Category: covers

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A Veiled and Distant Sky Releases Today!

  By A Veiled and Distant Sky, books, covers, ebooks, Nearspace, publishing

It’s a book birthday! The ebook of A Veiled and Distant Sky comes out today from Tyche Books, so if you’ve pre-ordered it, you should see it in your library. If you didn’t pre-order, what are you waiting for? Go get your copy! ;)

When Luta Paixon and the crew of the Tane Ikai discover a dying wormhole explorer who’s been missing for decades, it’s a mystery; but the bigger mystery lies in her only words: “Save Lillifleur.” Because the colony ship Lillifleur disappeared without a trace almost a century ago.

Meanwhile, a different mystery lies closer to home; Luta’s son Karro and his wife want no part of the life-extending nanobioscavengers that have kept Luta safe from harm and aging for over fifty years. Confused, worried for their future, and even a little angry, Luta struggles to understand why anyone would reject the gift of near-immortality, even as the debate over nanobioscavenger technology rages throughout Nearspace.

Stranded in an unknown system with Karro and Aliande aboard, Luta faces potentially dangerous drones, a mysterious virus, and a looming alien threat to a forgotten colony. She’ll have to contend with all of this and more before she can unravel secrets from her family’s past, and hope for a little luck to get everyone home to Nearspace safe and sound.

I’ll be posting more about the book and some fun things about it in the coming days, so stay tuned!

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Invisible Scarlet O’Neil

  By books, covers, just for fun, musings, reading

One of the very first speculative fiction books I remember having a significant impact on me was Invisible Scarlet O’Neil by Russell Stamm. It was part of the eclectic menagerie of books that lived on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in my grandparents’ house, and I love, love, loved it. I expect it belonged to one of my aunts, but somewhere along the way, I “inherited” it. (If you read that as “took it,” you might not be far off.)

Scarlet O’Neil lived first in a newspaper comic strip. She was a lovely, intrepid gal of the 1940’s and had the ability to go invisible by pressing a “strange nerve in her left wrist.” She wasn’t a “superhero” in the sense of saving the world, but she made people’s lives better on an individual level. She didn’t look for (or usually receive) any recognition, since she dealt with problems…well, invisibly.

After many years of being loved and moving house a couple of times, my copy of Invisible Scarlet O’Neil was in bad shape, falling apart and missing pages. It was no longer readable. Eventually, I honoured the book by making lampshades with the remaining pages, so their beautifully golden glow lights up my living room in the evenings.

And now, thanks to the wonderful network of used bookstores that is AbeBooks, I have an intact copy again. Can’t wait to read it. :)

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New Olympia Investigations Covers

  By covers, ebooks, Olympia Investigations

I’m happy to share the new covers for my Olympia Investigations series here today! I love the way the new covers tie the series together. You can find out more (including retailer links) for these ebooks [intlink id=”3449″ type=”page”]on the Olympia Investigations page[/intlink].

And in other news…the fourth in the series is currently underway. :)

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Friday Desk Report – June 29, 2018

  By Beyond the Sentinel Stars, books, bundles, covers, Dark Beneath the Moon, Nearspace, One's Aspect to the Sun, Planet Fleep, publishing, writing life

Oh my! So much going on this week, I hardly know where to start!

Well, today this happened:

So exciting to see it at #1! You can still catch Planet Fleep for .99 until the end of the day on June 30th, so don’t miss out!

Next on the list, this beauty: an ebook set of the three Nearspace novels! I am in love with the incorporation of the three covers here. If you want to pick it up for your very own self, click whichever of these links works for your e-reading preferences:

And last but not least, my baby graduated from high school this week! I’m a very proud mama (even if I don’t understand how the time went by so quickly!). :)
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Friday Desk Report – May 4, 2018

  By books, covers, Friday Desk Report, NaNoWriMo, Olympia Investigations, projects, writing life, writing log

It’s Star Wars day, so May the 4th be with you! I’m wearing my Rebel Snoopy t-shirt as I write this, so rest assured, the Force is strong in my office today.

Camp NaNoWriMo finished up on Monday of this week, and although I had to rock out more than 5k words on the last day to make my goal on time, I did it! I wrote an entire new middle-grade science fiction novel during April, which was pretty cool since I didn’t even have the idea until a few days into the month. Now it’s complete and in editing, so expect to hear lots more about that really soon! Although I claim to like the flexibility and reduced pressure of Camp NaNo, I still couldn’t allow myself to *not* reach the goal I’d set. Guess I have to work on that…or maybe not, since it meant I finished the book.

I took a day off writing once I typed “The End” on that novel, and spent it trying to clean up the house, which of course had suffered a great deal of neglect during April. I managed to put away some winter stuff and clean up the kitchen and bathroom, so I guess that was a good start? The rest will follow as it follows.

I made a spiffy animated version of the new cover for [intlink id=”2560″ type=”page”]The Murder Prophet[/intlink], which I began revealing this week. The animation doesn’t seem to be showing up here, sadly (because it’s really cool!), but you might catch it on Facebook or Twitter. Or I might get it working yet…but I mustn’t get distracted from the editing I want to get done today. I let myself have some play time to create it, but I mustn’t go on tweaking it forever. That way lies…not getting anything else done.

In word metrics, I wrote about 42k words in April, spread over two novels and some non-fiction. That was almost twice as much as the first three months of the year combined, so I’m pleased with that. My goal for this month is to come close to April’s count across two other projects. I guess I’ll report on that at the beginning of June!

The Olympia Investigations specials are still on, so[intlink id=”3865″ type=”page”] if you haven’t grabbed the free story or the sale, or the new release yet, what are you waiting for?[/intlink] (Oh yeah, I made this cool splash graphic today, too. Maybe too much play time?)

 

 

 

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Release Day!

  By books, covers, ebooks, Olympia Investigations

The newest instalment in the Olympia Investigations series releases today!

When patrons of a local homeless shelter start turning up dead, with suspicious-looking bite marks on their necks, a local vampire is an obvious suspect. But as Acacia digs deeper into the case she starts to wonder…could even more sinister forces be at work?

 

You can find it for $1.99 or less at most online venues: buying links are collected here. If you’ve missed  previous tales in the series, check this page for a sale and a freebie!

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Cover Reveal: Beyond the Sentinel Stars

  By Beyond the Sentinel Stars, books, covers, current projects, Nearspace

I’m super excited to reveal the cover for Beyond the Sentinel Stars, coming in December from Tyche Books! This is the third book in the [intlink id=”2033″ type=”page”]Nearspace[/intlink] series, and you’ll find all the characters you love onstage again. The art is once again by Ashley Walters, who did a wonderful job of setting the scene for this novel. Luta and Lanar really look like brother and sister to me!

Oh yes, I should probably actually show you? Here you go:

 

What’s happening in Nearspace now, you ask?

Luta Paixon and the crew of the Tane Ikai have made it back to Nearspace safely, but that safety is short-lived. As if a disastrous diplomatic mission to the crow-like Corvids isn’t enough, Luta’s old enemy Alin Sedmamin is back—and asking Luta to help save his life. In exchange, Sedmamin is offering secrets stretching back more than a century into Nearspace’s past—secrets that could prevent a war.

Meanwhile, Luta’s brother Admiral Lanar Mahane is faced with an awful truth: the Protectorate is spread too thinly across Nearspace to offer adequate protection or defense when the aggressive Chron turn their murderous sights on Nearspace again. They must forge new alliances if Nearspace is to survive, but it’s almost impossible to know who to trust.

As interstellar conflict looms on the horizon and a political plot of tremendous scope and daring threatens to destroy Nearspace from within, Luta and Lanar will test the bonds of family and the strength of hope as they struggle to maintain peace in a world that seems destined for war.

It looks like the official release date will be December 19th, but you can pre-order now at Amazon,  Kobo, and Amazon Canada.

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A Reincarnation

  By books, character development, covers, current projects, ebooks, editing, plotting, reviews, revision, rewrite, self-publishing, story, writer development

For a number of years, I ran a couple of successful email courses through The Scriptorium; one was called “The Two-Week Short Story” and the second was “Short Story Workshop for One.” People seemed to enjoy them and I received a lot of very positive feedback from students. The first was (rather obviously) a guide to coming up with a story idea and writing a quick, complete first draft, all in a two-week period. The Workshop was a method for writers who found it difficult to get feedback or critiques to work on developing the kind of critical eye needed to help them improve their stories on their own. The Short Story Workshop itself grew out of an article I had published in Speculations back in 2001, so it had already lived through one reincarnation. It occurred to me that they’d both probably translate well into short ebooks now, and that I might reach a new group of aspiring writers in that format.

Never one to let a good idea fail to distract me from what I’m really *supposed* to be doing, I set to work and did some revising, tweaking, and re-formatting. Also, cover design, since every good ebook deserves a good e-cover. I’m not quite ready to release the ebooks yet, since they need one more good going-over, but I’m thinking within a week or so they’ll be ready to go. But I can share those covers with you now (they might get a little more tweaking, but I think they’re pretty much done):

I expect to price the ebooks around $1.99, which will be a bargain considering the courses used to sell for $8.00 each! However, I did have the hassle of setting up the email schedule, so compared to that, selling ebooks is easy. I believe I’ll test these in Kindle Select at first, and then move to a broader platform after that, as my marketing experimentation continues.

If you or someone you know is looking for some story inspiration and motivation, or have a story that needs some intensive self-workshopping, I’ll be posting here when they’re released. Maybe you’ll find them useful!

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Stuck in the Middle with Who?

  By books, bundles, covers, current projects, Dark Beneath the Moon, deals, ebooks, One's Aspect to the Sun

Montage_Coupon_Adbig-rabbitThe Middlings Bundle launches today, from the newest entry into the bundle market, BundleRabbit. If you’re a fan of sites like HumbleBundle and StoryBundle, I’m pretty sure you’re going to love this one, too. And I’m excited to have a novella included in their very first bundle. I also love, love, love the BundleRabbit logo! BundleRabbit is the brainchild of Chuck Heintzelman, with whom I’ve shared many happy writer therapy writing group experiences in the online group The Quillians.

My novella, “Waiting to Fly,” is set in the Nearspace universe of One’s Aspect to the Sun and Dark Beneath the Moon. Like some of the Nearspace short stories I’ve released, it’s set in the earlier days of Nearspace, when wormhole travel is just opening up and the boundaries of Nearspace are expanding. And in keeping with the theme of the bundle, “middles,” it’s something that happens while the teenage protagonist is waiting for something else.RamseyWaitingToFlyCover

Middles make an interesting theme for a collection, because we’re all in the middle of something, all the time. (Usually many things!) But much of life happens in between those things we tend to think of as milestones or markers, so middles are rich with potential for storytellers. It’s also nice that these stories are of middling length–longer than short stories, but shorter than novels. I’ve been musing on current trends in short story publishing lately, and why shorter and shorter stories seem to be the trend. But that’s fodder for another post, which I’ll likely write this week.

The Middlings Bundle is curated by author Leah Cutter, and as you can see from the cover montage, she’s gathered together some quite heady company from the perspective of little ol’ me. The bundle also features stories by Anthea Sharp, Michael Warren Lucas, Michael A. Stackpole, Dean Wesley Smith, Blaze Ward, Mindy Klasky, Leah Cutter, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Daniel Keys Moran. You can find out more about each of the stories over on the BundleRabbit blog, where Chuck’s been introducing the novellas and their authors over the past week or so. In keeping with the spirit of many bundles, this one is pay-what-you-want: $5+ will net you five of the stories, and $12 or more will get you all ten stories and a bonus–a coupon for an additional free ebook from Kobo two additional books from Kobo: “Collateral Damage” by Mark Leslie
“A Bird in the Hand” by Douglas Smith (there was an initial mixup about the Kobo bonus, so I’ve fixed the information here). This is really a deal that’s too good to pass up. You’ll also have the option to designate a portion of the bundle price as a charitable donation to The Washington State Talking Book and Braille Library. This service provides access to books for people unable to read standard print material, and also loans out magazines, music scores, and foreign language titles. I had very dear aunt who depended on library services like these when her eyesight failed, and I know the importance of support like this, so I encourage you to consider them if you’re purchasing the bundle.

The Middlings Bundle runs only until April 26th, so don’t miss out!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that, should you like “Waiting to Fly” and want to read more in the Nearspace universe, you can currently pick up the first book, One’s Aspect to the Sun, in a bundle as well! The Rogues set is available here, and is another awesome deal.

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Friday Desk Report (March 11/16) & Bundle News

  By books, covers, current projects, ebooks, One's Aspect to the Sun, To Unimagined Shores, writing life

Okay, the Friday Desk Report is a wee bit late. But it was a good writing week! I finished the first draft of a new short story, did some solid work on the novel draft, and worked on an old, unfinished short story that is finally sorting itself out. I also imported a mostly-finished novel draft into Scrivener for some much-needed attention when I need a break from other projects. I almost doubled my word count from the previous week, which is making me very happy indeed.Rogues 3D_01

Another thing that’s making me very happy this week is this: the Rogues bundle is out! (If you’re in Canada, use this link.) This bundle of seven novels is selling for just 99 cents while the promotion lasts, so you don’t want to miss out. I’ve downloaded it to my Kindle already and am anxious to start reading. Some of these books start series, so it’s a great chance to discover a new sci-fi love affair. My contribution is the first Nearspace novel, One’s Aspect to the Sun, which starts the series but can also stand alone. Be sure to click over and check out this great deal!

I didn’t miss a day at my treadmill desk last week; I usually start my walking-and-writing routine by doing my words at 750words.com. Think “morning pages” stored online, and you’ve got the idea. I wrote there every day during February and so far every day in March. Sometimes it’s journaling, sometimes brainstorming or working out story problems, sometimes blog posts, and sometimes I actually do a portion of the day’s writing there. I like the regularity of writing there, combined with the freedom to write whatever I feel like writing. The longest streak I’ve ever had writing there was 46 days, and if I can keep it up this week without missing a day, I’ll break that. Guess I’ll have to report on that possibility next Friday.

The other new thinApprenticeFiles e-cover2g to report this week is this little goodie, available now on Kobo and Kindle. The Apprentice Files collects four stories with a shared main character: Albettra, the young wizard’s apprentice. These stories can be found in my collection, To Unimagined Shores, so if you already have that, you have these. But for those who don’t, this is a nice little sampler at a good price. Suitable for readers from middle grade and up, these light-hearted stories follow Albettra as she deals with her absent-minded and sometimes crotchety mentor; solves a murder; is pulled into a magebattle, and contends with a halfhigh stalker. This ebook was originally a Kickstarter perk, but now it’s flying on its own.

 

 

 

 

Things I researched this week:

  • family tree of Greek gods
  • wings and laurel leaves
  • mythological half-wolves
  • Cape Breton history
  • short story markets