For a very limited time you can get The Middling Affliction ebook FREE and a deeply discounted Kakistocracy ebook directly from my publisher. You can also snag free books by Alan Smale, Richard Sparks, and others, and many discounted titles. Grab yours at this link!
Meanwhile if you’re into audiobooks, all of mine are discounted at Audible at the moment as well. Just plug my name into search to access them at the lowest prices of the year.
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Publishing | Tagged: Audible, book sale, Caezik, free books, Kakistocracy, The Middling Affliction | 
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Book 2 in the Conradverse Chronicles is out today! Many of the digital retailers are still onboarding the audiobook but you should be able to buy the paperback and ebook in all the usual places, and the audiobook in several outlets already.
Here are a few of the vendors where you can find it:
Amazon (print, ebook, audio pending)
Barnes & Noble (print, ebook, audio)
Bookshop.org (print)
Spotify (audio)
Chirp (audio)
Listen to the complete chapter 1 of the audiobook on YouTube:
Read some of the early reviews of Kakistocracy:
Book series live and die by word of mouth. Please read/listen, share the book with others, and post a review or even just a rating. It will help ensure there’s a book 3!
2 Comments | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Kakistocracy, release day | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Yesterday, I got to do a fun thing that I’ve been planning for well over a year. Check it out:
When we discussed cover ideas for The Middling Affliction, the publisher was on board with the five Watch guardians on the cover but wanted them against the background of an iconic Brooklyn landmark. Brooklyn is awesome, but there aren’t that many immediately-identifiable locations like the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, etc. After some thought I settled on this extremely popular spot in Dumbo offering a view of the Manhattan skyline and a slice of the Manhattan Bridge (not the Brooklyn Bridge, which looks completely different!). The fabulous cover artist Tulio Brito made the spot look both magical and recognizable at the same time. I immediately thought it’d be cool to have a picture taken in that spot, holding the book. Except Brooklyn is huge, and Dumbo is a 45-minute drive away from my house (that’s not even assuming you might get stuck in rush hour traffic.) I was finally in the vicinity yesterday, meeting a friend who was visiting from out of town for lunch, and we got this done.
Of course, this means I will need to visit the Bowling Green by Wall St. and take a photo in front of the Charging Bull when Kakistocracy is released.
Meantime, I’ve been sharing small snippets of text from Kakistocracy on social media as the means of promoting the upcoming book and drawing attention to this campaign. I figured I should share them here as well, since not everyone stalks me on social media (their loss, I say!)
#1. Can you tell what this author’s favorite beverage is?
# 2. Those who listened to the Kickstarter campaign video will recognize what this bit is riffing off of.
#3. This one is non-fiction. Rat Rock is a real NYC landmark, located on West 114th St.
#4. Not a humorous bit but this is very relevant to the themes of the novel.
#5. This one was selected by my friend and one of my favorite writers, Ken Liu, who’s currently reading the book. He said it made him laugh out loud, prompting his kids to ask him what was going on.
There’s less than a week remaining in the campaign. Please continue letting anyone who enjoys audiobooks and a good laugh know about it! Thank you.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ufopublishing/kakistocracy-audiobook
Comments Off on Dumbo Photo-op and Kakistocracy Snippets | Publishing | Tagged: Kakistocracy, kickstarter, The Middling Affliction | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
I’m back on Kickstarter today, seeking to fund the production of an audiobook version of my latest novel. It’s a smaller project but one that is both near and dear to my heart, and also risky. But, let me start at the beginning.
Almost exactly a year ago, my funny urban fantasy novel The Middling Affliction was published. The book has done pretty well. It sold out the first print run, received some excellent reviews, and my wonderful publisher Arc Manor/Caezik picked up the sequel. Kakistocracy, book 2 of the Conradverse Chronicles is due to be published on October 17, 2023.
The audio version of The Middling Affliction was published by Orange Sky, a division of Spotify. They selected a wonderful narrator and the audiobook sold pretty well. But, unfortunately, not well enough by huge publishing company metrics to pick up the sequel.
I love audiobooks. Most of my pleasure reading is done in that format, while I reserve my screen and paper book time for reading anthology submissions, books to be blurbed, etc. So, I really wanted an audiobook of Kakistocracy to exist. I don’t have the overhead of a major corporation and so I could get this done at an affordable rate and then have total control over the audiobook, which would allow me to give away copies, run promotions, and do all sorts of things I couldn’t pull off under the watchful eye of a responsible publisher (and their even-more-responsible accountants), such as posting the entire first chapter on YouTube for free.
I reached out to Patrick Boylan, a very talented stage and screen actor who narrated The Middling Affliction, and was thrilled to learn that he’s 100% on board to narrate the sequel! So now, my goal is to offset some of the production and marketing costs of this audiobook.
So, why is this project risky? Traditionally, audiobook-focused campaigns don’t do very well on Kickstarter. People love physical books (ebooks are nice, too!) whereas Kakistocracy has a traditional publisher who has been very supportive and I don’t want to do anything that will hurt their sales or preorders in any way whatsoever. If anything, I’m doing this because I believe controlling the audiobook rights will help me promote the series and generate future sales for both myself and for them. And—again—because I adore audiobooks and really want this to exist.
So, would you please head over to the new campaign page, check out the book promo video and consider supporting this project? I’ve made a lot of my past books available as rewards alongside the audiobook itself, of course. I’m also offering copies of my upcoming 2023 anthology, The Digital Aesthete (read more about it in the campaign.) So there’s lots of goodies available.
Comments Off on Kakistocracy Audiobook Now on Kickstarter | Publishing | Tagged: Conradverse Chronicles, Kakistocracy, kickstarter | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
I’m super late in posting this update, since I announced on social media last week, but it was either finish the book the publisher has so kindly bought, or post blog updates. I opted for the former!
I do have actual breaking news to report however: as of a few minutes ago, I delivered the manuscript to Arc Manor/Caezik. The book stands at 85,000 words, and I sincerely hope it will live up to reader expectations, given the incredibly enthusiastic response to The Middling Affliction.
The announcement does not list the book title, since it’s possible that the publisher may want to change it. As it stands right now, it’s Kakistocracy. This is a fancy term for the system of government where the worst and least qualified people are in charge. Those of you who read book 1 may remember a certain individual running for mayor of NYC at the very end of the book? Yeah, so that goes about as well as you might expect. But it’s not even the biggest problem Conrad Brent has to deal with this time.
There are fae serial killers, sidhe vendettas, factions of On High and Down Below quarreling over an unassuming house in Gravesend, and, of course, industrial quantities of snark. During the course of this book you will learn the true nature and purpose of Abaddon, Inc., the fate of Mose after his disappearance will be revealed, the coolest villain from book 1 will get a redemption arc, and Conrad will be forced to make very difficult choices–again.
This book is still about a year away, but I will keep everyone updates when there’s more news!
Comments Off on Book 2 of the Conradverse Chronicles Acquired by Caezik SF&F | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Conradverse Chronicles, Kakistocracy | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction 