Preorders Are Scary

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Admin, Books, Erithenia, Publication

I’ve been working on Reclamation for some time, to say the least. Years, on and off; for a while, it was the book I didn’t want to write for fear I couldn’t do it justice. But for whatever reason, these past few months I’ve felt up to it.

Which is why I decided that I could aim to get it finished well before the end of the year.

And I can — that’s not really in doubt. I can write fast, and I can write well, and while I can’t always do both at the same time, I can certainly overlap them well enough. I’ve got months to go and very little else to do in them, since my chance of summer employment appears to have lost my records down the back of the sofa and refuses to respond to my emails. All is set very fair indeed.

But it’s still rather more scary the longer it goes on. For once I’ve actually promised something, with a certain specific date and deadline, something that I can let people down on. And I really don’t want to do that. But who knows if I will? The future isn’t certain, even when I pretend it is. And I have other responsibilities I’m determined to fulfill.

Still, nothing doing — it’s done, and whether or not it’s intimidating, I won’t back out now!

Coming Soon!

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Erithenia, Fantasy, Publication, Sale, Sci-Fi

The exam period is just about over, and with it I am freed to go back to writing! (I’d have written an explanatory post, but I didn’t realise quite how busy I’d end up until it was already too late!) Which means… that I am now ready to promise you all a new book! Preorders are now open for Erithenia: Reclamation, the first in a new series that will bring us to the world of Thenia, a modern technological society built in part around a power — sharren — as fundamental to Thenians as gravity. Old tales of gods and monsters are a myth — until the day that a cruise liner runs aground, a seemingly reasonless event that heralds the return of the heroes and villains long since thought to be no more than fable.

Reclamation will be out on the 1st of December, but register your interest now to be sure you get it as soon as it’s released!

And in other writing news… there’s about to be a big sale at Smashwords, and for the whole month of July, the ebook of Before the Sun Fades will be absolutely free! So why not pick it up?

Holy Catbiscuits!

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Fantasy, Publication, Sales

I was going to be good and not constantly post about how BtSF was doing in the sale (where it’s currently free), because that’s really annoying, but it’s now almost at the top of page 5 of the free-in-sale fantasy bestsellers and climbing!!! They default to 20 books per page, which means it stands at sales rank #83! I’ve hit double digits in my category!!!

Thank you! You wonderful crazy people who read random fantasy novels by someone on the internet, thank you all!

How’s Rakariel Doing?

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Fantasy, Publication

I’ve been meaning to catch up on my sales statistics for a while now, and since I’m not feeling so great, today seems like the ideal time to do all those minor chores that involve sitting in front of a computer. So, how are we doing?

Well, Before the Sun Fades has shifted 15 physical copies! Not counting the box of author copies I have, which I’ve mostly handed out to libraries and friends/relations. As for its e-sales, I’ve sold 11 e-copies, and handed out a few more. Hopefully, copies of these will be in circulation among a wider circle of people, some of whom will pop by sometime and ‘buy’ a copy to support my work, and some of whom can’t right now – which is a-okay with me.

All this means that I’ve sold 26 books, plus some extra that I’ve handed out in various places, since the 23rd of May last year. That’s only ten months ago, and two and a half books a month doesn’t feel bad at all for a starting out nobody author!

So I’m feeling pretty good about myself and about my writing life right now! And as a celebration, I’m handing out discount codes like candy again! Sadly, I can’t discount the physical book – Amazon controls the special offers there – but I can certainly discount the electronic edition!

To grab a copy of Before the Sun Fades in your favourite e-format for what should be about £1 (Smashwords insist on doing everything in dollars), head on over to its Smashwords page and enter the code UL78V on purchase. It’s valid up until BtSF reaches its first birthday, that is, the 23rd of May! And share the code with your friends – it’s good for an infinite number of uses until time runs out!

Print and Links!

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Fantasy, Publication

Looks like someone’s catalogued the existence of my book! http://booksreadr.org/ebook/before-the-sun-fades How awesome is that?!

The CreateSpace submission process was unexpectedly painless, and apart from time taken to filter through the various catalogues, Before the Sun Fades should now be available in print! It’s somewhat more expensive than I would have liked, but I suppose that’s the penalty for making it print-on-demand.

The different outlet channels (Createspace itself, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or other EU Amazon sites, etc.) each have somewhat different returns for me. If you buy direct from CreateSpace, I get almost $7 out of it, which I think comes to a bit over £4.50 at present; if you buy from Amazon (free postage in the UK, don’t know about other countries) I get something more along the lines of £1.50; and in their extended distribution list (which enables booksellers to buy bulk orders, etc.) I get only a few cents – this is basically what’s set the floor price. I don’t have the fine-grained control to do much about that (other than setting the UK/EU prices much cheaper than the American one, which seems a little unfair, although it does slightly also feel like revenge for the price difference that usually goes the other way), so Before the Sun Fades is going to be around £10 to buy in print for the immediately foreseeable future. (Not including postage, which varies depending on where you live.)

Printing In Progress

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Publication

Today’s quick update: Before the Sun Fades is now entering CreateSpace’s upload and review process! Human review will once again take some time, but hopefully it will be available in physical form before the month is out!

In other news, as I rather expected, I was far too wiped out after the weekend to do much work on The Fused, with the result that the long-awaited next chapter is now due next week. (Tuesday releases are something of a tradition, and I always prefer reading things when I can predict the next update.)

And finally, the votes so far for what I polish and publish next are pulling strongly for Ascension, with one for Alt-Shift. I have to admit I’m rather tempted to do Ascension myself — I’m just nervous about it because that series is one of my favourites, and I’d hate to look back a year later and think “I pretty much ruined that, I could have done so much better.” I don’t think I will, though.

Before the Sun Fades – LAUNCH!

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, News, Publication

Before the Sun Fades is now live on Smashwords! It’s actually up there and available to buy!! Go have a look! You can also try out a free sample, about 1/5 of the book!

Before the Sun Fades

I’m checking those versions that I can now (I don’t have readers for all formats); if you spot a formatting bug anywhere, let me know so I can fix it!

COUNTDOWN CLOCK TIME

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Publication

It is now 35 minutes to launch. 35 minutes to launch!!!

Another Brief Update

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Before the Sun Fades, Books, News, Publication

So that’s it! The final touches are done, and the book is ready to go! All I have to do now is wait for the launch window I decided on… which is a lot more nerve-wracking than doing absolutely nothing ever ought to be!

Watch this space! Remember, it’s 19:00 UK time!

Each Little Step Along The Road

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Before the Sun Fades, Books, Fantasy, News, Publication

It’s update time!

So apart from a whole lot of work on my thesis, I have constructed the short and long blurbs for the book, and am currently farming them out to as many people as I can convince to proofread them. (Mostly the long one.) I’ve also decided on a release date and to-the-hour launch window: short of some bizarre natural catastrophe (or a curse) befalling me, Before the Sun Fades will make its Smashwords debut on Saturday the 23rd of May, at as close to 19:00 UK time as I can manage.

Following this, distribution to other sellers depends on how fast it passes through the approval process. I believe I’ve filled all of the criteria, but even so, that part of the process is outside my control, and it could take several weeks. Updates on that will be posted as and when I receive them!