Tenth Annual Smashwords ebook sale

It is once again time for Smashwords annual July ebook sale (July 1st to 31st).

(Some of these books are scheduled to be expanded and updated--if it has an asterisk [*], it is scheduled to be expanded and revised--in other words, if you want to get it cheap before the expansion, do it now because the price will be going up on these ebooks when I update them later.)


Discounted to $1.50 USD

Five Reasons Why Magic Fails

Golden Dawn Rituals--Three Officer Neophyte Script*

Rite of the Magical Images of the Wiccan Sabbats*

Witchy Rants (the Collected MDE Heaarthstone Community Church Newsletter articles)*

Denver Witch Quarterly: To Curse, Or Not To Curse--The Big Cursing Issue (Samhain/Yule 2016)

Denver Witch Quarterly: Wealth and the Lucky Witch (Imbolc/Ostara 2017)

Denver Witch Quarterly: Evil Witches Bind President Trump and His Administration--also Occult Writers and Payment (Beltane and Lithna 2017)

Gaius Corbin: Light Out of Darkness--Lux E Tenebris (Thelema and the Necronomicon)



Free ebooks on Smashwords

Denver Witch Quarterly: A Modest Magazine Proposal

MDE Hearthstone: Pizza Boxes on the Floor (2010)

MDE Hearthstone: Bad Monkey (2011)

MDE Hearthstone: Lunatic With a Soapbox (2012)

MDE Hearthstone: Biggest Witch on the Block (2013)

MDE Hearthstone: Thirteen Signs That Your Occult Teacher is Rotten (2014-2015)

MDE Hearthstone: Hex the Vote--Mad Uncle Morgan Talks About American Politics (2016)

Shakespeare's Monkey (a fiction and poetry collection)*

Esoteric Comedy Show: Assault With a Deadly Taco (Mad Uncle Morgan, I am--Your Face is Going to Freeze Like That)

Esoteric Comedy Show: Free Guns For Everyone--Lap Cats Are Good Too (A Big Gun Control Show)

This is one of my favorite book covers.

Pre-release sale Denver Witch Quarterly Samhain-Yule 2016

Denver Witch Quarterly Samhain/Yule 2016 issue

Denver Witch Quarterly is a magazine devoted to paganism, Wicca, witchcraft, magick, and the occult.

Get it now at the pre-release price.

In this issue, we explore the techniques and ethics of cursing and hexing. From the mass hexing of convicted rapist, swimmer Brock Turner, to the global bindings of ISIL, to revenge spells, cursing, hexing, and binding is part of the toolbox of magicians and witches worldwide.

Are public hexings merely exercising one's First Amendment rights? Or are curses effective enough to limit the actions of individuals and organizations?

Plus Samhain and Yule stuff!!!

DWQ Samhain/Yule 2016 issue includes:

Editorials about whether or not, it is ethical to hex a rapist; Black Lives Matter (BHC); gun violence and gun control.

Fiction: Short stories by A. J. Hallows (The Nightlight) and B. H. Crowley (Basil Unsealed). Plus a poem, Living Art by B. H. Crowley.

Rituals: A fairy ritual in poetic form (MDE); An Anubis Samhain ritual and Honoring Horus on the Winter Solstice (Moongazer).

Instructional article: Heavenly Watchers—Using the Four Royal Stars (Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, Fomahault) and Sirius in astrology and magic (MDE).

Interview with Gaius Corbin—The Voice of the Necronomicon Translation Project.

Also included: Profit and Occult Writers—is it ethical for occult writers to make money? (Morgan Drake Eckstein)

And remember that the Denver Witch Quarterly is always seeking submissions for upcoming issues: editorials and non-fiction articles on paganism, occultism, magic, witchcraft, and Wicca; fiction and poetry; humor and cartoons; artwork and photographs.

The holidays for next issue are Imbolc and Ostara, and the special focus of the issue is on wealth, luck, and prosperity.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Not-Big-Cursing-Issue-ebook/dp/B01LXM5MX0/

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/to-curse-or-not-to-curse-the-big-cursing-issue-denver-witch-quarterly/1124094878

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/to-curse-or-not-to-curse-big/id1133780448

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/to-curse-or-not-to-curse-the-big-cursing-issue-samhain-yule-2016

DWQ Samhain/Yule 2016

My current writing itinerary (my boring life as a writer)

In case you wonder, my current writing projects include (in no particular order of priority):

A Necronomicon satire (which I am having way too much fun writing, and I figure will sell just a single copy if I ever am bothered enough to publish it)

A short horror story about a man who summoned a demon as a muse

Harmic Barrows--an urban fantasy series (think "orc" taxi driver forced to become a detective)

A series of random fairy poems

At least one Tarot deck (which is unlikely to ever be finished)

A Mad Uncle Morgan commentary about the "laws" of magic (magic as a science)

(As you can see, nothing terribly exciting or profitable.)

Apple iBookstore removed Bad Monkey from its stacks

Bad Monkey cannot be brought in the Apple iBookstore.

[File this post under: Mysteries about the business world I will never know or understand.]

As most of my regular readers know, I write a monthly column for the Hearthstone Community Church ("The OFM people") which I later collect into 99 cent ebooks. One of the collections (the 2011 articles) is called Bad Monkey.

Now, awhile back Bad Monkey was uploaded to Smashwords, and then it made its way though the distribution network. Including the Apple iBookstore. I know--I searched for it--it was available on Apple. Pity, I did not take a screenshot of this fact...

...because it has been removed from Apple.

We have all heard of the difficulties that erotica writers have with the iBookstore. H***, I have experienced them firsthand (under two of the pennames that I wrote erotica under). Now, I am experiencing the same crop of problems as an esoteric/Wicca/pagan writer.

And I will never know why my ebook was pulled from sale by Apple. One of the hazards with using Smashwords to upload my stuff is that I do not get to see the notices that Apple sends out when they remove stuff, or outright reject it. Why am I using Smashwords? Because I do not have an iDevice (yes, you need an Apple computer to upload to the iBookstore directly).

My paranoia says that this is the reason that it was pulled off of the iBookstore. 

But I have a paranoid theory. And it involves another about-to-be published book...also called Bad Monkey. I really hope that I am wrong because if my paranoid theory is right, then if a traditional and very popular writer decides to use a book title that is also being used by an independent (indie) writer, then the indie writer loses part of their stock. Apple would never actually do something like this, right?!

Oh well. Bad Monkey: The Collected 2011 Hearthstone Community Church Articles is still available on Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.

Did you see that there was a coupon? (humor)

Last night, I enrolled some ebooks in the annual Smashwords site-wide spring sales promotion. Basically, the promotion generates a coupon code that shows up on the view pages of the books that are enrolled in the promotion.

Besides the three ebooks that I openly admitted to writing and/or working on, several of my erotica stories (by pen-names I do not admit to using, except to the IRS) are enrolled.

So I was surprised this morning to see that some customers on Smashwords were still not using the coupon code for the enrolled stories. Not that I am complaining. I am merely saying that I didn't think that the coupon code was that hard to see. I will take the money (need or basic greed, take your pick), but still I feel some twinge of guilt that some of my readers paid full price for something that was on sale.

The only thing that I can think of that makes any sense out of it is that they must be elected government officials trying to stimulating my personal economy. Trust me, the money is going directly to feeding my cats which creates lots of jobs.

I thank you for not using the coupon code. My cats thank you. America thanks you.

Smashwords Read an Ebbok Week 2013

Yes, I am involved in the creation of this ebook.

It is "Read an Ebook Week" until March 9th 2013 on Smashwords.

This time around, I have three ebooks discounted during the annual Smashwords promotion.

Five Reasons Why Magic Fails is 50% off (promotion price $1.50--normally $2.99).

Golden Dawn Rituals--Volume One--Neophyte Ritual (0=0) Three Officer Version is 75% off (promotion price $1.50--normally $5.99).

And the first volume of the pagan/Wiccan friendly children series that I am doing the covers for, Meet Turtle Monkey is 50% off (promotion price $1.50--normally $2.99).

Finally, Bad Monkey has a cover picture at B&N

Bad Monkey is available online at Barnes and Noble.

Barnes and Noble finally put up the cover image for Bad Monkey, the ebook that I collected the second year's worth of newsletter articles that I wrote for Hearthstone Community Church. I am not sure where there was a delay for the cover to appear there; I guess that B&N has some manual vetting and approval process for covers. What I do know is that my little ebook spent the whole Christmas shopping season without a cover picture. I can't imagine that helped its sales any. Oh well, B&N now shows that it actually has a cover picture of a very bad monkey armed with a hammer, breaking up pottery.

Bad Monkey is now available from B&N

The Bad Monkey ebook is now available online at Barnes and Noble.

The good news is that Bad Monkey--the Collected 2011 Hearthstone Community Church Articles is available for sale online from Barnes and Noble (99 cents). The bad news is that there is no cover image for the ebook. *sigh* Not that the cover would actually help the ebook sell--after all, it is more of a in-joke between my friends and me (shared with those who attended the June 2011 Open Full Moon ritual), but still I can't imagine it doing better without the cover image being available. There is also no product description, and the sample size is so small that you really can not get a flavor for my writing style. Oh yeah, this is really going to sell. Yes, you can file this under "The joys of writing ebooks."

Now available on Barnes and Noble

Shakespheare's Monkey is now available on Barnes and Noble.

Revised cover for Pizza Boxes on the Floor: The Collected 2010 Hearthstone Articles.

Shakespheare's Monkey, a collection of my short-short fiction that I wrote a few years ago is now available on Barnes and Noble for $1.99. It took me awhile to get it up on B&N because I was having trouble with creating a linked table of contents--now, that I have learned the trick, I have to go fix a couple of my previous ebooks to the improved table of contents type.

Sometime, before the first of the year, I plan on assembling and uploading the 2011 collection of Hearthstone articles (Bad Monkey); also possibly the 2012 collection (Lunatic with a Soapbox).

Also available on Barnes and Noble is Pizza Boxes on the Floor: The Collected 2010 Hearthstone Articles (99 cents). In 2010, I started to write a monthly column for the Hearthstone Community Church's newletter. Recently, I had the chance to fix the table of contents. While the metadata and sample are out of date, the cover has switched to the new cover (I lost the original file, and Smashwords recently upped the suggested cover size), so I presume that it is actual the version with the fixed table of contents.

Remember that buying books from me helps support the cat on the cover--he likes the really tasty expensive food. Be kind to kitty--buy an ebook from me.

Free for today only

Shakespeare's Monkey

Today (well technically until Friday September 14, 2012), you can get a free copy of my ebook Shakespeare's Monkey when you enter coupon code EX49A at the checkout. Why free today? Well, one of the stories contained in this volume was based on 9/11--apologizes to the dozen people that I blended together to create the characters (it was creative license)--and today is as good of a day to share that piece of fiction as any other.

(And yes to my editing friends, I do realize that the title is misspelled on the cover...it is going to get fixed as soon as I find a photoediting program that I am comfortable with.)

First Smashwords test project up

Now available on Smashwords.

Well, I finally managed to drive myself to complete a test project for Smashwords. It is a collection of the dozen articles I wrote in 2010 for the Hearthstone Community Church newsletter, which I titled Pizza Boxes on the Floor (after the floor diagram I used that year during the annual ritual that I conduct for Hearthstone and Bast Temple).

I still want to complete another test project in a different field for Smashwords. After all, writing about Wicca and Golden Dawn is not something that looks like it will be a big seller on Smashwords. Honestly, the test project was more about figuring out the horrors of the formatting process than it was about making a buck. In theory, the formatting of the next project will be quicker (yeah, right).

It was more important today that I edited the few pictures that I took yesterday of my wife's jewelry than it was for me to finish this test project. I am not sure when she is going to get the three new items up on the Etsy shop, Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery, but she is liable to sell them before I sell a single copy of my little ebook.

Anyways, that was my work day today and yesterday. Fun, fun, fun.

I am proud of this bracelet photo---makes it almost look like I am a professional photographer.