Fiction and book updates

 Smashwords has finally made the long conversion over to draft to digital, and one of my long agonies is apparently solved.  I had a ton of trouble with smashwords' 'meat grinder' book converter, basically if I had a long multivolume set it didn't like all the hyperlinks and messed up the table of contents, making navigation a nightmare, but try as I could, I couldn't fix the problem on my end, but I just converted and downloaded on such troublesome tome over at draft to digital and the problem is fixed, I could never get smashwords to approve my multivolume sets for that very reason so just spent years with a warning message and no approval.  But now the table of contents works and the nasty messages are gone, and I am justified in my suspicions regarding the late though unmourned meat grinder.  Hopefully the updates have been applied to any books currently in your possession and a redownload will fix the bugs inherent therein!  I will also likely be taking down my official type website, I haven't updated it in years and am not sure google even knows it exists, flowers can be sent in memorium if anyone can find it!

A couple good articles

 You should read these articles, why bother writing subpar stuff when others can do it far better for you?  Enjoy!  A bit about Tolkien and Creation (why I now need to read the Silmarillion).  A note about our modern 'trampled' faith, and why that really isn't the case and should make you doubters very nervous.

A review of ‘The Worm Ouroboros’

 I read this book thinking it would be one of those mystifying tones that puzzle and enthrall years after reading it, like The Man Who Was Thursday or That Hideous Strength or even The Once and Future King, something far greater than the pages upon which it is written to contain it.  It is an intriguing read, set in and written like an old epic out of the classical period, but overall an excellent story and a good book.  My greatest impression was that the chaos and capriciousness of the Greek gods was finally civilized and ordered into the medieval Christian ideal of true society and culture (which is not to say this is a Christian book but rather an epic saga written by a western man with a Christian education).  The high ideals of chivalry, nobility, honor, good and evil imbuing the book are a stark contrast to classic mythology wherein the gods smite and ravish whom they will.  What surprised me most was the ending, I had come to expect these men, nay demigods to make the obvious Christian choice, to rejoice in their hard won peace and glory rather than looking upon the horrors of the past with an unfathomable longing.  I was expecting a little of Faramir’s ‘I love the bright sword only for what it defends’ rather than this high deeds and glory for its own sake, at least in this the book lives up to its pagan, or rather merely human, heritage, but then the very idea of the namesake worm is one of repetition and endless circles, when in reality it is a mere circling of the drain.  The Christian answer to such things is a hard edged cross to smite that ancient dragon and his illusionary circles.  War and personal glory are not an end of themselves rather they are only worthwhile wherein they are used to fight back that hideous worm and his destructive ideals.  Good and right and true have always been and will ever be, unsullied, unchanged, undimmed, evil is a bending or marring of that eternal Good, the Good will exist and continue whether there be evil or not.  These valiant and otherwise noble heroes at the last make the same mistake so many mere men now make in thinking Heaven must be dull since therein no evil dwells, not realizing that it is our broken souls that cannot understand such wonderful tales nor even conceive of them, for they are greater than we, no more can a toddler comprehend advanced physics but no affect does that have on gravity’s pull on himself.  This is not a tale too big to fit in a book, save to those whose minds are still dimmed by the dizzying circles of our human life, to find such tales one must look to the very Author of the original tale ‘too big to fit in any written book!’  Job, Ecclesiastes, and most certainly the Gospel of John are just such tales, or rather little chapters of it.  After these have been mastered, perhaps the fairy tales of later saints might then confound us.  A rousing tale but not the end or greatest theteof!

Miracles do happen!

 No, I didn't just sell a book, the reason for my cookbook have ceased to exist (check out my companion to owls blog for details).  Cool right?!

Your name in print

 A decade or two ago it was a big thing to 'publish' your own book, to pay some vanity press tens of thousands of dollars for the honor of printing your tome.  Now you can do the same thing for free, well all it costs you is your blood, sweat, tears, and time, and pretty much everyone has an ebook nowadays.  But I will probably never succeed as an indie author, as I just don't have the heart to guilt people into buying my books, it was bad enough selling Girl Scout cookies back in the day and who doesn't love thin mints?  We had a guy in town here, about 156 years old, could barely see or walk but he had ordered a few thousand books filled with his own reminiscences some decades back and spent his retirement years waddling towards random people in public venues trying to sell his book, it got to the point people would just throw $20 at him and run for it.  I don't want to be that person, poor guy!  Buy my books or don't (like most sane people choose to do), no pressure.  I write because I have to, not because I want to be rich (but hey, that'd be okay too) but I'm too soft-hearted to guilt people into buying stuff they don't want or need (a rather poor capitalist).

But I will say I am not impressed with Amazon as a publisher.  I just got done 'publishing' 8 of my titles for print on demand, apparently I get to pay printing and shipping costs out of my royalties (a 60/40 split) which leaves me with $2 on a $16 book.  I don't like their non-KDP ebook options either, I can't list anything for free and get 35% royalties to boot and if you go KDP you can't publish with anyone else.  I have 'published' with Smashwords for years, though their 'meat grinder' conversion system drives me batty on long books (the hyperlinks don't work), which is why I have some double published with direct2digital on my 'box sets.'  I love the flexibility and options on Smashwords, draft2digital prints nice books but the interface is a little clunky, and amazon has the market reach (though I'm sure my books are priority 0 for being seen by anybody unless I pay for the privilege), so I'm stuck publishing in three different venues.  I'd best stick to inoculating bovines for a living!

But I have a book, or 8, in print, yay!  I'm going to purchase an author copy and I'll let you know on quality.  So if you like real books, your wait is over (not that anyone likely cares!).  It was kind of interesting figuring out the differences in publishing for print vs ebook, but it isn't rocket science so yes, even I can do it, maybe you too?

A note on cookbooks: I did do the cookbook hardcover, but only had 47 pages and it requires 75 minimum, so if you notice large fonts and extra front material, there you go.  

Old-fashioned?

 I'm not sure if anyone has been waiting around the past 12 years or not, but I've finally gone and done it: a paperback version of 'Of Tea...and Things,' is available on Amazon, I'll try and do a starter version for each series (except my cookbooks!), but if they are an international phenomenon I might do the whole series, but right now we'll just stick to the first books, as it is a bit of work and I'm netting $10 a year from my writing!

A mess!

 I'm in the middle of updating covers (full disclosure, all are AI generated using Leonardo.ai) on amazon and Smashwords, as well as putting books on amazon that I hadn't yet.  As usual, having trouble with the Smashwords 'meat grinder' and review process, updating as I can but they seem to randomly reject a given book or ten and I have to resubmit it.  I have also made a few errors in uploading the wrong cover but hopefully have caught those as well!  Amazon I still can't offer 'free' books, so if there is something you are interested in, check out the wider inter web to see if you can get it gratis.  Apparently you can only add 3 titles per day on amazon as well, so I guess that will limit how many I can add there as well, since I don't have time to do this every day, it may come it fits and starts.

The great graham cracker travesty!

 Yeah, so I just updated my various cooking-type books, apparently there is an omission in the graham cracker recipe, you need to add 1/2 cup brown sugar with the moist ingredients, and if you are using psyllium husk, it will be a pliable dough, not a semi-liquid.  Also check out the new AI covers on the cooking type books, will be hopefully updating the single volume books as well, but it may take a while as life is currently in session!

Requisite Christmas Hymnody post!

  So someone else beat me to the punch this year, but happily he didn't write about the musicality of the season.  Check out his article on the storied ghosts of Christmas here, much recommended!  I know Charlie Brown really tried to get the true meaning of Christmas, but it's depressing.  I know the Grinch hinted at it, but the roast beast just doesn't cut it.  Even my local Christian radio station seems to be missing the boat, literally playing things like "Let it snow' and "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" endlessly but ignoring the many great sacred classics save an occasional instrumental nod from the Trans-Siberian Light Orchestra, at least there's no Santa Baby, that's a plus, right?  It sounds more like a seasonal mall sound track than anything else, especially a Christian station at Christmas!  While I don't mind that stuff, sadly, like Charlie Brown, I am more than a little frustrated with our whole culture focusing on the tinsel and the glitz and ignoring the glaring ache that this season entails for many.  It seems we can either be insipidly happy or alone in our grief which often manifests as anger towards the season in its entirety.

But if you hate Christmas because you hurt, you aren't alone!  It is a problem native to all humanity, not just the modern post-christian west, our problem is the same as the ancient pre-christian east or even the insipidly pseudo-christian America of our nostalgic recollection.  While Charlie Brown thinks he hankers after that nostalgic, idyllic ghost of Christmases past, there is no such history, no such reality, because that has never been what Christmas has been about nor is it the ache that haunts his heart like Marley in Ebenezor's bed chamber.

Many of the secular Christmas haters are happy to proclaim that Jesus wasn't really born on December 25th and that we're simply recycling an old pagan holiday, and I'm most happy to agree with them, and their point is?  Men have always been religious, keenly interested and much afeared of the supernatural, at least until our materialistic modern age with its electric lights to forever drive off the dark of superstition and the utter night of ignorance, thinking we are quite something, as if we invented the physics behind the phenomenon, content in our assumption that it 'just happened,' and never questioning the Light behind our light and little realizing that by blinding their own eyes thereby, they are now the ignorant!  That is why we demand a Light in the darkness, and celebrate its coming at the darkest time of the year, not because we know Jesus was born on that particular day but rather that His coming at the appointed time relieved the spiritual darkness in which the whole world languished and we celebrate the fact as his first coming at the darkest time of the year.

But our problem is we forget why we celebrate His coming, yay a baby, a light of the world, but why is that significant?  His birth, while miraculous and marvelous and bright, is nothing, does nothing, rather it is His sinless life, His atoning death, and His conquering of death and darkness and sin forever by rising again to new life that we can sing and rejoice and make merry this time of year and all the year long!  But we'd rather sit with our glitz and jingle, aching inside, making merry without, and wondering why we can't be happy when everybody else seems to be as well.

This is where the great sacred Christmas hymns come in, look past the first well known verse or chorus or the haunting instrumental and delve into the depth, the mystery, the sorrow, the joy, the meaning of this babe's incarnation, the very word made flesh.  Only therein can we find meaning and true joy in this paradoxical season of utmost joy and aching loneliness and unrelenting sorrow, only in Him can all find their true 'comfort and joy.'  Santa and Grinches are fine and fun, but let us not forget the true meaning behind it all!

Full disclosure!

 So I'm learning to play with ai art generators, Leonardo.ai in particular but I'm also using canva.com and the previewer on Mac to mess around with the resulting images.  I've updated a few of my book covers just for the fun of it, though the smashwords editions might not be approved as the metadata and the cover wording aren't exactly the same.  I haven't gotten around to adding a note in each book about the cover source (formerly my own photographs) but I will get there someday, until then, this post will have to suffice.  And as far as creative content goes, I would say it is as difficult to get a good ai book cover as it is to take a decent photograph, it requires patience, time, a learning curve, and a little innate skill, but that's just my opinion, maybe I'm just not proving to be a child prodigy but as far as I can tell, to get a good image takes a bit of work and time and luck and a good eye.

AI book covers?

 I finally got around to playing with an AI image generator.  I've long wanted to see what all the hype is about and if it will really put human artists out of business.  I don't think all you content creators out there have anything to worry about, rather you have yet another tool to incorporate into your craft.  If you insist on handwriting your manuscripts even after the advent of the typewriter, then yes, you will become obsolete, but for everybody else, it is a pretty neat tool, but still a tool: it needs human input and creativity and taste to make it meaningful.  It also requires time and talent and creativity, you can't just push a button and there it is.

I played with an image generator and read a couple articles, one an interview with an author who uses AI to help brainstorm and organize his books but found he had the same problems with print as I did with the images: they don't necessarily make a lot of sense!  The human touch was still needed to edit, refine, select, hone, and direct.  The computer can spit out a boundless array of images or text but to make it truly creative and artistic, someone needs to direct it.  I also found several articles on copyright law concerning computer generated stuff and it agrees that to be copyrightable, the computer's junk must be organized and edited and changed significantly by a human person.

It is a ton of fun if you like this sort of stuff but unless you are interested in editing the resulting images, I'm not sure it is a great option for indy ebook covers.  Here are a couple examples:

Robotic sci-fi unicorn on steroids in a post apocalyptic landscape?

Three legs and two moons?

Five legs and a donkey in the moon?

This is a decent image but took editing and learning what prompts to use, of 200+ images, about 3 were usable!

So there is definitely promise here, but like any other tool, technique, or creation it requires time, patience, and the human touch!

Recipe mayhem!

 If you are using the 'Haphazard GF Baking Guide,' there was a horrendous mistake, namely the raised donuts in the psyllium section needs 1/2 cup water to function.  I'll be updating it shortly along with a sugar cookie and molasses cookie recipe, drool in anticipation!

Update

 Just updated the Haphazard Guide to Gluten Free Baking with a psyllium husk section and two new recipes: naan and raised donuts.  Not sure if smashwords is going to pass the updated manuscript but the D2D and amazon version should be fine.  Navigation may be wonky in the smashwords version as well.

A Publishing Win?

 I have just released (and done a few minor updates on) the complete box sets of In Shadow, On Eagles Wings, the Tea Books, and the Greylands on draft2digital.  I've struggled for years with smashwords' 'meatgrinder' conversion system, especially with insanely large volumes like these box sets (saving tea perhaps).  I can't figure anything out on my end and d2d's system seems to be a bit less persnickety.  The weird part is the two companies are merging, smashwords isn't taking any new authors as of now and the two will conglomerate sometime this year.  I'm not going to bother updating anything on the smashwords system until that happens but thought I'd get some long overdue overhauls done on the boxed sets.  Namely I'm hoping the table of contents actually works!  I added a few extra short stories to eagles and the Greylands is now truly complete in one volume.  I hope this works!

Also, the amazon versions have been updated.

Team not going to the Super Bowl?

 Good news if your team isn't going to the super bowl, more time for reading! And just in time too, because I have totally revised and updated Book III of the Serpent and the Unicorn and am in process of revamping the last two as well, enjoy! 

Get ye to the classics!

 I recently delved into modern (clean and quasi-christian) romance novels, and my only advice is to stick with the classics, be it traditional Christmas music or literature.  Expand your horizons, invite adventure into your life and purpose and meaning into your heart by leaving this shallow and insipid modernity behind and embracing the wisdom and fun of ages past, or rather, 'troll the ancient Yuletide carol' as the old tune has it, and no it does not mean to post nasty comments online any more than the line, 'don we now our gay apparel' has anything to do with sexual orientation and its fashion dictates, it merely means bright, colorful, cheerful, fun.  This is precisely why you need a classic education, ugh!

Draft to digital publishing

 I just publish 'The Haphazard Guide to Gluten Free Baking' on draft2digital, and strangely the links all work.  I will probably be moving my bigger boxsets over there as well as Smashwords can't seem to get the links working and trying to update or publish a large work is a disaster with their editing process.  The two companies are merging so hopefully they'll use D2D's ebook converter rather than my old nemesis the 'meat grinder!'

Technology, ugh!

 I've just updated my Gluten Free Baking Book, but the internal navigation is still screwy (as it is for most of my box sets).  Some links work and others don't, all I can figure out is that maybe I have too many links for the Smashwords system to process?  They work fine on the word document and I've checked, changed, reformatted a dozen times but can't find the bug on my end.  I'm hoping as they merge with draft to digital maybe the bugs on their end will get worked out?  Just use the search function to find the desired recipe/story, annoying but it works.  I'll keep hammering away on my end, but so far it has been hopeless, but I added a pretzel/bagel recipe, updated a few recipes, fixed a few typos, and overall hope it is improved, enjoy a gluten free croissant if you can't enjoy the navigation!

A terrible way to die MLXIII (Announcements, announcements, a terrible way to talk to death, a terrible way to die!)

 Be watching oh world, be watching in trembling anticipation and bated breath, for there are two new Greylands books brewing, one with a modern twist.

Updated Book

 There are a few new tales in the short story section of the 'box set' of 'On Eagles Wings' but otherwise it has been an insane summer, so sorry, devoted fan, even though you don't exist, you won't have much new to read for the time being!