It prevailed.

In 2008 they both saw their debut books published. Matt dropped his premiere short story collection The Next Fix to rave reviews while Mur gave the reading world her novel Playing for Keeps and watched it climb to the top of the Amazon charts.

To mark both occasions, the holiday season, and drive sales to the gates of Valhalla itself, Matt and Mur now present THE YEAR OF M&M: THE GRAND FINALE

Order BOTH The Next Fix and Playing for Keeps between December 8^th and December 15^th and not only will you be giving yourself or a loved one the gift of supreme doctrine and epic storytelling, you will be entered in M&M’s Spectacular Holiday Raffle. Prizes include an iPod Nano and a copy of every single title in the Apex Publications catalogue!

Finally, on Monday, December 15^th, 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, Matt and Mur are co-hosting a holiday bash on Second Life. The venue is The Tiki Bar in State of Mind. There will be a bull riding contest, bumper boat battles, and live music featuring some of the most popular acts on the internet. Matt and Mur will both be live in avatar form and you’ll want to be ringside as they take flaming swords in hand to vie for control of the universe. Click here for the landmark and be there on the day.

What you MUST DO THIS HOLIDAY SEASON:

1. Come party with M&M like it’s 2999. Will they duel to virtual death inside a steel cage on Second Life? Will their RL counterparts get blitzed on gin and rum and sing Christmas carols? DON’T MISS THE EXCITING CLIMAX.
2. Order The Next Fix and Playing for Keeps from Amazon.com and give the gift of fucking-your-shit-up storytelling this holiday season.
3. Make sure you’re entered into the holiday raffle by e-mailing your Amazon.com receipt (dated between December 8^th and December 15^th) to thenextfix@gmail.com

Happy Holidays! FEAR THE FINAL BATTLE!

And here’s the landmark link for Second Life.

• Playing For Keeps won the Parsec Award for Best Novel! What a shock and honor! Congrats to the other nominees and winners!
• I now have an agent; I’m being represented by Byrd Leavell of The Waxman Agency.
• Playing For Keeps remains in the top 1% of books on Amazon.com.
• Playing For Keeps is now available on the Amazon Kindle (and the free - and DRM-free - PDF is still available as well - the Kindle Version is formatted for that platform).

This episode of Stories of the Third Wave is a report of a football game from - heh - Lafferty Field. Unfortunately the game is interrupted… Thanks to Randy Hinckley from The Naked Bootleg Podcast for this fun piece!

DragonCon is today. Hence the disjointed intro.

#1 in Hot New Releases
#1 in Movers and Shakers
#1 in Science Fiction
#1 in Action/Adventure
#2 in Science Fiction & Fantasy
#2 in Genre Fiction
#3 in Literature & Fiction
#16 in Books

To say I’m stunned, humbled and grateful is an understatement. I expected to break the top 100. I hoped to break the top 50. This amazing thing i did not expect.

The people who waited until today to buy a copy, even though Amazon had it available much earlier, people who helped promote this by blogging and tweeting and just buying multiple copies to give away, went above and beyond what I could ever ask from a listener/reader. And I got reports in from people who bought it from their local indie bookstore, which I wholeheartedly support.

This new media thang is experimental. At times it’s controversial. But I had faith in it, that giving my work away would pay off. And you guys have proven it. This is not a solo career anymore. For me, anyway, this writing thing is not a lone movement. I have my community behind me, which is a stunning and amazing thing. The force of new media is thrilling and I’m so glad to be part of it.

Thank you. Everyone who purchased, listened, blogged, told someone. Everyone who believed in this little book.Come up to me at DragonCon, or at a local signing (more on that later) and I’ll be happy to shake your hand and say thank you. (and, you know, sign the book. )

Thank you.

[video didn't turn out like I'd hoped. More tomorrow!]

And it’s not Fidgert introducing the podcast (which is what the credits say), it’s Podcasting’s Rich Sigfrit. Sorry, guys. the Fidgert video died.

Wheee. This is a rush. Latest Amazon rank- #20 in books.

Opening animation by Earl Newton!

What else can you do? Glad you asked! Review the book. Tag the book. Blog it. Tweet it. (I’m @mightymur on Twitter). And know you have my utmost appreciation.

I’m scared. I’m excited. Let’s do this thing.

But he is my nemesis and someday I will destroy him. Just not today.

1. Your book is listed as available on Amazon. Did I miss the launch?

No! Amazon made it available earlier than I expected, but since I’d already been spreading the word about August 25, I decided to keep that the launch day and have been asking people to please wait, if they can. The big official launch is TOMORROW.

2. Does my purchasing it on amazon.co.uk, or .ca, or .de, or .au, or [insert other country here] count toward the big Amazon assault?

Sadly, no, only amazon.com purchases will count. If the shipping is not much different, I’d ask you to buy at the US site, otherwise, don’t spend extra money on the rankings push.

3. I bought the POD version. Is this one different?

Nope. This one has professional editing and a new cover, but nothing different inside. But if you send me a picture of yourself with the new book AND the old book, I might put you in the next book!

4. What time should we buy?

I’m not sure if it’s important that everyone buy at the same time. I’m just suggesting any time after 8am Eastern Time.

5. Your book is listed out of stock! (This likely will happen, but hasn’t happened yet.)

My publisher uses POD technology, so this is meaningless. You’ll get your book in a timely manner, I promise. Ignore this.

Thanks so much for your support. Any other questions will be answered in the comments! One day to go.

This is the full book, including a new short story, Parasite Awakens.

He likes Pallas. He likes who he is when he experiences her life out of her eyes. And now he looks through her eyes at his own sleeping brown face as she peers at him through the crystal porthole in his stasis chamber.

After twenty years, Parasite will wake up.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 25 Release Date for Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps

Swarm Press is pleased to announce the upcoming release of breakthrough podcaster and author Mur Lafferty’s newest novel of superheroic action Playing for Keeps. Originally a self-released “podiobook,” this new printed version of Lafferty’s novel is due to hit shelves on August 25, 2008.

Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty.

Welcome to Seventh City, the birthplace of super powers. The First Wave heroes are jerks, but they have the best gifts: flight, super strength, telepathy, genius, fire. The Third Wavers, like bar-owner Keepsie Branson and her friends, are stuck with the leftovers: the ability to instantly make someone sober, the power to smell the past, absolute control… over elevators.  They just aren’t powerful enough to make a difference… at least that’s what they’ve always been told. But when the villain Doodad slips Keepsie a mysterious metal sphere, the Third Wavers become caught in the middle of a battle between egotistical heroes and manipulative villains.

“Playing for Keeps grabbed me and kept me reading straight through when I should have been plotting a new fantasy series for Tor Books. Mur, thank you. Tor, however, does not thank you.” – David Drake, author, Hammer’s Slammers.

Mur Lafferty is an American podcaster and writer based in Durham, North Carolina. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated with a degree in English. Her nonfiction work has appeared at www.SuicideGirls.com, as well as in the magazines Knights of the Dinner Table, PC Gamer, Computer Games, Scrye, and SciFi Magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in Hub, Escape Pod, and Scrybe. She was, until July, 2007, the host and co-editor of Pseudopod, and is currently the host and creator of the podcasts Geek Fu Action Grip and I Should be Writing. Visit Mur online at www.murverse.com

###

Media: to schedule an interview with Mur or to request a review copy of Playing for Keeps, contact publicist Matt Staggs at mattormeg@gmail.com.

• Dora Holly – Kimi Alexandre
• Jason Block – Jason Block
• Amora - Ivy Reisner
• Bruno – Chad Henderson
• Shelly – Paulette Jaxton
• Julie - Pamela Templin
• Kim - Comic Book Goddess

Promo: Collapse at Hidden Verse 332

Music provided by the Podsafe Music Network.

• Easter Egg #1 - by JC Hutchins of 7th Son and OBSIDIAN
• Easter Egg #2 - by Christiana Ellis of Space Casey and Shallow Thoughts
• Easter Egg #3 - by Scott Sigler of Nocturnal and Infected
• Easter Egg #4 - by Evo Terra of Podiobooks.com
• Easter Egg #5 - by Christopher Lester of The Metamor City Podcast

Next up- original content by podcaster and comedy rap artist, Tom Rockwell!

Well, the NEXT first kid I have, I mean.

But I’d be really grateful.

Music, of course, by Beatnik Turtle.

You should be.

Starting today, August 1, content will be rolling out on the feed at an astonishing rate, delivering podcasts to you as we build up to the big launch of the print version on August 25.

Sure, we all know how the print media are affected by superheroes. It’s exhaustively shown in several popular stories. But how would radio be different if there were superheroes in the world? I’ve been wondering that for a while, so I brought it up to several talented friends in the podcast world, and they’ve taken up the challenge.

Subscribe to Stories of the Third Wave and get original radio shows from:

• Casey Shultz from SciFi Surplus
• Matthew Wayne Selznick from Brave Men Run
• Christopher Lester from The Metamor City Podcast
• Christiana Ellis from Space Casey
• and more!

You will get popular podcasts dedicated to the trials that Seventh City citizens face, like:

• Manic Mondays
• Geek Survival Guide

AND you will get original stories, canon tales of Seventh City from podcast literary masters:

• JC Hutchins, award winning author of 7th Son
• Matt Wallace, award winning author of Failed Cities Monologues and Variant Frequencies

Closer to book launch, the feed will feature the Ultra Mega Mega PDF of Playing For Keeps, including an original, exclusive Playing For Keeps story by myself, intended to bridge the first and second books in the Keepsie universe. (“Second book? Did she say ’second?’” - well, as long as the first sells well, yes. That is up to you.)

Not to mention the video contest… (you are helping out with the video, right?)

And on the day OF the book launch this feed will feature video updates of me, top podcasters, and the reports of what you guys are doing to help out the Amazon ranking.

It all starts today, folks, so be sure to resubscribe if you aren’t still there!

Well, see, I want to see you dance.

In November, when I launched Playing For Keeps, Beatnik Turtle also released the song Playing For Keeps as a theme song. It’s a fantastic song and I was thrilled to have it associated with my book. And now that the book is coming out (AUGUST 25), I thought, “How many other books have a kick ass custom theme song? I should use this for something…”

So I talked to Randy and Jason, my friends with Beatnik Turtle, and I asked them if they would be OK if the fans made a video for their awesome song to promote the book. And they said they were behind me (I love those guys). So we thought it would be cool to coax the fans to make videos, and we could offer them incentives. SWARM books. Beatnik Turtle CDs.

A Flip camera.

But I want people to be able to do this in the time we have, and we don’t have a lot of time! So here’s the deal:

1. You are going to email me saying you want to help with the video. (And you are a talented and wonderful person, thank you!)
2. I am going to email you back and give you 20-30 seconds of the song “Playing For Keeps.”
3. You are going to record. Record a 20-30 second skit or record yourself dancing to the song, or lip syncing. Make it awesome. Make it from your video camera, or your digital camera, or your webcam. I don’t care. Just record it. By August 15.
4. Send it to mightymur AT gmail.com. By August 15.
5. From here I will gather up all the entries and Beatnik Turtle and I will choose the best. We’ll cut together the video and release it as my book promo. (Book promotion. Remember? I need everyone’s help on this!)
6. But wait, there’s more! Every person who gets a clip in the final video will win a prize; prizes include Swarm books and Beatnik Turtle CDs! But the BEST ONE will win a Flip camera!

Then you will all sleep a little better knowing you’ve helped me promote the book, and you’ll be a STAR.

Oh, and about seeing me dance? If I can get 40 entries to this contest, the final video will also feature me, the geek who doesn’t dance, dancing.

If you wanna see it, you gotta show me yours, first. (And 39 of your friends.)

Help me make the book promo to end all book promos. Blog this. Tweet this. Let’s make it happen.

And thank you! (And thanks JC and Tee!)

PFK Wallpaper: 800, 1024, 1152 and 1280

In preparation for the print release of Playing For Keeps, I have removed the PDF versions from the website. Now calm down- wait a second, don’t get upset. I have a present for you. I would not leave you out to dry. I am removing the PDFs to make way for the Ultra Mega Mega (dare I say… Super?) PDF to drop on August 22, the Friday before the book release on August 25. This one document will contain all of the awesome art created by my first wave volunteers, as well as the full novel and… maybe something special that you can’t find anywhere else.

Not to discount the awesome work my volunteers have done, I’ve created a gallery of all of the comic book covers (and the old cover of the book) right here.

Be patient, and you will be rewarded.

Game on!

Now, Playing For Keeps is a small press book, published by Swarm Press. This means that unless you order it from your book store, you’re not going to see it on shelves. So you can either order it from your local book store OR you can be a part of Mur’s rush of the Amazon charts: if everyone goes to purchase Playing For Keeps on August 25, we can push the book up the charts and get some major attention for it!

Please consider supporting me on this, and pay attention to this site - we’re gearing up for some fun content to be released soon!

And check out the awesome cover!

I am thrilled to announce that I have signed a contract to release Playing For Keeps with Swarm Press! Swarm is an imprint of Permuted, the small horror press, and is launching this summer with three superhero titles, PFK being one. (For podcast fans, Matthew Wayne Selznick’s Brave Men Run is another title coming out from Swarm.)

The book will be out late August, just in time for DragonCon. Everyone who has watched the lifespan of this title will know how thrilled I am about this- especially since I had pretty much decided the title was done.

Details: You can still get the PDFs and the audio files from the website and feed, but the POD version of the book has been retired (for obvious reasons.) But if you were an early supporter of my work and purchased PFK in the POD form, and you continue to support with a purchase of the Swarm title, my publisher and I have something cool for you. Stay tuned. We’ll be building the marketing machine back up this summer, things should get interesting.

Thank you to all my listeners, everyone who believed in this book. You made this happen.

Action in Seventh City may be over, but there are still files coming in to the site!

Firstly, my colleague in RPG writing, Rick Jones, wrote up some Open Gaming License stats for the characters in Keepsie. These stats are based on the characters at the beginning of the book. Share and Enjoy!

Also, we have a new art! First, a twitter icon from Doug Rapson, and then another picture of someone in PFK shirts! Cover artist Natalie Metzger looks smashing in her Doodad shirt!

Thank you for coming along with me.

Cheers.

Recap by Brad P. from NJ 

Promo: JC Hutchins presents Ultra Creatives (incidentally, I’m the latest interview!)

And The Librarian from Rachel Ross:

And Photos:

Writer and friend Dave Thompson:

And ARGH- but a change in computers and a missing email has me posting this awesome photo but not remembering who sent it! So PLEASE resend your name so I can give you credit!

Thanks everyone - keep the awesome coming!

Episode recap by Barry Koleman.

Promo: Nawashi

Shot glasses are available for pre-order!

Episode recap by Shannon Farrell, Third Wave hero.

Promo: Morevi Remastered

Information about the John W. Campbell Award as well as the Hugo and Campbell ballot.

Buy Voices for the Cure to benefit the American Diabetes Association; get short stories from Cory Doctorow, Mike Resnick and an edited version of “Barry Koleman, Hero.”

Join Robert J. Sawyer, Mike Resnick, Cory Doctorow, and others as a cop-for-hire solves a murder aboard a space station…a Chicano science fiction writer takes mind-blowing (literally!) ride through the Singularity…a third-rate superhero with useless powers finds a place to belong…an antique collector learns that one alien’s junk is mankind’s treasure…a geologist discovers that pretending to be a god isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…a journalist learns how to fend off zombies using Linux and a dead badger…

All this and more await you in…

Voices for the Cure:
A Speculative Fiction Anthology to Benefit the American Diabetes Association

Edited by James Palmer. A White Rocket book.

ISBN: 978-0-6151-8727-3

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave? See our Submission Guidelines!

Episode recap by Feedback from Who Wants To Be A Superhero? season 1.

Promo: Down The Road

Have you purchased your print version of Playing For Keeps? And call the Third Wave Hotline at 919 794 8498! And FOUR pint glasses are left! We are OUT of pint glasses!

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave? See our Submission Guidelines!

At Mid Ohio Con I heard that Nash Entertainment was only contracted to do two seasons of the TV show “Who Wants to be a Superhero?”. We’ve had people in our superhero community confirm this by calling Nash.

This isn’t to say that a Season Three won’t be made, but we’re thinking of trying to convince Sci-Fi. Thus, I’m starting a grass-roots attempt to get the Sci-Fi Channel to make a third season. I’m calling it “Save Superheroes.”

Basically, like the “Save Jericho” and “Save Dresden” campaigns, we’ll be sending Bonnie Hammer pictures of us in our superhero costumes and drawings of other superheroes.

“Shockwave”

Bonnie Hammer David Howe (apparently Hammer recently left the position)
Executive VP of SCI FI
SCI FI Channel
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
Mark Stern

Executive VP Original Programming
NBC Universal/Sci-Fi Channel
100 Universal City Plaza, Bld. 1440, 14th Fl.
Universal City, CA 91608

Phone: 212-413-5000
Fax: 212-413-6509
POW! Entertainment
9440 Santa Monica Blvd.
Suit 620
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Nash Entertainment
1438 N. Gower Street
Building 35, Room 150
Hollywood, CA 90028

Telephone: +1 (323) 993-7384
Facsimile: +1 (323) 993-7385

From S.R. Gallatin

Episode recap by Shockwave from Skiffytown League of Heroes.

Promo: Metamor City: Making the Cut

Have you purchased your print version of Playing For Keeps? And call the Third Wave Hotline at 919 794 8498!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(PRLog.Org) – Jan 14, 2008 – As one of the most popular audiobooks on the Internet, Mur Lafferty’s “Playing For Keeps,” comes to a close, superheroes are flocking to lend their voices to the final episode.

“Playing For Keeps” is Lafferty’s celebrated superhero novel. It tells the story of people with minor superpower who fall directly in the middle of a battle between bullying superheroes and manipulative, charming villains.

It has been released via audio and PDF audio download weekly to over 13,000 listeners worldwide since November. While available for free in digital formats, it was also recently released in hard and softcover print version.

The novel has had coverage in the world’s most popular blog, BoingBoing.net. Locus and Campbell award-winning author Cory Doctorow had a sneak peek at the novel, blogging, “I was really impressed with it and I’m so excited to see that she’s releasing it! Can’t wait to (re)read it.”

Doctorow also loaned his voice to cameo for an episode recap.

“Playing For Keeps” has five episodes left, and will feature stars of the SciFi Channel show, “Who Wants to be a Superhero?” as cameo voices in the audiobook. They will read episode recaps, filling the audience in on the previous chapters’ action.

“Superhero” season 2 finalist Hygena appeared as the episode recap reader on episode 10, and future episodes will feature Feedback and The Defuser, winners of “Superhero” seasons 1 and 2, respectively.

“I have been building a community of superhero fans during the release of this book,” author Mur Lafferty said. “What bigger superhero fans can I find than the contestants from the show ‘Who Wants to be a Superhero?’ I’m thrilled that these fantastic superheroes will be appearing in my audiobook.”

“Playing For Keeps” can be found for free at www.playingforkeepsnovel.com and at www.podiobooks.com, or for purchase at www. playingforkeepsnovel.com.

# # #

About the author:
Mur Lafferty is a writer and podcast producer living in Durham, NC. She is the author of the award-nominated “Heaven” novellas, one of the most popular audiobook serials in podcasting. She has been published in Hub magazine and Escape Pod, and is an open and new media enthusiast.

MurVerse
Durham, NC
919 210 7630
mur.lafferty@gmail.com

<— check it out!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me photos or art, if you have anything you’d like to send, don’t hesitate!

by Courtney S.

Episode recap by Hygena from Who Wants To Be A Superhero 2?.
Join Team Hygena in the National Walk for Epilepsy.

Promo: Dark Age: A Fantasy Pod-Novel

Have you purchased your print version of Playing For Keeps?

Featured Music:

• My Secret Origin by Ookla the Mok

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave? See our Submission Guidelines!

Episode recap by Cory Doctorow.

Promo: The Secret Lair.

Don’t forget you can now buy Playing For Keeps in print!

Thanks Matt!

read more | digg story

Thanks to everyone for their support. I’m so pleased that you’re enjoying the book so much.

In the meantime, please check out this blog post from Corwin, and see the first pics of the PfK pint glass!

And Merry Christmas.

(to be fair, I may miss tomorrow. Traveling all day. Be patient, please!)

From the Variant Frequencies site:

As a special gift to all our listeners this holiday season, Variant Frequencies is happy to present THE FAILED CITIES: HATH A DARKNESS, an exclusive 10,000-word eChapbook written by Matt Wallace and available as a free .PDF download.

As a black snowfall blankets the Failed Cities on Christmas Eve, the arrival of 99 mysterious steel chambers sets a series of far from blessed events in motion. Eight people become links in a deadly chain that will either tether innocent lives to safety or strangle any hope for their future. And as each part of the story unfolds, we learn that above all things, Christmas in the Failed Cities is a feverishly struck balance between the constant threat of violence and the
briefest, most bittersweet moments of joy.

We hope you enjoy this unique addition to the Failed Cities universe.
Happy Holidays from all of us at Variant Frequencies!

DIGG

Episode recap by Keepsie.

Promos: View from the Quad 12 Days of Christmas and The Failed Cities: Hath a Darkness.

Watch this space for information on the PfK print book coming 1/1/08!

And Jason in his Clever Jack shirt:

And at last, the Doodad icon!

So the PDF will be late and there will be no Stories of the Third Wave until the new year. We’ll still have Episode 8 posted this Thursday. Thanks for your patience!

Episode recap by Scott Sigler.

Promo: Adventures in SciFi Publishing Season 2

Interviews with Mur on: Comic Geek Speak, Disability 411, Riding a Wheelie, Better L8 Than Never and The Gigcast.

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave? See our Submission Guidelines!

Meet the First Wave Volunteer, Paul Fischer.

Episode recap by White Lightning.

Promo: Disability 411

And Be sure to preorder your official Keepsie’s Bar pint glasses! $5.99 each!

Don’t forget to donate to Child’s Play, even if you don’t want to bid on the original Jared Axelrod artwork (Auction ends Thursday!)

The PDF will be up a little later than usual today, I appreciate your patience!

And pictures of Third Wavers in their Geeklabel Tshirts have come in! Thanks Jared and Karak!

Lastly, we have the second episode of Anti-Hero, our Third Wave vlog, going up on YouTube today. It will go into the feed as well. Thanks to my actor, Will Hoffacker.

Edited to put video in feed.

Featured Music:

• House Party at Arkham Asylum by The Great Luke Ski

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave? See our Submission Guidelines!

Don’t forget the voicemail! 919 794 8498

Episode recap by Mister Adventure.

Promo: One Among the Sleepless

The pint glasses are ordered and available for pre-order! They are clear pint glasses with the black “Keepsie’s Bar” logo on them. They are $5.99 each. Order through PayPal! NOTE: They will not come to me for a couple of weeks, so if you order now, it will be some weeks before you receive them. I will announce - and post pictures - when they arrive.

The eBay auction is LIVE! Click here to bid! 100% of the money made from this auction goes to the Child’s Play charity, so please bid, or just check out Child’s Play and donate!

moar funny pictures

And while we’re talking about merchandise, I still want your pictures with you and your Geeklabel tshirts!

• D.O.A (Captain America) by Throwing Toasters

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave? See our Submission Guidelines!

Don’t forget the voicemail! 919 794 8498

Episode recap by Kilroy 2.0.

Promo: Murder at Avedon Hill

I spent my weekend at The NC Writer’s Network conference where I was speaking on blogging and podcasting in relation to self-publishing. Cause that’s what this is, you know; podcasting is self-publishing. Which is funny, cause in old media self-pub is sad, it’s vanity press, it’s terrible. In new media it’s exciting and ground breaking. Maybe because you’re giving it away, maybe because it’s so easy to get it into people’s hands. Still, the bottom line is the same: the reader chooses what’s good and what’s bad. It’s your decision, not an agent’s, not a publisher’s, not a book distributor, not the clerk at the book store who decides to turn you cover-out instead of spine-out. They say new media is letting authors have more choices than ever, but we need to remember that the power lies in your hands: you, the reader/listener, decides who rises and who falls. And I’m so damn grateful for your time and enthusiasm in regards to this book.

We’ve had a slew of art and photos lately! Listener Joe Mieczkowski drove up to the conference yesterday to see my panel, which was awesome because I finally had a friendly face in the audience. Everyone was very nice at the conference, don’t get me wrong, but I was clearly the WEIRD SF AUTHOR, which was starting to grate on me - what I write ain’t literary. Joe mentioned doing exactly what my Creative Commons license encourages, which is printing out the PDF and handing it out during his NaNoWriMo write-ins, and to prove it he later sent me some pics (see above, and our photo page).

Jared Axelrod, the creative machine, has even more icons for us (Wanda’s icon, if she’d have one, would be the diner logo, and I’m giving a sneak peek at the logos for two upcoming heroes, the heroine Heretic and the hero Tattoo Devil), as do Michael Spence (in response to Scott Breakall’s “Keepsie’s Got Me!” icon) and Brian Mahony. (images are large for resizing)

• Peter Parker by The Great Luke Ski featuring Sudden Death

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave? See our Submission Guidelines!

The feedback for Playing for Keeps has been wonderful, and a couple of people have pointed out some recent mistakes. I blush furiously, and fix what I can.

• The thing I can fix (well, Paul Fischer fixed it - thanks Paul!) was that there was a link in the PDF of Issue 3 that goes to the wrong file. The link is now fixed, you can download another copy if you like.
• The thing I can’t fix is that yes, there’s a continuity glitch in the novel (already? Sheesh, Lafferty, what’s your problem?) - sharp listeners/readers have discovered that Keepsie’s adventures begin on Thursday night and continue on Saturday morning. I could retcon and claim a villain made Friday go away, but I’m going to be honest and say I screwed up. Please forgive.

Whew - I ask your forgiveness! And thanks to everyone who let me know!

Don’t forget the voicemail! 919 794 8498

Episode recap by Dr. Steve and Fidgert.

Promo: Stranger Things

• Average Guy by Beatnik Turtle

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

Want to contribute to Stories of the Third Wave?  See our Submission Guidelines! 

We have a voice mail line now! 919 794 8498

Episode recap by Aphid Man.

Promo: Space Casey

• We are looking for content from 3-10 minutes taking place in the PfK Universe. No longer, please.
• We want good quality MP3s of the content. If you want us to approve something written before you go through the trouble of recording, that’s fine, but we need you to do the production on it when all is said and done.
• Please move beyond actual fanfic - you can parody the novel, do a radio-style interview, talking heads commentary, a commercial, an announcement of a hero’s public appearance, etc. - don’t get us wrong - you can write fanfic, no problem, but it will likely be easier to get content connected to the world rather than straight-out stories included in the podcast. Also, the time limit must be kept in mind when writing. (Fanfic involving canon characters will be difficult to get approved, as their histories and futures are planned out.)
• We release under a Creative Commons license, and we’re unable to pay. You will be credited for your work and thanked.
• This should go without saying, but we cannot accept content that features other copyrighted characters. I don’t want to see how S****man or W***** Wo*** would act in dealing with Doodad or getting at drink at Keepsie’s Bar.
• For uncomfortable legal reasons, characters created and things that take place in the PfK universe become the property of Mur Lafferty and may be used in future work. Acknowledgment may or may not be given. [Please understand that I'm not trying to steal your work, but this protects me in the event you create a character similar to one I haven't yet unveiled.]
• Playing for Keeps is not released under a CC license that allows derivative works: this is a specific case where I am granting permission for derivative works under this particular situation.

Got some kick-ass wallpapers of Keepsie and White Lightning this weekend, as well as another Twitter icon from CA Sizemore (left) and John Cmar (right)! Amazing art, guys, I’m thrilled!

Wow- knitters (and tshirt enthusiasts) will be interested in this: Ivy has a Playing for Keeps contest going on in her blog, offering some beautiful yard and an offical PfK shirt from Geeklabel.com as the prize! Thanks, Ivy!

And art keeps coming in - this from Scott Breakall, another icon for the Twitter fans!

Featured music:

• Super Powers by Ookla the Mok
• Making Me Nervous by Brad Sucks

Stories of the Third Wave is a companion piece to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps, and is a terrific excuse for a bunch of other people to play in her world. The show contains no book spoilers.

We’ve got some content for you - another icon, this time created by Dr. John Cmar. It’s a 500×500 file so you can shrink it to whatever size you want.

And Playing for Keeps theme song artists, Beatnik Turtle, put Playing For Keeps as the song of the day today! So here it is in our feed, complete without me talking over top of it! Thanks Beatnik Turtle!

• RSS
• iTunes

The links to the left have been updated to reflect the change.

Sorry for the trouble!

Please take a little time to give some love to the fabulous people who have helped me out in this fabulous venture. Check them in the Blogroll or the First Wave Volunteers page!

Intro by Dr. John Cmar.

Promo: Scott Sigler wants to kill you

I was also startled to see I had enough art to start making pages for them, so if you look to the right hand side, you’ll see a page for sketches, icons, and photographs (unexpected shot coming from Rob Suarez!). This is a hint to ALL Third Wavers - send me any fan-created material that you’re interested in creating, and it’ll go on the site!

JC Hutchins put the leaked Chapter One of Playing for Keeps in his feed this morning - if you’re not listening to his fabulous thriller trilogy, 7th Son, now you have two excellent reasons to get your butt over there.

And if you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to PfK - it’s over there on the left-hand side of the page. Super easy! Go! Do it now!

“Mine” by Natalie Metzger

(Oh. You’re waiting for another awesome twitter icon from Jared Axlerod? OK.)

Firstly, we have the book cover! What you see to the left there is the square iTunes version created by the photography of JR Blackwell and the graphic design of JC Hutchins. (You knew they both were authors, right? Go check them out already!) This is exactly what I’ve had in mind, only better.

Next - check this out - we already have the official tshirt for Keepsie’s Bar, the main setting for Playing for Keeps. Jared Axlerod created the design, and my favorite tshirt vendor, Geeklabel, is doing the shirts. What you see to the right here is but one color, style and ink of shirt you can have, so go get your official shirt so everyone will think you’re a regular.

Lastly, here are some icons if you would like to use them for LJ, Twitter, or other avatars. If you do, drop me an email and let me know. I might send you something special as a thank you. (You’ll have to shrink the hero logos down. The first is the logo for The Crane, a stretchy, winged fellow, and the second is for White Lightning, the newest hero to grace Seventh City.)