amwriting

An Announcement: SWORDS V. CTHULU

Fresh off of my last announcement about being an honorary mention for the Kraken Awards, I have more exciting news!

My short story THE THIEF IN THE SAND is going to be published in Stone Skin Press’s Swords v. Cthulu, an anthology that mixes together D&D-style swordplay and Lovecraftian themes. I’ve been told it’ll be out early next year, but the bigger news is that it will be in bookstores.

That’s right, MK-Ultra-ers (which is what I’ve decided to call you), you will be able to read a short story by yours truly in a book. That you bought. From a store. And can hold in your hands.

This is kinda big shit.

Not to mention the fact that I’m sharing a Table of Contents with the likes of Carrie Vaughn, NY Times Bestseller and one of my personal heroes, Jonathan L Howard, writer extraordinaire and author of the Johannes Cabal series, which is one of my favorites and a huge inspiration on my Steampunk Zombies novel.

I squeed quite loudly. Neighborhood dogs were barking.

Pretty soon I’m going to need a WHERE TO FIND ME section!

Also: I’ve been querying kinda hard with Steampunk Zombies after a little interest surged on the Twitter, but, alas, have been rejected by several interested folks. (One even asked for an entire manuscript read, which was a first!) But the train is a-choo-chooing down the self-publishing line and I must follow where the winds blow.

The second draft is in my hands, fresh from my editor and soon to be a third draft. Once the third draft is complete, beta readers will get their grubby mitts upon it and–voila!–there shall be another thing for you to read. In your hands. From the Internet.

Not as cool, but still pretty legit.

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Proof and Progress

First: here’s a picture of my badge from AnomalyCon!

Rocket woman, burning down the sky so long ago. (Are those the actual words? I have no idea.)

See? I’m legit.

Even has my name on it and everything.

Second: Progress update on the STEAMPUNK ZOMBIES novel.

I know. It seems like a few blog posts ago (err…just one, actually) that I was debating whether or not to self-publish and then, BLAM-O, I’m self-publishing. So, let’s recap as to my steps, shall we?

I like the freedom that comes with self-publishing, though I am still very worried about not being seen as a legitimate writer or a writer of any worth–given that there’s so much bunk out there in the self-published world. I’m hoping that this will a) get my name out there and b) allow me to hone my craft in such as way as fits my schedule. The end goal is to write and then publish a novel every 2-3 years and pretty soon I’ll have a large enough portfolio that I’ll either get noticed by a publishing house or I won’t even have to worry about such things anymore.

I’ve decided to go through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing for the e-books and IngramSpark for print books. From what I understand, KDP has an option where you publish through them for a certain period of time (90 days or something?) and then you’re free to publish on all other platforms, including Kobo, Nook, Smashwords, and Bookbaby.

IngramSpark for the print books because it seems like a really quality company that’ll produce a good product. (Other options are Lightning Source and Lulu.) Here’s an interesting article comparing IngramSpark and Lightning Source from a few years ago that helped me with my decision.

I’m also toying around with giving people ARCs (advanced reader copies) on sites like Goodreads and the like, but that might be a bit much for my busy work schedule as of now.

Also, I’m going to have to get some ISBNs so that my book will have the same ISBN number, or at least reference the same number, so I can get tracking and sales info across all formats. This part I’m a wee bit wobbly on, so my usual inclination is just to jump right in and see what happens.

As it is right now, I’m waiting on my editors to get back my second draft to me and then enact their changes. I’m thinking I might send out copies to close friends to read for last minute errors and then KABOOM, it’ll be a little published baby.

We’ll see what happens.

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Yet Another Long Pause

Howdy, all.

I know, I know. I have a habit of doing this. I wrote a piece about boycotting the internet in an effort to make my life better and that was part of it, but mostly it was my own laziness.

On a better note, here are some updates!

1.) I’ve been married now for a year to my lovely husband, Adam. We celebrated our one year anniversary on Halloween just last month. (I got him a comic book for a present. It’s paper, okay?)

2.) It’s been over two years since I’ve owned the coffee shop. That means that my SBA loan restrictions have been lifted! Which, in reality, doesn’t mean much, but it’s a milestone, regardless. People ask what my one-year goals are for the shop. My response is always to be here the next year.

3.) BYRON IS MOVING FORWARD. After the long-decision-making-time, I’ve chosen to self-publish. I’m waiting for editing changes and then I’ll edit-edit-edit like crazy and hopefully have a beta version this January.

4.) I am going to fail NaNoWriMo horribly this year, but THAT’S OKAY. I’m hoping to have another novel done by January to enter it into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. (Byron didn’t even make it through the first round, but I knew it was going to be a tough sell.)

5.) I’ve been taking some time off from work for my own mental health and have been working out/writing/generally lazing about so as not to make my anxiety/depression any worse. That will most likely have a bloggy post of its own (as will most of these subjects) but I’ve made progress on my worry-scale and have been rethinking what I define as success and have been trying to get better at being okay with my life.

6.) I have visible triceps. I can do, like, four pushups. Yeah.

I’ll update more regularly. Maybes like, every few days or so, you know? Chaa.

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