Free Book

 In the search for answers I'm putting one of my books up for free from tomorrow for five days. This is probably my worst selling book ever and someone told me yesterday that the story was good, they just felt the cover was giving people the wrong idea? So take a look (if you want) and feel free to tell me: Does it suck? Or does it need a better cover? Or is it something else?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01489KXRS 

Banned from Facebook - Again...

 Just caught a 3-day ban on facebook for advocating for self-defense against violent mobs.

Yeah, I'm a bad man...

So yes, there is a New Portals of Infinity book out...

 Here's the link: Portals of Infinity: Vis Major

And the cover (seeing as blogger doesn't seem to like Amazon links)

 

Just TWO hours left on the Portals of Infinity Audiobook Kickstarter!

 It's up to Five books ($10,000) now, which means you'll get the current versions of 3, 4, & 5.

The new versions of 6, 7, 8 & 9.

And the re-recorded / re-produced version of Book 5! 

And for the low low price of $30, you can have them all!

More info here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnvanstry/portals-of-infinity-audiobooks

The Portals of Infinity AudioBook Kickstarter

Hey everyone! Well the Portals of Infinity Kickstarter is down to 8 days, as it ends on May 9th. At this time books 6, 7, 8, and 9, have been funded! Which is great. The next goals of this kickstarter - where the funds will go next as it continues to grow - are the re-recording of books 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1, in order to have them all with the same Voice Artist (Jessica Threet).

Now for those of you who haven't pledged yet, I would like to point out that for a mere $30 you will get Seven, count 'em Seven, audiobooks. You'll get books 3 , 4, and 5 with the current Voice Artist (Dusty) and then you'll get book 6, 7, 8 and 9 as they each come out. If any of the first five are funded to be re-recorded by this kickstarter, you will get each of those as they come out as well.

That's a lot of swag for thirty dollars, right?

I also want to take the time to thank everyone who has already pledged money to this kickstarter. This is my first one that I've ever done, so yes, maybe I undercharged, but the response has been overwhelming and I'm very excited by just how well it has gone. I've been told that in the last week I will see another surge in donations, and I hope that's true, as I would love to be able to have all of the books in this series done with a single Voice Artist, instead of three.

So once again, you have Eight (8) days left to get in on this deal and get at least Seven (7) audiobooks for the low low price of $30 (US).

 Thanks all of you!

 -John

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnvanstry/portals-of-infinity-audiobooks

 

The Critical Drinker: An Open Letter to Hollywood

An Open Letter to Hollywood 

I really do agree with this. They used to do such wonderful things, but they don't anymore. 

As the saying goes: Shut Up and Sing. You're an entertainer, do your f**in job. This is why I try very hard to not inject politics in my books, for all that I may say political things on social media.

Because it is my job to entertain you and I struggle to try and do my best. Castigating people about their politics, their beliefs, anything at all, isn't entertaining. So I do my best to avoid that.

Public Service Announcement

 You know all those memes out there that are asking you a question about something from your past? And you're supposed to tell them the answer?

 

DO NOT ANSWER THOSE! THEY'RE DATA MINING SOCIAL ENGINEERING HACKS!

 

It's all to be used to hack you or sell your info to advertisers. They're not there for 'fun' they're there to STEAL YOUR IDENTITY.

 

Seriously folks - just don't.

It's Weird Sometimes...

 ... how things develop. All of my writing, all of my writing, exists on a system drive on my network that doesn't even bear my real name. The folder for my writing is at the top, but it's the last folder in the directory, so I always have to scroll down quite a ways to get to it. 

Because Writing starts with a W, obviously.

Then, when you get into that directory, none of the folders (and there are several) has my real name on it. You have to know which one to click on, and then there are the project folders, some of which are obvious and some of which ... are not. You'd think after all these years and all these novels and shorts and novellas that I'd have an easier to navigate system.

But I guess it's exactly because of all the years involved, and there are a lot of them, that the system which evolved, which was never planned, is the one that I have. There are times I've thought of changing it, but then backups and all the rest of that would have to change as well (yes I have onsite and offsite backups that run daily/monthly/bi-yearly). Also changing it would probably end up with me getting lost and making mistakes for weeks on end, as I've been using this storage format for so long. Plus, if you don't know the layout, you're not going to find anything. So it does keep others out of my stuff, even though the number of people with access to my network these days it very small (unless they fly out here to visit).

So for now, I'm gonna keep it.

In a side note: The POI kickstarter - which ends on May 9th, is just a few dollars away from funding the fourth book for audio (which would be book 9 in the series). Once that gets funded, the order for audio starts at 5 and goes backwards, as I'd like to try and get those all re-recorded, so I've got one VA doing all of them. A LOT of people have told me that I had the price set way too low on the kickstarter. Perhaps they're right. It was my first one after all.

There probably will be a kickstarter for the next audiobook in Dan's Inferno sometime next month as I've already started talking with Jessica about getting it done. She's definitely very busy these days, and I'm one of the people who has a lot of stuff that I want her to do.

In Other News

 I finally started going to the gym again. It's been like a year, so of course I'm sore as hell after a few days. At least both shoulders hurt equally now! :-) But honestly I think the exercise will help keep my right shoulder issues in check. The hard part of course, as always, is building the habit back to go out 3 times a week.

What's funny is when I'm stretching out my shoulders / arms by doing big windmill like motions with each one, one at a time. The right shoulder makes a LOT of noises now when I do this. The left shoulder, which has been operated on and rebuilt about a decade ago is nice and quiet. Same for the elbows (though the left side was a lot more recent).

But i do need the exercise, now I just need to adjust my lack of schedule accordingly.

Yeah, So, I don't know what to call this post...

*sigh*

So... (ever notice how certain conversations always start off with 'So'?)

There's this 'author' who has been reviewing ALL of my books.

ALL of them.

Van Stry, Stryvant — all of them.

He's given almost every single book 3 stars.

On Amazon, 1, 2, and 3 stars are NEGATIVE REVIEWS. Says so, EVERYWHERE.

(And if you disagree with that, too bad. It's their sandbox, their rules.)

Now, I don't fault people for not liking my stuff. That's fine, to each their own, etc etc etc. I don't even respond to reviews unless they're just really off the wall, or they say something that's not true, and even then — rarely. (Well, unfortunately Amazon has taken down the ability to reply to reviews, which is sad, because it could be a lot of fun sometimes).

ANYWAY. I come across one of this person's reviews on another medium (and no, not naming them, don't want to call them out, they don't deserve that even if I ended up pounding my head against the desk). And I finally just had to ask, after like FORTY negative reviews: Why are you still reading me, if you don't like me?

They reply about how much they like my work and have almost always given me positive 3 star reviews....

THREE STAR REVIEWS AREN'T POSITIVE ON AMAZON!!!

Seriously, read the friggin' rules!! Especially when you're an author publishing on Amazon! There is NO EXCUSE for this kind of behavior. You want to be a pro? ACT like a pro! Read the damn rules; know what you're doing, then if you FUCK UP — own it!

All of this time I figured this guy had some weird hate boner going on for me. Especially from the way his reviews read (I read a couple trying to figure out just what the hell was going on and if I needed to be careful answering the door). I love it when people who aren't successful at my job try and tell me how to be more successful. Valens Legacy was my most successful series ever, selling about a million copies (if you count the audiobooks) and got me a lot of exposure as well as income. Hell, there are people in Hollywood still considering it for a series (fingers crossed).

So please understand if I'm just a bit ... hesitant ... to take advice from someone who sells maybe a handful of books a week. If you want to be successful in any business, the people you want to copy err, emulate, are the people who are going gangbusters.

But really, if you want to leave me bad reviews, fine. But the worse thing you can do is leave over 40 negative reviews, and then when finally called on it claim ignorance.

As an author, I no longer leave negative reviews, even if I hated the book. I'm a bit hesitant to leave positive reviews on Amazon, only because I don't want to get in trouble with Amazon, who sometimes pitches a fit when authors review another author's works.

 

If I wasn't such a lazy guy, I'd make up a page with a list of all the books I loved and just link it from my website. I actually used to have one, but it just got too hard to keep up with.

 

So yeah. Head-desk. And here I thought all this time he was just trying to prove that he was a superior author/writer and was trying to lure people away to read his books... (hell, maybe he is, I don't know. *sigh* Welp, another mystery answered. Maybe. Sorta. Ah, hell...)

 

Oh, there's a Discord server now...

 

I think this is the link to join - I'm not a big Discord expert so forgive me if I got it wrong. :-)

https://discord.gg/2zxFxSR

The Portals Of Infinity Audiobook Kickstarter is doing great!

 

So my Portals of Infinity Audiobook kickstarter is closing in on the stretch goal for the third audiobook.

That means if you pledge $30, you'll be getting 6 (six!) audiobooks. The current versions of Temples and Trials, The Sea of Grass, and Demigods and Deities, Plus Reprisal, Kaiju, and The Seven Worlds!

 All of that for $30! That's $5 per audiobook!

I will be adding some higher tiers to the Kickstarter over the next week, ones that have been suggested to me, as well as a couple I wanted to do as 'add-ons' but was unable to because of the way Kickstarter works.

And remember, if I hit the total goal of this Kickstarter ($20,000) You'll be getting all 10 (Ten!) of the current books, in audiobook format, by the very talented Jessica Threet!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnvanstry/portals-of-infinity-audiobooks