Brief Update

The Shadows of the Underwizard page has been updated with most of the new sales channels. It’s still not showing up in iTunes for some reason; I’ll be checking with Smashwords to see what’s going on.

Progress on the as-yet-unnamed sequel ground to a halt during the whirlwind completion of my degree. Fortunately, that’s all wrapped up and I’ve dived back into the sequel between job-hunting. However, as I’m sure some of you well know in this economy, times of unemployment–even if you’re not at imminent risk of homelessness, starvation, etc.–tend to be some of the most unproductive times of all. You’re constantly at a low level of stress, the days seem shorter, and you can justifiably put off anything till tomorrow. Or am I alone in feeling this way?

Anyway, I’m trying not to let it get to me. It’s still too early to say when the next book will be ready, so I’ll stop with the sequel-teasting and get back to to the word processor…

New Sales Channels!

Shadows of the Underwizard was enrolled in Amazon’s KDP Select (Kindle lending library) program when it was first published, and it had a fair number of borrows through that program during what was likely the glut of new Kindle Fire owners after the holidays with a free month of Amazon Prime. Since the borrows have pretty much dried up since then, I have not re-enrolled the novel and am now free to sell it elsewhere.

First step: Shadows is now available at Smashwords, an independent (and pretty awesome) e-book distributor. It’s DRM-free there and available in pretty much any format you would actually use. After being vetted for formatting, Smashwords will also make the e-book available to other retailers such as Barnes & Noble and iTunes. I will update the book’s page as these become available.

I am also strongly considering creating an audiobook version for Podiobooks. I’ll let y’all know if that happens, of course!

Paperback Edition Is Available!

Yup, now in a Luddite*-friendly version: Shadows of the Underwizard.

It’s not linked to the Kindle version yet, I need to correct the volume number redundancy, the Look Inside feature hasn’t been built yet, yadda yadda yadda, the point is, you can buy the darn thing. By the way, the cover looks gorgeous in print form.

*I say this as someone who was on the fence about getting an e-reader for a long time before one was finally gifted to me, and as someone who still reads a lot of paper books.

It’s Still Alive–and Visible!

Guess what’s ranked in the Hot New Releases in Epic Fantasy over in Amazonia:

Based on sales rank it was probably slightly higher earlier had I seen it. Thanks everyone!

In other news, the print-on-demand provider (Createspace) appears to be experiencing technical issues, so no word yet on the paperback (I can’t fix the formatting issues until they’re back up).

Good news everyone!

After battling real-life obligations and a traitorous immune system over the past few days, followed by some obscenity-laden “disagreements” with MS Word, the final manuscript of Shadows of the Underwizard is ready to go.

The print-on-demand (paperback) version will be slightly delayed due to some stupid formatting issues, and I am getting really antsy and might just release the e-book version first. I’ll be sure to let you know when and if that happens.

But on the e-book front, Amazon recently announced a new program where authors who agree to make their books exclusive to Amazon for 90 days at a time are placed in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (and can get a portion of a fund set aside for that purpose) along with other promotional tools like the ability to make your book free for a few days. I have mixed feelings about this due to the exclusivity stipulation, but I figure as a completely new work without any presence on other platforms to lose that it might be worth trying for the first 90 days. Also, I really don’t plan on doing much marketing until I have a sequel ready, so I’m not too concerned at the moment if it’s not available to the widest possible audience. Anyway, if by some off chance you own an e-reader that is not a Kindle and manage to find and want to buy my book, I apologize in advance.

Please keep in mind that this self-publishing thing is experimental from beginning to end for me. A few years ago I never would have even considered it, but the literary landscape is changing that fast. We’ll just have to see what happens!

 

Status Update

Things are moving along, if more slowly than I would have liked. But rest assured dear reader(s), this thing will be out before Christmas, I swear. (There will be a ton of Kindles bought this holiday season–who doesn’t want to tap that action?) I incorporated the latest round of beta (or is it more like gamma at this point?) reader feedback. Now I am using the text-to-speech feature of the Kindle to do a last listen-through, as often the ears will pick up something that the eyes have gotten accustomed to glossing over. I’m about 1/3 of the way through, and this method has already picked up a number of easily missed typos. The things I go through to create a professional product…

Anyway, as you can see from the cover already on the site, the book is titled Shadows of the Underwizard, and is the first part of new fantasy series called The Godhead Wars. If you are reading this near the time of posting, you probably already knew that.

Also, my patient ones, keep in mind that I am doing this concurrently with finals as a senior in an engineering program. It’s just my particular brand of madness, I suppose.

If you want hard-ish numbers I think the final manuscript will be ready by the end of the weekend. I would like to have the Kindle and paperback versions available at the same time, and it will take me a few days after that to receive the paperback proof. Other outlets will likely become available after Amazon.

Soon…

All right, folks, the ol’ novel is mere days away from being published. Just one final pass for corrections, then some e-book formatting before it is uploaded. I also need to think of a good blurb/synopsis for this thing, which, as it turns out, is very difficult.

For the record, I don’t intend this to become a regular blog; I installed WordPress because it is free, open-source, customizable, and allows easy RSS subscriptions so you fine people can get my occasional updates. I know it’s bare right now,but I’ll make it prettier someday if I actually have, you know, visitors.