If you’d like to support the book release, please consider using these avatars on Twitter, Facebook, and any other you frequent. And if people ask, tell them about the book launch and send them this way!
Special thanks to Ron Earl for the creation of these avatars! And as always, thanks to Jeff Himmelman for the use of his wonderful art piece called “Sophia.”
Tonight, as we approach the book launch of Murder at Avedon Hill, we have a Tales of the Children story written and produced by Dan Absalonson. A few weeks ago Dan asked if he could produce the audio for his own podcast, and knowing I wouldn’t be getting to his story for several months, I said “Go for it!” For a first audio podcast episode, Dan did a wonderful job with the production. Big Axe, Little Hands is a fun story about one of the smaller races of Caern, and an incarnation of one of the Children of Az we haven’t seen in audio form thus far.
I hope you enjoy the story, and check back later today for the release of an interview I did with Jack Mangan over at his Deadpan Podcast.
0:00 – Intro Chatter
2:00 – Big Axe, Small Hands
Join Halvard the Halfling as he journeys to find the way of the warrior, running into trouble along the way, and meeting races he’s only heard tell of in the story told around the community fire in his small village.
Last week Michell Plested interviewed me for his “Get Published” podcast. It was a great conversation, and I hope you enjoy it. The actual interview starts at around the 10 minute mark.
I will be dropping a Tales of the Children story tomorrow, a story written and produced by Dan Absalonson.
For those of you that have never taken part in an Amazon Rush, what exactly is it?
Simply put, we are attempting to push Murder at Avedon Hill up the charts by having as many people purchase it as possible, at the same time, on Amazon.com. By doing so, we can push the book up the charts and increase its exposure in the short term. This has successfully been accomplished in the past by authors like Scott Sigler, Tee Morris, and Philippa Ballantine.
So how does it work?
In my case, on Saturday, May 15th, at noon Eastern time I would love for everyone that wants to own the print version of Murder at Avedon Hill to head on over to Amazon.com (url for the book coming soon) and purchase the novel. Amazon updates their rankings every hour, and they even have a specific page called the Movers and Shakers list.
What else will be going on? And what’s in it for me?
Well, besides owning a damn good book, I’m going to be live streaming on stickam.com starting at noon Eastern. I’ll be reading from the novel, chatting with folks online, and there should be some special guests on hand to celebrate the book’s release. I will also be giving away prizes to several lucky owners of the book. More on that in the days to come… including one special prize that I’m very excited about.
I’ve been creating online content in some capacity for going on five years now. I hope that karma really works, and we can knock this thing right out of the park!
Yes, we plan on doing an Amazon Rush on May 15th, 2010. That’s next Saturday, and I’ll be doing a live show on Stickam.com
This audio update gives some info on what’s going on for the next week leading up to the book release. Enjoy!
Promo: Seth Harwood’s Young Junius Special Edition
Promo/Skit: The Book Launch Promo – The Mercuralia!
If you are a podcaster, help a brother out; grab a promo and play it on your podcast before the 15th!
Here are some links to the book launch promos I’ve created for next Saturday. If you can link to them in your blog, play them on your podcast, or send them out to people, I’d certainly appreciate it!
Shorter promo (1 min. 30 sec.) – plot info and amazon rush info – http://bit.ly/aLyir0
Longer promo (2 min. 15 sec.) – longer plot info and amazon rush info – http://bit.ly/9WS9Rq
Promo/Skit (3 minutes) – more of a funny skit than a book promo, written by Morgan Elektra. Christiana Ellis appears in the promo with me: http://bit.ly/dCxXaJ
The shorter promo is attached here so it will drop in my feed.
Welcome to the website of P.G. Holyfield, author and podcaster.
Before we go any further, what can you find here?
- The Murder at Avedon Hill Podcast Novel
- The Tales of the Children Short Story Anthology Podcast
- Information about the upcoming print release of Murder at Avedon Hill (Book Launch Date post)
- Information on my fantasy setting, The Land of Caern.
The Land of Caern is the fantasy setting I’ve been writing and playing RPGs in since 1988.
Back in 2004 I started writing a novel set in The Land of Caern. It began its life as a proposed module for the computer game Neverwinter Nights. I then took the plot from that module and began serializing the story as a text release on the Neverwinter Vault website. After releasing the the first draft of the first half of the novel online, I decided to finish the novel “offline” and try to get it published. I finished the first draft of the novel near the end of 2006.
Early 2006 I discovered podcasting. I began contributing to podcasts in the summer of 2006, and began my own podcast in early 2007. I briefly released Murder at Avedon Hill as a self-published novel through Lulu.com
To learn more about the journey to get Murder at Avedon Hill written in novel form, please visit the page on this site called “The Story Behind the Story.”
I began the podcast version of Murder at Avedon Hill in June of 2007. It is still available on this website, on iTunes, and through Podiobooks.com.
The production ended after 42 episodes on May 21, 2009. Due to the generous help of family, friends, and members of the tribe, MaAH morphed, skirting the line between straight read and audio drama, with over 45 guests adding their voices to the podcast.
You can download episodes directly or subscribe through your aggregator of choice.
Murder at Avedon Hill was picked up by Dragon Moon Press and is due to be published in 2010.
In September of 2009 I began producing a second podcast set in The Land of Caern: Tales of The Children. Tales of the Children is a short story anthology podcast, with stories by me and by some of the best authors in podcast fiction.
This podcast also features live readings of stories on stickam.com!
Do you see a film in your head when you read or listen to audiobooks? I do. The guys over at Storycasting.com have added Murder at Avedon Hill to their site, and I’d love to see who you think would be the best actors to play the various characters in the book.
Murder at Avedon Hill Casting Page at Storycasting.com
The site is addicting (if you are a book/film buff), so WATCH out!
Murder at Avedon Hill will be released on May 15, 2010. It might actually be on Amazon a bit earlier that this, but the 15th is when I would like people to purchase the book, if they are doing it on Amazon.com. This way we’ll make sure there isn’t any “out of stock” snafus as has happened in the past with Amazon’s database system.
If you have a podcast, a blog, or even just friends that you’d like to share info about Murder at Avedon Hill with, please send me an email (pgholyfield at murderatavedonhill dot com) or ping me on Twitter @pgholyfield. I’m setting up interviews and will send out promotional materials to anyone that might want them.
An audio update will be released in the next couple of days about this, and about a contest I’ll be doing for those purchasing the novel day 1.
This is actually happening! Woo Hoo! (wait, I’m supposed to be the reserved author… ).
Thanks for your continued support…. (yay!)
Matthew Wayne Selznick wrote a wonderful novel called Brave Men Run. In fact, it was the first podcast novel I listened to when I started listening to podcasts back in 2006. In June of 2008 (if I remember right) Matt asked if I would write a short story for a live web-a-thon he was planning to do the day of his book release. I was so excited I wrote a first draft that was almost 10,000 words… hmm… he wanted 3-4K. Oh well.
I edited it down to 5-6K, I believe. It was definitely the longest story in the web-a-thon (Matt read seven stories I believe during his live show). I was very happy with the response I received from people about the story.
Flash forward to Friday, April 10th. The text that follows if from Matt’s website:
I’m very pleased to announce the release of “The Sovereign Era: Year One,” an anthology of seven tales written by authors who are pretty well known in certain circles — folks like J. C. Hutchins, Mur Lafferty, P. G. Holyfield, Nathan Lowell, Matt Wallace, J. R. Blackwell and Jared Axelrod!
This collection has its origin in the all-day web-a-thon I produced on the occasion of the Swarm Press release of “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” On that day, I read each of these stories live on streaming video… but they’ve never been seen in print until now.
As of right now, the collection is available on this site in a bundle of eight DRM-free e-book formats and from Amazon.com for the Kindle. Soon enough, it will also be available in paperback in every online bookstore you’d care to patronize. To be honest, if you like e-books, I encourage you to purchase it in that format, since the authors involved stand to earn more of a percentage from each e-book sale.
In “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights,” we’re seeing a little of what happened in the months before the Sovereign Era began. The Sovereign Era’s beginnings are depicted in “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” I hope you’ll purchase “The Sovereign Era: Year One” and take in seven different glimpses into how things went in the months that followed. On behalf of the authors and cover artist Jeffrey Himmelman, I thank you very much!
For those of you that haven’t read Brave Men Run, it feels like a teen movie mixed with a superhero novel… The Breakfast Club and X-Men all rolled into one. Please go check out the anthology, and listen to or read Brave Men Run.
As for The Sovereign Era: Year One – electronic versions are already available for the book, and the print version should be out in a few days!
On the right-sidebar you will see two donate buttons. The first Paypal Donate button is for those that appreciate the website and the Murder at Avedon Hill podcast. Donations are greatly appreciated, but not expected. Donations to me are mainly used as beer money at conventions, so if you want to see me act crazy at Dragon*Con next year, donate away!
The other, and much more important button, is for those that specifically are donating out of appreciation for Tales of the Children.
Net proceeds from donations tied to Tales of the Children, be it here, on Podiobooks.com or from possible print someday, will go directly to the Leiomyosarcoma Direct Research Fund.
On April 1st, 2007, podcaster Joe Murphy passed away from Leiomyosarcoma. I only met Joe one time, at Dragon*Con 2006, and his attitude, his zest for life, and his creative spark cemented my desire to enter this ‘world’ and podcast Murder at Avedon Hill.
Joe’s life was cut short by an insidious cancer that spreads through the smooth muscles of the body. Once it starts spreading, it’s rarely containable. Yet there is little publicized about LMS, even though it has such a high mortality rate. Heck, most application/program dictionaries do not even recognize Leiomyosarcoma as a word.
Joe Murphy, Dragon*Con 2006
If you do not wish to donate to a charity through a non-charitable site, I certainly understand. Please visit the Leiomyosarcoma Direct Research Fund to learn more about this disease and to donate directly to the charity.
Thank you.
Yesterday Alex White told me that they wanted to change the cover, even though Gwen over at Dragon Moon Press had already signed off on it. They did some market research and said they needed more action on the front cover… you know… to really SELL it.
Sometimes I don’t know about this whole publishing thing. I mean, I can make a wood chipper work, but nobody in Caern has light blue socks!?
Sigh.
Author, Podcaster, Father - P.G. Holyfield's first novel, Murder at Avedon Hill, was published by Dragon Moon Press in May of 2010. He passed away on August 20, 2014 in his home, surrounded by family and friends.
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