Fixed!

I used to play a tabletop role playing game called Shadowrun many, many years ago. We’re talking 1st and 2nd edition years ago, which is a lot. I think I may have even enjoyed it more than Dungeons and Dragons, but only one of my friends showed similar interests and we parted ways after our glory days of high school.

With that admission put out there, Shadowrun provided a lot of inspiration for me over the years in my creative endeavors. It’s flavored many of my books, including my various Dark Earth books, as well as my Wanted series, my Vitalis series, and even my Dark Universe series. But I felt like I wasn’t really doing Shadowrun justice even thought I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of those books I wrote.

So I looked back into Shadowrun a few months ago and holy cow, things had changed! There were computer games written for it (I sampled them and they didn’t do much for me), and 3 more versions had come and gone. Naturally, I had to do some digging and I picked up what I could of the most recent edition of Shadowrun – 5th edition. It was nearly overwhelming trying to wrap my head around it all!

But my love of the setting conquered the rule books and, by the time it was all said and done, I knew I had to do something with it. I don’t have the resources (time, firstly, but also interested players and / or a game master) for role playing these days, but I do have a rabid imagination. So I created characters that were begging to be made real. And once I had them, I had to tell their stories. Turns out their back stories were intertwined, and the details unveiled themselves as I wrote the novel you’re about to read.

With all that out of the way, here is my first Shadowrun novel: Fixed. I submitted the first chapter to the current creators of Shadowrun and received a favorable response, even though they passed on it for now. I was invited to send any future works their way for consideration, but I may have satisfied my urge to write about Shadowrun with this novel.

So what you have here is a work of fan-fiction. Because I cannot and will not charge for it, it does not have a beautiful cover like my other books do. It also has no professional editing like my other books. If you do find mistakes, I encourage you to let me know so I can fix them.

I hope you like reading it as much as I did writing it. When you’re done if you haven’t already tried them, I encourage you to check out my other books. Some of those are free as well, so start there and see what you like! They can be found virtually anywhere ebooks are sold, and several are available on Amazon in print.

Enjoy, chummers, and stay whiz!

Click here to download the pdf for Fixed

-Jason Halstead

New Marketing Tactics

There’s strategies and there’s tactics. My strategy is simple: become a full time writer. That’s my mission statement. To make it happen I need tactics. Tactics don’t win a war, they win battles. Win enough battles and the war is won. My latest tactic: free books.

Wait a minute! How the hell can I give books away if I want to make money at writing books? It sounds like a paradox – or maybe something even worse, like when your girlfriend or wife asks you if her pants still look good on her, then demands honesty. Yeah, for all you guys out there you know what I’m talking about. Now hide that smirk before your significant other sees it and wonders what you’re up to.

So how am I going to pull this rabbit out of my hat? Well it’s simple. I have confidence in my books. It’s not just that I think my books are good, but I’ve been convinced by others that my books are good too. So now my plan is to give away a few of them. These are full length novels, not samples, and I plan on changing them up every month or so.

It’s not just a random book I’m offering either. It’s books that are at the beginning of a series. I think there’s an official name for this sort of thing, but I’m not sure what it is. The important thing to me is that I’m giving away a free book and not trying to trick anybody or attach any hidden strings to the offer. All a person needs to do is go to my website and sign up for my newsletter. From that point on I’ll email them a link and instructions on how to obtain the book. No purchase required and no other information necessary. I don’t make a penny off of this, in fact it’s probably costing my money to do so.

But let’s back up a bit. I may not be making anything off of this but I have every confidence that people will like what they read. Maybe not everyone or maybe not even 90% of them. But if 10% like it enough to want more, well the books I’ll be offering will have sequels waiting for them. In some cases there are multiple sequels available. That’s where it comes back around because that’s where I start to make money on this. If 100 people download my book and 10 of them like it enough to buy the sequel, then odds are good I just made some money. Oh sure, $20 isn’t much but I’m hoping 10 people is only the beginning.

Will it work? I don’t know. It seems like a great idea, but most of mine do. Then, later, I often view it with hindsight and amend my statement to, “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” You can be sure I’ll share the success (or lack of) as it unfolds! Until then, feel free to hop on over to my website, sign up for my newsletter, then I’ll share it with you as soon as I get word of it. http://www.booksbyjason.com/newsletter.aspx

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.