Rambling Man

Hey, all! Happy Memorial Day!

Sorry I didn't do a review on Friday, I'm a huge slacker. I will get one done this week, though.

I need a kindle. Reading on the computer is suckish. A lot.

I was contemplating... thinking... wondering really... Do you think puppets mind? I mean come on, it can't be comfortable to have someone's hand so far up your hooha that they can move your jaw... right? I say we all stand for puppet rights and demand that puppeteers use all string puppets instead of rectile mastering... it just seems wrong!!!

Fuddruckers sounds like a bad word, but their burgers are tasty deliciousness. However, I'm now a vegetarian so that's kind of moot.

If you haven't already, you should click on over to the 50 to 100 giveaway page and sign up.


Wow, there's really not a lot to say today. Sorry about that :)

thanks for reading,
buh bye then

Where have all the reviewers gone?

Hello, all.

So, I didn't get raptured this weekend, did you? No, I thought not. Oh well, maybe next time.

I did, however, participate in my final round of the Book Blogger Hop. I think that both features, the Hop and Follow Friday, are great for adding followers to your blog. So, if that's what you're looking for, you should get on the train. I was hoping for more readers, though, and I just don't think that those features are helping in that area. So I'll not be participating any longer.

"But, Ken, that leaves Fridays open and blank and void and hopeless and full of sorrow and misery and darkness, etc..."

I realized that, and I have just the thing to fill in that empty part of my blogging soul.

I will be starting Friday reviews. I've noticed that finding a book reviewer who is willing, and not too busy, to look at an indie title is... well not impossible, but impossible adjacent. Therefore, I will be giving my Friday blogs for just such a feature. I want to do what I can to help other indie authors, as well as help folks find great books that they might not have found on their own.

My reviews will be honest, but I will do my best to review as a reader, rather than a writer who reads.

"What is the difference?" you ask, bewildered.
Well, I think that a lot of writers who read often forget that most readers are not looking for grammatical perfection. They can be blinded by the rules they have learned through their writing. If the world is immersive and the characters are rich... well, that's what most readers are looking for.

There will, however, be a line. I don't know where it is yet, but I know that I can't stand to see obvious spelled with a "d" or there switched with their or they're. We'll see how it goes. :)


That's it for today, I think
thanks for reading,
buh bye then

Book Blogger Hop

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Crazy For Books

"If you were given the chance to spend one day in a fictional world (from a book), which book would it be from and what would that place be?"

I would love to go to Narnia, from C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. The place is magical and amazing, and not nearly as war torn and bitter as Middle Earth. Centaurs, man! I love centaurs.

Thanks for reading,
buh bye then

The River Runes is now live on Kindle!! You can pick it up HERE FOR ONLY $2.99!!

WIP Wedensday: To Squee or Not To Squee...

Yay, it's WIP Wednesday, and I have a word count change to talk about!

So, Clockwork Charlie is doing well, thriving, you might say.
New word count: 24,385 words

To be found in all those new words:
1 man, eating a fat lady
1 robot that thinks he can be a pilot
1 star, turned into a beautiful girl
1 war of the gods
and, 1 broken shower curtain rod...

Phew! I'm having a ton of fun with this book so far, and there is still a long way to go.



The paperback version of The River Runes is officially available as of today, you can Get it here for $12.44!! And of course, The River Runes is still live on Kindle!! You can pick it up HERE FOR ONLY $2.99!!

I got my first paperback copy and almost squeeeed from excitement. (okay, I did squee a little, but there was no one home to hear it, so it's alright)

So, that's it for this week's WIP news.
thanks so much for reading,
buh bye then

"Biting is excellent..." -The Doctor's Wife

Neil Gaiman on WhoSay

First, I have to start today's post by saying, if you have not been watching Dr. Who this season, go watch it. Secondly, Neil Gaiman is a badass. He wrote this week's episode and it was amazing. The plot was killer; funny and scary and creepy all at the same time. My favorite line:

"Biting is excellent. It's like kissing, only there's a winner."- The Doctor's Wife

If, for some ungodly reason, you have not read anything from Mr. Gaiman, go do so now. Some of his great stuff includes, but is not limited to: American Gods, The Anansi Boys, Neverwhere (BBC show, book, graphic novel, etc), Fragile Things (short stories), and so, so much more. And it's all brilliant. I'm not afraid to say that I have a non-sexual, writer man crush on Neil Gaiman.

You should too.

I don't have a lot else to say that would be relevant...

Thanks for reading,
buh bye then

Follow Friday and The Deleted Post

Another Follow Friday!

Today's question:
The Blogger Apocalypse made me a little emotional. What is the most emotional scene in a book that you have read lately?

I'd have to say that the scene from, The Vampire Lestat, where Lestat decides to turn his mother is pretty freakin emotional. (I'm re-reading after like 10 years and it's still awesome.)
******

I'm also going to put yesterday's blog on today's, since it was deleted in the Bloggerocalypse. It's a little longer than most of my posts, but please to read and enjoy:

I can't begin to describe how good it feels to be writing again. I've been editing and revising and talking with beta readers and revising and editing for months. That's part of the gig. I'm okay with it and even happy to do it. Those last bits of writing a novel are hectic and scary and, at times, brutal as all hell. But when you're finished...

What a feeling.

I've been looking around a lot at book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Especially, indie book reviews. I've also been looking around at blogs and forums to see what types of things folks are saying. Wow, is it ever polarized out there?!!

A common thread on one side out there, is the belief that all indie authors have self-pubbed because their writing wasn't good enough to get published traditionally. Is there some merit to that? Yeah, of course there is.

When you give everyone the means to put their ideas and opinions out there for the world to see, a lot of what goes out is going to be crap. People who don't know the first thing about world or character building, spelling, punctuation, editing, etc. can now write anything and call it published.

So, yes, of course people will take advantage. Every teenager who writes a poem about how badly his girlfriend hurt him and how no one in the world has ever felt that way before and how the darkness is crushing and the world is fading... They all believe that they are writers. Good writers.

Although, is this true of every indie author? Of course not. Joe Konrath is an amazing writer. Read something from him, I dare you. It's great stuff. He has a general rul, that I think makes a lot of sense. You can't be great at anything, unless you've put 10,000 hours into it. I think he's right.

Writers, real writers, know that it takes time and work to create something worthwhile. There will be failures (oh the failures) and missteps along the way. You will crumple pages full of writing and never look at them again. You will cuss and pound your head on the desk because you have to delete thousands of words that you wrote when you were full of coffee and cable tv. You will finish stories that you spent months on, and then realize that they are garbage.

So, will some indie authors be horrible? Yes. Will they learn from it and get better? Maybe.

On the other hand, do you really believe that agents and other readers of the slush pile the world over will always give every book a fair shake? I don't think so. I do believe that most folks in the writing industry truly love what they do. They have to. Anything to do with writing will swallow time like a fat kid with cake.

But everyone has bad days. Everyone with a job looks at the clock at the end of the day, just wishing they were somewhere else. I know that there are unpublished books out there that would have been great, but were never given a shot.

There are problems with both sides of the issue.

Writers: Write the best book possible, and then get people to read it. Not your family or your friends. Strangers. Find people you don't know that will read your book and tell you the truth. Find lots of them.

Then listen to what they tell you. Revise, edit, do it again. Find new readers. Once you know that your book is at its best, make your decision. I chose to self publish, not because my manuscript was rejected.(I didn't really try the traditional route, other than half a dozen queries I sent out to agents right after I finished my FIRST DRAFT. Don't do that!) I chose this route because I think things are changing, and I want to get in before it's too late.

Could I be wrong? Yes, but I could also be right. I'm happy with my decision and I know that I am going to keep on learning. The day I decide my writing cannot get any better is the day I stop writing.

Thanks for reading through my rambling,
buh bye now

Warning: This is a long one :)

I can't begin to describe how good it feels to be writing again. I've been editing and revising and talking with beta readers and revising and editing for months. That's part of the gig. I'm okay with it and even happy to do it. Those last bits of writing a novel are hectic and scary and, at times, brutal as all hell. But when you're finished...

What a feeling.

I've been looking around a lot at book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Especially, indie book reviews. I've also been looking around at blogs and forums to see what types of things folks are saying. Wow, is it ever polarized out there?!!

A common thread on one side out there, is the belief that all indie authors have self-pubbed because their writing wasn't good enough to get published traditionally. Is there some merit to that? Yeah, of course there is.

When you give everyone the means to put their ideas and opinions out there for the world to see, a lot of what goes out is going to be crap. People who don't know the first thing about world or character building, spelling, punctuation, editing, etc. can now write anything and call it published.

So, yes, of course people will take advantage. Every teenager who writes a poem about how badly his girlfriend hurt him and how no one in the world has ever felt that way before and how the darkness is crushing and the world is fading... They all believe that they are writers. Good writers.

Although, is this true of every indie author? Of course not. Joe Konrath is an amazing writer. Read something from him, I dare you. It's great stuff. He has a general rul, that I think makes a lot of sense. You can't be great at anything, unless you've put 10,000 hours into it. I think he's right.

Writers, real writers, know that it takes time and work to create something worthwhile. There will be failures (oh the failures) and missteps along the way. You will crumple pages full of writing and never look at them again. You will cuss and pound your head on the desk because you have to delete thousands of words that you wrote when you were full of coffee and cable tv. You will finish stories that you spent months on, and then realize that they are garbage.

So, will some indie authors be horrible? Yes. Will they learn from it and get better? Maybe.

On the other hand, do you really believe that agents and other readers of the slush pile the world over will always give every book a fair shake? I don't think so. I do believe that most folks in the writing industry truly love what they do. They have to. Anything to do with writing will swallow time like a fat kid with cake.

But everyone has bad days. Everyone with a job looks at the clock at the end of the day, just wishing they were somewhere else. I know that there are unpublished books out there that would have been great, but were never given a shot.

There are problems with both sides of the issue.

Writers: Write the best book possible, and then get people to read it. Not your family or your friends. Strangers. Find people you don't know that will read your book and tell you the truth. Find lots of them.

Then listen to what they tell you. Revise, edit, do it again. Find new readers. Once you know that your book is at its best, make your decision. I chose to self publish, not because my manuscript was rejected.(I didn't really try the traditional route, other than half a dozen queries I sent out to agents right after I finished my FIRST DRAFT. Don't do that!) I chose this route because I think things are changing, and I want to get in before it's too late.

Could I be wrong? Yes, but I could also be right. I'm happy with my decision and I know that I am going to keep on learning. The day I decide my writing cannot get any better is the day I stop writing.

Thanks for reading through my rambling,
buh bye now

The River Runes Available on Kindle!!

Just a quick blog for you today. I couldn't hold it in, it's so exciting!

The River Runes is now live on Kindle!! You can pick up HERE FOR ONLY $2.99!!

And here is the trailer again, just in case you missed it:




So, if you love me or like me or maybe just think we might get along ok, do your good ol' buddy a favor and tell all your friends about the book!

And Now It's Out There (shiver)

As of this afternoon, I have officially submitted The River Runes to CreateSpace and Kindle for publication. Smashwords will be soon to follow, but my brain is mush from all of the formatting and reformatting already. In a last minute decision, I chose to publish paperback through CreateSpace, rather than Lulu.

Why? Because I can sell for less. I want people to be able to buy the book. It's still more than I'd like it to be, but several bucks less than it would have been.

297 pages. It's out there. Whew, this is definitely a new feeling. Nervous. Excited. A little insane.

I've been doing the work and I believe in it. Hopefully others will as well. I've already gotten lots of positive feedback and I can't say how much everyone's support means to me.

Once things are finalized you'll be able to get a paperback copy HERE. If you have a Kindle, you can find a copy on Amazon.com or from your Kindle store for only $2.99. I'll get all the links together and post them up as a store page here soon.

If you are a member of Goodreads, I'm hosting a giveaway! To enter, just click the button at the bottom of the page.

I've sent requests out asking some book bloggers to do reviews. I guess we wait to see how things go from here. This is all new territory for me, so I have no idea what happens next. Lots of work, I'd guess.

I can't wait.

Now I can get back to writing!

Thanks for reading,
buh bye then

Follow Friday and Book Blogger Hop

Some quick news: You can now find my author profile over at Goodreads. I'm pretty pumped about this, it seems like another great place to network and meet lots of folks that just love to read.

If you click on this LINKY RIGHT HERE you can see my page. Please add me as a friend if you are already on goodreads, or sign up if you're not because it's rad. You can see some of my short stories, as well as an excerpt from The River Runes :)




It's Follow Friday again already! Click on the button up there to join in on the fun.

Today's question:
Time to share. What character in a book would you most like to be, what character in a book would you most like to date?

Hmm... This is a weird one. I suppose that if I had to choose a character to be, right now my choice would be Shadow from Neil Gaiman's, American Gods. I suppose if there was someone I wanted to date, it would be Arya from Christopher Paolini's, Eragon. Who doesn't love an elf-girl?




And Book Blogger HOP!! (Since I missed last week, I'm doing both features this week)
Click on the ol' button if you wanna find out more about this HOP.

Today's question:
"Which book blogger would you most like to meet in real life?"

Ah ha! An easy one. I would like to meet the Query Shark, just so honest and hilarious all the time.

WIP Wednesday: Lots To Tell!!

Wow, I haven't posted anything in over a week... sorry about that. I do have an excuse, however. I have been getting lots of work done!

First off, I have been editing and editing, and my hope is to have it all wrapped up within a week from now. Wish me luck. Right after that, I have to finish all of my title pages, copyright stuff, and recheck formatting.

Then I submit to Lulu and the paperback is ready to go! I'll get some ARCs and hopefully find a few book bloggers to do a review for me. ;)

Then, I have to remove the formatting from the entire thing.

"What?!?" you may ask.

Well, in order for Smashwords to publish in all ebook formats; it has to be completely undone and then reformatted to meet their specifications. Which are nothing like paperback formatting specifications.

Once that's finished up; it's time to set a release date and start self promoting like mad. There should be HOPs and interviews and contests galore, so keep a look out and tell your friends to come by, read, and follow.

Nextly, (no that's not a word but I'm all hopped up on fresh dreams and coffee) I made my own, possibly temporary, cover art. I dig it and am impressed with myself for pulling it off. (look on up to the top of the ol' page, just in case you missed it)

Also, I have finished the book trailer for The River Runes! Here it is:


(big thanks to Chris Nichols and Cycledown for letting me use their awesome song; Autumn Fades)

So those are a few of the reasons that I have been absent from the internet. Haven't Facebooked, tweeted or blogged in over a week.

I'm okay with it :)

thanks for reading,
buh bye then