Black Venom Launch Contest

Type “YES” in the comments to enter. LIKES ARE APPRECIATED BUT DO NOT COUNT AS ENTRIES.

Winners will be announced May 9th, Launch Day.

Prizes are 25 Epub copies of Black Venom: Waves of Darkness Book 4, 15 Audible codes for Blood Curse: Waves of Darkness Book 1, and the grand prize of signed copies of all 7 books in the Waves of Darkness: Sisters of Power story arc (unless the winner is international. The prize will be Epub copies of the first 4 books and the Audible code due to shipping costs. )

Chugging Slowly Along

I’m not making as much progress on formatting Silent Fathoms: Waves of Darkness book 3 as I’d like. I will try to make time to at least finish the ebook formats this weekend. No promises, though.

Meanwhile, I updated the purchase links for Demon Bayou today. Hop over to the book’s landing page and check it out.

I’m also thinking of doing a giveaway for the audio book of Blood Curse sometime soon. I still have several freeby codes for the U.S. market and all 25 for the U.K. market. I really want the audio to take off, so I can get the rest of the series put into that format.

That’s the news for now. Maybe I’ll finally restring my guitar, too. (Been threatening to do that for several years now.)

Countdown to LibertyCon

Last minute prep is kind of hit and miss this year. My book order from Ingram finally shipped on Friday, so they should arrive before the convention. I’m not counting on the card game sets to make it, however. Production delays due to real life being a total shite will probably keep them from shipping in time.

Meanwhile, I’m in the process of building a set of gallery pages here on the site. There’ll be one page each for Pern art, Waves of Darkness art, The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe art, and general fantasy art. I really need to set up a store site for my art, but haven’t really had the time to research the best platform for it.

While LibertyCon has always been my best con for book sales, I know I won’t be making a profit. It’s also the convention I buy the most books at.

My schedule is light this year, so I’ll be able to pick a few brains for tips on improving my craft and my marketing skills. I have my schedule up on the Appearances page here.

The contest to win a promo code for a free copy of the audio of Blood Curse will probably boil down to a drawing between any entrants gotten at the convention. So far, I only have one entry each from the earlier post and from Facebook. These two will win by default, if no other entries come from those platforms by Thursday evening. I haven’t received any entries through Instagram.

Liberty to Listen!

I will be holding a drawing for chances to win a free copy of Blood Curse, as narrated by Greg D. Barnett, at LibertyCon on Saturday, June 18th. There will be 5 winners, one each from entries gathered on WordPress, Plurk, Facebook, Instagram, and at the convention.

To enter on WordPress: comment “yes please” on this post. JUST LIKING THE POST WILL NOT COUNT AS AN ENTRY. YOU MUST COMMENT.

Sorry for shouting, but some people just don’t read the rules, even when said rules are simple.

Busy Month of June

Where to begin? First, I believe an update is in order.

Blood Curse is out in audio, and I need to check my ACX dashboard to see how many promo codes I’ve got for it. I plan to start querying audio book reviewers this week, but I also want to conduct some sort of contest for one of the codes.

I’ll be at LibertyCon over the Juneteenth weekend and plan to hold the drawing then. As soon as I figure out how I want to take entries, I’ll post about it here.

Demon Bayou is now available in print as well as ebook. Sales of the audio of Blood Curse will determine whether I continue to make the series available in that format. Audio books are not cheap to produce.

I will order copies of both books this week to sell at LibertyCon. I will also have copies of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky to sell. This month’s episode of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe will be uploaded to KDP the Tuesday before the convention.

There is a strong possibility I will have sets of the 5-suit Dragon Poker cards offered by Antiquarian Boardgames to sell (or at least show for the purpose of collecting orders). The game’s designer, who commissioned me to do the art for the face cards, had planned on launching the game at Liberty, but health issues prevent her from attending this year. She does plan on being at Dragon*Con, however.

I’ve also been asked to act as a judge for the adult cosplay contest, which is returning after many years. I’ve been attending since 2009, and this is the first adult contest I’ll see at this con.

If I can get my tookus in gear, I will finally revive my YouTube channel this month. I have got to start selling more books.

Oh, before I forget, I am well into the first round of revisions on the second edition of Silent Fathoms. I don’t want to put myself through all the brouhaha I went through with Demon Bayou. I even have a pretty clear idea of how I want the cover to look and will send concept sketches to my cover designer along with detailed instructions. I plan to get the book out on time, the first Tuesday of November.

That’s all the news I can think of for now, so I’ll hush and head to bed. 3 am comes very early, after all.

Double Release!

Due to unforeseen issues and interruptions this past weekend, Demon Bayou is currently only uploaded to Smashwords (be sure to turn off parental filters to find it).

I do intend to get it up on the other platforms I use, as computer time makes itself available.

The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe, Episode 17, Going Underground will be uploaded to KDP on time this week.

Meanwhile, the audio book of Blood Curse has hit a minor snag. ACX’s quality assurance doesn’t like that the cover includes my middle initial, while the audio credits and metadata do not. Nitpicky if you ask me, but I’m sure there are legal reasons behind it. Corrections are being made to the audio and metadata.

As soon as I get them to approve it, I’ll post about it here.

Almost on Schedule

Well, obviously Demon Bayou will not be released today. The formatting delays, which pushed back ordering the cover art, did not allow enough time for revisions to said cover art.

I DO believe the book will make it to publication this week, however.

Meanwhile, the audio book of Blood Curse is complete, approved by me, and going through ACX’s quality screening. It should go live on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes by next week.

Also look for this month’s episode of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe next Tuesday! It’s titled Going Underground , and will introduce the Tuckerized character of one of my good convention friends, Jasmine DeGroot.

Progress Report: Slight Delay

Due to issues I had with formatting Demon Bayou, I am behind schedule on ordering the cover design. Also, my designer has gone up a level as a seller on Fivver, which means she’s got a busier work load.

Therefore, I am pushing the release date back 1 week. Demon Bayou will now be coming out May 10th instead of the 3rd. (Going Underground, the next episode of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe will be released on schedule May 17th.)

I will post a cover reveal as soon as I get the finished cover design back.

On the audio book version of Blood Curse, I should be getting the files for approval by the end of April. I expect the book to go live on Audible and iTunes sometime in May. Price TBD.

On to Production!

This is going to be delicious! ~ Belladonna, Blood Curse

Auditions have been sorted. A narrator has been selected. The initial sound check has been approved. The audio book version of Blood Curse is currently in production!

When it’s finished, it will be available on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

My narrator is Greg D. Barnett.

I may add color to the new illustration of Belladonna. I haven’t decided yet.

In other news…

Frustrations in Formatting

I’ve started formatting and final edits on the 2nd edition of Demon Bayou. I have it slated for print and ebook release the first Thursday in May.

Naturally, first thing I did was follow an outdated direction in the Smashwords style guide, possibly incorrectly. I used the tip for removing double spaces, but I hit remove all instead of going through them individually. This resulted in turning the entire MS into a SINGLE PARAGRAPH. Now I have to go back and fix all that.

It’s not going to be hard. It’s just going to be tedious and time consuming. (eye twitch)

Once I get the print PDF finished, I’ll contact Fatima on Fivver and get her started on the cover.

Trudging onward.

Starting to Sound Good

Audio book cover

I’ve made an offer to a narrator. Waiting to hear back from him. That much closer to getting Blood Curse into audio book.