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.

Progress

I am slowly getting closer to audio books. I have my ACX membership. I have corrected the errors I found, whether spelling, editing, or formatting errors in all the source files of the Blood Curse MS, and have updated the Smashwords and Google Books uploads. I have uploaded the ebook directly to KDP. I will upload the revised version of the print book to Ingram Spark when I upload Demon Bayou, since it is going to carry a fee to do so. I also plan on running a contest which involves spotting the errors in the print version to win an advanced copy of Demon Bayou (details to be announced in April).

I still have to finish reading through all the legalese on ACX before I upload a sample for auditions.

I am also in the process of setting up my profile on GOATreads in preparation for uploading the ebook there.

Finally, I have started work on the cover illustration for this month’s episode of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe: Episode 15 Reversal of Fortune. Look for it on KDP Tuesday, March 15th.

That is all.

Adventures in Formatting

Even if it’s only temporarily the end.

Over the past two weekends, I’ve been editing and formatting the season 2 episodes of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe. This is to avoid the situation I ran into earlier this month with episode 13, where I had to postpone the release a week to properly format it. Doing them in one block also makes it easier, since I can make sure they are formatted consistently. This will also help when I stitch the individual episodes into a single annual omnibus for print.

I have a rough draft of the cover illustration for episode 14, Under the Mountain. I should have it finished by this weekend. I only have one episode left to format for season 2. I may go ahead and edit and format the season 3 episodes for next year’s run.

Season 4 is coming along, also. I’m currently writing on episode 39. I need to update the landing page for the serial. It still lists a few season 3 episodes as unwritten.

I plan to start the final editing pass on Demon Bayou so I can get started putting it in the various formats and file types needed for publication. I will probably contact my cover artist for the series after ConNooga and get her started on it.

I also need to do new character pictures for both series and make myself start filming and editing the Meet the Characters series of videos for my YouTube channel. I have to up my marketing game, if I want these books to be successful.

To that end, I will be conducting a contest in April to win an e-ARC of Demon Bayou, one winner per social media platform I use, winner’s choice of Epub or. pdf. (Misha, you can’t enter. You’re already going to get a copy as my alpha reader.) There will be more details closer to contest time, but it will involve having read a copy of the new version of Blood Curse to stand a chance of winning.

Google-di-ru Google-di-ri

Blood Curse: Waves of Darkness book 1 is now available on Google Books!

I heartily apologize for how long this took. This was the first book I’ve self-published wide rather than solely through KDP, and I had (probably still have) a lot to learn. I will do my best to see that future books are released as close to simultaneously as possible across all platforms.

I am planning a contest closer to the May release of Demon Bayou: Waves of Darkness book 2. It will be for an eARC of that book, and I’ll probably hold it in early April. Reading Blood Curse will be vital to the requirements of the contest.

I spent part of yesterday getting Episode 13 of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe edited for January release. I still have a few touches to add plus cover art before it’s ready. For anyone who collected the individual episodes from season 1, I will be using a different cover design for season 2. I still plan to include the line art from the individual episodes of the second season as illustrations in the print omnibus.

I might edit some more episodes today.

Werk werk werk.

Weekend Plans

I know, I know; I said I wouldn’t make any more promises about release dates and such.

I WILL be releasing The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe: 5 Peril in the Philippines on Kindle by October 6th. I’ve already got it properly formatted and am well over halfway through the edits. I start on the cover art today.

I also plan to hit all the pertinent (writing/book promotions) FB groups I’m a member of this weekend with a new promo for this Steampunk serial. It will include purchase links and cover art along with this tagline: Indulge yourself in some cheap thrills this weekend with The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe! Only 99cents per episode! Coming October 6th, Episode 5: Peril in the Philippines! Available only on Kindle.

Oh, and I’ve already thought up a contest to accompany the eventual release of the Season One omnibus. Something to look forward to.

That is all for now.

Final Maelstrom of Fate Redshirt Winners

I wish to thank Sandra Ward, aka Con Mommy, for her assistance with the final redshirt drawing for Maelstrom of Fate, held at LibertyCon 30.

I extend a hearty congratulations to Doug Crowe and Aaron Plotkin for winning the final two slots. You both are killed fairly quickly, but you get the honor of getting one shot in each before your demise. (Read below the video for additional redshirt news.)

Doug, since you managed to win in this drawing, I will be removing your Tuckerization (where you’re written in as a character but not killed off) from season two of The Adventures of Pigg and Woolfe, my upcoming Steampunk serial, and awarding that spot to Snow Hawkins.

Also, as stated in an earlier post, my ConNooga redshirt winner, Jonathon Morris, was disqualified from appearing in Maelstrom for being excessively annoying. I have slightly relented my stance and will be redshirting him in season two of TAoPaW by incineration after taking a bullet for one of my main characters. (A back broken by a hungry vampire was just too swift and easy a death for him.)