A quick preview of my next book

My friend, pastor JR. Forasteros, has been doing a read-through of my next book to make sure that I am not saying anything heretical. Part of the book involves re-imagining stories about Jesus to help them make (emotional) sense to a modern-day audience. He asked if he could use an adaptation of a parable I had written in his sermon this week and I said "of course" so here it is. It's a great sermon, you would be wise to listen to the whole thing. If you only have a few minutes and want to listen to just my bit, it starts at about the 11 minute mark.

There have been other little previews along the way, including:

A Trip to the Zoo
The Old Woman Who Almost Loses It
Frank Chases His Dreams in Hollywood
The Lost Son
You can hear some of my own talks coming out of the content from the book, as well, here. (ETA: uh oh. Looks like those talks were taken down. Never mind!)

I'm really excited about this book, which will come from Baker Books next year. We're working hard to figure out the best title right now. I'll let you know what it is as soon as I know!

A free short story from Matt Mikalatos and @dailySF

Those who have read The Sword of Six Worlds already know that I love stories about children who stumble into other worlds and embark on amazing adventures.

But what about their parents? 

Here's a story for anyone who loves a child who occasionally disappears to distant, magical places.

Portal Worlds and Your Child: 

A Parent's Guide (With Examples).

If you enjoy the story, please share it!

And, as always, your comments are welcome here or at the Daily Science Fiction site.

That looks suspiciously like a... book contract! Two new books coming from yours truly.

Why, as a matter of fact, it is a book contract. I'll announce more details shortly, but you should be preparing yourself for another spiritual book no later than the summer of 2014. And ANOTHER ONE in the summer of 2015. Make some room on your bookshelf. Or in your digital library.

As you can see, these two books will be coming to you from Baker Books. I'm excited to be working with the folks at Baker... they seem intelligent, fun and are trying new and interesting things.

Exciting New Adventure for Young Fantasy Readers!

Well friends, the hard copies of Sword of Six Worlds are out there now, worming their way into bookstores... and your heart. Ha ha ha.

Here's a poster from Logos bookstore in Nashville, which is carrying the book:

Any day now the paper version of the book will be available on Amazon, as well, and I assume Barnes and Noble and other bookstores can't be far behind!

In the meantime, you can go pick up a copy at Logos!

The Sword of Six Worlds news....

Hey friends!

The Sword of Six Worlds print edition will be arriving shortly, just in time for Christmas! So for those of you without the ability to buy e-books, hang in there! Your time is coming!

Also, there have been two reviews recently about the book, one from J.R. Forasteros and another from Star the Bibliophile, both really great reviewers who loved the book.

Lastly, here's what the cover of the book will look like when it goes to print (click to make it larger):

New "Living Dead Christian" short story: A Vampire in the Church Choir!

This month marks the first anniversary of the release of Night of The Living Dead Christian, a comedy theology novel about what it means to find true transformation in our lives.

I love this book, and I love the characters in it. Of course. I wrote it. One character in particular, Lara, became one of my favorites, and I wanted to write another story with her in it. Then I thought, "Wouldn't it be fun to write her story and then make it available online for free on NLDC's anniversary?"

And that is precisely what I did. 

You can get it any format right here (including Mobi, for Kindle readers, and Epub for Nook, Kobo and so on). 

Here's a quick description of the new story, A Vampire in the Church Choir:

Lara, the newest alto in the struggling church choir, the Sonshine Singers, has a secret. She’s a vampire. Keeping a secret like that – being (sort of) dead – isn’t easy, which is why she came to a Big Box Mega Church in the first place. But now the pastor is preaching on “Monsters In Our Midst” and the congregation is out with pitchforks and torches. Plus, Lara is starting to suspect that the pastor himself is not all he seems, despite the long list of accolades, accomplishments and his slavishly devoted fans. To top it all off, Lara is getting “thirsty” and that long-necked tenor is starting to look like a great big juice box… even worse, the choir's next performance is only three weeks away, and Lara has been “promoted” to soprano. Sounds like a disaster, one way or another, a disaster that Lara is determined to avoid, resist and out-sing. The stakes are high, and the notes are higher, but for the first time in years Lara feels like she has a challenge she can really sink her teeth into.

And hey, if your read and enjoy A Vampire in the Church Choir (or think you're about to read and enjoy it) please consider clicking on the Facebook or Twitter icons at the end of this post and tell a friend about this free ebook!

This book is free. How to download ebooks to e-reading devices and apps. 

Format	Full Book
Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser)	View
Online Reading (JavaScript, experimental, buggy)	View
Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)	Download
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)	Download
PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing)	Download
RTF (readable on most word processors)	Download
LRF (Use only for older model Sony Readers that don't support .epub)	Download
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)	Download
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting)	Download
Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)	View

Cover art is by M.S. Corley.

Also, for those of you new around here, you can follow me on twitter, check out more about my books, or sign up for my super infrequent e-mail list.

I'm a computer programmer now

Soon I'll be able to do this.

My parents were both computer programmers, and when I was a kid they often would teach me little tricks and try to get me interested in computers. I'm not employable as a programmer or anything like that, but I have some marginal awareness of how things work as a result. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

For instance, I know that the internet is caused by information leaking into a substance called "the ether" and we can use ethernet cables to suck it back into "real space" or "virtual reality." Or something.

Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself this week for doing some minor coding here on the site, where I made drop down menus for purchasing my books. You can see them in the sidebar on the right or by clicking the "Matt's Books" tab on the top of the site (that's new, too, by the way).

It looks like this:

BUY THE BOOK Select one Amazon Barnes and Noble CBD Indie Bound Powell's

I think it's pretty nifty, and I'm pleased that I understood enough html to steal the bones for this thing off the internet and make it my own. I know, all I had to do was replace the link content, but still. Allow me a moment of pride at doing something at the beginner's level.

OF COURSE, the best way for you to celebrate this monumental achievement is for you to test out the drop down menu thing. Click on a link, press go, make sure it works. And just to be certain, go ahead and purchase a book or two to make sure everything is working correctly. Egggggggscellent. Moowhahahahahahaaha.

For all you authors out there who want to make your own, I'll put the basic code after the jump so you can use it for your own (just replace the links with links to your books from the correct site). I stole the basic code from here.

You can get the code after the jump.