Inventory!

Here’s an inventory of items I will be selling in the dealer room at Chattacon this weekend.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe season one                 9 copies

Waves of Darkness books (Physical copies of books 1 & 2, Blood Curse and Demon Bayou, are sold out/out of publication. However, I will gladly email a free digital copy to any new readers who purchase any of the other books in the series.)

Silent Fathoms 5 copies

Black Venom  5 copies

Hell’s Dodo  5 copies

The Daedalus Enigma  3 copies

Maelstrom of Fate  3 copies

I will also have prints of a Dragon Riders of Pern fan art I originally created for Dragon*Con ’89. The work is pen and ink stipple art titled Young Queen and Rider and is printed on 8×11 card stock.

This copy was signed by Ms. McCaffrey at a book signing in 2002 held at Legible Leftovers in Longwood, FL.

And finally, I have a few jigsaw puzzles, should anyone be interested in them. These will be at yard sale prices: 25-50 cents, depending on number of pieces, and 10 cents for those missing pieces. I got them at yard sales and have had my fun with them. It’s time to pass them on.

Books for Sale!

I will have 9 copies of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe Season 1 available for sale at my table in the Chattacon dealer room!

I’d ordered 10 copies, but I already sold a copy to a coworker who is a fan and a speed reader. He wanted a signed copy, and waited until I had them available in person. I guess he worried he might read any copy he ordered before he could get my signature, since we’re on different shifts. (He did over pay, at his insistence, which more than covered my shipping cost.)

I will also have copies of Silent Fathoms, Black Venom, Hell’s Dodo, The Daedalus Enigma, and Maelstrom of Fate, books 3-7 of the Waves of Darkness series available. The first two books in the series, Blood Curse and Demon Bayou, have been sold out since early last year. Rest assured, I do still plan on getting these titles back into publication, one way or another.

Speaking of the WoD series, writing has stalled on book 8 for now. I’m not happy with chapter 12 and plan to rewrite it, moving some of the events about. Otherwise, this book might end up a novella instead of a novel.

The majority of my free time has been taken up with working on a previously mentioned art commission. I’ve really been enjoying the challenge as well as exercising my rusty portraiture skills.

As soon as I’ve figured out my schedule for Chattacon, I will post it to my Appearances page here. I’m not slated as a panelist, so I imagine a large portion of my time will be spent at my table. Hope to see you there!

Happy New Year!

Looks like Mr. Grimm wishes to give a New Year’s greeting of his own.

(Image “borrowed” from one of the many FB pirate groups I haunt.)

While my writing has stalled out a bit lately, I have been working on an illustration commission. Fans of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series will really like this one. That’s all I’m at liberty to say at this point, until I get the clearance from my commissioner.

I will be at Chattacon January 24-26. Click on the link for location and other details about the convention. I will have a table in the Dealer Room and will have copies of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe Season One available for sale. Just placed my order this morning. If you’re in Chattanooga, TN that weekend, please stop by. It’s a fun con to attend!

Wholly Shake Up!

Had a slightly sour experience this past holiday weekend, one which led to a valuable lesson. However, it will mean an even further delay to the launch of season 2 of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe.

After a single denial to post on a particular FB book promotion group because the graphic on my cover didn’t meet the admins’ definition of “professional”, I did a little marketing research. I have to admit that cover art is not really my forte. As proud as I am of the cover I did for The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, it really does scream “self-published/amateur.” I’m better equipped to do illustrations and portraits.

A friend has supplied me with links for some better fonts, and I have a design in mind which I believe will look as good as anything put out by a large publishing house. I just need to find an affordable artist with the correct skills and digital tools to pull it off.

I’m also planning to do new, more detailed B&W illustrations for the book’s interior, when I get the time. I am keeping the pipework frame from the current cover for the new illustrations. I will probably enhance the line art for the current cover with more shading and insert it a splash page in the front of the second edition, as well.

In the meantime, I will leave the current first edition up on Amazon. I will pull it maybe a week or two before releasing the second edition. This will allow me time to get everything just right as well as get and look over a galley proof of the new version.

I have not decided on a design for the individual ebook covers, but they will be uniform and without illustrations. That being said, yes, I will be issuing second editions of the first 12 episodes with new covers and a bit tidied up. There are some errors I’ve spotted since original publication that need to go away, after all.

Oh, and I am changing the publishing name from Steele Rose Press to Steele Rose Publishing. There is a winery with the name, and I don’t want any legal issues to crop up.

Heads Up

The second season of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe will debute January 2020. I had hoped to have Episode 13 out this year, but I can see that life isn’t going to make that very feasible for me. My current plan is to go ahead and get the episode cover art for the entire season prepped before publishing the next episode. My work schedule is slated to change once again at the start of the year, so this seems like the smarter play to me.

In the meantime, the season one omnibus, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, has sold a whopping three copies. I would like to get a little more traction with this book before rolling out the second season.

You know a book makes a great stocking stuffer, and $12.95 is CHEAP for a paperback these days. (I’m old enough to remember when paperbacks cost about what they charge for comic books these days, and when comic books cost about 35 cents.)

Also, I know it’s still over a month away, but come this Christmas break, remember to vote for The Girl Who Fell from the Sky in the critters.org Preditors and Editors Readers Poll in the Steampunk Novel category.

Don’t forget to come see me at Chattacon January 24-27 at the Double Tree by Hilton in beautiful Chattanooga, TN. I will have copies available as well as my remaining copies of my Waves of Darkness series books.

Hopefully I can start getting them back on the market next year with fresh new covers AND added internal illustrations! Of course, what would really be great would be to get them released as audio books as well. I have had interest in entering that format with the series over the past few years.

Your Attention Please

First: The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: The Adventuires of Pigg & Woolfe Season One is now available to purchase on Amazon. This volume will be a print-only book, as the individual episodes are ebook only. Inside, you will find episodes 1-12, an in-between-the-episodes vignette which is a bit …steamy, a world building monograph on ghosts-of-the-sky, and the line art of the original episode ebook covers offered as coloring pages.

List price is $12.95 USD.

PLEASE buy one for yourself and another for a friend!

Second: A brain hurricane hit me Wednesday on how to flesh out the final third of Hunting the Dragon, Waves of Darkness book 8. Naturally, the ideas came flooding while I was WORKING and unable to write them down, or begin incorporating them. Still, they are fresh in my mind, and the weekend is ahead.

Third: I am researching character details for a potential illustration commission. I still have to touch base with the person who proposed this deal to work out some specifications and the actual contract. For now, that is all the info I’m willing to divulge. I don’t want to jinx things.

Thank you for your attention.

Holding Pattern

I am currently awaiting my galley proof of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. I expect it to arrive Thursday.

I’m sure I will have to make a formatting revision or two, then I can publish. I plan to have it live on Amazon by next week. Retail price will be $12.95 USD.