Seventh Age Update

The rewrite progresses satisfactorily. As I write this I’m at the beginning of Chapter Sixteen where the main human character, the archaeologist Dr Nick Palmer, finally sets eyes on the crypto-terrestrial Ithis, the heroine of the story, for the first time.

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At barely five feet tall, her slender androgynous body was covered in a pale silver parchment like skin, delicately marked with thin veins, and tiny nodules, enabling her to blend in chameleon like into whatever background she chose, to hide away from prying eyes. With no genitalia immediately apparent to the eye, only her trim waist accentuating her gently curving hips and buttocks, together with her slender arms, legs and small delicate hands and feet suggested gender. She reminded him of a beautiful living statue. Her normal sized head with its well defined, yet slim jaw line appeared larger, because of her delicate neck and small frame. Her high forehead and small ears accentuated her almond shaped, hauntingly beautiful, aquamarine eyes with their large pale emerald green pupils that changed colour with her mood and emotional state. Her slight nose with its delicate nostrils, and the narrow sensuous lips of her mouth completed the perfect vision standing, gently smiling up at him with all the tender love she felt for him showing in her eyes, as those mesmerizing pupils deepened their hue. Nick’s heart raced. In all of his life he had never imagined that anyone could be so beautiful. He felt his pulse quicken as he blushed and turned away. The feelings Ithis generated within him were nothing like the comfortable love he felt for Sophie, or the hormone enraged lust he had felt for Hector’s dazzlingly beautiful sister, Inez. This was so much more than that. He knew that finally he had found the one being he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Ithis’ smiled as she tenderly entered his mind to kiss his soul, releasing an all-consuming wave of exquisite love within him. Keeping physically apart from each other would be doubly difficult now that she had finally revealed herself.

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That was where I started yesterday. Today Chapter Twenty-Two beckons…

PS – Just finished the re-write.

More later

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A rewrite is underway

When I wrote and published The Seventh Age back in 2012, my thinking at the time was to get it out as quickly as possible before the winter solstice in that year, mistakes and all. Why? To appeal to those who firmly believed the Mayan calendar predictions that the world would end on December 21st of that year. Obviously it didn’t happen, but the book enjoyed a lot of success, selling in excess of a quarter of a million copies.

Now, having finally got round to re-reading it four years on, its time to produce a second edition, correcting the spelling errors as well as adding the few words missing throughout the story, principally to get the damned grammar nazis and assorted idiots off my back! Let’s face it, by not editing I gave them what they wanted. Unless they can tear a book apart, they’re not happy. And yet what really galls them to this day is that a book written by an Indie author became an overnight best seller despite the editing errors and their worst efforts.

So, this morning I’ve already begun while the rest of the world was still asleep. I’ll keep you updated with its progress. Meantime here is a direct quote from the original regarding the love affair between the two main characters Ithis, a crypto terrestrial and the archaeologist, Dr Nick Palmer at a critical juncture in the story:

My heroine Ithis

‘From now on at night while he slept, Ithis entered his mind tenderly making gentle love to his soul, taking him beyond the normal wonderful sensations of lovemaking, ever mindful that she must not make actual physical contact – at least not just yet…’

PS – will it have a new cover? I have no plans to replace the original as it shows what the book is all about – time.

More later

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I’m re-reading a favourite at the moment

Writers always write the kind of books they want to read themselves. In that regard I’m no different. Of all my books, the above novel, re-titled Race Against  Time is still one of my favourites, as is the follow up The Forgotten Age.

Now that my latest Céleste, is finally out there waiting to be bought and read, I can afford the luxury of taking the time to re-read the book that became an instant best seller for me back in 2012, much to the chagrin of an assortment of trolls, pedants, grammar nazis, so-called professional editors and a handful of writers from both camps (traditional and Indie) who at the time were, and probably still are for all I know, jealous of its success.

Without exception every single one of them attacked Seventh for its errors. To those individuals I say show me a book, or version of a book, that doesn’t contain errors, then do us all a favour – for god’s sake get over yourselves!

As you might have guessed by now, I have no time for fools of any kind. Life is too damned short to put up with their nonsense! While I’m on the subject my fellow writers, when the product of your own work is attacked by the likes of them, pay them no heed no matter whether they attack by review or comment. Never make the mistake of interacting with them in any forum. That is precisely what they want you to do!!!

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Now, if you are curious about Seventh, here is the blurb

The Mayan clock stopped predicting events beyond 2012. Why did it not continue beyond that date?
Rebel archaeologist Nick Palmer experiences an almost unnoticed event at Stonehenge during the summer solstice celebration of 2011, which he attends along with hundreds of others, that worries him greatly. He is made aware through a blog, of a sinister organization known as the ‘Order’, that are seemingly bent on preventing his every move to discover the reason behind the worrying event.
During his voyage of discovery, Nick is tracked across the world by an enigmatic entity that has been trapped here on Earth for over twenty-five thousand years, awaiting the discovery of the event by what she refers to as a ‘surface-dweller’. Together with her and the few people he trusts implicitly, they set out to prevent the alarmingly inevitable catastrophic conclusion that will affect not only the Earth, but the whole Solar System’s very existence…

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PS – Once I’ve read it, I’ll do the same with The Forgotten Age as well…

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February 15th is the date for Céleste’s public release

With just four days to go before Céleste is released to the general public, you now have just three more days to pre-order your copy.

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“Falling in love is always complicated especially for a disembodied artificial intelligence like Céleste, aboard the exploratory spaceship Apkallu. For her to be able to physically express her love for the man who means so much to her will be impossible to achieve, or will it?”

Find out what happens for yourselves when you read my science fiction romance – Céleste

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Eason’s best work yet, his new book Céleste combines romance and science fiction in a story that has a twist on every page – Nicholas Rossis

Romance beyond the stars abounds in this sensuous sci-fi, entwined with mission, morals and lust. Eason takes us to a place where human desire dwells in mankind and aliens alike, no matter how many light years away – D.G. Kaye

Jack Eason never rests. When he is not knee deep in archaeology, or wandering around forests in elf fables, he is busy combining sci-fi with a little added romantic spice – Derek Haines

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Here are the Amazon worldwide listings for Céleste. Just click the one relevant to you to be able to purchase your copy:

USA

UK

Germany

France

Spain

Italy

Netherlands

Japan

Brazil

Canada

Mexico

Australia

India

PS – Don’t forget to review it…

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It’s Pre-Order Time!!!

 It’s pre-order time!

Until the 14th of this month you can pre-order a copy of Céleste for yourselves. The general public will have to wait until the 15th for it to be released. If you click on her highlighted name or the picture, you can pre-order you copy on Amazon .com right now. To pre-order your copy via Amazon.co.uk – click Here.

That old familiar feeling is back – tiredness…

Unless you have all been living in a cave or on a desert island, or perhaps on top of a mountain, minus any form of internet connection, you’ll know that for the last several months I’ve devoted all of my time, concentration and energy to writing my latest novella, a love story entitled, Céleste, set in space.

Yesterday morning (Thursday the 4th) I finally finished it. The next stage is to go back over it by reading it through one last time before I reformat it, prior to publishing the Ebook version in a couple of weeks from now via KDP.

I’ll begin on monday morning, but not before. That will allow me the sheer luxury of taking a short break in the form of a three day weekend starting today (Friday the 5th) to clear my head in preparation for the task.

When you read Céleste’s tale, you will see that I’ve left a few things unanswered or hinted at, here and there. Why? To give myself the excuse for writing a sequel, (not that I need one) always providing of course that you all want more once you have shared in Céleste’s tale with her, and hopefully enjoyed it.

But not this year! I am now suddenly very tired. I need to rest and recharge for several months. Besides which, with my sixty-eighth birthday looming on the horizon (March 8th), its high time I took it easy for a while, don’t you think? I may even catch up with my own reading, starting with unread copies of books written by my friends Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval. The problem for me when reading any book by either of them is that I always guarantee to get story ideas. On the other hand my chess board awaits…

As I said in a previous post, I’ll let you know when the Ebook version is available.

Love to all,

Jack

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I thought perhaps you might appreciate a helping hand

In order to assist all of you in deciding whether or not you will actually want an Ebook copy of my crossover novella Céleste, pictured above, pay attention!!

To clarify, at the moment there is absolutely no point whatsoever in you trying to look for it. I thought I’d better make that point crystal clear as some people think its already available. NOT YET – BE PATIENT!

Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when it is right here on my blog, along with its Amazon.com link.

In the meantime to help you out a little more, I have the greatest of pleasure in publishing for the first time anywhere, the carefully considered impressions of three of today’s finest writers in their respective genres, in the order in which I have included them on the novella’s second page, where you will find that I have hyperlinked their respective names back to one of their own books in grateful thanks. They will also feature together with the blurb as its online description (in that instance, minus the hyperlinks of course) once I have submitted it for publication.

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“Eason’s best work yet, his new book Céleste combines romance and science fiction in a story that has a twist on every page” – Nicholas Rossis

 
“Romance beyond the stars abounds in this sensuous sci-fi, entwined with mission, morals and lust. Eason takes us to a place where human desire dwells in mankind and aliens alike, no matter how many light years away” – D.G. Kaye

“Jack Eason never rests. When he is not knee deep in archaeology, or wandering around forests in elf fables, he is busy combining sci-fi with a little added romantic spice” – Derek Haines

 

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One last thing, if any of you are hoping I will offer it for free at some point – sorry, but that will not be the case where this novella is concerned. I invested a lot of money in commissioning its cover, which I need to recoup. You don’t do that by giving the book away now do you?

So, there you have it. As you saw, Nicholas, Debby and Derek loved reading it, hopefully you will too…

More later,

Jack

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The last chapter beckons – or does it???

With five chapters done and dusted, at the moment from my point of view, I only need to write just one more for Céleste to be novella length – approx thirty thousand words. It’s already knocking on twenty-seven thousand as it is.

For a while there I briefly toyed with the idea of maybe expanding it to fifty-thousand. But I quickly abandoned that notion simply because that would mean slowing the pace of the story, by bogging it down in mind numbing info dumps. To my great shame, I’ve done it in the past to pad out a story. No one wants that kind of thing interrupting the story line, myself included if I’m being brutaly honest.

So at 2am yesterday morning, once again I began the thought process necessary to carefully come up with all of chapter six’s twists and turns and maybe even an ultimate twist at the end, or not, as the case may be. Only time will tell when it comes to the latter point.

Meanwhile while I’m doing that, I’m also going back over the previous five chapters once again as I’ve done each time I’ve completed a chapter, looking for errors, inconsistencies, etc, etc while bearing in mind what both my fellow writers Nicholas Rossis and Derek Haines, have already commented on after they were good enought to read the .pdf copy I sent to them a week or so back.

Click on their highlighted names above to see their books on Amazon.com.

Now ladies and gentlemen I’d better get back to work, writing about Céleste and her love affair with David O’Leary, demands all of my time, not that I’m complaining mind you. Face facts, if you were me and you found yourself briefly sharing your life with an absolute stunner of a woman, albeit only in your mind, would you complain?

She’s got David firmly wrapped around her perfectly manicured little finger in the story. For him and me its a case of whatever Céleste wants, she gets. What can I tell you, we’re both madly in love with her. Were he real and we happened to meet, I would gladly punch him on the nose. That’s how jealous I have become of their relationship. Will I kill off the man she loves? We’ll see…

Now before you go, do yourselves a huge favour and click on her cover above to take a closer look at the fictitious women David and I positively worship before you hit the return key on your computer’s keyboard.

Thanks folks, more later,

Jack

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Well, Its Hyperlink Time

As I draw nearer to completing Céleste, now is the time to begin inserting the hyperlinks necessary for the e-book version. What do I mean by that? As it will be in preorder mode for maybe a week or ten days prior to its publishing date, you will still be able to take a look at the first few pages using Amazon’s Look Inside feature. The first hyperlinks you will come across are on the second page. They consist of two pre-publication reviews by two fellow science fiction writers. I will also be adding them to Céleste’s blurb on Amazon, minus the hyperlinks. After you have read what they have to say, by clicking on their hyperlinked names in the e-book, you will be taken directly to books by them I deem to be their best. I’ve done this in grateful thanks for their involvement in Céleste’s journey from idea to end product.

The other hyperlinks you will find are on page three, consisting of chapter headings. By simply clicking on the relevant chapter you can go straight to it, once you have bought your copy.

As for Céleste’s e-book price, I’m still thinking about that. One thing is certain, it won’t be any more than my usual US$2.99. Both of my fellow authors, Nicholas Rossis and Derek Haines, agree that I’ve cracked it once again with this science fiction romance. Its success or failure all depends on whether or not the reading public agrees with what they had to say in their pre-publication reviews…

More later folks,

Jack

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Definitely a wood for the trees moment?

This post follows on from the other day – https://havewehadhelp.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/a-message-to-the-slackers/ where one of the commenters (Ken Thackerey) questioned my thoughts on reviews being the author’s only real means of knowing how many people actually read a free copy of a book. He got me thinking further on the subject.

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Why do some books become best sellers? Is it the fact that the author promoted their book, hoping for sales, by initially giving it away once it was published? Perhaps it’s because the author publicised it on every book and social media site, not to mention their blog? Could it be because the author let it sit for a while in preorder mode, prior to publication? Maybe its the cover? Maybe its the fact that it was edited by a professional, or that a lot of money was spent having it promoted? Each one of them is standard practice, and yes they all help. But only up to a point. Might it have anything to do with genre? Not necessarily.

Then the penny finally dropped. It’s none of them or any combination you care to come up with. I’ll tell you why some books succeed while the rest don’t. It’s only taken me twenty years to finally figure it out. Call it a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees if you like. It’s blindingly obvious once you see it. The answer was staring me in the face all the time from the books in my library. It’s in yours too.

In this day and age, no matter the genre, or how much time and effort you put into bringing that story to life to make it stand out from the crowd, what any book needs is reviews. It doesn’t matter how good the story might be. Nor does it matter how eye-catching the cover is, or how much money was spent on having it promoted. To become popular, and therefore by osmosis, to be considered a best seller, if it doesn’t have glowing reviews prior to publishing, quite simply you are wasting your time. I’m not talking about those written by the general public after a book is published. Instead I’m talking about presale reviews.

Look at the cover of any book coming out of any traditional publishing house. Whether the author is a known quantity or a newcomer, all trad publishers ensure that each book they put out receives a smattering of excellent reviews prior to publishing, one or two on the front cover. Others inside after the title page, and maybe one on the back cover along with the author’s bio. It’s simplicity itself when you think about it.

What about Indies? Does this apply to them as well? Emphatically yes. I known what I’ll be doing with my next novella or novel before I publish it. Oh, and no more free samples…

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