Bad, bad blogger; big, fat book.

It’s been a while. I’ve been a bad, bad blogger! But I’m back with some exciting news.

The entire Embodied trilogy is now available as a 3-in-1 paperback, and you can get it from Amazon here.

This is the best (and most affordable!) way to read the trilogy in print. Otherwise you’ll be faced with the following excruciating scenario: You’ll have to lever yourself out of your chair or bed once you’ve finished reading Silent Symmetry, then stagger to your bookshelf and locate your copy of Starley’s Rust. Once you’ve found it and made it back to your preferred reading spot, you’ll have to do the same thing all over again a couple hours later for Diamond Splinters. Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to in comparison with buying all three books in one and staying in bed all day while you read them.

But if for whatever reason a nice, thick paperback isn’t for you, the Embodied trilogy ebook special edition is still available to download for Kindle or to read for free on Kindle Unlimited.

The other bonus of buying the paperback version of the trilogy is that you could be the first to review it on Amazon. Score!

Thank you to Alex Nereuta and Phoenix, The Creative Studio for the cover design and to Yannick Giguère for photographing the book.

Holiday season news!

It’s been a while since I posted and now instead of using my words like a grownup I’ve decided to go all video on you like a millennial. But since WordPress won’t let me embed a YouTube link, you’ll have to click here or on the screen grab below to find out my latest news.

The video is only a minute long, so there’s no Christmas-ruining time investment!

(Hint: the video is about the first story in the Embodied prequel series…)

And on that mysterious note, season’s greetings to all of you. All the best for the holidays and 2017!

 

One week to lift-off!

Diamond Splinters, book 3 of the Embodied trilogy, will be published in ebook format on May 5. To mark the occasion, I’ve organized a virtual launch on Facebook.

I’ve also rejuvenated the Embodied trilogy Pinterest page with a bunch of cool images that relate to the trilogy’s storyline, monsters and aliens.

 

The new book is already available for pre-order on Amazon and will also be on the Kobo site and in the Apple iTunes store any day now. Stay tuned!

The future of ebooks or short-lived gimmick?

Phew! I’ve been travelling for work and still editing book 3 of the Embodied trilogy, so the blog has entered a late-winter semi-hibernation phase (and yes, it’s still winter in Montreal!).

Disclaimer out of the way, here’s an article about  Editions at Play, a joint ebook publishing venture between Google Creative Lab Sydney and the design-driven publishing house Visual Editions, which launched last week.

One of my novels, The New Sense, was slated to be made into a similar interactive book before my publisher disappointingly closed shop in 2012. I self-pubbed it in 2013 but I’m still curious to know what the book would have turned out like in an interactive format. What are your thoughts on this kind of ebook? Gimmick or a new medium that’s here to stay?

Science fiction becomes science fact

Just a short post because I’ve been terribly busy editing my upcoming book. Today’s momentous news about the detection of gravitational waves originally predicted by Einstein is a huge milestone in the history of science. I read a couple of articles on it, one of them in Canada’s Globe and Mail. The article quotes MIT astrophysicist Nergis Mavalvala saying, “We have turned on a new sense. We have been able to see and now we will be able to hear as well.”

What almost made me fall off my chair was his first sentence. Why? Because he said a new sense and one of my novels is called The New Sense. No biggie, you might think, quelle coincidence… But the title refers to a sense that one of the main characters claims to have, and that sense is… the ability to detect gravity!

Mind therefore officially blown. Maybe my superpower is predicting scientific discoveries, who knows?

Fraudulent five-star fakes finally forestalled!

I’m sure those aren’t the only F-words that pop into the minds of honest authors and publishers when they read about their less scrupulous competitors’ mendacious review-buying activities. Now Amazon is taking fake reviewers to court in the US. I’m no legal scholar, but I bet that not only is review-buying cheating, it’s also criminal fraud. Personally, I’d rather a fan illegally download my book than have another author boost their Amazon rating by purchasing fake reviews.

Here’s what real reviews look like, in this screenshot from Silent Symmetry’s Amazon.com page:

Clearly this wasn’t the right book for the 1-star reviewer, and that’s the way it should be for any work, whether lowbrow or highbrow. But I’m proud to have taken the True Review Pledge and encourage other authors to do so.

Amazon isn’t altruistically taking a legal stand on behalf of honest authors, the company also has to protect its brand, and fake reviews make it harder for book lovers to judge before they buy, therefore tarnishing the trust they have in the platform.

Fiction authors lie for a living. But they don’t have to cheat.