The sequel is out. The Rise of Aethan Lightbringer. A huge thanks to test readers for all the help. It's much appreciated!
The cover is a temporary substitute. The delays with the cover were endless. The book was late enough. It got to the point where I couldn't keep blogging that it's late again because of the cover. If you're following the blog, I assume you want to read the content and don't care so much what the cover looks like. It doesn't normally show on a Kindle anyway, right? Right. It's future readers who need a nice cover, and I hope to get them one very soon.
I got the final proof copy and saw a comma error on the first page. That and a few other things appear in the 99-cent pre-order copy. Very last minute fixes went in. Mostly it was places where there was a double space in the paperback that weren't in the Kindle version at all, not even the pre-order edition. So, if you got the pre-order, please ignore that traumatic comma error on page 1. :) If you want it and the other minor things gone, you can submit a Help ticket to Amazon and ask them to update the book on your device. It's free. They'll need the ASIN number, which is B00UO43KA4. I don't know if it's worth the trouble, but it might be to you, right? Right.
What's next? I've gotten a lot done on the YA(young adult) book, but it still has a way to go. I'm going to list it as YA, and it has a young protagonist. But don't let that fool you. It's really for teens and adults both. YA covers 13 to 18 years old. To be honest, labeling it that way is more for marketing reasons. The YA market is huge. At some point I want to write full time. I can't do that if writing doesn't make enough money, and right now it doesn't.
Even if it's marketed as YA, that doesn't mean it has to be immature to
connect with a teen market. When I was a teenager I read adult books. Okay, there was no YA category back then. That's a good point and tells me
that YA is kind of a marketing gimmick to begin with. Anyway, the protagonist has things to deal with. She's a teen, but she's a mature teen and learning to deal with things in an adult way. So, there's not going to be a lot of teen angst and hand-wringing. I think that treats the teen audience with respect. Think of Ben, Adina and Deirdre. They were all late teens but trying to deal with things as best they could. Uncertainties? Yes. Hand-wringing? No.
Plus, covering the YA market segment lets me put in more lighthearted humor. It has a lighter tone at the beginning and should get more serious toward the end. Gotta run. I hope you enjoy The Rise of Aethan Lightbringer.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
The Pre-Order
A lot of people don't believe in the devil. The constant hindrances force me to. There's good news. There's bad news. There's news that makes me want to pull my hair out.
The good news is that the book has been submitted to Amazon for pre-order. The title is The Rise of Aethan Lightbringer. It should be available on their web site before 6:30am EDT March 14. The release date is the 19th. That gives me some time to overcome the bad news.
The other good news is that the cover art is done. I'm not completely happy with it, but it's what I could afford. :) Almost anything is better than the army field manual covers on the original series, right? The bad news is it needs to be professionally photographed for me in digital format, not a physical picture. I haven't been able to find someone to do that yet. My best hope was this guy. He's the only digital photographer listed in the phone book. Yes, I live in the middle of nowhere. As you can see, he was having health problems in 2012. Both of his numbers in the phone book are out of service. No one else I've been able to talk to can do it. I'm still waiting to hear back via email from the closest photographer to me.
Printers are "supposed" to be able to photograph artwork. It's part of what they do and is part of being a printer from what I understand. I talked to one who didn't know that. We have fewer printers than photographers here. Not to be sarcastic, but how else do they record images, of say a poster, of the things they print? Maybe I should call back and ask. Everyone can't possibly come in with a neat and tidy photo to work from. Do they send everyone to a photographer first? One photographer I tried to call has a fax machine answering the phone. It's the only number for them in the phone book or on their web site. I assume they don't get any calls. I wonder if they're baffled by that.
I should've been able to get this done Thursday afternoon. It didn't work out that way. Anyway, the cover on Amazon will be a generic until I can get the real cover photographed. After all the other delays, it makes me want to pull my hair out.
There's some kind of good news. If I can't get anyone local to do the photography, there's a medium-sized city just under an hour away. Another alternative is to buy something like this or this and do it myself. I'm not sure my camera's up to it, but I could try it and see. I already know enough about the technical quirks to be able to do it, although there's more to it than taking a picture. A real photographer would place a color chart beside the painting and use software to get the color correct. I'm not sure I could get the software for that. Nevertheless, doing it myself might be cheaper than a photographer.
And buying one of those kits would be a major part of building a small studio to make YouTube videos, an idea I've had for a while. I already have an HD camera and lapel microphone. The basic idea was to record a series of shows where I sit on a "set" and talk about things God's shown me. Nothing flashy, just nuggets from my own life.
The good news is that the book has been submitted to Amazon for pre-order. The title is The Rise of Aethan Lightbringer. It should be available on their web site before 6:30am EDT March 14. The release date is the 19th. That gives me some time to overcome the bad news.
The other good news is that the cover art is done. I'm not completely happy with it, but it's what I could afford. :) Almost anything is better than the army field manual covers on the original series, right? The bad news is it needs to be professionally photographed for me in digital format, not a physical picture. I haven't been able to find someone to do that yet. My best hope was this guy. He's the only digital photographer listed in the phone book. Yes, I live in the middle of nowhere. As you can see, he was having health problems in 2012. Both of his numbers in the phone book are out of service. No one else I've been able to talk to can do it. I'm still waiting to hear back via email from the closest photographer to me.
Printers are "supposed" to be able to photograph artwork. It's part of what they do and is part of being a printer from what I understand. I talked to one who didn't know that. We have fewer printers than photographers here. Not to be sarcastic, but how else do they record images, of say a poster, of the things they print? Maybe I should call back and ask. Everyone can't possibly come in with a neat and tidy photo to work from. Do they send everyone to a photographer first? One photographer I tried to call has a fax machine answering the phone. It's the only number for them in the phone book or on their web site. I assume they don't get any calls. I wonder if they're baffled by that.
I should've been able to get this done Thursday afternoon. It didn't work out that way. Anyway, the cover on Amazon will be a generic until I can get the real cover photographed. After all the other delays, it makes me want to pull my hair out.
There's some kind of good news. If I can't get anyone local to do the photography, there's a medium-sized city just under an hour away. Another alternative is to buy something like this or this and do it myself. I'm not sure my camera's up to it, but I could try it and see. I already know enough about the technical quirks to be able to do it, although there's more to it than taking a picture. A real photographer would place a color chart beside the painting and use software to get the color correct. I'm not sure I could get the software for that. Nevertheless, doing it myself might be cheaper than a photographer.
And buying one of those kits would be a major part of building a small studio to make YouTube videos, an idea I've had for a while. I already have an HD camera and lapel microphone. The basic idea was to record a series of shows where I sit on a "set" and talk about things God's shown me. Nothing flashy, just nuggets from my own life.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Snow Days
If you wondered where last week's blog was, this time last week I had no internet service. A snowstorm came in Wednesday night and knocked me offline until Saturday. The way it was explained to me was that my ISP relies on the power company to keep people connected. The power company was prioritizing restoring electricity to people's houses first and things like my internet connection second. I suppose that's reasonable.
It made me put a lot of thought into getting a cheap mobile hotspot for emergencies so I could at least check email and post an update on situations like the snowstorm. It's amazing how necessary the internet has become for daily living. Straight Talk Wireless has a reconditioned hotspot that's very cheap, but I'm wary of reconditioned items.
This winter has had some unusual cold. Two nights in a row the temperature dropped to 8 degrees. -13.3C for European readers. The last two years have been cooler and rainier in the summer than usual, which I didn't mind at all especially at night. However, 8 degrees back to back is not only too cold but unheard of. What happened to global warming? I thought it was supposed to be getting hotter.
Book Update
I've been stressing out on the delay with the cover art. The first one didn't work. The second one looks like it's going to. I'm hoping it'll be ready by next week.
The delay hasn't been all bad. When I was correcting errors that test readers found, I mistakenly opened the wrong file. Toward the end of the manuscript, I renamed the main file and forgot to use that one once I heard back from them. Oops. I had to redo it all. While working on it, I discovered something no one noticed. There were two Chapter 9s.
As an apology for all the delays, I'm going to put the book on sale for cheap for blog readers. It might take the form of a pre-order. If I can do that, it would be 99 cents to pre-order and go up to regular price on the release date for everyone else. Any pre-order time would be very short. It wouldn't add any extra delay time. It would take place during the time I usually wait on the final proof copy to arrive, which is normally three days.
It made me put a lot of thought into getting a cheap mobile hotspot for emergencies so I could at least check email and post an update on situations like the snowstorm. It's amazing how necessary the internet has become for daily living. Straight Talk Wireless has a reconditioned hotspot that's very cheap, but I'm wary of reconditioned items.
This winter has had some unusual cold. Two nights in a row the temperature dropped to 8 degrees. -13.3C for European readers. The last two years have been cooler and rainier in the summer than usual, which I didn't mind at all especially at night. However, 8 degrees back to back is not only too cold but unheard of. What happened to global warming? I thought it was supposed to be getting hotter.
Book Update
I've been stressing out on the delay with the cover art. The first one didn't work. The second one looks like it's going to. I'm hoping it'll be ready by next week.
The delay hasn't been all bad. When I was correcting errors that test readers found, I mistakenly opened the wrong file. Toward the end of the manuscript, I renamed the main file and forgot to use that one once I heard back from them. Oops. I had to redo it all. While working on it, I discovered something no one noticed. There were two Chapter 9s.
As an apology for all the delays, I'm going to put the book on sale for cheap for blog readers. It might take the form of a pre-order. If I can do that, it would be 99 cents to pre-order and go up to regular price on the release date for everyone else. Any pre-order time would be very short. It wouldn't add any extra delay time. It would take place during the time I usually wait on the final proof copy to arrive, which is normally three days.
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