Episodios

  • Episode 295: Five Bookbub Tips For Indie Authors

    Episode 295: Five Bookbub Tips For Indie Authors
    Mar 23 2026

    In this week's episode, I share five tips for getting the most out of Bookbub Ads.

    This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Wizard-Thief, Book #2 in the Half-Elven series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store:

    THIEF50

    The coupon code is valid through March 30, 2026.
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    15 m
  • Episode 294: Winter 2025/2026 Movie Review Roundup

    Episode 294: Winter 2025/2026 Movie Review Roundup
    Mar 16 2026
    In this week's episode, I look back at the movies and streaming shows I watched over winter 2025/2026 Instead of Coupon of the Week, you can get SILENT ORDER: OMNIBUS ONE for free at my Payhip store at this link until March 31st: https://payhip.com/b/lhCyU TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 294 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March the 13th, 2026 and today we are looking at my movie and streaming TV show reviews for Winter 2025 and 2026. We'll also have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. Before we get into all that, let's start off with Coupon of the Week. Actually, we are not going to have Coupon of the Week this week because originally I scheduled a Coupon of the Week for Silent Order: Omnibus One to get you 25% off it. However, I was able to get a BookBub Featured Deal to give away Silent Order: Omnibus One for free on the 17th. So instead, the episode description will just have a link to where you can get Silent Order Omnibus One for free at my Payhip store. Next week, regular Coupon of the Week will return. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. As of this recording, I am about 51,000 words into Blade of Wraiths. I had hoped to be a little further at the end of this week, but there was quite a bit of real life stuff to do this week that took up a lot of time. I didn't make quite as much progress as I had hoped, but I did make some progress, so that's good. I'm still hoping to have the book out in April if all goes well, but we will see. I'm also 5,000 words into Dragon-Mage, which will be the sixth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series (six of nine planned). That hopefully will be out in May if all goes well. In audiobook news, the main recording on Blade of Storms (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is finished. Just have some proofing to do yet and then get through processing. Then hopefully the audiobook should be available on all platforms by next month. Recording is also underway for Wizard-Assassin, the fifth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:00 Main Topic: Movie/TV Show Review Roundup Now let's move on to our main topic this week, my movie roundup. Spring is near, so it's time for my Winter 2025/ 2026 Movie Review Roundup. I admit this is a bit shorter than my usual movie roundups because for a couple of months I didn't see anything I really felt like writing about. Not in a bad way or depressed sort of way, but I just didn't see anything I felt interested enough to write about, whether good or bad. The new year brought new movies to watch and now we have enough for a Movie Review Roundup. As always, the movies and shows are in order from my least favorite to my most favorite. The reviews are based on nothing objective, but only my own thoughts and opinions. First up is Operation Fortune, which came out in 2023. This is a Guy Richie action comedy with Jason Statham in the lead, which probably describes all you need to know about it. Like if you say the phrase "Guy Richie Action Comedy with Jason Statham in the Lead", this would be the movie that popped into your head. Statham plays Orson Fortune, an elite special forces operative. When a mysterious device is stolen by terrorists, the UK government sends Fortune to retrieve it. Fortune teams up with a group of specialists and then sets out to punch bad guys and save the day. Some good action sequences, some funny bits, and Hugh Grant was hilarious as the evil arms broker billionaire, but definitely a paint by number action movie. Enjoyable to watch, but nothing deep. Overall Grade: C Next up is Legend, which came out in 1985. This is a very weird movie told as sort of an '80s style dark fairy tale. The premise is that the Lord of Darkness wants to destroy all light (as lords of darkness are wont to do). But to do that, he needs to kill a pair of unicorns. He sends his goblin minions to do the deed. Meanwhile, Princess Lili is in love with Jack, a forest child who lives in harmony with various elves and dwarves and other natural creatures. When the goblins kill one of the unicorns and take the other back to Darkness's subterranean fortress, Jack and Lili have to team up to rescue the last unicorn and defeat Darkness. The creature work and all the puppets and suchlike look amazing. Poor Tim Curry delivered an excellent performance under that mountain of prosthetics he had to wear as Darkness. That said, I don't think Tom Cruise had quite learned how to act yet, and I'm afraid he kind of stood around with a blank expression most of the time. So I'd say Legend is an interesting fantasy classic, but definitely very niche. Overall Grade: B- Next up is Anaconda, which came out in 2025. This is a very meta, bonkers, and yet nonetheless entertaining comedy movie. It ...
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    15 m
  • Episode 293: Interconnected Series, Pros & Cons

    Episode 293: Interconnected Series, Pros & Cons
    Mar 9 2026
    In this week we look at the advantages and disadvantages of writing interconnected series. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Blade of the Elves, Book #3 in the Dragonskull series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: ELVES50 The coupon code is valid through March 16, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 293 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 6th, 2026. Today we are looking at interconnected series/whether they're a good idea or a bad idea for a writer to pursue. We also have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Blade of the Elves, Book #3 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is ELVES50. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes. The coupon code is valid through March the 16th, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook as we head into spring, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. Cloak of Summoning is done and it is out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, Smashwords, and my own Payhip store. It has done quite well and actually got to number one in its category on Amazon US as of this recording, which is all the more impressive because on March 5th, the day my newsletter went out, Amazon US was down for a significant chunk of the afternoon. Despite that, that doesn't seem to have slowed down Cloak of Summoning any, and it is still going strong. So thank you all very much for that. And as I said, you can now get the book at all the ebook stores. Now that Cloak of Summoning is out and published, my main project is Blade of Wraiths, the fourth book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I'm currently 28,000 words into it. So I'm hoping if all goes well and nothing comes up, I can have that out sometime in April. My secondary project is Dragon-Mage, which will be the sixth book in the Half-Elven Thief series and I am 1,000 words into that. That will take over as my main project once Blade of Wraiths is done, and hopefully that will be out in May, if all goes well and nothing crazy happens. In audiobook news, Cloak of Titans, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy, is now available at almost all the audiobook stores, including Audible, Apple, Amazon, Google Play, Kobo, and the other major ones. So you can get that and listen to it at your audiobook store of choice. Brad Wills is currently recording Blade of Storms, which was the third book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, and he is about halfway through recording that. So hopefully we should have that out in April sometime, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. With that, let's move on to our main topic. 00:02:51 Main Topic of the Week: Interconnected Series Our main topic is today we're going to talk about whether interconnected series are a good thing or a bad thing. First of all, what are interconnected series? Interconnected series have different standalone stories, but share at least some characters and locations from previous series. Many of the ideas and themes carry over as well, but not always. Romance writers use interconnected series. A couple or couples featured in previous series make an appearance in a new place or with a new group of people. Author Abby Jimenez has characters in her romances occupy the same social orbit in Minnesota across multiple series (and of course, they all share a love of the author's real life Minnesota bakery, Nadia Cakes). There's something of a joke among romance writers that your series can be as long as you want it to be, just make sure that the heroine has a large number of single/unattached sisters so that after the heroine has their happily ever after, you can go one by one down through the sisters and make sure they find their love interests and that they too can have their happily ever afters and extend the series for as long as you want. One example of a non-romance interconnected series from books I've written would be Sevenfold Sword, which is a direct follow up to Frostborn. The new series involves Ridmark, Calliande, and the other characters from the Frostborn series, but they are in a new location with new allies, new adventures, and new adversaries. A reader could (and has) read the Sevenfold series without having read Frostborn, but Frostborn fans get more time with characters they like and there are nods to the previous series. I fully intended Sevenfold Sword to be a standalone series, but what I ...
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    20 m
  • Episode 292: The Four Thomases Of The English Reformation (with one bonus Thomas!)

    Episode 292: The Four Thomases Of The English Reformation (with one bonus Thomas!)
    Mar 2 2026
    In this week's episode, I take a historical digression to look at the four major Thomases of the English Reformation - Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store: QUEST25 The coupon code is valid through March 9 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 292 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 27th, 2026. Today we are taking a digression into history by looking at the four Thomases of the English Reformation (with one bonus Thomas). We'll also have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing and publishing projects. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is QUEST25 and as always, the links to the store and the coupon code will be available in the show notes of this episode. This coupon code is valid through March 9th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I am very nearly done with Cloak of Summoning. As of this recording, I am 35% of the way through the final editing pass. This episode should be coming out on, let's see, March the 2nd. I'm hoping Cloak of Summoning will be available a few days (hopefully like one or two days) after this episode goes live, but we'll see how things go. In any event, it should be out in very early March, which is not far away at this point. I'm also 14,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, the fourth book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. Hopefully that will be out in April, if all goes well. That's my secondary project right now, but once it gets promoted to primary project once Cloak of Summoning is available, my new secondary project will be Dragon Mage, which will be the sixth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. I'm looking forward to that since it is going to bring to an end a lot of ongoing plot threads. So it should be quite a fun book to write and hopefully to read. That should hopefully be out in May or possibly June, depending on how things go. In audiobook news, Cloak of Titans, the audiobook narrated by Hollis McCarthy, should be available in more audiobook stores than it was this time last week, though it's still not on Amazon, Audible, or Apple. Brad Wills is working on recording Blade of Storms and I think the first six chapters are done. Hopefully we should have those audiobooks available to you before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:18 Main Topic: The Four Thomases of the English Reformation Now without further ado, let's get to our main topic and it's time for another of my favorite topics overall, a digression into obscure points of history. I've mentioned before that Wolf Hall (both the TV show and the book) is a lot easier to understand if you are at least passingly familiar with the key figures of the English Reformation, which happened during the reign of King Henry VIII. But who were these key figures? I had a history professor who said that to understand the English Reformation, you need to know about the four Thomases of the English Reformation: Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer, since each one of them altered events in a major way. Fun fact: only one of the four died from natural causes and right before he was about to go on trial for treason, which would have likely ended with his execution. The English Reformation was a tumultuous time and the Tudor court was not a place for the faint of heart or the morally scrupulous. So let's talk about the four Thomases and one bonus Thomas today. But first to understand them, we should look at three background trends that converged and boiled over during their lifetimes. #1: Henry VIII needs an heir. King Henry VIII was quite famously married six times and executed two of his wives in his quest for a male heir. To the modern era, this sounds odd and chauvinistic, but one of the errors of studying history is assuming that the residents of the past had any interest in 21st century standards of behavior. By the standards of Henry's time, having a male heir to assume the kingdom after his death was absolutely vital. In fact, an argument could be made that Henry was attempting to act responsibly by going to such lengths to father a male heir, though naturally he went about it in a spectacularly destructive and self-absorbed way. Remember, Henry's father, Henry VII, came to the throne after a 30-year civil war, and there were noble families that thought they had a better claim to the throne than Tudors and would be happy to exercise it. A good comparison is that the lack of a male heir for ...
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    28 m
  • Episode 291: Generative AI Overhype, William Miller, and the Great Disappointment

    Episode 291: Generative AI Overhype, William Miller, and the Great Disappointment
    Feb 23 2026
    In this week's episode, we take a look at hysteria over AI, and compare it to past religious movements like William Miller's Great Disappointment. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief, Book #1 in the Half-Elven Thief series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store: RIVAH50 The coupon code is valid through March 2, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 291 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 28th, 2026, and today we're looking at AI hysteria and whether or not AI gives any actual benefits to people. We also have Coupon of the Week, progress updates on my current writing projects, and also Question the Week, where we talk to people about AI. But first, let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is RIVAH50. This coupon code will be valid through March 2, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook as we exit winter and come into spring, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report that the rough draft of Cloak of Summoning is done. It turned out to be just about as long as Cloak of Worlds, maybe a thousand words shorter. I am about 20% through the first round of editing, and I am hopeful that that book will be out sometime in March, probably the first week of March if all go as well. I've also written a short story called Dragon Claw that newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook format when Cloak of Summoning comes out, which as I said will hopefully be in early March. I'm also 11,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, the fourth book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, and that will be my main project once Cloak of Summoning is published. In audiobook news, the audiobook of Blade of Shadows (as narrated by Brad Wills) is now out at almost all the stores, so you can get it at Audible, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, and the other main stores. Cloak of Titans (as narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is done and is currently rolling out to the stores. I think as of right now, you can get it at Google Play, Kobo, and my own Payhip store, but it should be showing up on Audible and the other main stores before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:01:56 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. For the first Question of the Week of 2026 and this week's question: have you personally derived any benefits or experienced any negatives from the rise of generative AI? And this question was inspired by the topic of this week's post, obviously enough since we're talking about AI. I should note that this is a contentious topic with divergent opinions, and so I asked people to remain civil in the comments and they definitely were, so thank you for everyone for that. Now let's have some opinions on AI before I tell you how AI has positively and mostly negatively affected my life. Joachim says: I have not used AI for private purposes. My Con: My Chromebook might be obsolete rather sooner than later. In my company, we use an AI, which is helpful. It has all the knowledge articles, so you can ask, how do I do this or that? The company's Con: laptop prices are going up. Eddie says: My Cons are much the same as yours. My Pros are using it to create images for tabletop games to help players visualize monsters and NPCs. I have found it effective in turning voice to text meeting notes into meeting minutes and actions. Jesse says: Software engineer here. I have found it helpful when I'm working on something in a language I'm not as familiar with the syntax. As a "how I might do this" learning tool, it's not bad. As a "do this for me/vibe code" thing, no thanks…too much trust. John says: Yes and no. I was in an AI startup that stopped paying me and my team for two months then let us go. We're currently suing them for back pay, but the tech worked and is still working. I also work in ad tech. Devs are trying to get more productive using AI tools. It's hit and miss as far as I can tell, but using traditional machine learning and data science to optimize marketing has worked for decades and still works, but that's not what people consider to be AI nowadays. Also drove across the country last August and used ChatGPT to plan my trip, and that works splendidly. I think John might win here for largest negative in his comment though, to be fair, that's more for business reasons than for AI itself, though I, for his sake, I'm pleased he was able to use ChatGPT to plan his drive across the country and ChatGPT didn't send him driving off a cliff someplace. Jenny says: I'm so over everyone trying to push ...
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    14 m
  • Episode 290: Five Instagram Marketing Tips For Writers

    Episode 290: Five Instagram Marketing Tips For Writers
    Feb 16 2026
    In this week's episode, we take a look at five Instagram tips for writers, and we also discuss recent Facebook ad changes. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Night series at my Payhip store: CAINA25 The coupon code is valid through February 23, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 290 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 13th, 2026, and today we're looking at five tips for Instagram marketing for writers. We will also have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing and publishing projects. So let's first start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Night series at my Payhip store, and that code is CAINA25. The coupon code is valid through February the 23rd, 2026 so if you need a new ebook for this winter, we've got you covered. And now on my current writing and publishing projects. I'm currently 91,000 words into Cloak of Summoning, which will be the 14th book in my Cloak Mage urban fantasy series. I am hoping to finish the rough draft in the coming week, and then it's going to need a fair bit of editing because I've decided to change things and move things around to improve it. So if all goes well, I hope that book will be out in the first week of March, assuming nothing comes up before then. I am also 8,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, which will be the fourth book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, and I am hoping that will be out in April, if all goes well. In audiobook news, Blade of Storms is completely finished and I believe as of right now you can buy it at my Payhip store, Kobo, and Google Play, and it is currently working its way through processing at all the other audiobook stores. Hollis McCarthy has finished recording Cloak of Titans, which is the 11th book in the Cloak Mage urban fantasy series, and if all goes well, my proofer should be able to listen to it this week and then hopefully the audiobook will be available to you sometime in March. So that's where I'm at with my current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. 00:01:51 Thoughts on Facebook Ads Before we get to our main topic, I want to have a brief digression into another part of the Meta empire, specifically Facebook ads and my recent experiences therein. I've mentioned before that I stopped using Facebook ads in October since the Advantage Plus system, which is their AI targeting system, was giving me headaches. For a brief summary of my experience with Facebook ads. I started using them in 2019, did really well with them in 2020, then Facebook randomly started banning accounts during this craziness of summer 2020. I got my account reinstated, used them less frequently more and more until October of 2025 when I stopped using them altogether because Advantage Plus made targeting so hard. Since then, I've relied mostly on Amazon ads and BookBub ads to good results. However, I've also read various blog posts from people who have been struggling with the Advantage Plus system as well, and they've been investigating it thoroughly as internet marketers tend to do, and they've uncovered something interesting that isn't mentioned at all in Facebook's documentation about the new changes, specifically that Advantage Plus uses the text content of your ad to target it. Under the old system, it didn't work that way at all. You would select interests that match your ad, usually popular authors in the fantasy genre (like J.R.R Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, George R.R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, and so forth) and then you wrote the text of the ad and supplied an image, which was usually called a creative. The creative was like 80% of a successful Facebook ad. You just needed a good picture, more or less. The Advantage Plus system by contrast targets according to the text in the ad. So while you still need a good creative, you need to be precise in the ad text. So for example, you need to write something like this: "Fans of The Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, Mistborn, and Game of Thrones will love this free epic fantasy available for Kindle readers." Now, I found the arguments in these blog posts persuasive, so I decided to give it a try. The results are on the better side of okay-ish, I will admit. I didn't lose any money and did make a bit of money. The results were definitely better than I expected, though the ad using Advantage Plus typically only has a shelf life of six to 10 days before it stops working. That said, the old system was still better because the interests were more granular and I could assign them more precisely. I used to be able to advertise Frostborn, Cloak Mage, The Ghosts, and Demonsouled all at the same time because I could target the ads so precisely and granularly. There's absolutely no way I could do that now because the ...
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    11 m
  • Episode 289: Using The Universal Monsters To Write Compelling Villains

    Episode 289: Using The Universal Monsters To Write Compelling Villains
    Feb 9 2026
    In this episode, we look at how the classic black & white Universal movie monsters tap into universal fears, and how you can use that to create compelling villains in your book. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Shield of the Knight, Book #2 in the Dragonskull series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: GARETH50 The coupon code is valid through February 16, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 289 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 6, 2026, and today we are discussing how you can use the Universal monsters to write interesting villains. Before we get into that, we will have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing and publishing projects. First up is Coupon of the Week and this week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Shield of the Knight, Book #2 of my Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store. And that code is GARETH50. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through February 16th, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook to get you through the middle of February, we have got you covered. Now let's see where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. As of this recording, I am 63,000 words into Cloak of Summoning and I am almost but not quite halfway through my outline. So this is definitely going to be a long book and it's probably going to come out in the first part of March because it's long enough that it will take me a while to finish writing it and then to edit and proof it and everything else. So I'm making good progress on it. It was a very productive week, but I am still not even halfway through, so I think it's probably going to be March. I am also 5,000 words into Blade of Wraiths. That will be the fourth book of my epic fantasy Blades of Ruin series, and that will probably be in April, if all goes well. In audiobook news, Blade of Shadows (as narrated by Brad Wills) is done and it is slowly starting to roll out to the various platforms. I think as of this recording, the only place it is live right now is my Payhip store and Google Play, but hopefully by the time I record the next episode, it will be available at even more stores than that. Hollis McCarthy is working on Cloak of Titans and I think she's about halfway or two thirds of the way through recording, so we should be able to get that to you before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:13 Main Topic: Universal Monsters, Universal Fears, and Creating Villains Now our main topic, which is the Universal monsters and the universal fears and how you can use that to create villains. One idea a writer can use to create compelling villains is to tap into some of the universal fears, and in some ways, those universal fears are embodied by the classic Universal monster movies. I mentioned before that in Halloween of 2025, I saw that a bunch of the old black and white Universal monster movies were on Prime Video. So I watched them for the first time since I was a kid, and I was pleased to see that they held up pretty well for movies that are nearly a century old, especially considering these were some of the very first movies ever made with sound and the filmmakers were kind of figuring it out as they went along. Dracula is a bit uneven because they tried to cram the stage play version of the book into a 70 minute movie, which really doesn't work, though Bela Lugosi's performance as Dracula and Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing really carried the movie and helped define the characters in the public eye, but the others are all good and Bride of Frankenstein is legitimately a great movie, but why have these particular movies lasted so long in the public consciousness? For that matter, why do people keep coming back to new versions and new stories of Dracula and Frankenstein's Creature and all the others? Partly it's because these characters are in the public domain and you can use them without getting sued. True, but there's a lot of stuff in the public domain that doesn't see the light of day nearly as often as these classic monsters. I think it's because the classic monsters tap into the universal (small U) fears or classic archetypes of the things that people fear in real life. It's interesting to note that most of the classic Universal monsters were either originally humans who became monstrous or creations by humans that turn monstrous. Essentially, the monsters tap into archetypal fears and are exaggerated versions of villains and monsters we might actually encounter on a day-to-day basis. What do I mean? Let's expound. First up, Dracula. Count Dracula is in some ways the easiest ...
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    13 m
  • Episode 288: Five Additional Business Lessons For Indie Authors From Brandon Sanderson's Apple TV Deal

    Episode 288: Five Additional Business Lessons For Indie Authors From Brandon Sanderson's Apple TV Deal
    Feb 2 2026
    In this week's episode, we look at five business lessons for indie authors from Brandon Sanderson's recent Apple TV deal. Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week! This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Silent Order series at my Payhip store: CALASKAR25 The coupon code is valid through February 9, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 288 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January the 30th, 2026 and today we are discussing five additional business lessons for indie authors from Brandon Sanderson in the aftermath of his recent Apple TV deal. Before we get into that, we will have a Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing and publishing progress. First up is Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Silent Order series at my Payhip store. And that coupon code is CALASKAR25. And as always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the show notes of this episode. This coupon code will be valid through February the 9th, 2026. So if you need a new science fiction ebook to read for this winter, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. Now that Blade of Storms is out and is doing well (thank you all for that), my main project is now Cloak of Summoning, and I am 34,000 words into it as of this recording, which puts me on Chapter 6 of 23 in the outline. I think it's probably going to come out in March because February is a short month and Cloak of Summoning is going to be a long book. So hopefully it should come out early in March. I'm also 1,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, which will be the fourth book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. That will be my main project once Cloak of Summoning is done. So hopefully that will come out in probably April or thereabouts. In audiobook news, recording is very nearly completed for Blade of Shadows, the second book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, and that will be narrated by Brad Wills. Hollis McCarthy is currently working on the audiobook of Cloak of Titans, and I think she's about halfway through. So hopefully we should have some new audiobooks for you to listen to before much longer. And that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. 00:02:04 Main Topic of the Week: 5 Business Lessons For Indie Authors From Brandon Sanderson Now onto our main topic this week, five additional business lessons for indie authors from Brandon Sanderson. And I think it is objectively factual to say that Brandon Sanderson is probably the most successful fantasy author who is currently publishing. Beyond the sheer number of sales, what many find most impressive about what he's achieved is his company, Dragonsteel Entertainment, that he has been able to create. It consists of Kickstarter campaign work, special book editions, a successful convention, merchandising (including an RPG), and a whole slew of other things. Even for authors like me operating on a much smaller scale, there are a few things to learn from his success at publishing and creating a specialized empire. Now what's amusing is the notes for the show were prepared a couple of weeks ago, but a few days ago, the news was announced that Brandon Sanderson entered into a licensing deal with Apple TV to produce adaptations based on his Mistborn and Stormlight Archive series. As the author himself said on Reddit, "The decision to pick Apple was due to two factors. First, the levels of approvals and control. Apple wants to be a true partner with me and they feel like they really get what I want to do. Second, their track record. Apple does fewer things, but higher quality than some other studios. I find virtually everything of theirs I watch is excellent and creator driven." So that and an impressive degree of creative control he wrung out of Apple for this and if you are at all familiar with the history of movie adaptations, you know that the author getting any degree of creative control does not happen all that often. Usually what happens is the studio cranks out the adaptation that butchers the book and then it disappears into obscurity. So this actually happens to tie in quite well with the original theme of today's episode, which is the Five Business Lessons from Brandon Sanderson. He was able to reach this level of success by following these five business lessons consistently over a period of decades. So we will go into that now. #1: Find a way to meet fan demand and find gaps in the market. Sanderson was ahead of traditional publishing when it came to responding to fan requests for high quality letter bound or other enhanced special editions. By focusing on this gap in the market, he was able to meet a need expressed by his most passionate fans and get an additional round of sales from existing ...
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