Writing Commences

This weekend I started writing my fourth novel. It is the prequel to Starstrikers and it will be called Starforgers. This novel was attempted many years ago and then abandoned.  I used the opening that I already had written when I began my outline for the novel last month. But in the weeks since that outline was created, I changed my mind and started over. You can do that you know. No questions asked.

The first chapter now works harder at telling the story I need to tell than the old one did. We are introduced to the hero and we see her doing her job and suffering with memories of an event that will alter her future by causing her to become involved in the events that started the Great War. In the second chapter, she meets the villain and although she is unaware of it, they will meet again in the big finale.

Hopefully this Labor Day weekend I will get a chance to crank through Chapter 1 and 2. Most of Chapter 2 is already mapped, so the writing should go quickly.

Buy Null_Pointer Today!

Buy it today and help raise the book onto a best-seller list. It doesn’t take much. The Kindle e-book is only $2.99!

If you enjoy a good Mystery and like computers or programming, you will love this book.

This is an impromptu Amazon rush, act now!

Tyrmia Cover Revisited

Yesterday I sketched out some new ideas for the Tyrmia cover. I was mostly concentrating on covers that made use of simple imagery or perhaps just type fonts. One in particular caught my eye, forgive the pun. The idea was to use a close up of a Tyrmian’s eye and within the pupil area of the eye, have a gleam that is in the shape of a human female – Zerdy the hero of the story.

The title could be placed below the eye and the author name below that. We already had come up with the fonts we liked, so I left those the same. Anyway, I showed the design to a new friend of mine who does digital art for video games. I had approached Jeremy about doing the book’s cover if we could come up with a unique design. My Art Director, Byron and I, had come up with several concepts for the cover art but we just couldn’t find one that would be striking enough and not offend anyone. I let Jeremy take a stab at doing the eye cover and we’ll see what he comes up with.

I really like the idea and I think it could be very visually striking. Which is what you want in a cover as that’s the first thing your reader sees and in many cases is what initially draws them to your book. The importance of cover art for Indie books can not be over emphasized.  The book must look as good as anything a major publisher could do in order for the book to succeed.

The Tyrmians are olive green and their eyes are a saffron color. The shape of the pupil will be something not quite human and the eye itself is slightly bigger than a human’s, so we’re hoping it will shout “Alien” at the viewer, thus signalling that this is a SF book and not a Horror novel. Also, the addition of the woman’s reflection in the eye is spot on to the plot of the book, which focuses on how a human female helps these aliens.

With Jeremy knocking out the cover image, Byron will focus on putting together the many other parts of the cover including the spine and the back cover. About all we can say for sure is that the book will be predominately greens and yellows and will be something you will want to have on your shelf. A prized piece of art as well as a decent read.

More pictures and updates as the artwork progresses.

Indie Bookstores in Boise, Idaho

The community of Indie book store owners and readers in my fair city of Boise is loosing one of our own. A Novel Adventure is closing its doors this month. While it’s a sad occasion for all readers in Boise, we can take solace that there are still four other book sellers that are here and deserving of our patronage.

Rainbow Books

Hyde Park Books

Trip Tailor Books

Rediscovered Books

Please take these fine venders into consideration the next time you are searching for books in down town Boise.  It’s important to our community that these book sellers continue to thrive. So get out there and enjoy this beautiful time of the year and get to know your local Indie Book Sellers!

This and That

Been kind of quiet on the blog this week. No posts and no comments. Typical really. Life has been pretty busy, but I have been working on Starforgers when I get a moment. Actually started writing the opening chapter. It’s not what I had in my outline, which is probably why its taking longer to figure out. Also, it’s the first chapter, duh! Most important to get right and all that.

I had a break through of sorts for the third book in the Starstrikers series – Starveyers.  I now have a better idea how that book will look from a plotting standpoint. I was worried it would not be as exciting as the other two books, but now I think it will be fine. Each book is set in a different time period and each has its own style that reflects the time it is set in. This is as I intended it, so I’m happy it will turn out that way. This doesn’t make much sense now, but trust me, when you read each book, you will see the differences clearly.

Kindle sales of Starstrikers are definitely slowing. Not sure if it’s related to summer or the price increase. Since sales were trending lower before the increase, I tend to think it has to do with some other influence.  I have yet to get any sales for TFO in the iBooks store from Apple. It’s possible that my unknown status in the SF Genre is hurting it with the trendy Apple crowd. I can live with that. No need to offer any more books for sale there. As it stands right now, only B&N and Kindle customers are buying my e-books.

Going to push this fall to get Tyrmia out in e-book form. Then write Starforgers draft one. In the early Spring I will dust off the Null_Pointer manuscript and clean it up for a Second Edition.  The only other project on the boards is a POD version of Starstrikers Second Edition.