Category: Cool Websites

Spring Book Sale

Posted on Posted in Cheap Books, Cool Books, Cool Websites, Fantasy, Hunter Healer King, Marketing, Mel Dunay, Space Opera, Steampunk, Weird Science8 Comments

It’s time for the latest Book Sale hosted by Hans G. Schantz, where indie authors from across genres join together to offer great stories at great prices. 

I’m glad to be participating once again. This event has always been a great opportunity for readers and writers to connect through their shared love of good books, without all the noise. 

My contribution this quarter is Undead Flight, the second book in my Hunter Hunter Trilogy. It’s a gaslamp fantasy where our horse-loving heroine faces vampires and zombies ON AN AIRSHIP, while sorting out her feelings for a certain sharp-dressed monster hunter.  It continues on from the first book in the trilogy in terms of the setting and the leads’ dynamic, but stands on its own as a story. 

You can find it, and many others, at the sale here. 

As always, I’m thankful for everyone who stops by, whether to browse, buy, or spread the word. Every bit of attention helps keep indie pub going. 

Happy reading! 

Blurbing With Claude AI: Slaying a Tyrant

Posted on Posted in Cool Websites, Editing, Fantasy, Gladiator, LLMs, Marketing, Mel Dunay, Oldblood Series, Weird ScienceTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

(Disclaimer: some of my past “blurbing with LLMs” posts have been very TL;DR because I included a lot of unnecessary fluff that the LLMs churned up and that I didn’t use. This prompt below helps cut down on the fat, so, although this is several paragraphs long, it is much shorter than those previous posts.)

First off, I prompted Claude in this manner: You are a book marketing expert trying to help a fantasy writer. Please help her improve her blurbs. The first novel in her fantasy series is Slaying a Tyrant by Mel Dunay, which may be part of your training data, if so, please feel free to refer to your training data. The problem is that the Empire mentioned in the blurb is mostly a background issue throughout the series [then I spelled out what role the Empire plays throughout the series, and fed Claude the existing blurb for Slaying a Tyrant].

Continue reading “Blurbing With Claude AI: Slaying a Tyrant” →

Happy Valentine’s Day…And A Book Sale!

Posted on Posted in Cheap Books, Cool Books, Cool Websites, Fantasy, Marketing, Space Opera, Star Wars, Steampunk, Weird ScienceLeave a comment

Hans G. Schantz has graciously included Undead Flight in his quarterly book sale, covering over 200 books! Undead Flight, the second book in the Hunter Healer King series, is just 99 cents USD, like many of the books in the sale. The rest of the books in the sale are free. With so many books from so many different authors, I’m sure there’s something for everyone in there, so please be sure and check it out!

Instead of Weird Wednesday, Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale

Posted on Posted in Cheap Books, Cool Books, Cool Websites, Fantasy, Freebie, Mel Dunay, MythLeave a comment

Hans G. Schantz is once again hosting the Based Book Sale on his substack and has graciously agreed to include Wolf’s Trail, currently listed at 99 cents. Click here to check out a wiiiide selection of discounted books!

If you’ve already read Wolf’s Trail, here’s a quick reminder that its sequel, Undead Flight, just released, and is free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

How to Use Claude.ai for Cleaning Up Transcriptions

Posted on Posted in Cool Websites, Dictation, Editing, LLMs, Uncategorized, Weird Science, WritingTagged , , , , , , 5 Comments

This article is primarily about the Claude.ai feature called “projects,” but his example project is about using Claude to cleanup the nasty, incoherent speech-to-text output that Word and similar programs spit out. I’ve tested the commands involved in the free version of Claude, and they work reasonably well. I still went back and reworded and expanded a bunch of stuff after I used it, but it was nice having something that would reliably cut out the nonsense words and repetitions and add some kind of punctuation. Here are the commands; just copy and paste into Claude’s chat window, and upload a short document with your latest chunk of dictation. As always with AI, check the company’s privacy and training policies before feeding it anything of a personal or sensitive nature.

Continue reading “How to Use Claude.ai for Cleaning Up Transcriptions” →

Writing Vacay, Day 1

Posted on Posted in Cool Websites, history, WritingTagged Leave a comment

I took the four days after Memorial Day off, planning to do kind of a writing staycation. My goal was try and do a thousand words a day, stretch goal of 1300 words a day, preferably on my main WIP (sequel to Wolf’s Trail), but anything really would do. First Day’s results:

  • 300ish words on WIP
  • 1322 words on a long, rambling blog post draft I might not put up.
  • Well, I made word count, but at what cost?

Weird Wednesday: Doctor Who and the 7 Golden Vampires

Posted on Posted in Cool Websites, Fantasy, history, Steampunk, Weird Science, World BuildingLeave a comment

To those who are not familiar with the movies and tv show being referenced, no explanation is possible. To those who are, no explanation is necessary. To those who whine about how awful the source movies are: I have so little respect for your opinions that I am not even doing you the courtesy of putting these beneath the fold.

Spring Book Sale

Posted on Posted in Cheap Books, Cool Books, Cool Websites, Fantasy, Freebie, Space Opera, Steampunk, WritingTagged , , , Leave a comment

Happy (Upcoming) Easter!

This year, I’m participating in AetherCzar’s Based Spring Book Sale. 

Steampunk author Hans G. Schantz (aka AetherCzar) has graciously included Shadow Captain in his sale. As usual Hans pulls together dozens of indie and small-press titles, which emphasize fun and escapism over Serious Messages and the grinding concerns of the real world, all on sale or for free. I hope you can find something you like here.