Friday, January 30, 2015

You're Gonna Think I Photoshopped This...

But I swear, I did no such thing:


Yeah, that's Blade's Edge at #1 for paperback fiction...

I don't really understand it myself except that, obviously, when a whole crowd of people buy your book at a launch event that's a high concentration of books sold in a single week. Apparently enough to beat out traditionally published and amazon bestselling books...

That's the part that freaks me out. The Rosie Project is currently at #11 on amazon OUT OF ALL THE BOOKS. And it it's been at #1 before. In fact it's listed as a #1 International Bestseller. So... You know... It must be having a rough week here in Winnipeg.

My brain has turned into a puddle. I'm sure this is just a launch boosted position that is highly unlikely to recur, but still.... It definitely put a smile on my face.

Plus, now I get to call Blade's Edge a bestselling novel. Ha! Awesome.

Huge thanks, again, to everyone who came out for the launch party. It's thanks to the support of that crowd that Blade's Edge topped the Winnipeg chart this week.

So, yeah, it's been a pretty good week over here. Mostly, I've been doing marketing and publicity work, catching up on some reading, writing some short stories that will likely never see the light of day, and generally working on recovering from the last few months of crazy. 

But once I've got all of the Kickstarter rewards filled (should be done with that sometime next week) it will be time to get started on the next revision project. That's right. There's another novel coming out in the next six months! :-D Yay full time writing, yay! 

Well, I'm going to get back to said marketing and publicity. Which reminds me:

Don't forget to buy your own copy of the #1 Bestselling novel, Blade's Edge! (See what I did there?)

Buy on amazon!
You get the idea...
Goodreads-badge-add-plus




Monday, January 26, 2015

Video from the book launch and... a chance to win a FREE copy of Blade's Edge!


Here are a couple short videos from Friday night. The first is a small taste of the music that started off the evening as people filed in, the second is a portion of the aikido demonstration by Aikido of Winnipeg, and the third is of me reading from Blade's Edge. The one of me reading cuts off quite early, but hopefully these three videos allow you to enjoy a small taste of the launch party!


















And last, but very far from least, I am running a Goodreads Giveaway for Blade's Edge. If you are a Goodreads member (which is a free account, by the way) and you sign up for the Blade's Edge Giveaway you get a chance to win a free paperback copy of Blade's Edge shipped right to your door (and no you don't have to pay for shipping either). Sign up by clicking the link below and please tell your friends! 


Goodreads Book Giveaway

Blade's Edge by Virginia McClain

Blade's Edge

by Virginia McClain

Giveaway ends February 27, 2015.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Be the Person Signing Books at an Author Event... CHECK!

Well, that's one thing off the bucket list.

I wish everyone who reads this blog could have come last night, because everything turned out really well and I wish I could share that with all of you.

I managed to remain largely coherent while I was talking about myself and how the book came to be. The aikido demo was wonderful to watch, and I'm proud to say that my reading went well too.

Then the surreal part came. The part where I sat on the other side of the signing table and talked to a long line of people who were buying copies of my book. I knew a lot of the people who were there, but there were a number of people I had never met before, and I was blown away by the number of people who not only showed up but also bought a copy of the book and asked me to sign it. I still don't know how many copies we sold last night, but I know it was more than I had expected.

It was so lovely to get to chat with people who waited to have their books signed. One of my friends bugged me afterwards for taking too long with each person in line, but I would have felt weird moving it any faster. I had some really nice conversations with people that I don't see too often, and people I was meeting for the very first time. That was my favorite part.

I said it last night, but I'll say it here again: A huge thank you to everyone who came out for the event. Especially to everyone who helped out in some way. (I'm not sure how much internet publicity everyone wants so I won't name names here.)

Well, I suppose the most efficient thing to do would be for me to stop rambling and post some of the pictures from last night. (All photos credited to Sam Baardman unless otherwise noted.)




The display!



The lads playing tunes as the crowd files in 









Ninjas! (Just kidding. This is the aikido demonstration. The ninjas are invisible.) 



Me rocking a goofy grin


Uh oh! It's serious!


ENTHUSIASM!



Turns out I can't talk and sign at the same time



But I can smile giddily and sign at the time


And here are a couple of images that I stole from a friend on facebook:


This is the display right when you walk into McNally Robinson


And this gives you a sense of the size of the crowd :-D

(Those last two photo credits go to Sean McManus)

And now I have to go walk my dog and get on with my day. Thank you to everyone who supported the launch in any way!





Friday, January 23, 2015

Blade's Edge officially launches! Unveiling the webstore! And surprises...

Holy paper-with-words-on-it-wrapped-in-a-pretty-picture, BATMAN! Today is the day that Blade's Edge officially joins the world. I'm giddy. It feels like it's taken a hundred years to get it here, and it feels like just yesterday that Blade's Edge was an incoherent mess of a first draft. Now I know where Dickens got his opening first paragraph for a tale of two cities.


First things first, you can now buy Blade's Edge just about everywhere you would ever buy a book. If you want to buy it at your local bookstore, simply stroll in and ask for them to look it up by author name (Virginia McClain) and title (Blade's Edge), or, if you're feeling fancy, by ISBN: 978-1503057333 and order it through the Ingram catalog.

Alternatively, if you would like it delivered straight to your door or e-reader, try any of these lovely options:

For the paperback from amazon: http://amzn.com/150305733X

For the kindle version from amazon: http://amzn.com/B00RWV9XQM

For the epub or pdf versions of the ebook: http://my.bookbaby.com/book/blades-edge

If you're a particular fan of ordering from Barnes & Noble (both paperback and Nook versions): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blades-edge-virginia-mcclain/1121083862?ean=9781503057333

**I've left those links visible rather than embedding them so that anyone interested in sharing them can easily copy and paste them.**

And it's also available on a number of other sites across the internet in ebook format... So, check whatever site you like to buy books from, they've probably got it.

However, if you'd like to buy the book directly from me... Today is the day I'm unveiling my online store! Click here to check out the place to buy things that you can't find anywhere else (such as t-shirts, posters, and prints made from cover art), as well as buy my books directly from me (cutting out the middle man). And for future reference, look to the page links on the right hand side of this blog to find a permanent link to the online store.  :-D

Whew. Ok. Enough business.

Onto fun stuff!

The launch is tonight, and I need to practice the things I'm going to say a few more times. I'm nervous, but more because I'm worried I'll be speaking to an empty room than because I'm worried about what to say, or that I'll screw up.

However, last night I got a fantastic surprise that makes me less worried about having an audience. One of my best friends from Arizona flew up to Winnipeg to surprise me and come to the launch party. YAY!

I know there are going to be a lot of Canadian friends and family there, so I know it won't be an empty room anyway and I'm really appreciative of everyone who is coming out tonight, but somehow having one of my friends go through so much trouble to come here all the way form Arizona makes me not worry about the size of the audience anymore. Not sure if that makes sense at all, but that's how I feel. So, I'm going to ditch this post to go hang out with the aforementioned friend.

A big thanks to everyone reading this for all the support you've given me on this particular journey. I appreciate all of you, and I can't wait to share pictures from tonight with you. I hope this post finds everyone well. Happy LAUNCH DAY! ;-P

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

New Author: A Photo Essay

Yesterday, this happened:













Followed by this:



So I was all:


Yesterday rocked.



99% of all photo credits for this post go to Corey Ticknor (the other 1% goes to me)




Monday, January 19, 2015

Interviews with Indie Authors: Nick Bryan



Today, joining us for the Interview With Indie Authors series and the first stop on his Blog Tour launch of Rush Jobs --the second book in the Hobson & Choi series-- is Nick Bryan. 

(Oh dear, it looks as though we've caught him by surprise...)

Nick is a London-based writer of genre fiction, usually with some blackly comic twist. As well as the detective saga Hobson & Choi, he is also working on a novel about the real implications of deals with the devil and has stories in several anthologies.

More details on his other work and news on future Hobson & Choi releases can be found on his blog at NickBryan.com or on Twitter as @NickMB. Both are updated with perfect and reasonable regularity.

Subscribe to his mailing list using the form in the sidebar of NickBryan.com to get news first and an all-new free Hobson & Choi short story immediately!

When not reading or writing books, Nick Bryan enjoys racquet sports, comics and a nice white beer.

Nick is also a buddy of mine from our old Jukepop serial days (does that make me sound old? It was only a few months ago, but it feels like ages). You recall, I'm sure, when I would get all excited because Blade's Edge had made it into the top 30 for the month? Well, Nick's Hobson & Choi serial was always in the top ten and generally #1. Not even joking. He won awards.

So, it is with comradely pride (minus any communist undertones -- no offense to any communists out there) that I host him here on Rain on a Summer's Afternoon for the opening of his blog tour.

To start with I should say that through Jukepop I have read the original versions of Hobson & Choi books 1 through 3 and enjoyed them thoroughly. I enjoyed them so much that I actually went ahead and bought a copy of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf even though I'd already read the Jukepop version. Of course, Nick has done a solid rewrite of the Jukepop versions along with a professional cover, editing, formatting etc, for the paid volumes of the books. 

Anyway, before we get too far distracted, here is my review of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf: 

Hobson is a curmudgeonly detective with anger management issues in need of an assistant who is tech savvy, but not annoying enough to want to punch. 
Choi is a mature and tech savvy high school student in need of an internship that won't bore her to tears.  
Together they form an unlikely partnership as they set off to solve an even less likely murder case.

Yet the two characters are likable, believable, and make you care about what happens to them and the mystery they find themselves grappling with. 
Hobson and Choi's first case is a gripping read that will have you laughing, tearing up a bit, and unwilling to put it down.
You can tell I like it, right? So, by all means enter to win a free copy of the book in Nick's give away (more details below) but since only two people are going to win those, go ahead and buy yourself a copy of the first (and second) Hobson & Choi books.

Speaking of the Giveaway.... Here are the prizes you can win:
  • 1 Signed paperback set of the Hobson & Choi series (The Girl who Tweeted Wolf & Rush Jobs)
  • 3 e-book sets of the Hobson & Choi series
Click this link to sign up!

If you're not tempted yet, let's see how you feel after the interview and excerpt. So, let's get right down to it. Nick's answers were going to be in the color of coffee, the lifeblood of writers, detectives, and teens alike, but that proved too difficult to read so they are instead in this lovely light blue, apropos of absolutely nothing.

And... here we go:


1. For those who enjoy a bit more description than I provided in my review, tell us a bit about the Hobson & Choi series.
Hobson & Choi is a series of grimly humourous London crime books self-published by me, Nick Bryan. They revolve around John Hobson, a demotivated detective, and Angelina Choi, a teenage girl who turns up at his agency for work experience and encourages him to take on more current, interesting and scary cases. 
The just-released second book, Rush Jobs, revolves around Hobson and Choi taking on their first batch of gigs after the one which first introduced them. It’s a chance to become better acquainted with both each other and the world they've stumbled into.

2. Hobson & Choi began its life as a Jukepop serial... Can you tell us a little bit about that process and how well it worked for this particular story?
Like many of my ideas, Hobson & Choi was originally conceived as a more sci-fi/fantasy-tinged project. Once I started making some notes, though, it upped sticks to an almost-real world, a heightened satirical reality. After a year of prep, it was pulled out of my notebooks when I needed a webserial idea to submit to Jukepop - I thought the detective premise would lend itself well to an ongoing run of stories.
I've enjoyed a lot of TV shows, comics and general serialised stories, so liked the idea of a forward-marching prose series, with subplots, cliffhangers and an array of recurring characters. Even in the new, improved book form, it's very much a continuous story. I wouldn't recommend reading it out of order, the soap opera won’t make sense and characters from previous volumes have a habit of returning.
3. How did you wind up pairing a curmudgeonly private detective with a bright but awkward teenage girl?
The two characters emerged mostly-formed – the idea of a middle-aged, grizzled chap and teenage girl were meant to let me cover both old-school crime-underworld or new-world tech-online adventures. The heroes take turns being a fish out of water, with just enough common ground to co-exist. 
And outside the job, they're both fishes out of water in their own lives, Hobson due to his oft-hinted Dark Past and Choi because of her fuzzy background and awkward relations with her family. 
Indeed, in wider terms, the character pairing also reflects the combined genres of earnest YA and darker adult crime, which kinda combine into one glorious mess in the H&C series.

4. What kind of research do you find yourself doing?
I try to stay on top of the latest swearwords, plus visit most of the London locations I write about to make sure it doesn't sound too much like bullshit. The fictional locales are often heavily based on something real too. Always on the lookout for a way to incorporate new internet trends/sites or unpleasant modern phenomena into the cases, although I don't want to alienate people who don't care about the web. My Mum still reads these books.

5. How much of you would you say is crotchety old detective and how much of you is spunky teenage girl?
I am probably more a Hobson than a Choi, due to inevitable demographic similarity (plus I do enjoy a good swear), but they're two sides of my coin overall. One side weighed down by the past, the other determined to keep fighting on. Together, they may even get somewhere.

6. Why is Angelina's last name Choi even though she's adopted?
Because [SPOILER] felt [SPOILER] would [SPOILER] if [SPOILER]. More details in book [SPOILER].

7. What's the most difficult thing about writing the Hobson & Choi books?
The hardest part is threading the comedy-drama needle. As we dive into increasingly dark territory - there's some grim material in Rush Jobs at times - I try to throw in fun moments, but without undercutting the parts I want taken seriously. I cut a few rambling poo jokes from Case Two, as they ruined my insistence that “This means something, dammit!”

8. What's the most fun thing about writing the Hobson & Choi books?
The best bit of writing Hobson & Choi is the way the wider world has taken shape, a strange twenty-first century mafia culture where every business could have a criminal underside. Sitting down for a new H&C case and thinking “Right, what benign institution shall I turn evil today?” is an excellent feeling.

9. How many books do you think are likely to come from Hobson & Choi?
It depends on various things – some of them sales/success related, so if you want more books, do read and tell your friends about the current ones. I know what the beats are, and ideally if everything works naturally, we'd probably go up to book eight or nine. But if need be, I could probably wrap it up in five or six. First 10,000 words of book four already written. 
And yes, I will finish up one way or another. I don't like leaving things undone.

10. Getting to the back-end of things, what do you find to be the most satisfying parts of independent publishing?
The most satisfying part is probably sitting back and admiring the final product, knowing how it all came together from parts. When my final cover came through from the excellent Design For Writers folk (who I know you've also had the pleasure of using), that was definitely a basking moment, as was the arrival of my print proofs and seeing them on sale in my local bookshop.

There's a definite sense of “Yes, I made that whole thing” which I enjoy a lot.

11. What do you find to be the most frustrating parts?
Well, it's the flipside of the last answer, really. Yes, I get to make the entire book, but I'm also solely responsible for getting it to a decent standard, removing all typos, etc. No matter how many proofreading runs you pay for, there's always the potential to make mistakes whilst doing the subsequent edits, and there's no-one to blame but me, ultimately.

12. Which parts of the publishing process do you do yourself and which parts do you hire out to others?
As mentioned above, I got people in to do the cover creation, as I don't pretend to have strong design or image-editing skills. 
I also paid for an editor to look at the text, as I think having someone other than me go over it closely is probably a good idea. I went to London Book Fair and the one thing I got from all the talks on self-publishing was that hiring a real editor is definitely the one big thing you should do. If I do fail, I don't want it to be because I skipped the big obvious thing. 
I did the HTML and print formatting myself though – I work in IT for my day job, so can manage fiddly technical tasks without feeling too beaten down.

13. What other projects do you have on the go and which one are you most excited about at the moment?
My fantasy novel (about deals with the devil and the in-depth T&Cs of same, once again balancing dark comedy and real drama) has just finished an extensive run of rewrites and I'm about to send that out to a few literary agents to see if there's interest. I quite like the idea of being a Hybrid Author, balancing traditional and self-publishing based on the needs of the individual projects, so we'll see how that works out. 
Aside from that, editing Hobson & Choi Case Three for its book debut and starting on Case Four. I also started a fun sci-fi adventure story, but that's progressing slowly due to the many needs of the H&C Media Empire.

14. If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?
Stop trying to do projects which “seem sensible” because you’re scared of/intimidated by trying your actual interests. Yes, there needs to be some awareness of audience and consideration of viability, but once you drive yourself out of your chosen genre and form due to anxious fear, you start to wonder what the hell happened.

15. If you had to choose between eating nothing but guinea pigs for the rest of your life or losing the use of one of your hands what would you choose? Why?
Would these guinea pigs be cooked/prepared in any way? Can the human body digest an unshaven, live guinea pig? Assuming I could eat them without dying, definitely the rodents. I'm not that squeamish about the species of my meat, and I'd rather have a boring diet than a missing hand.

16. Please discuss the merits of flannel shirts and jeans that are too tight.
I'm not a huge fan. The character Will Herrison from the H&C books might disagree. (Follow him now on Twitter: @SadReceptionist.)

17. How do you feel about twerking?
Like it will never affect my life much. Good luck to those who enjoy it, but I am old and my back doesn't bend that way.

18. Is there anyone who you think should NOT read your books?
I try to go broad, but if you're severely turned off by grisly crime moments or creative swearing, I imagine you might find them a challenge.


That concludes our interview with Nick Bryan, but please click here to read an extract from The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf. 

Or click here to buy it on amazon!

In addition, be sure to check out the remainder of his stops on the blog tour:





Saturday, January 17, 2015

Blade's Edge Earns Some Stars!

Well, sheesh, Blade's Edge is starting to feel like a real book, even though I haven't quite held it in my hands yet.

Though not officially released yet, Blade's Edge has received two very positive reviews over on Goodreads (one 5 star and one 4 star).

Click this button to check them out on the goodreads website: Goodreads-badge-read-reviews
Or if you prefer you can read them here on this site.

Having people like the book and review it favorably gives me a very strong case of the warm fuzzies.

Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors and they snowball big time, so if you happen to read the book and enjoy it, please rate and review it on amazon or goodreads. (And I urge you to do the same for any book that you read and enjoy by an independent author, or really any author --trad published authors need love too.)

Anyway, that's got me feeling pretty good about the book, and now it's time for me to go bake some bread, but before I do, I want to remind everyone that on Monday I will be hosting the very first stop of Nick Bryan's blog tour. He's the next guest in my Interviews with Indie Authors series, and the author of the highly entertaining and well received Hobson and Choi series. I'll tell you more about him on Monday for the interview, but I hope you'll go check out his work in the meantime. It's definitely worth a gander.

And now I leave you with a photo from yesterday of me skating on the Red River here in Winnipeg:

After all if it's going to be f***ing freezing for five f***ing months then you might as well get a few miles of skating out of it. Well played, Winnipeg. Well played. 


Thursday, January 15, 2015

In Which Blade's Edge Goes to Print and I Earn My Canadian Flag...

Blade's Edge now looks like this. IN REAL LIFE!

It's done, really and truly done, and in print and able to be held in one's hands. 

Of course, due to some ridiculous printing and ordering snafus I haven't held it in my hands yet... but my editor has! And we were video chatting while she held it, so I feel like I've held it myself. Almost. At any rate I will be holding it next week, when we do the launch party at McNally's.

Just a reminder, Manitoba locals, that the launch party is on January 23rd at 7pm at McNally Robinson booksellers. There will be music, food and drinks, a reading, a signing, and a martial arts demonstration. What could be a better way to kick off your Friday night? Bring all your friends. ALL OF THEM.

Ahem.

So, to celebrate Blade's Edge going to print (which only finally happened this morning) the husband and I went out for breakfast, and then we drove down to the border where I stamped in as an official permanent resident of Canada.

Here's me receiving my official Canadian flag:


Yes, the goofy face is 100% required.

So, lots of official officialness happening today. The last 9 months of immigration paperwork and waiting are finally over. The book is finally printing for the launch (and will be up on amazon and ready to order by the 23rd) and all is well! 

I guess that sums it up from here. It's dinner time. Hope this finds everyone well. Happy winter! 



Saturday, January 10, 2015

In which I melt into a bit of a stress puddle... but only briefly...


So... Lots of progress here, but this past week has been a giant ball of stress. We finished the interior formatting and final edit on Monday, and were hoping to order proofs that same day or Tuesday morning, but then it took longer to get the final cover art file than expected (you can only get the final image once you have finalized page numbers and you can't have final page numbers until you've finished all your interior formatting and edits).

I was under the impression (perhaps through misunderstanding) that it would only take a day to get my final file once I informed the design folks of the final page count. I informed them of the count on Monday morning, they weren't back in the office until Tuesday so I figured I'd have it by the end of the work day on Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, but I just got it yesterday (Friday) morning. Which had me stressing out all week.

Keep in mind, misunderstanding about timing or not, I should have given myself way more lead time with this whole thing, so it's my fault that all of this is coming back to bite me in the ass. Still, knowing that it's my own fault didn't make it any less stress inducing.

So, yesterday was the day I got to hit submit on all the files, and they were approved by createspace in about 10 hours. Upon approval, I immediately ordered a proof copy for the fastest available shipping option. Which will arrive on Tuesday. (Granted that's a day longer than usual due to MLK day, but still...) I am now having a panic attack about getting the print books here in time for the launch.

The proof arrives on Tuesday the 13th. Let's say there's nothing wrong with it (although I've already spotted one pagination error that I somehow missed so I know that's not true--but let's pretend that there's not a single error), I will hit approve and immediately ship 100 copies (27 to sign for backers and the rest for the launch on the 23rd) of the book to myself. Those will arrive on Saturday the 17th at the earliest. That would probably be fine.

However, as mentioned, I know there's an issue that needs to be corrected so I will have to fix that (I've already fixed it in the root file, but I'm going to wait until I've seen the proof and make sure I catch everything else before I update the interior file on createspace), and then I will submit it again, and then it will take createspace another 10-24 hours to approve the files. Once that's done, I will hit print (assuming that there were no major formatting changes like margins etc that would need to be confirmed in another physical proof), but chances are good that means I'm not ordering the print until Wednesday the 14th at the earliest, which means the books won't arrive until Monday the 19th at the earliest. For the launch that's happening on Friday the 23rd.

Which is fine. As long as nothing goes wrong. If anything goes wrong, I'm screwed. And of course there's always the chance that customs will decide to hold up the books for some reason...

I'm cutting it very close.

And apparently I really needed to spew this at someone. So thanks for reading this if you've gotten this far.

In addition, I really thought I was going to have time to get all the kickstarter backer rewards distributed before the launch, but I'm now beginning to doubt that. I will still try, and honestly, things that aren't going to be signed will probably get to people pretty quickly, but doing all of this alone is a bit overwhelming. I now understand why people hire squads of people to help them fill rewards.

It's all totally doable, it's just going to take longer than I had hoped.

Yeah, so that's a direct dump from my brain to the page. And please please please, note that none of this is a complaint. I'm still so very very excited about this whole thing. I'm just freaking out a little bit too. :-)

I hope that everyone is off to a happy start to their new year.

I leave you with another look at the ridiculous book trailer I made the other day:




The youtube page for the video contains the pre-order link for the ebook too.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Book Trailer!

So, I may or may not have spent a couple of hours last night making a book trailer for Blade's Edge...


I will allow you to examine the evidence and decide whether or not that's a thing that happened. ;-P

Thursday, January 8, 2015

There are too many things...

That I want to blog about, but I feel as though I should keep my eye on the prize and mention that the Blade's Edge ebook is now available for pre-order for kindle.

It's also now listed on Goodreads so you can add it to your list of "to-read" books if that's the kind of thing you'e in to.

This is all very exciting. The book is also slowly making it's way out to my kickstarter backers. Which is even more exciting... and a bit nerve wracking.

Holy crap people... other people are going to start reading this thing. Not just people I know and trust, but... the general populace. Total strangers.

And now of course, I find myself thinking over and over again "it's not good enough, it's not nearly good enough, there are so many things I didn't do that I should have..."

And of course I also am telling myself to shut up.

Because of course it's not "good enough." But it's good enough.

I worked very hard on this book, put a lot of time and effort into it, and I think it's entertaining, and makes a couple of good points. I hope other people enjoy it. Or at least get to the end and think that was worth their time.

Or better yet, to quote my dad, that the book was "worth the powder to blow it to hell." Of course that quote from my dad usually comes out in reference to things that are not, in fact, worth the powder to blow them to hell. Sigh...

There's a great story that my brother tells about that particular Daddy McClainism (yes, we have a name for the expressions my father has made up/uses frequently), but I'm just rambling to cover my own nerves here so I guess I'll stop.

A bit of housekeeping: Do please note that you can find links to ALL of my publications over under the Books link. It also includes covers and links to where you can buy copies of everything I've written that's up for sale.

So... on that note, I'm going to go back to this whole "marketing and publicity" bit.... Which can also be called messing about on social media.

In honor of throwback Thursday, here is a picture of me playing bass in Japan from 2011




Tuesday, January 6, 2015

New Year, New Look, New Book!

Well folks, it's been 2015 for about 6 days now, and the new year has already brought a whole lot of new with it.

First of all, in the past week I have FINISHED the formatting, and the final edits to the print version of Blade's Edge. This is exceedingly exciting because now, as soon as I get the final cover image from the designer (they have to adjust the spine for the exact page number) I can order proof copies for myself and my copy editor. WOOHOO!

In addition I am ALMOST finished with the formatting for the ebook (both epub and mobi) but I have to finish applying the changes made in the final copyedit.

This morning, I took the opportunity to mess with the website design rather than work on formatting (yesterday was an intense day of transferring edits and doing final touches on formatting so I needed a small brain break) and if you're looking at this page you can see the results of that adventure. I'm still not sure I like the banner for the title, but I'm going to leave it alone for a while and see if it grows on me. Getting the artwork to meet the blogger template requirements was a pain, but only because I was using the wrong tools for the job. Once I started using things the right way everything became easy.

This book is so close to being in print that I can barely stand it. I'm ready to jump around and celebrate, but it's... Not. Quite. Time.

Well, I had best get back to actually formatting the ebook. I promise to blog more, and about more diverse and interesting topics, as soon as I'm done with the book.

In the meantime, here is a photo of the puzzle that my husband and I put together over the holidays:

Being trapped indoors can have it's upshots.