Phew, writing Cataclysm has just finished. I’ve already sent copies of it off to my beta readers. I’ve given them seven days to read it through. Meanwhile I’ll use the time while I’m waiting for their verdicts to edit it one last time. All being well you can expect to see its Kindle edition at your nearest Amazon outlet in about ten days time. The paper back version will follow a few days after that.
Did I enjoy working on what in effect is a love story? Hell yes.
More later
😀 😀 😀
Good advice 🙂
First of all, congratulations! You’re now a published author – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Second, you’d be amazed how often I hear that question in LinkedIn’s author groups. With some 3,000 new books published every day, I have serious doubts that you can just sit back and wait for readers to stumble on your book, or for word of mouth to work its magic. The chances of that happening are probably similar to that of winning the lottery, in which case you don’t even need the long hours and hard work that goes hand-in-hand with a career as an author (if you don’t believe me, you may want to check out this post by Pedro Barrento on Indies Unlimited).
So, what are the next steps after publication? Before I can answer that, I need to ask one question of my own first: is this your first book? You see…
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We’d all better stock up on candles by the sounds of it!
NASA Confirms Earth Will Experience 6 Days of Total Darkness in December 2014!
My new cover. Just click on it to see it properly
As you’ve all been so patient, with only two chapters to go I thought you might like to be among the first to see the cover for my new adventure novella Catacylsm. Once again I have created it myself.
Yesterday I showed it to two professionals I know, one a leading American cover artist, the other an American graphic designer with over thirty years experience. Both of them specialise in digitally created book covers. In each case the cover met with their approval. Words like ‘stunning’ were uttered, not by me, but by them which did a lot to boost my ego. It’s always gratifying when experts heap praise on your work, don’t you think? These days a cover must be ‘eye catching’ to attract readers. This one certainly is.
Before you ask, no it is not a digital painting. It is a photograph, just like all of my previous covers. It took me ages trawling through my favourite site for photographs –Â Morguefile.com free stock photos to find the one I wanted. I resized it, improved the quality of the photograph then applied the lettering, all by using my Corel Paintshop Pro X6 64 bit programme. Next I checked the end result in thumbnail and eBook sizes using another indispensable tool I rely on – Calibre.
Here’s hoping that when it appears on Amazon, Cataclysm will be favourably recieved. As I have said previously, if the trolls, armchair critics and pedants want to tear it apart, they’ll have to buy a copy just like everyone else. Just remember that thanks to them, there will be no free giveaways with this one.
When I upload the Kindle version to Kindle Direct Publishing in a month or so, I’ll be pricing it at US$3.00. The cover size is large enough (2000 x 3000 pixels) to suit CreatSpace when I get round to uploading it to them for its paperback version. What the paperback price will be, all depends on their pricing regime. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know.
Once I have finished writing it, it will be down to my faithful team of Beta readers to give the novella the once over while I go about that all important final edit. If any of them think that something needs changing, that’s the time when I will do it.
Meanwhile I am relatively happy with the the way the ‘blurb’ reads at present. Here it is:-
Nothing is every straight forward. Consider what would occur if the origins of mankind, together with many of the preconceptions we hold dear concerning religion, were proven to be false. How would you react? At the end of the twenty-first century, time travel became a reality. Humanity was about to get an unwelcome wakeup call. For hundreds of years history books went unchallenged and all religious beliefs were considered to be inviolable, never to be questioned, until the era of the Teleportation Gate.Â
Now I’d better get back to the penultimate chapter. Things are really beginning to hot up.
More later…
PS – Even Chris the Storyreading Ape approves.
PPS – The woman on the cover is exactly how I envisioned one particular character – beautiful but deadly.
😀 😀
Jo’s book covers courtesy of our very own Chris, the storyreading ape. 🙂
I must say a VERY big thank you to my wonderful sci-fi cover designer. Even though he has read the first book in the series, Chris has only had a few bits revealed to him as to the content of the upcoming books – scribblers are notoriously reticent when it comes to spoilers. And yet he has come up with the perfect covers for the next three books in the series. So – hail to Chris Graham and all those artists who can see into our dreams and interpret them in the real world. Kudos! I can’t wait to see what he does with the final eleven.
I don’t think that a series is something that you write one book at a time, and just guess at what comes next. I have the entire plot for Shadow People planned right till the end, and most of the books already have…
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It might be here
Well folks, yet another progress report for you. I’ve been up since 4.30 am just to finish the revamped Chapter Eight, having axed the original after merging the two preceeding chapters into one, which gave me the opportunity to steer that part of the story in a more logical direction. The word count now stands at 21,858 and almost forty-two A4 pages.
I changed my mind, yet again, about the cover. I’m betting that despite what he said to me yesterday, the Story Reading Ape is quietly cursing me about it. Still, because of the troublesome new OS software on his Mac, at least he hadn’t got as far as beginning to work on what I had originally asked of him, or so he says.
Believe it or not, but I’ve been having fun developing Briggs’ love affair. Normally I steer well clear of the depths I have entered into with the subject, preferring to simply suggest any romantic involvements, leaving it up to the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps. But, as this highly controversial love affair is an integral part of the plot it needs to be spelt out, but only by writing it as tastefully as is humanly possible.
Since doing the major edit of the first seven chapters, I became aware of something I’d normally not pick up on until the final edit – inconsistency. For instance, you can’t have a character enter stage left in one paragraph, only to say later in another that he entered stage right when reminding the reader about his entrance, now can you.
Well that’s about it for now, except that I’ve a feeling that it will end up as a novella by the way its going.
PS – still confused by the pictures I put up for each progress report? Good, that’s precisely my aim, to get you curious enough to want to buy yourselves a copy when I publish it. They may be relevent to the story, or they may just be nothing more than red herrings. You’ll have to wait and see won’t you.
I’m exhausted, so I’m taking tomorrow (Sunday) off. Chapter nine will begin on Monday morning.
More later.
😀 😀
Jeff Bezos – CEO of Amazon
Whether you like or loath Amazon, there is no doubt as to their intentions
Amazon is doing the world a favor by crushing book publishers.
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