page can easily vary from two hundred to four hundred fifty, or more.

It's all in the formatting.

What I'm reading

I just started reading 'Lion's Quest: Undefeated' by Michael-Scott Earle. Wow, this is an amazing book. I'm about 2/3rds through it. If you haven't read it, I'd say to give it a look.

Lion's Quest: Undefeated

I honestly don't get to read enough, too busy working. There's a bunch of books I need to finish, along with book 2 in 'Super Sales on Super Heroes' which so far has also been a lot of fun. There really are a lot of good books out there these days.

The new book has been uploaded and should be available later tonight

Okay, I put the book up with Amazon about an hour and a half ago. The status is publishing, which means I have a possible link for it, BUT until it's actually published, that link won't do anything.

So, here's the link, right now it'll tell you that it can't be found, but hopefully in a few hours that'll change. It'll definitely be live by tomorrow.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078RGJ2PY


Again, right now you just get a 'Sorry' page.

Here's the cover, it came out a little more 'fan servicey' than I intended, but unless I hear lots of complaints, I'm gonna stick with it. In my defense I had the flu when I ordered it, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :-)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone

I want to thank you all for making this a good year for me. I'd also like to let you all know that book #5 (When It Falls) is finished, and I'm in the process of doing the re-write and looking for grammar and other issues. The Beta readers all have it, and I hope they have the time to get back to me in a few days, with the holidays and all of that.

I need to do a minor re-write on a couple of scenes, I'll hopefully get to that tomorrow, as today will be too busy with company and making dinner (I'm the cook in the house and I make a lot for the holidays). The plan is to release it on the 28th. It won't be in pre-release for the simple reason that they lock the book down three days prior to release, and honestly I suspect I'll not be hearing back from my Beta readers until the 27th because of the holidays.

There will be a book #6, there's just way too much going on for there not to be.

Once book #6 is in the can, I will sit down and plot out the next arc in the story. I don't know if it'll be called 'The Valens Legacy' or if I'll give it a slightly different name, I don't even know how many books that arc will be, but it will continue on the story, as Sean and his wives move on to the next obvious goal.

I'm also hoping to write some side stories, I don't know if they'll be shorts, or if they'll be novella's. I have to see how the storyboarding goes for the next arc, and what the scheduling looks like, but I would really like to write a story for each of the girls, showing just how they got to where they are. There is a lot of back story on all of them. But most of it's either in my head or in the story bible and my notes. I think some of you would enjoy learning more about them.

POI #8 - I still want to write this, the plan for some time has been to write it between #6 and the next arc. I'm still hoping to be able to stick to that plan. I just need to learn to write faster and see if I can figure out how to add more hours to the day.

So again, thank you for your patronage, I am humbled by how much you all like my stories.

If you're in Sacramento, I'll be at the comiccon today.

It's off of Madison & I80, at the hotel at 5321 Date. Not sure how big it is, or what it costs to get in, I signed up to do this months ago. It'll be the 3rd one with the folks from Turlock, and the last two were actually fun, so hoping this one is as well.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. The turkey is in the oven, and my guests are on the way over. In a few hours I'll have to get to work on the side dishes. But for the next hour, I think I'm just gonna veg and maybe play No Man's Sky.

Have a good day everyone, and know that I'm thankful for all of you.

-John Van Stry

On Sale from Thanksgiving until the end of the month!

Read the book that started it all, for only 99 cents:



Portals of Infinity: Book One, Champion For Hire

Also on sale, the first book in the Days of Future Past trilogy:



Days of Future Past: Past Tense