Browsing Tag
bone walker
I have now written the Dedication, Acknowledgements, Author’s Notes, and About the Author sections to go into Bone Walker. And something awesome I realized as I did this last night: I can actually do a page that didn’t appear in Faerie Blood, i.e., a page of Hey Here’s Other Stuff I’ve Written!
Counting this one, I have five whole novels I can put on that list, you guys. 😀
And I can also put a chapter of Faerie Blood in the back! And maybe, if Carina gives me permission to do so, I can also include blurbs to cross-promote the Rebels of Adalonia books! I have inquired about this through the proper channels to see if this is a thing I can do.
Meanwhile, I have also alerted Third Place Books to be on the lookout for Dara and me to come to them soon with PDFs for Bone Walker‘s first print run. Chances are decent that we’ll have the print edition ready to go before the end of the month. However, whether the print run actually then happens is up to Third Place and how booked they are when we get to them. More on this as it develops.
I have learned from Third Place, though, that they can’t get ISBNs for clients anymore. So I’ve gone ahead and bought myself a block of ten of them, along with a barcode which will be used for Bone Walker’s print edition. This is stupidly and annoyingly expensive. However, hopefully I won’t have to do this again for a while. I’ll be using some of this block of ISBNs on Bone Walker’s release, and can hoard the rest for use later.
Still to come:
- File copyright for Bone Walker
- Confirm with Carina whether I can use cover copy for my Carina books
- Put the Faerie Blood excerpt in the back
- Start allocating the ISBNs for the various editions of Bone Walker
- Set up the barcode
- Finish putting the master copy of the ebook file together and release that to proofreaders
- Once the proofread sweep is completed, give the master file to Dara for the print and PDF layout
- Convert the master copy to HTML and start setting up the styling for the epub
- Plug the cover art into the epub
- Convert the epub to mobi for Amazon release
- I’m sure I’ll think of more
This is exciting, you guys. This is starting to look like a book!
If you missed them over the weekend, I put up two Boosting the Signal posts featuring recent releases from Dragonwell Press–for The Blackwell Family Secret: The Guardians of Sin and Nine Planets.
Check them out, won’t you? Dragonwell is the venture spearheaded by fellow former Drollerie author Anna Kashina, and a couple other former Drollerie authors have shown up there too–notably, Cindy Lynn Speer, who wrote The Chocolatier’s Wife, which I adored. Their website is here.
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Meanwhile, as of last night, I finished the editing sweep for Bone Walker! Which means I’m now significantly closer to getting this book ready to finally deploy to Kickstarter backers, and then to the world! \m/
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And speaking of Bone Walker, don’t forget–Faerie Blood remains on sale for a tidy little 99 cents for all ebook editions! Details are here.
As always whenever I put one of my indie books on sale, the price applies to all places where the book is sold, and also to anyone who’d like to buy the book directly from me (which is the best option if you’d like the fancy PDF).
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And continuing the Bone Walker theme, don’t forget either that the soundtrack for Bone Walker is available for pre-order right over here on Bandcamp! There are preview tracks and everything!
Dara’s busily working on the cover art and liner notes for the CD, and if you’d like one of the physical discs she’s having made, a pre-order will be the best way to get it!
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And speaking of pre-orders–Victory of the Hawk IS already available for pre-order on some sites. I’ve seen it show up on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and Google Play! So if you’re a customer on any of those sites, do consider grabbing the book. Links are on Victory’s official page!
Ladies and gentlemen, I have finished my edit pass through the second draft of Bone Walker. Which now puts me SIGNIFICANTLY closer to delivering this novel to my Kickstarter backers, and then to the world at large!
All the mad props go to editor JoSelle and also to backer Susan, since their two edit passes combined to help me fix quite a few things in the manuscript. I rarely make actual typos. But I do periodically repeat words, leave words out, or replace a word I intend with some other (correctly spelled but nonetheless incorrect) word. Susan caught a whole bunch of places where I’d done things of this nature, and JoSelle caught others.
What happens next? Now I need to write the front and back matter for the book, which will include the Acknowledgements and the Author’s Notes. I’ll be adding blurbs that I’m getting in from a few folks, and I’ll put in an updated About the Author section and probably some data on my other books as well. I expect to have these things done by this coming weekend.
Once those are finished, I’ll be putting out a call for volunteers to proofread what will hopefully be the final master copy that I’ll use to start generating the official ebook. So if any of you all might be up for proofreading that, let me know!
The ebook I create will be the epub, from which I’ll also be creating a mobi to deploy to Amazon. As we did last time, however, Dara will be taking my master working file and using that to create the print layout and the PDF edition. The epub, mobi, PDF, and print masters will also need checking, so I’ll be putting out a second call for THAT.
Meanwhile, I’ll be moving forward with buying Bone Walker its own ISBNs as well as filing copyright on it, and working with Third Place to prepare them for creating the print books as well. More bulletins on all of these things as they happen!
And last but definitely not least, Dara has been moving forward with creating the artwork for the soundtrack release. As I’ve been doing my edit pass this weekend, she’s been working on the liner notes for the CD. It’s been a very busy weekend for both of us!
But Bone Walker is COMING. And I’m really excited to be about to deliver Kendis, Christopher and Elessir’s next story to you all!
I have now commenced editing on Bone Walker, book 2 of the Free Court of Seattle! As of this writing I’m four chapters in, and plan to be chugging through the rest of the chapters as my vacation from the day job continues. I anticipate being done with this editing pass by next week.
Once that’s done I’ll be putting out a call for final proofreaders. Some of my Kickstarter backers have already seen the first draft copy; the second draft copy won’t be much different from that. I’m basically juggling edits from editor JoSelle as well as a proofreading pass from beta reader and backer Susan, and I’m getting constructive commentary from them both. But it’s line-edit level commentary and proofreading, and I will not be making structural changes to the novel at this point.
However, when I’m done, I WILL still need eyes on the final draft. I’ll need a proofreading pass as well as people who can sanity-check both the ebook and print release files. I’ll put out a call with more details when I’m ready for that stage.
Dara would also like to call to your all’s attention that the soundtrack IS at the mastering engineer, and that she’s got a post up about pre-orders over here–featuring the melding of the Faerie Blood and Bone Walker covers that she did for the CD disc art!
If you backed the Kickstarter at $25 or above, you’ll be getting a digital copy of the soundtrack. But if you want a physical copy, or if you weren’t in on the Kickstarter, you should pre-order! Dara’s offering a special freebie to one pre-orderer, too, so go over to her link to check that out. Encourage others to pre-order as well if you’re so inclined!
Back into the editing now, all! And watch this space for more Bone Walker updates!
I’ve already told my Kickstarter backers this, but for the rest of you, I am delighted to announce that Dara has officially sent the soundtrack for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker off to be mastered!
We are very excited about this, as it means we’re very, very close to being able to finally deliver this long-overdue reward to my Kickstarter backers. But it also means that Dara’s also able to deploy a brand new album! We’re even doing a replication run for it, so that we’ll have physical CDs to sell at Conflikt next month.
Want to check out what Dara did? You can find the album available for preorder RIGHT NOW right over here. So many exciting things going on on this. We’ve got vocals from Leannan Sidhe and Alexander James Adams, you guys. We’ve got multiple awesomely played fiddles. And we’ve even got a bitchin’ remix of the Burke-Gilman Troll set, courtesy of nerdcore master Klopfenpop.
What’s NOT up yet on the preview are readings by yours truly! I’ve read excerpts from both Faerie Blood AND Bone Walker for this soundtrack, and I’m here to tell you, I have much more respect now for people who do audiobook narration for a living. I only did four pieces over a weekend, and my throat really felt the work. But Dara did a masterful job layering my readings in on top of the instrumental sets, and we’re both very proud of how those tracks came out!
Important note on those readings, too–the Bone Walker readings are a little spoilery, so if you aren’t one of the Kickstarter backers who’ve read the early draft of the book, be advised about that. I tried to not get TOO spoilery with the excerpts I chose, which are both very action-heavy, but there will be some things in there that will probably make you go “WUT” until you actually read the book.
And SPEAKING OF THE BOOK–I’m about to go on two weeks of vacation over the holidays, during which I plan to be editing like a mad editing thing, in order to get Bone Walker ready to ship by Conflikt. And now that we’re signed off on the release of the soundtrack, Dara will be able to step up the pace on the cover design as well as desktops, postcards, and posters for backers. I’ll be bringing postcards and posters to Conflikt, too!
VERY excited about this, and looking very much forward to getting Bone Walker to you all!
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood, Valor of the Healer, Vengeance of the Hunter, Victory of the Hawk
Wednesday news!
Today’s top story: screw Black Friday, we’re releasing the first single from the forthcoming Bone Walker soundtrack NOW! Because we CAN!
Dara’s got her post up about it right over here, in which you can stream the premaster mix of “Something’s Coming” right off of Bandcamp. If you’re inclined, you can buy that single. AND you can preorder the album!
If you backed the Kickstarter, you of course don’t need to actually buy it because we will be sending it to you. But DO spread the word! And check out the previews of the other tracks that’ll be coming!
We’ll be doing the official release for this thing at the next Conflikt in January, along with the release for the actual Bone Walker novel! SO EXCITING. Stand by for more on this as it happens!
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As I think I’ve mentioned before, Dara and I are fans of the Doctor Who Podcast, one of the many Doctor-themed podcasts available for your listening pleasure. In addition to reviewing new episodes when they come out, they have extensive knowledge of the Classic-era series as well as the Big Finish audio range, and all of their presenters are just generally fun to listen to.
One of the things we find particularly charming about them is the jingle they wrote for whenever they review a Big Finish release! It goes like this:
Big Finish with Ian! And Michelle from across the Atlantic Ocean!
Ian from UK, and Michelle from the United States!
Reviewing Big Finish, sorting out the wheat from the chaff and nonsense
Saving you money on the ones that are not so good!
It’s insidiously catchy, enough that every time we hear it show up in an episode of the podcast, we start singing along. Hell, THEY’VE even songvirused themselves with it.
So the other night I said to Dara, “I wonder if this thing would work as a round!” And the fun thing about having a spouse with her own music studio? She can FIND OUT.
Behold! Dara’s round edition of the Doctor Who Podcast Big Finish Review Theme!
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And while we’re on the topic of things you should signalboost, don’t forget, Faerie Blood is ON SALE for $2.99 until this coming Monday! All the details are right over here!
I will also honor the sale price for anyone who wants to buy the ebook directly from me in the format of their choice!
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Last but DEFINITELY not least, Victory of the Hawk is now available for preorder as well AND has shown up on Goodreads. So if you’d like to get in some preorder love on Book 3 of the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy, NOW IS THE TIME! Links are on the Victory of the Hawk page!
And if you haven’t read Valor or Vengeance yet, now would also be a VERY good time to get caught up on those. If you haven’t read anything of my writing at all yet, or if you’ve just read Faerie Blood and aren’t sure whether you’d like my high fantasy, you can even see some shiny samples that’ll let you read up to 10 percent of each book, provided courtesy of Overdrive! The samples are available on the Valor of the Healer and Vengeance of the Hunter pages!