Prepping this morning to head to ConNooga this afternoon. No table or panels this year, but I plan to find the author track director to rectify that for next year. I’ll just be pushing books. Since I don’t have any 1st edition copies of Demon Bayou other than my personal copy, I’m only taking Blood Curse and The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe, season 1: The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. If I encounter past customers who want to continue the Waves of Darkness series before all 7 are re-released, I’ll arrange to bring in the titles they want the next day.
Now for the cover reveal:
The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe, episode 14: Going Underground will be released on KDP Tuesday, February 22nd ( 2/22/22).
I’m still getting the hang of PenUp, but I definitely want to continue with this style for the cover illustrations on this serial.
These past few weeks have been rather busy, and I apologize for not posting more often. January promises to be quite hectic, as well.
First, I hope that everyone had a healthy and safe holiday season.
Second, a dear author and convention friend of mine recently experienced a devastating loss. Those of you who follow this blog regularly know I am referring to author Stephanie Osborn’s loss of her husband. Please show her your support and buy her books. You can learn more about her series and titles and where to buy them on her site. She has been posting regular updates on her status as she struggles through this difficult time on her Facebook account.
Third, I have created a cover template for season 2 (and beyond) of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe. This is a variation of the cover design I did for The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe season 1. I used PENUP to create the parchment effect background and color the framework. Future episode covers will feature a line art illustration, a colored outer frame, and a new font (as yet to be determined, downloaded and installed). The annual omnibus will have a colored illustration.
Expect episode 13, Airborne Alliance, which will start off season 2, to be released on KDP Tuesday, January 18.
I haven’t forgotten about Demon Bayou, due for release in May. I will be starting another round of edits soon, then move on to getting it into the various formats. I will also contact my cover artist for the Waves of Darkness series about the cover probably in late February/early March.
Fourth, ChattaCon is coming up this Martin Luther King Day weekend at the Doubletree Hilton, Chattanooga, TN. They will be holding a live convention this year, with COVID protocols in place, of course. I have a table in the dealer room and will have copies of most of my titles (I think I’m sold out of the Gypsy Shadow Publishing edition of Demon Bayou and close to sold out of Maelstrom of Fate). I have a book signing session at 1 PM that Saturday in the Dealers’ Room and will be on a panel about The Art and Craft of Anthology Curation with authors Wendy Webb, Gregory Nicoll, Rob Howell, and Stephen L. Antczak in the Vision Ballroom C.
I hope to see as many as possible of you there!
Fifth, referring to the above announcement, I’ve ordered copies of Blood Curse to have on hand. I still have several copies of The Girl who Fell from the Sky left over from the last convention I attended back in early 202 (before things went insane).
Lastly, I finally got around to ordering the last 4 books in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. I’m nearing completion of reading Wizard and Glass. (It’s not so much that I read slowly as that I only get to read in little snippets of time.) It’s been like reading it for the first time, it’s been well over a decade since I first read it.
Okay, here’s a little treat for sticking it out to the end of this blog post: a video tour of my 2021 Christmas tree. This is the first video I’ve put together using the video editor on Win 10. Still not sure if I like as much, better, or less than MS Moviemaker on Win 7.
Learning the ins and outs of going with wide distribution in self-publishing has been quite an experience. I by no means consider myself an expert on it now, but I have a better idea what to expect with the next book.
Blood Curse is the second book I’ve self-published. It is the first I’ve gone wide with, however. When I published The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: the Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe season 1, I went exclusively with KDP. I’m debating whether to stick with that for the Pigg&Woolfe series or to take it wide, as well. I probably will stick with KDP for that one, since it is an episodic serial. (Look for season 2 to start in either January or February. I am drafting season 4 currently.)
I believe I will settle on a 6 month schedule for re-release of the first 7 books in the Waves of Darkness series. Look for Demon Bayou to come out around May 3rd, 2021. I’ve already done the first round of revisions on it.
Audio book editions will be announced when I have a better idea of how I will fund the production and which service I decide to go with.
I also will be putting up a TeeSpring store in the next few weeks. Once it’s up and running, I will put a permanent link in the menu bar of this site.
I will be creating content for my dormant YouTube channel and reviving it, as well.
I finished final revisions on Blood Curse 2nd edition this past weekend. Next weekend (or sooner, depending on available computer time) I will work on formatting. I have to make sure the ebook version conforms to Smashwords guidelines, since I plan on going wide on distribution. I’ll probably still upload directly to KDP, and I’ll have to upload directly to Google Play. While Amazon will accept submissions from aggregators such as Smashwords, ebooks will go live quicker when uploaded directly. Google does NOT accept submissions from aggregators.
I also need to find out what book trim sizes Ingram Spark allows for paperbacks and what cover finishes they offer. I’d like to go with something smaller than the 6″ x 9″ trade paperback size, and a matte finish. Matte will photograph better than gloss and won’t peel with heavy handling. Ran into the peeling issue with my author’s galley of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: the Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe, season 1 with Amazon/KDP. I was carrying it in a book bag everywhere, and pulling it out to pitch the book. The gloss layer on the cover started to separate on the edges.
Oh yeah, and I need to buy some ISBN numbers, since they’re less expensive in bulk rather than buying one for each book at publication time.
I also need to work up some flourishes for the interior of the print version that won’t be included in the ebook. This is a 2nd edition, but it’s also a 10th anniversary edition. I want it to cause book-gasms for anyone who buys it.
Once the print version is formatted, and I have a page count, I can contract a cover.
I also need to start grilling my author/publisher friends about the best route to get it into audio book format.
Pirates and vampires gaming in the consuite: how perfect is that? (Hey, I saw fangs, so I stand by the statement.)
I think this year’s Chattacon was probably the best one since they left the Chattanooga Choo Choo as a venue. It took place at The Doubletree by Hilton in Chattanooga, TN. The dealer room was a mite smaller than the space we had at the Read House, last year, but larger than the space we had at The Chattanoogan the year before. The hotel seemed very con friendly, and some of the Choo Choo’s former staff are there, as well.
My sales weren’t as good as I’d hoped, but I know that sometimes my target audience is in attendance and sometimes not. Sunday was my best day. I managed to sell all the jigsaw puzzles I brought just to get rid of, one print of Young Queen and Rider and two copies of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. Still, I have secured a spot in the dealer hall for next year.
I did manage to get some artwork and a little writing done. The artwork is waiting approval from my commissioner, of course.
I enjoyed visiting with my convention family, and even attended a few panels after the dealer room closed each day. I won the silent bid on a nifty little print by Theresa Mather titled Cephalopirates, received a lovely print from my table neighbor, John E. Kaufman, for sharing the use of my card reader, and purchased a copy of the book What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor? about unexpurgated sea shanties; definitely NOT for children and quite raunchy, to boot. I REGRET NOTHING!
One of the highlights of the con for me was going in the consuite after the bellydancing show (the Merry Bellies did a vampire club theme this year) and arriving just in time for a group sing of Bohemian Rhapsody followed by Paradise by the Dashboard Lights and wound up with dancing to The Time Warp. Have I mentioned, I’m sure I have, that Chattacon is both a great sci/fi/lit convention AND a partycon? You really should come check it out next January. Just follow the link to their site and preregister. It will be held at the Doubletree again.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
Tamara Lowery's Scribblings 