Daily Archives: December 11, 2012

Welcome

Traffic to my little corner of the web is skyrocketing today, and I can only assume that’s because today’s the launch of the next Dabir and Asim novel, The Bones of the Old Ones.

If you’re new to the site, and me, welcome.

• If you’re curious about The Bones of the Old Ones, there’s a chance to win a free signed copy of the book  and its standalone predecessor, The Desert of Souls, at reddit, so I hope you’ll drop by.
• If you’re wanting to see a sneak peek of the book, the first chapter and a half are live at Black Gate, and can be found by clicking on this link.
• And if you’re curious to see what people are saying about the book, I’ve collecting all of the reviews in one place on the web site. Short form is a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, enthusiastically positive reviews from BookPage and Staffer’s Book Review, and two 4.5 (out of 5) star reviews from SF Signal (here and here).

Long time site visitors, thanks for sticking with me. Things are apt to be a little wild here for a few weeks as I run around trying to work promotional miracles. I don’t know whether guest blogging or mailbox stuffing with flyers about my upcoming book signing or podcasts help, but it does keep me out of trouble and gives me some illusion of control.

Ninja Delivery Service and Other Tales

It’s going to be a busy week here at Jones central. I have a book reading at the local Barnes & Noble at 2:00 Saturday the 15th of December, and today is the official book launch day. I’m doing my best to spread the word to as many corners of the web as I can reach.

Yesterday, to help spread the word about the book reading, I drove all over my community, stopping at more than 200 mailboxes so my daughter could lean out the truck window and pop in flyers. Those who saw us might have been curious about what we were doing, but they were perhaps more curious that my daughter was dressed like a ninja.They saw that we had flyers. I was wondering if they assumed we were passing out information for a new Ninjitsu dojo.

My daughter had been thinking ahead for next Halloween and putting a pretty cool all-black ninja outfit together when I asked her if she could help. She bounded down the stairs, looking for all the world like an extra from a martial arts film. Okay, well, a  pale, red-haired extra from a martial arts film, but, still, she definitely looked like a ninja, or, because of her age, perhaps a ninja-in-training.

She was more than glad to help and no, she did not want to change. As she leaned out to drop off the first few flyers I told her she was like a ninja delivery service, whereupon she invented a jingle that didn’t quite get old with repetition and had us both laughing.