Philippa Ballantine - Author

Award-winning Author of fantasy, science fiction, and steampunk

Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

Help the Ministry

Phoenix Rising is nominated for best science fiction of 2011 over on Goodreads.com. This is a big deal, and getting into the first round of competition is delightful and unexpected, but we need your help to get further.

Getting the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences as much attention as possible goes toward getting more novels and keeping us writing in this world. If you want to see that happen, and you enjoyed the book, please take a second to vote if you’re a member of Goodreads. (if you’re not, it is genuinely a great community for readers to connect)

Thank you!

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News on three fronts

It’s raining details over here right now…so here’s an update.

Check out my appearances page for where and when I will be around. We have a selection of cool events Tee and I will be attending in 2012- the largest (so far) is DragonCon. It’s been awhile since I’ve dropped into the madness in Atlanta—2008 in fact—so I am looking forward to it.

I chose DragonCon over World Con in Chicago next year, because by then my book with Pyr will be out. Hunter and Fox is part of the Shifted World series, and the book that I landed my agent Laurie McLean with. Thanks to an upswing in high fantasy we found a publisher for it, and I hope you enjoy this tale of twisted loyalties and epic scope. Look for Hunter and Fox in July 2012.

Wrayth the third book of the Order series (after Geist and Spectyr) is due out in September 2012. So in time to find out what those geistlords and Deacons are up to before next Halloween.

And finally we have a new title for the second book of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. It will be called The Janus Affair- a title more in keeping with the series. It should be out in late May/early June 2012.

In the coming weeks and months I’ll be sharing the cover art for these three books. I what I have seen so far is beautiful work.

Thanks once again to all you readers and listeners who have helped me get this far.

New ventures

One of the joys of going to conventions, is the shot in the arm I often get to my creativity and way of looking at business.

During WorldCon, Tee Morris and I sat down with our agent Laurie McLean, and we both realised we were missing a trick. You see, both Tee and I have a wealth of short stories that have just been sitting around not doing anything for us.

Not only that, but with digital publishing we realised we could be expanding on our already published universes.

So we are sallying forth on this bold digital revolution.

I have already had both Chasing the Bard and Digital Magic out on a bunch of digital platforms. My novels are $2.99 each, which I think is pretty reasonable price, considering how much you get for your money.

However now you can get a quick shot of my writing—think of it as an expresso—for 99c. That’s right, as of right now there are two Ministry short stories which have been podcast out there. The Evil that Befell Sampson and Nathan Lowell’s The Astonishing Amulet of Amaratas are both on the Kindle, and are working their way through Smashwords to all the other platforms out there.

Also I have put six Erotica a la Carte stories through the same process.

My aim is to have ten stories a week available until I have caught up with the backlog—then I will begin on new stories, particularly in the Ministry series. We have plans for a YA series set in the Ministry world. This will probably begin with short e-fiction and we’ll see where it goes from there. But for now, the name Verity Fitzroy should be one you keep in mind.

If you want to help spread the word and review the titles, then please let me know by emailing pip@ this site, and I can supply a review copy.

This move into digital short fiction is affordable, and hopefully will find a toehold in the ebook market. I’m excited about the prospect for short stories on these platforms, and interested to see how this little experiment takes off.

Erotica a la carte was after all an experiment, and that has become a real joy.

As for Tee’s plans…well…you’re just going to have to ask him about that. But they are awesome!

Eliza and Wellington—the audiobook

People have been asking Tee and I about getting hold of the audio version of Phoenix Rising.

We’ve been doing a series of short stories set in the world of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, and one of those stories by Nathan Lowell is nominated for a Parsec Awards. However the rights to the full audio reside with Harper Collins.

Finally an audio version has been released. It is available through Audible, and thus Amazon and itunes as well. I know there will be a few disappointed folks out there who will be wondering why we didn’t do the audio for this version.

Quite simply it was a matter of time. Tee and I have only so much time, and it came down to a choice of which we did; record the audio book, or work on new stories. We hope you agree we made the right choice, as new stories come out from us in the near future.

James Langton does a wonderful job of reading the book, and it is actually exciting for me to listen to him do it. In fact, it is awesome.

So if you are keen for nearly fourteen hours of Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences audio fun, then please purchase and download Phoenix Rising. The comments are already coming in…

The mix of mayhem and comedy make this audio book hard to turn off, so make sure you are ready to get angry at anyone who tries to disrupt you. If you’ve never listened to a steam punk novel I suggest that you make this one your first.

Ministry May-hem

It’s been a crazy month in a crazy year.

Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novel was launched about three weeks ago, and it’s been go go go. We’ve done three readings and signings, and been editing the second book in those three weeks.

But coming up are two even larger events.

The first is the Steampunk World’s Fair, in Somerset, NJ. So if you want to find us between 20-22 May check out this post over on the Ministry. It will be our first steampunk only convention, so we are really looking forward to it.

The second is the following weekend. Balticon in Baltimore held over Memorial Weekend, has become the default location for podcast authors to meet. (at last count there would be twenty-nine podcasters in attendance) I am very proud to be the New Media Guest of Honor. It is my first GoH and I plan on being everywhere I can.

So if you are attending either (or both) of these please stop by and say I. I really enjoy these opportunities to get out and about.