Dan McGirt

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Dan McGirt: Hero of the Old West?

Greetings,  Loyal Reader!

This has little to do with Jason Cosmo, except that it is something I stumbled across while searching my name on Amazon. My own books turned up, of course, but so did a title called Oklahoma Heroes: A Tribute to Fallen Law Enforcement Officers by Ron Owens. The book seems to be a compilation of the stories of Oklahoma law enforcement officers who fell in the line of duty.

One such story was this:

On February 5, 1906, Seminole Lighthorse Policeman Billy Cully was found dead in a shack near his home in Sasakwa. His skull had been crushed with a blunt instrument and he had been trying to serve an arrest warrant on Alex Harjo for a fight that had occurred just before the previous Christmas.

Harjo was arrested along with Barney Fixico, Dan McGirt and a man known only as Wildcat. After an investigation, Harjo and Fixico were charged with the murder on March 8 and the other two men were released.

This just cries out for more details, doesn’t it? I don’t really know what was going on here, or how my historic namesake got mixed up in the whole affair, but I think the most logical explanation is that at some point in my future, I will travel back in time to early 20th century Oklahoma. There, I will join up with “a man known only as Wildcat” and together we will ride the range, helping settlers in trouble and dispensing our own brand of frontier justice. Clearly,  Wildcat and I were falsely accused of the heinous murder committed by Alex Harjo and Barney Fixico. In fact, I bet Harjo and Fixico tried to frame us! Unfortunately, for them, I’ve seen that movie many times and knew exactly what to do. (Or will know. You know what I mean.) Wildcat and I busted out of the local jail and — with the vengeful Seminole Lighthorse Police on our trail — managed to find the evidence to clear our names and send the real killers to the gallows.  Then, before the grateful townspeople could thank us, we rode off into the sunset, looking for other wrongs to right.

Knowing this is in my future, I better practice my riding and six-gun shooting skills. The time displacement could occur without warning!  If it does become necessary for me to complete the Jason Cosmo series in the past, I will leave the manuscripts in a strong box at the Wells Fargo bank. Just so you know.

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Smashwords interview with Dan McGirt about HERO WANTED

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

My first interview about Hero Wanted was with Mark Coker, founder and CEO of  Smashwords, where you can still download the free Hero Wanted ebook.

Mark and his team at Smashwords have created a great, easy-to-use ebook publishing platform for non-techies like me. Our interview was more about why I chose Smashwords than about the literary merits, if any, of Hero Wanted, but I got in a bit of shameless self-promotion. You see, he’s selling Smashwords while I’m selling my book. It’s comedy gold! Give it a read!

Grab the free Hero Wanted ebook! And order the print edition! Then call it a day — I am!

Okay, I’ll stop yelling now.

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Jason Cosmo HERO WANTED launches today!

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

Today is the day! The official launch date of Hero Wanted!

It is also — by design, not coincidence — the 20th anniversary of the release of my first book, Jason Cosmo. I was going to write a lengthy retrospective, but forget that. The future is now!

Thank you to all the Loyal Readers who have emailed and commented and otherwise contacted me over the years. Without your support, Hero Wanted would not have been published. This was a big project to both revise the text and handle the publishing aspects. I did it because so many Loyal Readers have been in touch to say they enjoyed my books and to ask when or if I would ever have another book out. Well, the answer to those question are “yes” and “today” and thanks for asking!

What next? Well, I’ve got two big tasks on my to-do list. One is to spread the word about Hero Wanted. I appreciate my Loyal Readers, but I don’t think there a quite enough of you! Getting Hero Wanted ready for publication was a bigger job than I expected. As a result I did not have time or mental bandwidth to do much advance promotion for the book. Ideally, you start getting the word out through reviews, media, guest blogging, etc. several months ahead of the release date. Faced with a choice of pushing back the release date so I could do more pre-launch promotion or doing what amounts to a soft launch, I decided to stick with the August release. ((My last book, Dirty Work, came out in January 1993. I think that is a long enough hiatus!))

Putting on my publisher hat for a moment, while the Jason Cosmo series is a labor of love, I do need to sell some books to keep it going. The good news is I don’t need to sell millions of copies. Not that I would mind that! But just a few thousand sales will be enough to get us to book two.

Every book counts — so I would appreciate your help in finding new Loyal Readers. Nothing is more valuable in getting readers to try a new author than a friend’s recommendation, so if you know someone who might enjoy Hero Wanted, please tell them about it.

You can also recommend the book on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace or other online spaces. (And please friend or follow me on any of the above!) Once you’ve read the book, you can also post a review on Amazon, Smashwords, or other retail sites if you care to. Rave reviews are welcome, but honest reviews are more important. ((I’ll post on this another time, but I’ve actually made notes for future revisions based on critical, but thoughtful reviews of my books. I’m under no illusion that my prose is flawless or my writing can’t be improved.))

That brings me to my second main task: getting Noble Cause ready for publication. Having learned much from the process of publishing Hero Wanted, I hope the next project will proceed more smoothly, but just to be safe I’m not going to announce a launch date until I’m sure I can meet it and get all the necessary advance work done.

Bottom line — I loved writing Hero Wanted and I hope you’ll enjoy reading it!

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Where to buy HERO WANTED by Dan McGirt

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

With the official launch date of August 1 coming up fast, listings for Hero Wanted are starting to appear with the various online booksellers.  As noted yesterday, first out of the gate — or at least the first I noticed — was BarnesandNoble.com. B&N is offering the book at a 10% discount, which seems to be the best U.S. price so far.

Today I also found listings at Amazon.com and Amazon UK.  Again, these are for pre-orders, because the book is not officially in stock yet. Here is what I have so far. If you find the book listed elsewhere please let me know or share the information with Loyal Readers here in the comments.

Barnes & Noble —   $13.49 if you are a B&N member.

Amazon.com —  $14.99

Outside US:

Amazon UK —  £10.99 (That’s full price, in pounds sterling)

Amazon Canada —   CDN$ 20.88 (But looks like that is through a reseller)

Amazon France —   €10.59 (An 11% discount!)  Yes, there is an Amazon France! It’s in French.

Amazon Germany — €19.99 If you’re paying in Euros, I’d order from France. German is charging above cover price?

Amazon Japan —  ￥ 1,778 That’s all I could decipher.  I don’t read Japanese.

I should note that Hero Wanted has not been translated into these other languages — this is the English language edition being offered at the various international Amazons.

As I learn of more outlets, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, you can still be the first to review Hero Wanted at any of the above sites! Just saying.

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Jason Cosmo HERO WANTED: On Sale Soon!

SPECIAL ALERT! UPDATE: Forget what I said below:  You can pre-order Hero Wanted at BarnesandNoble.com!

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

A quick update on the Trove Books print edition of Hero Wanted. I have received the first copy from the printer.  It looks good. It looks real good. Right now it is the only copy in existence, so I take it with me everywhere!

However, copy #1 will soon be joined by many more. I’ve ordered a couple of cases of books to bring with me to Dragon*Con 2009 — where I will be a guest, appearing September 5-7 in Atlanta.  If you haven’t got your copy of Hero Wanted by Labor Day weekend, come to Dragon*Con. I’ll have one with your name on it!

After you pay for it, of course.

As for regular sales channels, right now I’m waiting for data about Hero Wanted‘s availability to migrate out to booksellers. Until a book shows up in their computers, it doesn’t really exist, unfortunately.  I hope Hero Wanted will be included in the data stream by the beginning of August — at which point it will be available for purchase from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other online booksellers or through your local bricks-and-mortar bookstore.

Believe me — I’ll let you know as soon as that happens! Until then, keep watching the skies.

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Jason Cosmo HERO WANTED Ebook

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

The print edition of Hero Wanted is in its final stages. I’ll let you know as soon as it it available.

In the meantime, you can read Hero Wanted right now as an ebook. It is available as a free download at Smashwords.com

More than 200 people have already downloaded Hero Wanted in the past week — and at least one Loyal Reader has read the whole thing!

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Jason Cosmo HERO WANTED: Read it now!

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

The Jason Cosmo HERO WANTED free ebook is going fast! More than 100 copies were downloaded in the first 48 hours. Not quite “The Plant” numbers, but not bad considering the ebook was launched late on a Saturday night, with no advance warning. (I’m just unpredictable that way.)

Now, if you don’t care for ebooks and want to wait until the print edition is out, that is fine by me. But if you’ve been waiting ever so patiently for HERO WANTED and just can’t wait any longer to start reading it, now is your chance. Just pop over to Smashwords.com and get your very own digital copy in one of seven delicious ebook formats. Javascript! HTML!  Epub!  Mobipocket!  Rocky Road!

By the way, if you are one of the 100+ already reading HERO WANTED, please let me know what you think. You can comment at JasonCosmo.com, on my Facebook page, or write to me at Dan @ JasonCosmo.com. I hope you’re enjoying the book and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Jason Cosmo HERO WANTED Ebook Released!

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

Can’t wait for the print edition of HERO WANTED to get here?  Me either!

But you don’t have to wait any longer to start reading it –Trove Books has released an ebook edition of HERO WANTED on Smashwords.com!

And the best part? It’s free!  Read HERO WANTED by Dan McGirt for free, right now, at Smashwords.com.

Hero Wanted (2009)

Hero Wanted (2009)

The ebooks on Smashwords can be read online using their online readers (though I think that would be fairly tedious), or they can be downloaded to other reading devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader or IRex Iliad, ((Whatever that is.)) or to other e-reading devices.  (I own none of the above, so you’ll have to let me know how the reading experience is.)

Smashwords ebooks are completely DRM-free. ((Because I despise DRM and I trust you not to sell bootleg copies in Bulgaria. Chances are someone beat you to that anyway.))

Check it out! Let me know what you think. And feel free to share this link to the HERO WANTED ebook with friends: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2922

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Jason Cosmo and the Hobgoblins of Consistency

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” I’m sure this quote never quite meant to me what Emerson intended, because I always picture cantankerous D&D hobgoblins saying foolish things and clubbing people who disagree with them.

What has this to do with Jason Cosmo? As any reader of an ongoing fantasy, science fiction, detective, or other series knows, eventually even the most careful author will contradict him- or herself regarding the established facts of the fictional world.  In Book 1, Throndor the Barbarian was an only child, but in Book 7 he recalls hunting spider bears with his brothers back in the day.  And don’t get me started on Star Trek.

Sometimes these contradictions are on minor points, sometimes they go to the fundamental logic of the fictional world. When I was a much, much younger reader such errors or illogic tended to bother me. I can nitpick with the best of them. However, many years of reading superhero comics pretty much beat that out of me. ((Jason Todd Robin came back to life because Superboy Prime punched reality.  Uh … okay.)) I learned to stop worrying and love the retcon.  Actually, I think the old Marvel Comics No-Prize was the coolest response to apparent errors:  “We made a mistake? No, no.  It may look like a mistake, but there is actually a good explanation. That one of our readers will provide.”

Having now authored a fantasy series myself, I am much more forgiving of the apparent errors made by other authors. When you’re making up the entire history, culture, commerce, etc. of a world on the fly, it is hard to keep everything straight. I maintain a timeline of Arden’s history and the events of each book, and I have uploaded notes to the Cosmopedia — but even that may not be internally consistent.

My real-world explanation of any errors is that I’m only human. With the addtional caveat that, Jason Cosmo being a humorous adventure, I will sometimes deliberately sacrifice logic or consistency for the sake of a joke.

But the in-continuity explanation for the inevitable errors that will arise as we go forward? That’s part of the fun! I hope that as I continue to chronicle Jason Cosmo’s adventure, that the characters and world will be engaging and interesting enough that Loyal Readers will actually find details worth nitpicking or debating. Just assume that any apparent mistakes are on purpose — even if that purpose is yet to be revealed!

Best regards,

Dan McGirt

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Jason Cosmo HERO WANTED Latest Update

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

Hero Wanted (2009)

Hero Wanted (2009)

A quick update on the status of HERO WANTED. I have finished reviewing and correcting the page proofs and sent those back to the typesetter. She will make the changes in the next few days and return it to me for final approval. At that point the text will be ready for the printer.

Meanwhile, I am also waiting for the final cover proof. The front cover looks great, as you’ve all seen. But there will be, of course, a back cover to go with it. Once that is done the book will be ready to print, inside and out.

In the meantime, I am updating the final manuscript version with the same list of corrections I made to the proofs in preparation for uploading the text to Smashwords, which is where the ebook will be available. If you are interested in reading HERO WANTED as an ebook, I suggest you go ahead and open a Smashwords account (it doesn’t cost anything to do so) and you’ll be ready to go when the book is available there.

Ok, back to work!

Best regards,

Dan McGirt