Okay, something is seriously wrong with this site today, wow. I guess I'll write this post again.
Book 5 is with the editor for round 2 of editing. So I should have that published soon. Book 6 is in the works and coming along nicely, I picked up a keyboard for my tablet so hopefully I can get some work done during my lunch break. I may have to hide in a closet so I won't be distracted, but we all make sacrifices. I have another print (or two) to post on here. With me doing most of my writing at 5am, I don't tend to do a lot of blog update or social media because there's simply no one on at that time. I need to correct that in the near future. All the books, save the trilogy set, are now on Kindle Unlimited. So, rent away!
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Here is the 2nd print I'll be selling at conventions and online. More to come, but first I need to create them. :P
As I mentioned in the last post, I have been working on some prints to sell at the conventions and online. First up is one for the Five Man Midget Death Squad. Yes, that's my hand. :)
Here we are once again!
It took a bit, but I've been working on a number of different things book related and I wanted to make sure I did the book justice in the process. So, let me just go down the list: All the books are available in paperback now. This is a HUGE pain in the booty because of all the tiny things that have to be done right/corrected. You'll notice the little taglines on the paperbacks are different from those on the ebooks. For whatever reason, Amazon insisted that the paperbacks have the book name on the cover (Ammit, A'loc, etc) but they didn't seem to care about the ebook version. Either way, they are all out and ready for consumption. Here, have a link: http://www.amazon.com/Nicholas-Forristal/e/B0084MVBEU/ I've been preparing to do local conventions, hence the need for paperbacks. Additionally, I've been making buttons, prints, bookmarks and looking into getting shirts made. If there's anything you'd like to see/buy let me know and I'll look into it. Currently, I have 2 prints made up for sale. Over the next few days I'll post them on here as a blog post. I've been trying to set up an online store for this website and for facebook. Initially it was so that I could offer signed books, something I cannot do through amazon. Well, the thing that's prevented me from putting up the store is international shipping. Domestic shipping is easy and can be done cheaply. That isn't the case with international. As a test, I had a fan/friend check Scotland for me - $30 shipping for one book. What I'll probably do is put up the store and only offer shipping in (maybe) N. America. I need to look into Canada and Mexico. Hopefully that shipping won't be insane. Everything I'd sell that the conventions will be sold online as well. Book 5 of CoM is basically done. I have a few chapters I want to go through one more time and then it's going to the editor. It's been a bit since the last update, so let me get you up to date.
1. Book 5 of the series is still in the works. I'm adding a bit of content and it's been slow going because of... 2. I am gearing up to do every/all conventions I can in my area. If there's a decently sized one in your area, let me know and I'll see what I can do. For now I am def doing Conquest (sci-fi/fantasy book CON) in May, Kansas City Comic Con in August, there's a Free Comic Book day I'll probably get involved in soon...some other stuff I'm sure I've forgotten. Because of that I have... A. Made a bunch of buttons to sell online/offline. B. Started shopping around to have t-shirts created. I'll have that fully worked out soon. C. Converted all 6 current books to paperback. I'm waiting for it to be finalized. D. Possibly looking into small posters being made. Everything that I will sell at the conventions I'll also have posted in a section on here soon. 3. I made a new cover for Hitori. I think it's more fitting of the book than the original. You can see it on the main page or on Amazon. I'll get back into full writing mode soon. I FINALLY finished all my note taking for this IT certification, so now it's all memorizing, which I can do at any point of the day, freeing up my 5:30am to 7am writing time. With the latest sale over, I've updated the book covers for CoM 1 - 4. Book 1 is 99 cents for the next week so let people know!
At some point I'll find/make a better cover for Hitori. I like the look of it, but it doesn't fit the content very well. Maybe I'll get lucky and find an artist who isn't overly busy that can assist. I also went through the CoM books and fixed some of the misspellings and updated the contact page, as well as the page that lists all the other books. Pretty minor stuff, but time consuming. Okay, back to writing! I'm not a "omg this is going to be the best year ever" sort of person, I'm a bit more realistic than that. However, we do have somethings to start it off right. Here we go: 1. After some consideration, I'm adding a bit more to book 5. In the whole series, I've tried to give a glimpse of normal life for the rest of the world. It's easy to forget that these books are based in a real world setting when the main characters are dealing with vast amounts of supernatural craziness. So, I decided I better touch on that before moving on. Afterall, book 5 is in the future now! 2. Book 1 is free until Jan 6th. After which I'll probably put it back up at 99 cents for a week. So if you happen to just miss the freebie, at least you get the cheapie! 3. Last, but certainly not least, starting on 1/7 (when the sale ends, no choice) I'll be revamping the covers for the main series of CoM. It has bothered me since day 1 that these covers were more connected. Now, they are. Here is Book 1. Each book will mostly look like this one. The difference(s) are the number (obviously), the color of the bars, and the cheesy one-liner. I wanted to give the books a more Noir/detective feel, but still have the supernatural aspect and the silliness showing through somehow.
I had originally planned to be completed with everything by now and looking to send this off to the editor. Things have changed slightly, for a few reasons.
First, I felt the book was a bit short. Sitting at ~50k words, I wanted to bulk it up a little bit. Not add in fluff, mind you. Any one who reads the series knows I am not one for fluff. I am prone to under-describing things, so I'm taking cares to make sure I don't do this too much. Second, I have come up with something that I want to think out completely before moving on. It's a decently important concept that will play a factor in later books, so I want to make sure it makes sense and works the way I want it to. If you are a reader of this series, you know how much I bounce off ideas from previous books and work with them again. I do this in part to tie the world better together and to close up smaller story arcs. Think back to the cabin scene in book 1 and how it came up a few times later. Third and the most time consuming. I'm studying for a test. No, not a college exam. An IT certification called Network+. Since my options are to either pay $1000 to go take a class, and miss work for 2 months, or pay $250 to just take the test, I've opted to just take the test. The downside is that I am on my own to learn this stuff. Luckily, I've been doing networking stuff for a dozenish, to the point of building my own routers (I tend to kill store bought ones in under a year), so it's just a lot of memorizing of abbreviations and terminology, but I really don't want to fail a $250 test. So, I'm busting my butt to do this right. Sorry folks, real life before my glorified hobby. Not that I don't love you folks! <3 Editing is the least fun part of the process for me. Does this fit? Should I take it out, or add to it? Now, with this book being more intertwined with with the next book than with Consequences, I've also been wondering if the content I'm writing now would be better off in the next book. I could also be overthinking all this. That happens too.
The writing itself isn't completely done, but where I'm at won't take long and I'm still working on how I want it to fit in. I wanted to show things from the perspective of the Lords, don't worry there's no spoiler here, as soon as that section starts you'll know it even without reading this. The issue I'm having is deciding if I want to segment it throughout the book, or keep it together as one sigular chapter. Personally, I like the sub plots that build throughout the book and end at the time as the characters first find out about it. I don't think this is exactly literary irony, but it's at least a spinoff of the idea. In the grand scheme, the reader knowing before the characters does make little difference, which is why I'm trying to decide if I should bother. There's already a lot of segmentation in this book. The rest is with good reason. It's either to introduce some bigger points in the next nppl, or to catch the reader up with the characters - this book takes place several years after the last. So adding another segmented subplot is probably going overboard. I think I finally have my answer.Thanks to whoever reads these. :) Finally, after a year of waiting, Five Man Midget Squad is out! It's bold, it's odd, it's about steampunk, assassin, Scottish Dwarves and the history of their people. What else needs to be said?
The univeral link (http://mybook.to/5mmds) is built into the picture below. Happy reading and I hope you enjoy it! |
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