Bits and pieces!

I was going to enter a writing contest based on the classic fairy tale of sleeping beauty, but in deciding I am not author enough to compete therein, I have published my two attempts at remaking the classic tale in 'Over the Hills and Far Away,' for the more serious tale and made a Foible out of the other.  Look for 'On Sleeping Beauties: A Foible.' at smashwords, apple, and barnes and noble soon!

I have also released my fourth 'In Shadow' book, 'Captain of Shadow,' so forget the preorder.  It has also been released at Amazon in both stand alone and as part of the complete collection.  Enjoy!

To preorder or not to preorder?

Well we are a day older and a day closer to the release of my new preorder and I don't think anybody cares, when I was assured this preorder thing was the best thing since sliced bread, but then store-bought sliced bread isn't all that great either, so maybe I'll just take my chances next time and release the book when I'm done with it.  It's a great little trick to rack up opening day sales for big name authors, but for us nobodies, it really is kind of silly!

No trick, just a treat!

Get a free copy of my new book, 'Captain of Shadow,' but act fast, like good chocolate, this deal won't last long.  Use coupon code MX94P at smashwords.com before Oct. 21!

Perks

The book is done and scheduled for release on November 1st, but if you have the entire 'In Shadow' collection in one volume and are actually excited about this book, you might want to update your copy:)

Dipping a toe in

So I have tried 'draft to digital' with one book, limiting distribution to a bookseller called Tolino since it is already everywhere else with smashwords, and I'm still having trouble publishing a multivolume set in one volume, even with their automated system.  Smashwords has a 'style guide' that is rather extensive, but once tried, is not difficult to implement though more complicated books are still rather indigestible to their 'meat grinder.'  D2D boasts that it has no style guide save your own, which has its own set of problems.  I cannot say that I am so impressed I am going to bother switching over quite yet, but we'll see once I try updating my 'In Shadow,' box set when the new book comes out.

Update: it seems that though D2D does not have a style guide, they have a style guide, go figure.  I'll be sticking with smashwords rather than reinventing the wheel.

On Indie Publishers

I have been publishing with smashwords for three years now and have had a generally pleasant experience, but I must admit I am thinking about 'seeing someone else.'  Through a certain blog post, I became aware of a site called Draft to Digital, which does very much the same thing.  My only quibble with smashwords is their so-called Meatgrinder, the software they use to convert your word document into an ebook, has trouble with a complex internal navigation system (the hyperlinks and bookmarks that form your table of contents) and it is like trying to herd cats whenever I try and update or publish a 'box set' or volume with more than one book or table of contents in it.  The resulting ebooks work just fine, but the Meatgrinder has indigestion and the people that supervise the process chuck my book into the 'needs attention' bin wherein I go back and edit, and reset everything and rinse and repeat for about 8 times before someone finally lets it slip through and gets it updated.  This draft to digital seems to have a much smoother upload process, but I can't just start over.  Apparently you lose all your reviews, links, etc. if you switch and basically start with a clean slate, so all the momentum (if any) I've built up over the years is summarily lost.  I might try it with something like my 'Sampler Platter' and see what happens.  For a simple book, smashwords is great, but I dread the coming update of my 'In Shadow' complete volume when I release the new book.

On preorders

So in my last post, I notified the anxiously waiting world (tee hee!) about my upcoming book release.  The problem is, I don't know if I can wait until November.  It is supposed to be the readers who are impatient for the next book, not the author!  But since I am not a huge name author with hordes of avid readers out there (or any at all?) waiting rabidly for my next release, this whole preorder thing may not make a whole lot of sense.  We'll see how the writing process goes, but this is fair warning that the book might be out sooner than I promised.