Author: William I. Zard

Author of Metamancer, Book 1 of the Skeltouch Saga
Skeltouch Saga, Status of Works in Progress, William I. Zard

Subscriber Preview: Book 2 Back Cover Text

William I. Zard

I’m feeling fairly confident about where things are headed for Book 2, so I took a second crack at writing the blurb for it. The first attempt will not see the light of day, since some of the things mentioned there were deleted, and the focus is just wrong. Revisiting the blurb partway through is useful to see whether I am still on course or if the course has changed.

Since I can only write part-time and the time between books is far longer than I would like, I am releasing this version for your enjoyment and hopefully to reassure you that Book 2 really is in progress. Here is a *possible* blurb for Book 2 (subject to further changes, of course). Let me know what you think in the comments.

Sinprejic has finally accepted his talent for magic, but to investigate the disappearance of his parents he will need both power and autonomy. The only option is to travel to the Wizard’s Academy, where he may earn a staff and the title of Mage.

Although the trail of his parents’ mystery is growing cold, his talent for Metamancy is dangerously taboo. The telltale trait of a Metamancer is the ability to learn spells very quickly, so he must conceal his rapid progress and divert attention to his talents in Necromancy (and its application to healing).

On top of this, he has to deal with a deteriorating situation back home between the elves and the D’Arnor barony, news that his brother may be in mortal danger, a strange discovery in the wilderness outside the school, and finding people he can trust in a school where graduating involves fighting other students to the death.

Through it all, there is the growing sense that someone is manipulating him. Is it the ghost haunting him for no clear reason? Is it the current Grand Adept of Necromancy who fears he will be displaced? Maybe it is his Master Morphosius, or Aurcivius the thousand-year-old Archmage, or is it someone else entirely?

Who is working with or for whom? …And why?

William I. Zard

Book Reviews on Storylace

William I. Zard

There are a plethora of book-related sites, many of which allow you to track your reads, your To-Be-Read list (TBR), and post your own reviews of books. Today, I’d like to take a moment to promote Storylace, the one I like best, where I post my book reviews.

All authors are readers. You can’t possibly do a good job of writing if you aren’t reading. Before publishing, I had entirely under-appreciated the importance of reviews and ratings to authors, and I probably gave less than a dozen ratings to books before 2023. Now that I’m published, my eyes have opened, and I realize two things.

First, the only possible way for good writing to become promoted by online platforms is if people provide feedback on those platforms. By not rating and reviewing, I had been “all take and no give.” Yes, I paid for the books, but by not expressing my opinion in the system, I was failing to reward good work and help others find it. This is probably a legacy of developing reading habits long before the internet even existed. It took a bit of a mind-shift to realize that I now had the power to influence the market and help other readers after reading the book. Times change, and I needed to adapt.

Second, the process of writing a review cultivates a level of critical thinking about various aspects of writing. I quickly realized that practicing this type of thinking will help me self-evaluate my own writing. I can already see it helping me notice what works and what doesn’t, and giving me aspirations to write scenes that are as effective and evocative as some of my specific favorites. For example, I really admired the reconciliation between Reorden and Kurata in Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris, which converts her from a menace to an ally. That was really well done and satisfying to read. If I can make my readers feel like that at some point, it will be a “Good Thing”.

And so in late 2023, I resolved to write a review for every book I read. There are many sites, but I wanted something that gave me more than 5 stars with which to express myself. Amazon itself is too platform/vendor specific, and I also felt significant dissatisfaction with the poor stewardship of Goodreads by Amazon. I had issues with the way technology features were implemented on others, and I also encountered some author hatred on yet another platform that seemed to have attracted users who view authors as spiteful manipulators incapable of anything but interfering with readers.

When I found Storylace, I knew almost immediately it was a good fit. It’s very creator-friendly and seems to have a deep-seated belief that we are all creators of some sort. They have features for sharing reviews and artwork and are supportive of authors and artists, providing them with tools to tactfully direct readers to the relevant commercial outlets. Some folks only create lists or reviews, others create art or written works. It genuinely feels like all are welcome.

If you want to see what I’ve read recently and my thoughts on other works, feel free to check out my profile on Storylace (login required). My reviews are mostly spoiler-free, and if there is a mild spoiler, I generally tag it so that you have to click to read it.

If you are an author, please be advised that I am an author first and reviewing is only a sideline. I do not currently accept review requests, nor do I plan to any time in the near future. Honestly, you should be seeking reviews from a much more popular YouTube/BookTok/Bookstagram channel than me anyway.

If you are a reader, please bear in mind that overall ratings are not strictly calculated from section scores. Books differ in how important the plot is versus the characters versus the setting. The editing/narration section is mostly there to complain about trivial stuff that got missed, and only has a significant effect on the score if there are missing or incomplete pages or other disasters. There is no single ratio among sections that appropriately represents every book, so the overall score is a general feel, not a mathematical computation. I also have a policy of not putting a number or recommendation on anything I DNF before 50% and not mentioning anything I DNF at less than 20% unless it is traditionally published by a major publishing house. We all deserve a mulligan. To learn, you must fail and then understand why you failed.

If you do check out my reviews, I hope you enjoy them and find them helpful. Feel free to comment on them directly, critique them as a whole here on this post, or share what your favorite review/tracking platform is.

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Skeltouch Status: Cutting, and Writing

William I. Zard

Things are progressing, though not as fast as I would like. I have written some new text and re-edited some old text, added an appendix, and replaced the prologue, but I have also given in to the nagging feeling that a fair chunk of what I had was unnecessary and made some cuts. As such, the word count went back down to as low as 32,000, but as of today, it’s back up to 39,154

One big part of what I cut was a backstory on a character mentioned briefly in book 1. We will get to know him better in the upcoming book 2, and I had shoehorned his background into the book as a prologue, but I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with that decision. I recently wrote a much more focused prologue that is shorter, more impactful, and more relevant to the core story. This will be much better than merely illuminating a single side character’s history.

Writing these backstories always helps ensure I have a character with depth that makes sense, but it also creates content that is hard to share. The first problem is that wizards in my world are very cagy about their own history, to minimize the chance of anyone figuring out their true name. A second, more practical reason is that if I just dump everything into the book, it will be a very slow story.

I’m contemplating collecting these into a collection of short stories so I can share them. I wrote a quick draft of a prospective preface/introduction to such a volume. I don’t promise I’ll ever publish it, but let me know if a series of short origin stories for wizards sounds good to you (or not). There are several other ways in which I might release such stories, but this is the idea I’m currently kicking around.

As for Lore posts for subscribers, I’ve got more material, and I think the next thing to be released will probably be a rough draft of the appendix that details the curriculum for students at the Wizards Academy. It doesn’t give away any of the plot or characters, just some background lore. Sign up and stay tuned. If you miss the previous one, signing up will get you access to that too.

Also, here’s an image I drew relating to the backstory that was cut…

Lore, Skeltouch Saga

Lore Posts for Subscribers

William I. Zard

Book 2 in the Skeltouch Saga will take our main character, Sinprejic, out into the world and away from his small town home of Arnoria. I have long had a large amount of conceptual material tucked away in corners of my brain regarding the various regions of the world I am creating. Although the wizards he meets in Metamancer are from other regions, wizards, as a rule, don’t discuss their origins, so I was spared most of the need to formalize and set details in stone.

While the students at the wizard’s academy will also be cagey about their past, I want to be sure that these inexperienced wizards-in-training have some slip-ups and tells that hint at their origins. Also, there will be some non-wizard folks encountered, and later books will visit more regions so I’m going to have to get those right to avoid contradicting myself later. As such, part of my work on the continuation of the series is further fleshing out of the wider world.

To keep my readers entertained and reward those who have subscribed during this process, I’ve decided to publish some subscriber-only posts detailing some of the world lore as it becomes semi-solid. Details may change before publication, but hopefully, the general feel will remain consistent.

Please don’t fear the subscription. Zmancy is not a huge evil company. Right now it’s just me and I have absolutely no use for your email aside from letting you know when I’ve posted something here, I’m attending an event or I (finally!) publish another book. Why have subscriber content at all? For the same reason as every other content creator… to entice you to provide an email I can use to let you know when I’ve created content. Without some way to communicate to my readers, I’m just posting into the void… which is of course fairly pointless.

However, unlike Patreon subscriptions, this one is 100% free.

The first such post will discuss this map of the duchy containing Arnoria, the town on which the first book is centered, ruled by Baron D’Arnor.

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Skeltouch Saga Status

William I. Zard

So here we are at the end of 2024. Metamancer has been out for almost a year and a half. It’s long overdue for me to address the status of the series and my expectations for the publication of book 2, as well as a few other details.

Metamancer

During the last year, book one had four significant events.

  • SPFBO X: it was entered in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off #10. This was a fun, wild ride in which I met a wonderful set of fellow contestants. Unfortunately, it suffered a bit of bad luck in the first phase, assignment to initial judges. The assigned judge began with a read of the first 10% and then chose one book to read all the way through. That format is awful for my book because the prologue is long, and the number 10% happens to turn over at precisely the ONE place where I (intentionally) allow for a bit of an info dump. The next scene is where the significance of the forgoing scenes starts to come into focus. My judge has probably never read that far. Oh well. Them’s the breaks. The story was meant to be read as a whole, not a ten-part serial.
  • Audio Edition: Having been enthused by the eBook sales, especially on Kindle Unlimited, I decided it might be good to publish an Audio edition. My book seemed to do well where the barrier to entry was reduced, and it seemed to me that Audible provided a similar environment. Being committed to providing the best possible experience for my readers, I contacted several narrators and selected John Pirhalla. The audio edition became available on Audible on Aug 11, 2024,
  • Second Printing: The process of producing the audiobook revealed a few necessary edits, all of a minor nature, so I made those updates and uploaded new eBook and paperback files. I still have about 40 first-printing paperback copies, which I will likely sign and offer for sale once I write up an errata sheet to include. If you really want one, let me know!
  • Wide availability on all platforms: Since KU sales were tailing off and I was producing a new set of files, I decided to ensure that my book was also available to users of other platforms. This turned out to be a bit of a waste of time since, in 6 months, it’s added a grand total of 4 sales and one return (the return was on Apple Books, which is notorious for its read/return policy allowing readers to essentially read for free). As far as I know, this is the only reader to ever return my book, so I’m thankful for that!

Sales Status

For those interested in the economics of self-publishing, here are my numbers to date:

Format\Year20232024Total
KU Page Reads667,544 (1,304)396,904 (775)1,064,448 (2,079)
Amazon Kindle396503899
Other eBooks–33
Paperback999108
Audible – 6666
Total Reads1,7991,3563,155
Total Revenue (some is estimated)$7,588.70
First Printing Costs (Cover, Editor, ISBNs)-$4790.30
Audiobook Costs (Narration)-$3,850.00
Profit Before Advertising-$1051.6
Advertising (Amazon, Mailings, BookBub, Facebook)-$5,259.63
TOTAL-$6,311.23

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to find a blurb that makes advertising effective. My conversion rates are always terrible, and I sell one book about once every 20-30 clicks. Whenever someone clicks on “sponsored” books on Amazon, it typically costs the author/publisher $1.50. As far as I can see, advertising books on Amazon builds readership at a cost to the author, but that is necessary because readers are very skittish about books with few reviews.

My conversion rate may be lower than usual because when discussing covers with my artist, my bias was for something that creates a curiosity to know more. I selected an initial concept with that in mind. I imagined folks would look at the cover, read the blurb, and then wonder how those fit together. I assumed they would read the book to find out. That would likely work for me, but apparently, I’m not normal. Some feedback I have received has led me to realize that many prospective readers are terrified of the possibility that they will waste their time or money. It would seem that the proper strategy is to ensure everything is perfectly reassuring and cohesive, leaving no doubts. I love my current cover, and my artist performed his craft excellently, but my input on the process seems to have led it astray. Live and learn. I am mulling the idea of a second edition with a new cover when I release book 2.

Book 2 Progress

Book 2 is in progress, though I’ll admit that some technical hurdles have been getting in the way. My process for the first book left me with straightforward technical steps for producing the PDF and eBook files, and it was good for the creative side of writing/drafting and allowed me to make sensible use of GitHub version control. The downside was that I had to convert to Microsoft Word format for editing because I was writing in LaTeX format, which is unacceptable to most editors. Then I had to hand-apply thousands of corrections made in the Word document to my LaTeX original, which was absolute TORTURE.

My brain doesn’t seem to do commas and grammar at the same time as it does creativity. When writing new material, I typically hold an image of the scene in my head and transcribe what I “see” and “hear.” Technicalities generally get lost as I seek the best descriptions and mentally verify that everything makes sense based on what came before, what’s present in the current scene, and what will come next. Like all writers, I have difficulty seeing my own mistakes because I know what the page should say, and my brain loses patience and regularly skips to what it already knows rather than actually doing the work of actually reading the page. So even after editing passes and reading it aloud to myself, I tend to need a lot of corrections (90% of which leave me saying, “crap, I knew that!”). Microsft Word has grammar checking, but the grammar checking available for LaTeX-oriented editors is rudimentary and buggy.

So, I’ve re-tooled for book two and am now using a new web-based editor and a browser-based plugin for grammar checking. That transition had a few technical hurdles, but I finally overcame them this month. I should be able to focus more on actual writing in the new year. (Yay!) Hopefully, I’ll hand my editor something with a lot less rudimentary oversights this time, leading to a faster turnaround by him and me, better feedback from him, and a lot less pain for me.

“But WHEN?!?!” I hear you cry.

It’s too early to make any commitments, but I’ll say I certainly want to have a draft complete within 2025. As you can see above, I need to keep working as a consultant, so my work schedule and life events may interfere, but that’s the goal. This time last year, I was in the middle of a minor medical crisis that took a few months to resolve. 2025 appears to be starting out better for me, and I wish my readers all the best for the new year.

Especially those dedicated enough to read this whole post! The first person to subscribe (or already be subscribed) and leave a comment with the name of the character shown below will receive an email to their subscribed email address to arrange delivery of a signed first-printing paperback.

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Comps: Runelight, Dragons Reach

William I. Zard

Book marketers are constantly pushing the concept of “comp titles.” Essentially, they want to say, “If you liked that, you’ll like this.” As an author, I’ve always found identifying comp titles difficult. I tend to think of works that influence me, but I take lots of minor influences from many places, so I always come up with too many and can’t decide. However, an excellent and modern comparison to my debut book, Metamancer, has recently become apparent. Since I read these after I wrote Metamancer, it’s easier for me to say, “Hey, this resembles something I wrote.”

Recently, I wanted to read something self-published with an audio version, so I picked up Runelight by J A Andrews. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable book. Then, since book 2 of Aenigma Lights is not out on audio (yet), I followed with her The Keeper Origins series. I’ve now finished the first book in that series, Dragons Reach; amazingly, it’s even better than Runelight. If you have already read my book, I highly recommend that you check them out.

Beyond her excellent storytelling, one of the fascinating parts of reading her work was continually finding significant parallels to my work. Here’s a list of similarities that I think make these two J A Andrews titles a good “Comp” for my book Metamancer:

  • Style – Single-character POV (Runelight, Dragons Reach)
  • Style – Good description of setting (Runelight, Dragons Reach)
  • Style – Linear with strong A plot, limited B plots (Runelight, Dragons Reach)
  • Style – Childhood origin start (Runelight, Dragons Reach)
  • Theme – Difficulty of long-lived Elf relationships with Short lived humans (Runelight)
  • Coincidence – Main Character befriends a female red-haired elf. (Runelight)
  • Theme – Powerful characters manipulate naive main characters. (Dragons Reach)
  • Setting – Magical Powers are inherent to individuals; not everyone can use them (Runelight, Dragons Reach)
  • Theme – Romantic interest, as a sub-plot, not a Romantasy (Dragons Reach)

Of course, there are differences, too.

  • Style – Main character gender: Her MC is female in both cases; mine is male.
  • Style – I delve a bit deeper into the childhood origins.
  • Style – I spend less time inside the character’s head, relying more on actions and dialog to convey emotion.
  • Setting – Magic systems are very different.
  • Setting – My book takes place on a far-future, unrecognizable Earth; hers is an entirely separate world.
  • Style – Though my book focuses on the MC, I have some scenes that cut away from the main character to show things the MC isn’t aware of. However, those are generally 3rd person non-omniscient (fly on the wall) and not really a character perspective, so I still consider my work single POV.
  • Style – Metamancer uses dramatic irony much more heavily (fueled by what we learn in the cutaways).
  • Theme – Life throws more varied problems at the MC in my book; some are internal self-conflicts, some are intentionally caused by others, and some are things nobody controls that just happen. In J A Andrews’s works, pretty much everything that happens is something someone or something did, while in my world, simple accident, inanimate environment, and factors no one controls may all play a role. In Metamancer, one major event stems from a danger the characters are unaware of. Technically, it would have been preventable, but lacking awareness and experience, they knew of no reason to take precautions. Sometimes, life just plain blindsides you.

I think it’s reasonable to say that my imagined world stands a little closer to our reality as we know it. However, it is still high fantasy and far from anything that would be called low, urban, or historical fantasy.

Final note: I’m now listening to Raven’s Ruin (Book 2 of the Keeper’s Origins series), which is less of a comp. Although it does have a warrior monk element (that also appears very briefly in my book), it leans into the romance far more heavily. Also, it spends more time on the main character’s internal dialog, which is less like my style. Of course, Raven’s ruin is also book 2 in a series, so we’ll have to look again after I have book 2 out.

Agree? Disagree? Care to suggest another comp title? Leave a comment below!

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Blog Tour Booked!

William I. Zard

Metamancer will be touring several book review blogs and vlogs courtesy of IndieBookTours! The idea is that book review bloggers/vloggers will sign up with IndieBookTours and receive a free copy of my audiobook or my ebook in exchange for an honest review. The reviews will then be published daily across five days.

The tour is now in the signup phase, so if you are a book reviewer and think it might be fun to review Metamancer, you can sign up using their form here.

If you are a reader (or prospective reader) and want to hear what they say, stay tuned to this blog. I will post a list here when the tour is fully booked, and I know the blogs involved. As the reviewers post their content, I will update it with links.

Quick details about Metamancer:

  • Genre: High fantasy
  • Stakes: High
  • Age Appropriate: All ages (11-111)
  • Setting: Magic and low technology (medieval)
  • Romance: Incidental (romance is not the main focus, low spice).
  • Violence: Limited gore/horror
Metamancer’s full details
Subscribe For Updates

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Audiobook Released

William I. Zard

The audio version of Metamancer Narrated by John Pirhalla is now available on Audible! https://bit.ly/Metmancer_A_US

Here are links suitable for non US markets as well:

I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to post comments/feedback below.

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What is a Metamancer?

William I. Zard

One of the things that has been unfortunate during the development of my book is that the word Metamancer has taken on a new meaning since I selected it.

I picked out the name Metamancer and the central concept of the main character’s talents back in approximately 2002 or maybe 2003. The idea was partly sparked by a conversation with a post-doc at Olin College (where I worked at the time) who described a cartoon with a “meta-genie” that handled wishes about wishes… or something like that. The details are now foggy, but that’s how it started.

A few days later, I was pondering what should happen to Johnny after he becomes an apprentice, and I got the idea that maybe he would have a talent for altering magic. I recall thinking of it as a sort of inverse or variant of Bink in A Spell for Chameleon, whose talent is that he can’t be affected by magic, which is a big deal in the world of Xanth, where everyone has a magical talent.

Since Metadata is data bout data, and a Meta-genie handles wishes about wishes, I coined the term Metamancy to represent magic about magic. Metamancer is the obvious name for a practitioner of Metamancy. If either of these terms existed earlier, I was blissfully unaware of that.

All was good, and I was happy with the term. I continued (slowly) developing the story, but as time passed, the term Metamancer was reinvented by others within the realm of video games. Googling around gives me the impression that it sprung from a gaming community around the game Deepwoken, but that’s just an unscientific guess based on the frequency of YouTube videos using the term.

In the gaming world, there is a concept of “M. E. T. A.” That acronym stands for the “Most Effective Tactics Available.” I think this may be borrowed from military strategy/terminology, but I can’t find a reference for that. In some games, there are combinations of skills or equipment load-outs that are clearly stronger than others, often so strong that they break or trivialize the challenge of the game or, in a player vs player game, force all the other players to conform to that setup.

These player builds (skill sets and load-outs) often center around hard-to-obtain objects or require long periods of grinding out advancement, so players who build these characters are often both hated and envied by the rest of the player base. Metamancer has become a combination slur and accolade (depending on perspective) in these sorts of games and somewhat evolved into a general term for strong and ruthless players. I remained unaware of this until just before I released the book. I had run into the term M. E. T. A. a few years earlier for game-breaking builds, but not “Metamancer”.

Unfortunately, this parallel evolution of the word probably confuses a portion of the folks who (20+ years later) now encounter my book. Twenty years ago, with little else to refer to, “Metamancer” would likely have only called to mind “Necromancer” or perhaps “Neuromancer” or “Chronomancy,” all of which are magic-related. The analogy to metadata and reference to magic should have been clear.

But, since things have become muddled with the gaming concept, this post is meant to set the record straight with respect to the title of my book and the fictional realm it depicts. Here is my official definition of Metamancer:

Metamancer: (n) A spell caster extremely talented in detecting, altering, canceling, and manipulating new and existing magic. Metamancers are often feared or attacked by their peers if discovered.

It is not in any way related to gaming/RPG M.E.T.A. (most effective tactics available)