Another Review Posted

Just finished reading another very nice review of Emily & the Silent King posted by Maria Luisa Antonaya over on Suite101.com. I really liked how she summarized the book, it is much better than the back copy I came up with for the cover! I continue to be very happy with how well the book has been received by the various book reviewers, especially since it's a first book. It is a welcome confidence boost and gives me additional incentive to finish the other books in the series. It will be interesting to see how the later books are reviewed! Please stop by and read the review when you get a chance and leave a comment if possible.

Book Worming in the 21st Century Book Review

Another positive book review for Emily & the Silent King has come in! Kristen over at BookWormingInThe21stCentury gave it four out of five roses! I'm very pleased with the positive reception book one is getting and I can only hope that Devin & the Empire of Wolves is as well received as the first book in the series has been! Everyone seems to love the Dwarves and I really enjoy writing them, I'm going to do my best to bring out some of the other characters as the series progresses to give Helgi and company a little competition.

I just realized that I did not announce the availability of book two in the Legends of Midralon series on this blog! Devin & The Empire of Wolves is now available on Amazon and CreateSpace! It's been slowly but steadily moving up the sales charts since I announced it on the facebook fanpage last week! Thanks to everyone for your support!

My vacation is coming to an end and this means I will be getting back to work on revising the book three rough draft and working on the podcast of book one! So much to do, my weekends are going to be very busy for the foreseeable future!

Tell Your Friends!

Devin & The Empire of Wolves is now available! You can find it on Amazon here and CreateSpace here! I'm very happy with how this book turned out and I think the readers of the first book will like the direction the story is headed! I can't wait to start getting feedback from everyone! Please visit/join the Legends of Midralon fanpage on facebook for more information on a discount code for this book (code only valid on orders through CreateSpace)! International readers can purchase the book through CreateSpace.

The proof has arrived!

I've been going through the current proof of Devin & The Empire of Wolves and so far everything looks good! I'm posting a shot of the cover! Book two could possibly be available by this upcoming weekend if I don't find any glaring errors!

If I can find the time, I am going to try and post the intro music for the upcoming Legends of Midralon podcast. It's a piece I put together myself using looping software and music libraries. I think it sounds pretty good, but I'll let you be the judge of that!

I am also going to start doing the revisions on book three which has already been written. The title is Brianna & The Perils of the Darkwood.

So much to do and yet I enjoy every minute of it! If there is something you would like to see me do for the series, drop me a line and let me know! I am always looking for new ways to expand and get the word out about the books!

Devin & The Empire of Wolves

Book two is very close to being ready! I've just finished the final edits on the text and the final tweaks on the cover. I'm now awaiting my proof copy. If all is good, Devin & The Empire of Wolves should be available within a week or so!

I ended up switching the scenery around some and brightening the daylight, I think it makes the Shining Host stand out more. I've posted a sample of the cover.

Now I need to get busy on the audio podcast of Emily & the Silent King! Always something to do, I don't think Midralon will ever let me rest!

The First Book Review Is In!!

Jenny over at Wondrous Reads has just posted a very nice review of Emily & the Silent King! Please stop by and visit her site, I'm sure you'll find lots of other great reviews and interesting books there!

It's always nice to receive a review of your work from someone who is outside of your immediate family and circle of close friends. While my friends and family might like my work, there is always that little voice in the back of my head saying they just don't want to hurt my feelings or they like it because they like me. Not to belittle their support, I greatly appreciate it, but as I said, receiving outside approval of my work really adds that little extra bit of boost to my self confidence. I am not sure about other writers but I am extremely nervous when it comes to showing my work to people who don't know me.

In related news, Legends of Midralon book two, Devin & The Empire of Wolves is very very very close to being ready. If I can just put the finishing touches on the cover it should be ready for a proof within the week. I'll keep you posted! That's all for now!

UPDATE! Jenny has also posted the Author Interview she did with me, which is also a first for me!! Check it out here.

Book Two Update!

Devin & The Empire of Wolves is nearing completion! Here is a sneak peek at the cover, keep in mind it's still a work in progress. It features Devin on his stag Stomper, leading the Shining Host into battle! I have started working on the page layout and everything is coming together nicely! I am hoping to have it ready within a couple of weeks if not sooner!

Once book two is done, I will go back to working on the podcast version of Emily & the Silent King. I am still tinkering with the recording equipment, trying to get rid of a buzzing sound I hear when I record. I think I've almost got it nailed down!

Well that was a busy month!

I wanted to let everyone know where I was with the Legends of Midralon Series! I've been so busy that I haven't had time to update my blog (I know that's horrible, but I blame Twitter and the zillion other distractions in my life!)

The Kindle edition of Emily & the Silent King had a bumpy start but I found a few good sites that helped with formatting my content for their service and after checking it out on the iPod Kindle app I like how it turned out. It's on sale right now for a whopping 80 cents! I may up the price at a later date, but right now I've been pleased with the trickle of sales.

Editing is finished on the main part of book two: Devin & the Empire of Wolves. I am still fine tuning a few things with my awesome editor Jill, but they are minor details. As soon as I can get the cover finished it will be available. I'm shooting for the end of July but it might stretch into August, I have an ambitious idea for the cover.

The Podcast for Emily & The Silent King is still a work in progress. I finally got the equipment I need, now it is just a matter of fine tuning it until I sound acceptable to my own ears!

Promotional work is still ongoing. I find this takes the most time with the least results (at least right now). I'm plugging away though, hoping to get word of my books out there. And I appreciate the contributions from existing fans of the series along those lines. Word of mouth is priceless! Thank you so much!

That's all for now! For those of you in the states, I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July!

June and I'm still behind

So much to do, so little time! I am feverishly working on the podcast audio book of Emily & the Silent King which I will make available for free on this blog and on iTunes once it's ready. I will be narrating and releasing weekly chapters of the book when I get the process rolling. I am having some technical difficulties with my PC (vista64 and creative labs sound cards do not play nicely) but once I have them ironed out, I should be able to whip out the first few podcast chapters of the book and put them on the intertron.

I am expecting to get the edited version of Devin & The Empire of Wolves back within a week or so. I still haven't begun work on the cover, I may gamble and hire a freelance artist to do the cover if I don't get a chance to work on it within the next couple of weeks. I want to get it out as soon as possible.

I paid a visit to the Tom's River Public Library today, hoping to schedule a book signing or reading of Emily & the Silent King and maybe get a recommendation by the library. I have my fingers crossed!

May is almost gone!

The Kindle Edition of Emily & the Silent King is now available on Amazon. It was painful to convert the file to straight HTML for that format and lose all the page formatting and wonderful fonts I had agonized over for hours, but in its current form, the Kindle only supports a very restricted set of file types. There is a new larger format kindle that supports PDF files and I am hoping that becomes the standard.

The revised version of Devin & The Empire of Wolves has been shipped off to my editor. I should be receiving it back in a couple of weeks, which means I had better get busy on the cover for the book! I have two ideas for the cover but one may be overly ambitious with the time frame I have. I thought about hiring an artist, but after reading the lengthy copyright issues raised by doing this, I've decided to continue generating my own images.

The paperback version of Emily & The Silent King is still slowly making its way through the book scene. I am planning to do some signings and book readings locally. It has been very difficult trying to get word out and I'm trying to do everything I can. I'm very new to this self promotion process so if anyone has any advice or suggestions I would greatly appreciate them!

At last!!

The paperback edition of Emily & The Silent King is finally available on Amazon! It has been available from my CreateSpace e-store for  a  couple of days, but I was waiting for it to show up on Amazon before I posted anything! The process was supposed to take up to 15 days, but when I came home from work today I was pleasantly surprised when it popped up ready to order! 

The book can be purchased direct from Amazon or from my e-store on CreateSpace. Unfortunately I cannot offer a discount through Amazon but I can offer one through my own e-store. If you haven't joined my Legends of Midralon fan page on facebook, stop by now to get the discount code! Also, don't forget to join the Legends of Midralon Twitter account! 

A Great Big Thanks to everyone for all the support you've given me!

So the final proof wasn't so final...

I have given up calling the book proofs that I order "the final one" or "the last one". Every time I say that, the proof arrives and I find an error or something that needs tweaking. Having said all that, I STILL think the latest version of the book will indeed be "the one". It shipped out on Friday so I am expected it to be in my hands by Monday or Tuesday of this upcoming week. After every rejected proof, I have compiled a list of things to check for and this one appears to have met all of the requirements! We'll soon find out!

As part of the pending media campaign for the release of Emily & The Silent King, I have created a Twitter entry for the book at: http://twitter.com/Midralon. I am still learning the ropes of self promotion, but almost every "expert" in the self publishing field stresses getting word about your book out in as many places as  possible. I would appreciate any and all recommendations anyone cares to make regarding possible promotion sites!

Inch by inch!

What I am sincerely hoping is the final proof of book one has been shipped to me and should arrive by early next week! I think I've finally managed to tweak the cover and arrange the interior text in a good format! So when the proof arrives I will quickly scan it and make the book available publicly!

I created a Legends of Midralon Facebook page, so if you are on facebook, I would be very honored if you would stop by and become a fan! Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your local librarians! Tell anyone who enjoys a good fantasy story!

I'm going to take my wife out for a little celebration dinner when that happens, she has been so  supportive to me in what has become basically just an expensive hobby(who would have thought self publishing could be so expensive!) I wish my editor Jill lived closer too so I could invite her and her husband as well. 

Even though I technically published my book last year, that was an unedited version and it lacked some of the small changes that I think make it a better story now than it was then. So I am treating this as the first "official" launch of the book. I learned a lot from several of the costly mistakes I made using the print-on-demand services. My biggest mistake not being more patient with the process. That mistake, more than any other, I hope to correct when I release the other books in the series.

I've started the second rewrite on Devin & The Empire of Wolves. I need to get a hold of Jill and figure out an editing schedule for it, but first I want to make sure Emily & The Silent King is smoothly released to the public. I'm going to be making the rounds of the inter-tron trying to drum up some interest in the book on various book/reading group sites! Wish me luck!

On Writing

I just finished reading Stephen King's On Writing and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is the first piece of non-fiction that I've read in quite some time. He doled out some excellent advice, some of which I had already been doing (which pleased me greatly) and the autobiographical material was interesting. I never considered myself a huge Stephen King fan, but then, when I sat down and thought about it, I realized that I had  read quite a few of his books in my teen years. I think the first of his books I read was The Shining, then a collection of short stories titled Night Shift. Then I read The Stand. I don't remember if I read any more of his works after that, but I've seen tons of movies and made-for-TV movies based on his work, enjoying most (but not all) of them. So I guess I am a bigger fan than I realized!

As for my book, I am still making tweaks to it. I'm on the third proof version and still found a few things I want to change before I pronounce it ready for the public. Adobe InDesign helped me tame the layout problems and now I'm just tweaking a few sentences my daughter Emily wanted changed. The cover is still giving me a few problems, but I have a handle on what I want to do and it is all coming together. Soon...very soon!

Update on the proof

I received the proof copy for my book on Monday! There were a few problems that I'll have to correct so it's not quite ready for the public yet. The cover turned out very nice and with the exception of the main image being slightly too dark, I am very happy with the look of it! I would put it up against any other book on the bookstore shelf! The interior is another story. For some reason the formatting was very strange with page numbers popping up in strange areas and chapter headings looking off. I've decided to bust out Adobe InDesign (thanks to a recommendation by my editor Jill!) to redo the formatting. I had been using Microsoft Word 2007 and a freeware pdf conversion utility, but I think it will be much easier for me to do this with InDesign (allowing for some time to become familiar with the application!).

In other unrelated news I am going to be launching a second blog soon that will focus on my gaming adventures with my children. We are going to be playing several boardgames and RPG's over the next few months and I wanted to blog about it. The blog is called: Ludious Resurrectio - The Resurrected Gamer  the name reflects my attempts to get back into the sort of gaming I did in my younger years! Mostly RPG's but several boardgames as well! 

So close I can smell it....

The new paperback version of the revised Emily & The Silent King is almost ready. Thanks to a ton of help from a good friend (Jill MacCorkle) I think this is the best version of the book to date. She gave me some excellent (and candid) advice that I put to use in polishing up the book. I really think this version will give me that "it's finally done" feeling and I can put it to rest and concentrate on going back over books two and three (not to mention book four).

I am just waiting on the proof to be delivered to me and then if everything looks good (fingers crossed!) I will be offering it on Amazon and an e-store very soon! I just hope the work I put into the cover picture comes through when it's printed.

I've been working on other things to support the books in my free time (what's that?). Trying to come up with a logo and other images to jazz up the pages. Hopefully I'll get enough free time this weekend to put a dent in that!

Emily & The Silent King Update

The revised edition of Emily & The Silent King is getting one more thorough look over by a copy editor and then it will be ready for publication. I can't wait to get this new version onto the virtual bookshelf at Amazon! In the meantime, I've been working on art work to support the first book as well as revising book two (Devin & The Empire of Wolves) and getting it ready for copy editing!

I've also become addicted to the Grammar Girl podcasts! Minon Fogarty has such a quirky style and a cute voice, I can't help but listen.I absorb about 10-15 episodes per day on my commute to and from work. I'm almost caught up with the current podcasts.

No one was able to come up with Thulsa Doom from Conan as the last "Guess the Villain" entry, so here is a new one! This one should be a lot easier and I've decided to seek out a villain that wasn't from the 80's. Good luck!

Creeping Closer!

The paperback version of Emily & The Silent King is nearing completion! I am hoping that the publishing process is much smoother this time around! If all goes well, I will be able to publish my books at a more affordable price while maintaining a high level of quality! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

As promised, here is the sneak peek of the upcoming book cover! It features Ixdee the unicorn in all her glory! I hope you like the cover, let me know what you think!

I need your help! I always have difficulty trying to come up with an interesting description for the back cover of the book and the blurb on the sales page. Please take a few minutes to visit this review link and let me know your thoughts on the two paragraphs I've come up with!

Microsoft Tag

Microsoft has developed a new technology called Microsoft Tag. It basically is a generated image that you can capture with your cellphone camera and it is linked to a resource. This resource can be many things, more information on a product, a website URL, almost anything! I think it's a really cool piece of tech and I am already trying to think of ways to use it.

I have created my first tag linking back to this blog! You can see what it looks like in the image I've posted! I can put this image on the back of my book, on T-shirts, wherever, and when people snapit with their cellphones, they will automatically be taken to my blog here, where they can learn all about the Legends of Midralon! Cool huh? No more having to memorize a URL or jotting down a note.

The best part is that this is free technology! I can't wait to start using it!

Emily & the Silent King update!

I have just received the edited copy of the revised version of Emily & the Silent King from my editor. I'm relieved that my grammar wasn't as bad as I'd thought it might be! I feel like I've been getting stronger and stronger with the my sentence composition and structure, but had no barometer to measure it against, until now. I was nervous about using an editor, but the one I found has been very easy to work with and I hope to work with her again.

Now the pressure is on me to finish up the new cover and get this baby out to press! I am very excited about the possibilities of this book. Although, I am nervous that it might be the worst time to introduce a book, since the US economy is struggling right now. Still, I am hopeful that people will still look to reading as an escape from the worries of the day and that my book finds it way onto the list of preferred titles somewhere!

Zombies!

I don't know what it is about the shambling undead, but it seems everyone is a fan of zombies! As you will see in the soon-to-be-published third book of my series, Brianna & The Perils of The Darkwood, I myself have caved in to the popularity of zombies and included them in the Legends of Midralon series. What is the appeal of zombies? It's not like they are as cool as a fish dog would be? Maybe it's the fact that zombies seem like a monster that could really exist; don't get me wrong, werewolves and vampires are very cool monsters, but for some reason they are just not as believable as zombies! There are literally dozens of movies that feature some strange virus being released into the public that turn the population into the walking dead. For some reason, that scenario doesn't seem all that far from improbable; maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but just in case, it never hurts to be prepared!

A Few Minor Changes..And The Return Of 'Guess The Villain'

I've rearranged my blog a bit and added some new features. I removed the Lulu store section until I get up and running under Createspace and then I'll add my online store section back to the menu. The lower right menu bar now has a section where you can browse blog posts by label and I've added a fans section as well (which may only serve to embarrass me, as it appears my blog isn't getting that much traffic at the moment). There are also RSS subscription links added for your convenience and each posting now has a reaction section beneath it, so I can gauge your interest in my posts. I'll add more as I run across any new and exciting features offered by Blogger.com.




Another Guess the Villain posting for you as well! See if you can figure out who this nefarious character is, I want the villain's name and the movie. Not the actor's name! It should be fairly easy!

It Was Not A New Years Resolution

It wasn't a New Years Resolution of mine to post more on my blog. I found it funny looking back and seeing how it progressed last year. There was a flurry of activity in January that slowly faded off until, by the end of the year, there were no posts. I blame it on the holidays and the complete lack of time, and I hope that it doesn't repeat itself. I'm going to try and post more often, even if it's just a small message (like this one.)

The challenge will be to come up with interesting stuff, that will be worth reading to anyone who stumbles across my site. The main purpose of this blog is to keep everyone informed about the status of my books, but I will try and spice things up whenever I can! They won't always be epic posts, but there will be posts.

A Mystery is Afoot at Newtek

One of the graphics applications that I am hoping to use for the art on my books and site is Newtek's Lightwave 9. It is a 3d modeling application used in many movies and tv series. I am still a novice at using it, but I find it really powerful and pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it. Anyways, they have sent me a mysterious email with a link to this site: core. The link in turn takes you to a puzzle and then to a mysterious image. So I wonder what this big announcement will be....

My VUE 7 test renders for the Emily & The Silent King paperback book cover are coming along. I'm trying to find a way to get the quality I want without having render times of 241 hours! It's a long process, tweaking settings and testing. I am still reading up on some of the settings trying to decide if I need them or how they will even look once printed. Wish me luck!

Paperback nearing completion!

I'm thrilled about the upcoming release of the paperback version of Emily & The Silent King! It looks like I will be able to bring the price down and make it more affordable! I'm sitting at my home computer now, waiting for test renders on the new book cover to finish. I'm using the new Vue 7 Infinite software package and it's taking me a while to get up to speed on it. I really like how the renders are turning out though! It will be a big step up from the plain cover of the hardback edition. It features one of the prominent supporting characters from the first book!

I may post a picture of the cover as I get closer to releasing it. We'll see how much free time I get to work on the cover. The editor should have my novel back to me within a week or so and I'd like to have the new cover ready to go by then. I am curious to see how easy the whole publishing process will be with Amazon's Createspace versus Lulu. I'm hoping it goes much smoother for me this time around.

On a completely unrelated note, I picked up the DVD version of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's not bad for a very low budget short musical. Neil Patrick Harris is great as the title character and Joss Whedon (and his brothers) did an amazing job on the songs. I definitely recommend that you check it out first chance you get, I believe the entire 3 acts were released for free on youtube, so you should be able to find them there. I would recommend the DVD though, it's cheap and there are lots of special features that are almost as good as the show itself. They actually turned the directors commentary into a musical as well (Whedon must have been VERY bored during the writers strike).

Createspace to the Rescue!

Amazon is offering a new print-on-demand service called Createspace. So far it looks like it might be the solution to the problem I had of offering my books at affordable prices! I'm excited about what I've read so far and I am most likely going to release the paperback version of Emily & The Silent King using this service!

I have made my decision on an editor and am in the process of submitting my novel. It should take a week or so to get my edited document back. Then it will be up to me to get a flashy cover done. I am still considering, soliciting some freelance artist to come up with a cover for me, but I'm not sure yet.

2009 Status

It's been a long time between updates, but a lot has been going on. I've finished my revision of book one: Emily & The Silent King. I feel like I rushed the first version to print and wanted to go back and look at it once more. I didn't change the story, I just tightened up a few paragraphs, added the short story Stormhoof as a chapter and tried to fix any grammatical errors that I may have missed in the first few proofreads. I'm actively searching for a copy editor to give it the once over. I've contacted a couple of freelance candidates and I'm hopeful that I will be able to work with one of them!

In the mean time, I plan to work on the cover for the paperback edition of the book. I will probably take the hardback out of circulation until I can find a way to bring the cost down. I am hoping that the lower price of the paperback will result in more interest in the series.

I am also planning to give this blog a face lift and add some more original artwork in general. Now that Emily & The Silent King is on track for its re-release, I want to fire up my art skills and see if I can come up with some unique images and symbols for the Legends of Midralon series. I'm trying to decide what some of the iconic features of the land are and to come up with a visual reference.