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status check

Bone Walker, Vengeance of the Hunter

Status update from VCON

Well, I think this is a new first for me: I’ve just spent practically all of VCON holed up making a mad dash through the rest of developmental edits for Draft #2 of Vengeance of the Hunter. I swear to gods, people, my editor? She’s made of solid gold awesomeness, and I’ll go on record here and now as saying that Draft #2 has improved considerably because of her. It’s still the shortest book I’ve ever written, but at 84K, it’s still a credible length for a novel.

(I did at least get to see a couple of things at VCON, though. I made a sweep through the dealers’ room and spotted a couple of books I liked the look of, one of which I’ve already bought in ebook form, the other of which I’m going to track down if I can. I would have gotten the paperbacks, except that my shelves are already pretty damn full, the lament of book geeks everywhere. And oh yes, I bought a new Doctor Who t-shirt, one which has all of the first 11 Doctors on it. And it’s weird to type that, rather than ‘all of the Doctors’, now that I know there’s a new guy on the way.

And I did go to the Turkey Readings today, which were awesome and full of win and LOL. Also, I did get to say hi to GoH Mur Lafferty, whose name I know from her work on the podcast Leviathan Chronicles.)

But anyway. Vengeance is in, though my brain is goo. The Editor of Awesomeness will be commencing her next round of edits on it ASAP and I expect to be on tap to charge through those as soon as she throws them back to me.

Those of you who are patiently awaiting updates on Bone Walker, I swear to god I haven’t forgotten you. Vengeance however has eaten my brain. So has the Not-So-Happyfun Medical News I got earlier this week, and the other reason I’ve more or less spent the entire convention hunched over my computer is that I’ve not been in much of a mood to make social noises at a hotel full of strangers.

Y’all will be getting an update on Bone Walker as soon as I can get my brain back. The next thing that’s likely to happen there is that I’m going to get the long overdue posters and postcards made, so stand by for an update on that by the end of this week, mmkay?

Now I think I need to sleep for a week.

October 7, 2013 by
Vengeance of the Hunter

Vengeance of the Hunter: TURNED IN

Internets, I am pleased to report that finally, finally, I have turned in a draft of Vengeance of the Hunter, book 2 of the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy, to my editor at Carina Press.

I have come away with a few lessons from this. The first of these is that writing to a known deadline has proven harder than I anticipated–not only getting the book done, but planning it in such a way as to produce a still fairly coherent draft. When I sent the book that became Valor of the Healer to Carina, I’d had time to polish the hell out of that. It was draft six.

This time, not so much. I was working pretty much right off the draft of the synopsis I’d sent in to my aforementioned editor, so I had a pretty decent overall idea of where the story was going to go–but holding to it, and keeping the words going, was a challenge.

And um, yeah, I sorta kinda blew my deadline. Not horrendously, but close enough that I’m now going to be hard pressed to plow through the developmental and copy edits when my editor hands them back to me so we can stay on schedule. Lesson learned: start Victory of the Hawk sooner.

Also, have I levelled up again in Writer by stumbling across a deadline, or what? I’m not the first writer to do so and I’m sure I won’t be the last, but um, yeah, my chagrinned face. Let me show you it. *^_^*;;

ALSO: surprising me deeply, this has proven to be the shortest manuscript I’ve ever completed, clocking in at around 76,500 words. Given that Valor of the Healer came in in its final form at 118K, you can imagine that I’m baffled by this TOO. This was me trying to apply my editor’s lessons from the work done on Valor to cut down hard on my natural tendency to verbosity, but I’m thinking at this point that I probably hugely overcompensated. I’ll have to find out when the requested edits come back.

Now, my style has tightened up somewhat since I originally wrote Faerie Blood, as well as the earlier drafts of Valor. Bone Walker came in pretty compact as well. And, Vengeance has a lot less of me setting up the characters since as of this book, I have introduced most of the major characters already–and I’m upping the stakes of what’s going on and expanding the scope of the action as well. So a lot of this book is plot-driven rather than character-driven.

But I’m introducing notable new characters as well and I’m not sure I’ve developed them enough yet. I’ve flagged this as a place where I need guidance, and am now on standby for my editor’s requested changes.

Internets, my brain, it is GOO. But Vengeance of the Hunter in its initial incarnation is DONE DONE DONE. More bulletins as the book begins to progress towards its shipping form. And meanwhile: stand by for further updates on the coming of Bone Walker!

August 19, 2013 by
Faerie Blood

A quick self-pub status check

By very rough estimations, I sold somewhere between 330 and 364 copies of Faerie Blood‘s Drollerie edition. I have to estimate this because in my first royalty report from Drollerie, I didn’t get individual sales numbers, and some of that report was covered by the Defiance anthology. So based on how my numbers for both titles were broken out later (i.e., it didn’t sell nearly as well as Faerie Blood did), I’m ballparking somewhere between 330 and 364 for Faerie Blood, with the remainder of that 364 going to Defiance. These numbers span a period running from the book’s original release in May of 2009 up through my last Drollerie statement, which covered up through June of 2011.

As of this writing I have sold a total of 211 copies of Faerie Blood‘s Kickstarter edition in just under a year. So while I haven’t actually surpassed the previous number, this 211 has happened in a shorter time frame.

Assuming that some who bought the Drollerie edition grabbed the Kickstarter version as well, I think it’s safe to say at this point that all told I’ve probably sold around 500 copies of the book. BUT! If you actually count my Kickstarter backers as sales, that runs the number up to more squarely compete with the Drollerie number, I think.

It’ll be amusing to see how this trend continues once Valor of the Healer drops!

April 2, 2013 by
Bone Walker

Bone Walker status update!

As I’ve just posted off to my Kickstarter backers, and as I’ve been happily reporting to the social networks through the course of the day, I just finished off the last chapter in Bone Walker that’s from Kendis’ point of view!

This means that now I swing back around to fill in the bits from other characters’ points of view, stuff that will convey to the reader things that Kendis never sees. Step 1 in this is sticking in a new Chapter 15, primarily from Christopher’s point of view but which will probably also feature some Jude. I’m expecting an earlier chapter is going to be from the point of view of Jake.

And the real fun is going to be figuring out where all to put in bits from Elessir’s POV, because oh my yes, he’s going to get some camera time too.

I’ve done the multiple POVs thing before; I did it in the still as of yet unedited Queen of Souls, and all you fine folks are going to be seeing it when Valor of the Healer comes out in April as well. But this is the first time I’ll be doing it in the Warder universe, and I’m really hoping it’ll work okay with this story flow!

Soon, hopefully in the first half of January, my Kickstarter backers are going to get first crack at seeing whether it does. And anybody else who’s willing to beta read for me is going to get a shot too. So if you’re interested in a beta read shot at this book and getting your name into the Acknowledgements in the back, talk to me!

Looking forward to finishing this thing up finally and sharing it with you all! 😀

December 27, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Valor of the Healer

Long overdue update

Most of you who follow me on the various social networks, or who read the posts I make via my personal blog annathepiper.org (whether there or on LJ/Dreamwidth), know this already–but for those of you who don’t, a couple of weeks ago I was briefly, violently ill. I had to spend four days in the hospital, but happily, the problem was relatively easy to deal with. And I’m feeling a lot better now! This did mean though that I was thrown for a pretty massive loop for a couple of weeks, while I dealt with recovering.

The good news though (well, aside from yay! I’m feeling better!) is that Valor of the Healer is officially DONE and has been handed off to my editor. Now comes the waiting for exciting things like cover art! And final blurb copy! And learning about how Carina’s ARC process works!

In related news, I’ve also finally officially signed the Carina contract. You guys, I’m a contracted Carina Press author. I feel all grown up. *happysniff*

Meanwhile! Now that Valor is done, this frees up my brain for returning to Bone Walker. The goal is to try to finish this puppy up by the end of November. I think I have two chapters left, at which point I’ll be putting out a brief call for beta readers before the book is handed off to JoSelle Vanderhooft for formal editing. Those of you who backed my Kickstarter have gotten a longer, more detailed update about this!

Groundwork continues to be laid as well for getting the Bone Walker soundtrack ready. My belovedest Dara, rock star that she is, has thrown together a bunch of practice tracks of the various tunes we’re interested in for the instrumental sets, so that we can start learning how to play them the way she’s envisioning they should sound. It’s going to be exciting, and I’ve got a LOT of tunes I’m going to have to learn how to play really fast. This is what happens when an author is also a musician, you guys!

And, artist Kiri Moth (may her PhotoShop always swiftly load! May her pencils be ever sharp!) has sent me an initial sketch for the soundtrack’s cover art! Check it out!

Bouzouki Cat Says TWANG

Bouzouki Cat Says TWANG

So, lots of stuff still going on, and I’m hoping to finish the year strong–and with another finished book to show for it. Hopefully I won’t be flung any more health surprises. Wish me luck, folks!

November 15, 2012 by
Faerie Blood

Self-pub sales update

In the event that any of you all coming in are new (since I’ve picked up a few Carina people following me on Twitter, hi Carina people!), here’s a quick note for you: while I’ll be writing for Carina under the name of Angela Highland, I’m also doing a series under my actual name of Angela Korra’ti. The first of those was Faerie Blood, originally published via Drollerie Press, reborn as a Kickstarter self-pubbed novel and now available on several major ebook sites as well as in print if you get it directly from me!

And now I’ve been keeping an eye on how my sales do. As expected, they’re teeny tiny numbers, but they’re non-zero, so now I’m pretty much at a state of ‘every so often pocket change shows up’. Which is really pretty nifty. This post is of course prompted by Amazon just notifying me that I’m about to get another drop of pocket change from them on the 28th–for the amount of $45.65. That’s going straight into the Buy Anna A Shiny Thing, Most Likely a New Macbook Fund. 😀

Amazon continues to be the place where I sell the most ebooks, though at least last month iTunes was giving it a bit of a run for its money. On both sites I’ve usually cleared 10 sales a month (though this month so far I haven’t had a one on iTunes). The Nook’s generally getting me 1-2 sales a month. Smashwords and Kobo are barely on the radar, with 2 sales for Smashwords and 3 for Kobo, and that’s total over the last couple of months.

I’m very pleased to report as well that whoever buys the next copy of Faerie Blood will in fact be my hundredth sale for this entire year! And remember, folks–if you want a print copy, you can buy those directly from me! Same deal if you’d like to buy the ebook and don’t want to go through the various vending sites, which of course want their own cut of my money. I will happily hand-sell you the book in the format of your choice.

Thanks to all who contributed to my sales last month! I hope you all have enjoyed or will be enjoying the book!

September 21, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Kickstarter rewards update

Today, I spent a great deal of time taking care of various aspects of dealing with Kickstarter rewards to send out to people, so here’s a quick status update on that!

Those of you who supported the project, if you bought in on any reward tier that entitles you to Faerie Blood, you should be getting access to a big ol’ pile of digital versions of the cover art real soon now. Dara’s spinning off a huge assortment of resolutions, to cover not only computers but a variety of mobile devices as well!

Meanwhile, now that we have the confirmed final list of backers, we’re getting all the names into the new edition of Faerie Blood so that Dara can finish up the layout of the print and PDF versions, and I can put together the epub and mobi and any other versions we’re going to spin off.

I will also soon be working on deploying “The Blood of the Land” in digital form to all backers entitled to that, too.

A huge chunk of today went as well to organizing all my backer data and breaking it down by rewards, so that I have a clear list of who all gets what–and specifically, how many print copies I’ll need of both books, how many postcards, and how many posters. I am pleased to report that my original project estimate of about 50 print copies is about right, with some wiggle room for a few extra copies left over. Which will serve as my very first copies I’ll be able to make available to folks who didn’t get in on the Kickstarter in time!

And, I was pleased to be able to send off the first payment for art delivered to Kiri Moth. SO EXCITING. 😀 Huge, HUGE thanks go out to all of you out there who’ve made it possible for me to get Kiri to do such gorgeous work!

No actual writing done today–but then, all of this project work needed doing as well, so I consider it a productive day indeed! Tomorrow there will be some Folklife, but there will also be working on Bone Walker!

May 27, 2012 by