Blog Archive - 2012 - Jeroen Steenbeeke

Elizabeth Baxter's Spotlight Saturday

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 12/15/12 10:28 AM

Just a quick message to let you all know there's an interview with me online at Elizabeth Baxter's blog. The interview had two parts: ten questions that I could pick from a long list, and a number of quick-fire questions.

You can read the interview at Elizabeth's blog.

Gift of the Destroyer Flash Fiction at Winter Escapes

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 12/9/12 2:06 PM

The Winter Escapes promo is progressing nicely, and today you can read a never before seen piece of flash fiction featuring some of the characters from Gift of the Destroyer, called Sarina's Winter.

https://www.jeroensteenbeeke.nl/images/2e576d9bd3b0454e8cb90e974ec4b3f3054469ce43ce1332ff7a488ea07617be

Winter Escapes Promo Updates

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 12/6/12 10:44 AM

Would you like to be in the loop about a huge sale featuring free and 99 cent young adult fantasy books? Not only will you have access to great reads at your fingertips, but there will also be fantastic giveaways. My first novel Gift of the Destroyer will be one of the 99 cent books included in the Winter Escapes Sale, and is already reduced to 99 cents on Kindle. Please note that the sale prices

Progress update on part 3

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 12/5/12 9:49 AM

As some of you know, I've started working on the final part of the Hunter in the Dark trilogy several weeks ago. Today I am happy to report that I have reached 27% completion on the first draft. If you're new to this blog you might wonder what's so special about 27%, but 27 is a number that tends to pop up in my books quite often.

What does this mean in the bigger picture? It's too early to draw any serious conclusions I'm afraid. First of all, this is only the first draft. Granted, I

Guest post by Tracy Falbe - A profile of Cruce Chenomet

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 11/27/12 8:13 AM

Regular readers of this blog will know I often participate in the Writer's Cafe on the Kindleboards, primarily to get in touch with other authors. On this forum, I encountered fellow fantasy writer Tracy Falbe, who was looking for people to participate in her blog tour. I of course happily obliged. In her blog tour, she presents excerpts from her work, as well as character profiles. I am currently reading her novel Rys Rising, which I can definitely recommend. So, without further ado, here's Tracy:

Sanderson's First Law

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 11/21/12 10:17 PM

*Warning: This post contains spoilers for both my work and Brandon Sanderson's work*

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I am somewhat of a fan of Brandon Sanderson. A common theme in his novels are his well-defined and complex magic systems, which are inherently limited in their possible applications. For instance, magic in Elantris is tied to nations, and declines in strength the further away one gets. In Mistborn, you have Allomancy, which uses metals as a

New website design

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 11/13/12 8:16 AM

If you're reading this, you've no doubt noticed the new Wordpress theme, along with the new artwork. I've been wanting to update this site for some time now, and yesterday I finally went ahead and did it. Let me know what you think

Musical Inspiration: Emma Hewitt

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 11/12/12 12:32 PM

Regular readers of this blog will know that music often inspires me. I often listen to Vocal and Epic Trance, as many of the songs I've posted here before clearly indicate. A few days ago, I was browsing YouTube for� trance songs I hadn't heard before, and by chance, I found Calm Down by Cosmic Gate, which featured Australian singer Emma Hewitt:

Head-hopping

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 11/5/12 12:45 PM

I am currently reading a novel by a fellow indie fantasy writer, who shall remain nameless. I was reading this book during my commute after my netbook ran out of power (should have remembered to charge it last night). The story is pretty good so far, but one thing in particular is driving my bat-shit insane (more than usual, I mean): the author is constantly head-hopping.

For the uninitiated: head-hopping means a switch of viewpoint in the middle of the scene. For a more elaborate

November News

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 11/1/12 11:34 AM

Seeing as I'm skipping Nanowrimo yet again, I figured I'd do something else to keep people entertained. I've already agreed to host a guest post by Tracy Falbe later this month, so I might as well go out and ask a few more people to do guest posts as well. Are there any people in particular you guys think I should ask? And before you start naming all sorts of really famous fantasy authors: please note that my connections are somewhat limited ;-)

In other news: I will probably be switching

Lucky number 27

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 10/31/12 10:35 AM

Today is Halloween, which is a holiday that is not (officially) celebrated in the Netherlands. Most of my exposure to Halloween has been through American TV shows and movies, as well as the occasional Halloween theme on websites. In essence, Halloween is supposed to be scary (or about scary things), though with the whole trick or treating I think that for most kids it's more about candy than it is about being scared.

For me, both as an adult and as a Dutchman, I don't find the 31st of

Fantasy and tough subjects

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 10/19/12 4:00 PM

** Warning: this post may contain spoilers for a wide number of fantasy novels by various authors **

I've been reading fantasy novels since I was 8 or 9 (I'm not exactly sure about the exact age really - if you count children's novels and fairytales it was quite a bit earlier). Among the first books I read were books by David Eddings, Terry Brooks, and Tolkien. Most of these fantasy books are rather benign in their subject matter. Sure they've got armies of invading demons, dark

Gift of the Destroyer review by Annette Gisby

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 10/10/12 12:25 PM

A few weeks ago I sent copies of Gift of the Destroyer to a number of review sites. Today, the first review went online on Books and Tales, giving me 4 out of 5 stars. I'm really happy about this.

You can read the review here

Temporarily disabled

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 10/9/12 2:30 PM

I had originally planned to start writing the final Hunter in the Dark book this week. I have completed the global outline, and done about 25% of the detail outline, but I will not be starting the actual writing for a little while longer. This is not a delay I suffer willingly, but one caused by injury.

Like most of my countrymen, I often ride a bicycle. It is my transportation of choice for short distances. It is how I travel between my home and the train station. Riding a bicycle is

Print editions once again available

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 10/1/12 3:57 PM

I've just received the sample copies of Gift of the Destroyer and The Raven's Endgame, and they're looking good! Get your own copy at Lulu:

Interview by Michelle Muckley

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 9/27/12 11:00 AM

While browsing the Kindle Boards a while ago, I saw that fellow writer Michelle Muckley was looking for people to interview. After giving it some thought, I figured: sure, why not, and gave her my contact info. The result can be found on her blog today. So, if you have a few minutes to spare, go ahead and read. While you're there, you should also check out her book The Loss of Deference. I haven't finished

Ellcrys life expectancy

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 9/24/12 9:42 AM

This post contains spoilers.

Today, I'm going to do something a little different.

A while ago, I finished Terry Brooks' latest novel " The Wards of Faerie". Seeing as I am a bit of a Terry Brooks fan it should come as no surprise that I really enjoyed this book (though this is not always a given, as I didn't like The Measure of the Magic). There is, however, one particular

The Raven's Endgame now available

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 9/20/12 5:12 PM

Last Monday, after several months of editing and refining the work, I have released my second novel: the Raven's Endgame. The Raven's Endgame takes place approximately 35 years after the events of Gift of the Destroyer

Quote

Across the world, the dream of every Seer is the same: a great wall of flame consuming everything within sight. In the midst of all this, a young girl wakes up in an alley in Chaedin. She does not know her origins. She does not know her name.…

Twitter rant

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 8/20/12 4:20 PM

Twitter can be a strange place sometimes. I've been on Twitter with my @JeroenFM account for quite a while now, since November 2009. In June last year I created my @JSteenbeeke account, primarily to stop bothering friends and co-workers with writing-related tweets (and to follow back other writers without clogging up my main timeline). Those that did want to read my writing news simply followed both accounts. Overall,

New cover for Gift of the Destroyer

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 8/16/12 12:54 PM

There might be a few tweaks here and there, but essentially the new cover for Gift of the Destroyer is done:

http://i.imgur.com/kdArW.jpg

Release plan for book 2

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 8/13/12 4:10 PM

A little over two months ago, I finished the first draft of my second novel. This was quite a happy moment for me, as it proved that writing a book was something I could do more than once, even when forced to start over due to a derailed plot line. I feel my writing has improved since I wrote Gift of the Destroyer, and I hope people will enjoy my second book as much as they enjoyed the first.

So when is it coming out?

The LendInk fiasco

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 8/10/12 9:25 AM

Sometime last week, I stumbled upon a post on the Kindleboards linking to a "piracy site" that "gave away all our books". I would provide a link to this topic but the diligent moderators have cast it into oblivion. This is probably for the best. My point is, the link got me curious, so I visited the site: www.lendink.com. After about 10 seconds of looking around I came to the conclusion that it was most definitely NOT a piracy site, but instead a matchmaking site for the

Recurring dream

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 7/31/12 8:46 AM

As those of you who follow my @ JeroenFM twitter stream know, I have very strange dreams sometimes. I even post them on this blog sometimes. Most of my dreams range from strange to bizarre. Most of those dreams are isolated. Last night, I had a relatively normal dream. But unlike most dreams, this was a recurring dream.

The dream was pretty straightforward: I had finished my Master thesis

Musical inspiration, part 2

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 7/27/12 1:18 PM

A while ago I posted a number of songs that help me focus while writing my books. I figured it was time to post a few more.

New cover incoming

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 7/23/12 8:56 AM

A few days ago I mentioned that my sales weren't going as well as I'd hoped, and that I was open to suggestions on how to fix this. I've asked a few people for honest advice, and one of my friends also responded in the comments section. After this, I also created a topic on the Kindleboards to ask for advice. Initially, I asked only for cover critique, but seeing as the people at the Kindleboards can't help wanting to help out

So how is this self-publishing adventure going so far?

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 7/18/12 11:41 AM

People often ask me how my books are doing, and as much as I'd like to answer this question with "great", that would be lying. Sure, I've sold a few books, and I've received lots of positive feedback, but the truth is that Gift of the Destroyer doesn't get that many sales. The most success I've had was when I participated in KDP Select, where I got a few hundred free downloads and a few sales afterwards.

But you don't have to take my word for it, here are the numbers:

And another draft finished

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 5/23/12 7:33 AM

Last Monday at around 22:45 Central European Time I completed the first draft of my second novel after a final one and a half hour writing session. I'm still a bit dazed by all this to be honest, mostly due to the speed at which I finished this draft.

I started writing this novel last October (I had to check my version control system for the exact date), but didn't do much work in November and December due to the release of Gift of the Destroyer. I also had to cut a whole chapter during

Gift of the Destroyer, 2nd edition

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 5/2/12 1:10 PM

In my previous post I mentioned the unexpected e-mail by Gareth, and the consequence of having to work through 21 pages of suggested revisions. It's taken me a while, but I've finally finished the suggested changes. I've already uploaded the revised versions to Lulu and Amazon.

What has changed?
The story has not been changed. Most of the changes are formatting, spelling or grammar-related. Here and there a sentence was changed to avoid certain sentence structures I tend to overuse.

The unexpected e-mail

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 4/18/12 9:08 PM

I'm not quite sure where to begin this post, as my mind's still racing because of the whole situation.� Here's the thing: I am currently going through a 21 page document describing typos, grammatical glitches, and style issues with Gift of the Destroyer. This document was made by a man named Gareth, who contacted me on Twitter yesterday, asking if he could get my e-mail address for a question regarding my book.

I've never had any questions about my books from strangers, so I was extremely

Bye bye Smashwords

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 4/3/12 12:30 PM

Regular readers of this blog know I do not use Microsoft Word. In fact, I tend to stay away from Windows software entirely when it comes to writing (even if I still consider it an adequate gaming platform). I realize I am a bit of an odd duck in this regard, but I'm a Software Engineer, and I like using my time efficiently.

As such, I never was a fan of Smashwords, for the simple reason that it requires your manuscript to be submitted as a .doc file. As I've explained waaaay back in the

Another KDP Select update

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 3/15/12 9:11 AM

As I mentioned in the previous update I intended to let the Gift of the Destroyer free promo last a whole weekend instead of just a single day to see if it led to more downloads.When running just a single day, I "scored" the following number of downloads:

Amazon.com: 195 downloads
Amazon.co.uk: 64 downloads
Amazon.de: 1 download
Amazon.it: 1 download
Total: 261 downloads

So I figured that if a single day got me that many

Interesting edits

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 3/6/12 10:00 PM

Last week I sent a work-in-progress copy of "the sequel" to a friend who for all intends and purposes does the conceptual editing for my books. As usual, his comments range from impressions about the story as a whole, my writing style, down to minor nitpicks about the story in general. Reading his e-mails is always very motivating, and I put great weight to his advice as it's always spot on. With regard to "the sequel", he had a couple of suggestions.

First of all was

KDP Select update

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 2/27/12 5:15 PM

In my previous post I mentioned trying out KDP Select to see if it would improve the exposure of Gift of the Destroyer. So far I've offered the novel for free for one day, which has led to it being downloaded about 230 times by various people, and it surging to the top 30 of the Epic Fantasy category on Amazon. Not too shabby for a first try, but after the free period was up it dropped back down in no time flat.

I have had exactly 3 sales after the free period, so I have not managed to

KDP Select experiment

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 1/31/12 12:05 PM

Seeing as my e-book sales have been somewhat disappointing since releasing Gift of the Destroyer last November, I've been looking at a number of ways to get more exposure for my book. I've submitted my book to several review sites, but most of those seem to be swamped with requests. Those that actually responded to my submissions were polite refusals, stating that the premise sounded interesting but they simply had no time. I'm sure that other authors will sympathize, and non-indie authors will note

So much for that plan

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 1/23/12 10:26 AM

A few weeks ago I posted my writing resolutions for 2012, which included the plan to write 2 chapters a week. While I've been working on my second novel quite zealously, I haven't managed to make my chapter quota even once. I'm not quite ready to abandon this goal yet, but it's probably a good idea to consider why I'm not managing to write 2 chapters a week.

1. What is a chapter anyway?

Seeing as a chapter doesn't really have an official definition, having a goal of two

Writing resolutions 2012

Jeroen Steenbeeke
Posted 1/5/12 10:16 AM

As I wrote last year: I love making new year's resolution. They tend to follow the same trend every year (which only goes to show that they're a mixed success on most occasions), so this year I also intend to make a few writing resolutions. The funny thing is, the things I want to do this year aren't that much different from the ones I did last year. Of those I did last year, I succeeded on one account: finish Gift of the Destroyer. The other two were failures. The first was "write 5000 words

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