Revelations

Author’s Notes – Michael Anderle

January 3rd, 2016

As always, can I say with a HUGE amount of appreciation how much it means to me that you not only read this book, but you are reading these notes as well?

So, I TOTALLY flubbed counting on my fingers in the Author Notes for Alpha Class w/ TS Paul. I said I would have done six (6) author notes in December.

It was five…I mean, who screws up counting to FIVE FREAKING FINGERS? Yeah, I did. I suck at math apparently.

Good thing I’m a writer.

So, THIS is the sixth Author Note I’ve done in 30 days (since about 12/6 or so). I could ask ‘what is there to say?’ but one thing I do know, there is ALWAYS something to talk about.

For example, did you know that Urban Fantasy can kick Paranormals ASS in sales? Yeah, I didn’t when I started this or Bethany Anne might be a different character. Why do I know this? Because my own son is killing my original sales numbers so far in his first month. Sure, he has a lot of support from my fan’s and help from the Double D’s and Jeff Brown, so it is very much an apples and oranges thing.

But, you know, I had three books out my first month and the turkey might beat my first month’s income. He’s kinda SCREWED if he doesn’t get book 01 out by the end of January for beating my second month, though.

He came home from school commenting he needed to push a 1,000 words today to stay on track. However, with the time zones and school and stuff, I think he did his homework and crashed. Since he got up his blog website yesterday and put out his first snippet, I guess I can’t complain too much.

But you just KNOW I’ll be laughing at him tomorrow. (I mean, c’mon… He’s 17, I’m almost 50… He has the energy of a pack of kittens and I’m lucky to be able to climb up a flight of stairs…totally different.)

So, enough of that malcontent! :-)

You will notice I didn’t provide his name, nor a link to his book. I’ve helped that kid enough in the last couple of days and so has TS Paul…He needs to dig a little deeper and not fall asleep… Hmmmm…

(The Author is looking over his shoulder upstairs wondering if ‘that kid’ is awake or asleep… Oh… Shit, he’s awake.)

Well… crap. Now that he has come downstairs and confirmed he was awake, so much for my bashing him the last couple of paragraphs. Oh well, it’s good copy, no use wasting it.

Bwuhahahahaha.

So, since I can’t talk about him anymore, let me talk about THIS book! I had to laugh out loud when Paul mentioned the comment: “I lost November somewhere and can’t find it” in his Author Notes.

First, because that is just funny as hell. Second, (I pinged Paul — who lives in Australia — and he told me he was going through a bout of insomnia when he wrote that last line) I remember November for him. He was having a tough time all around.

Life was using him as the poster-child for ‘I’m not fair, suck it up, Buttercup!’

Then December hit, and all of my collaborators (Justin Sloan, Craig Martelle, Natalie Grey, TS Paul and Paul C. Middleton) all got their books dropping like grades of seniors suffering from senioritis. (I’ve got two seniors myself right now — the aforementioned author son and his older twin brother at home still.)

Life quit being easy-breasy street and turned into…

WHATTHEFUCKWASITHINKING BLVD.

DAAAAMN, I have been in some state of writing, editing, talking, art, covers for what seems like forever, and I don’t think it’s going to let up for a couple of months. It’s ok, as far as this stuff being work, it can be some of the best work I’ve ever been blessed to do, but me thinks I was just a wee bit cocky on how easy I thought it would be to accomplish.

However, with you fans being so damned fantastic, you are changing additional Indie Author’s lives and careers and it makes this so totally worthwhile.

How?

Because you are trying the spin-off’s, liking them, and often many of you are going to go check out the collaborators backlists which is one of the main reasons the author’s are asking to do this with me.

Now, I love hacking the system, and I have to tell you without the new collaborations I would have REALLY had a crushing author ranking in December.

Not a crushing in a good way, but crushing in a bad way.

I didn’t know it last year (too prawny — meaning too small) to know it, but December is a HUGE month for Traditional Publishers to push their big authors like crazy. That pushes a lot of us Indie’s down the ranking list even if we have been making good money. Of course, a lot of the reading money is gone just like the reading time is gone during December.

Cause… Presents! (Asking about them, finding them, buying them, wrapping them, shipping them… you get the idea.)

So, I was going UP in daily sales due to the collaborations, but going DOWN in the rankings causing me to scratch my (thankfully) full-head-of-hair head in confusion.

Once I looked to see which authors were kicking me down, I became less clueless.

Damn, I just realized I still haven’t talked that much about… this book! So, enough about that.

Let’s talk some more about Paul.

There have been a few rather loud fans asking Paul (since… uh… October?) when this book was coming and he was thinking soon… Until November used his ass for a punching bag. Then mid-December… Christmas… New Year… NOW!

I’m happy to say, my very first collaborator Paul C. Middleton has done a great job and we rarely disagreed on stuff for this book.

Except the Akio comment. Akio was replaced by Barnabas who made so much more sense (thanks D’s!)

Sometime, I’ll have to record a conversation between Paul and myself talking story, because… why not? Who doesn’t want an American and an Australian talking Russian Politics and how that would affect a fictional WereBear named Boris and the Queen Bitch?

That would be good TV right there, yes… I think it would ;-)

Peace to All, and may 2017 provide for a better, more fantastical year for each of you!