Matt Forbeck

I’ve written 13 tie-in novels and countless roleplaying game book and other nonfiction titles that have sold well and won awards. On November 4, though, my first-ever fully original novel — Amortals — hits shelves in the UK and e-readers around the world.

(By “fully original,” I mean “not a tie-in.” As in, it’s not based on anything else. I came up with every word of it entirely on my own, without working within the constraints or relying on the strengths of a license.)

In one sense, the hard work is done. The novel is written, and it’s as good as I could make it. My editors have polished it to a shiny finish. It has an excellent cover. It’s ready to go.

Now the rest of the work begins. It’s not enough to just push a book out there and hope that someone with notice it. There are just too many other books out there competing for attention — not to mention the computer games, tabletop games, TV shows, films, music, and so on that vie for our entertainment dollars. If I want someone to know about Amortals, then I have to tell them about it.

Fortunately, I’ve been building up an audience for years, and I hope that some of them might follow me to this new book, which is entirely different than anything else I’ve ever written. Well, it’s still me doing the writing, and it’s all about heroes doing hard things in hard times, so I suppose in that way it’s pretty much exactly like everything else I’ve written. I just have to make sure no one’s put off by the trappings surrounding the tale, as this is a science-fiction book, whereas most of my work in the past has concentrated on fantasy. But my readers are too smart to be put off by something like that, right?

Anyhow, to help out with all this, I’m going to hit Twitter and Facebook hard, and I’m going to do interviews and blog posts anywhere anyone will have me. (If you have a venue for me, let me know!) The trick, of course, is to promote the book and myself without being obnoxious about it. I want people to not just remember me but remember me well. There’s a fine line to be tread there, but I’m going to do my best to dance along it rather than leaping straight over.

After all, I’d like to keep doing this again and again and again. I can’t have everyone getting sick of me right away. That’ll have to wait until I’m swell-headed with success. Right?

In any case, please wish me luck on this new journey of mine. I’ll need all of it I can get.