How We Live in the Epublishing World Today

Seems a good idea, from time to time, to sit back and reflect on where I'm at with this whole epublishing business.

Curiosity Quills is at work getting Blow Up the Roses ready for ebook and POD publication. I hope that will happen in August or early September. I'm very anxious to see how they market a book. They're building an impressive community.

 It appears more of these operations are starting up. I've submitted Crazy About You to Jaffabooks in Australia.

Curiosity Quills has right of first refusal on my next two works so I've sent them Heal My Heart So I May Cry and A Heart to Understand. I've also submitted them to Paradon, which is also a new book publishing venture.

I've been very happy in my dealings with Curiosity Press so far. They seem to be reputable and talented people. I have no way to judge with Jaffa and Paradon. Just have to see if they are interested and offer a contract and then study the contract. If that bombs at both places, I'll self-publish. I have a growing list of Twitter friends who are Navajo and I'm most anxious to start marketing and getting reactions. Several have replied to the blog about book covers.

Rabbletown: Life in These United Christian States of Holy America has been professionally edited and proofed. I am always aghast at the errors I make. I've read each of my works dozens of times, and I still miss stupid things like waver for waiver. And trying to parse grammatically where commas go gives me a rash. Rabbletown is being formatted now so I can use Amazon's Createspace to produce a POD book. So that may be my first work actually available in print. Katy Sozaeva who did the edit and has become an ambassador has written on her blog that it's the best work she's EVER read. I kid you not.  Here is the comment.

If Jaffa doesn't respond soon regarding Crazy, I'll get that one in print next.

I'm tempted to bundle One More Victim, The Saltness of Time and The Strange Case of James Kirkland Pilley into one volume for a POD.

One More Victim got a really nice comment from a Goodreads reviewer, Anthea Carson:

"It is so rare to find a book you can't put down. That's why I am so happy I discovered this writer. I couldn't stop reading this and my only disappointment with it was that it ended. It is the intriguing story of kids discovering things that people throw away. A young romance develops between two kids rummaging through trash cans and discovering things. The things they discover in those trash cans would haunt them forever and change their whole lives. Amazing book. Can't wait to read the next one by this author."

This is a young writer worth keeping track of. She's already developed her own writing voice and putting it to good effect.

The Saltness of Time has also been professionally edited, so it is ready as we move forward on the Kickstarter project. I'm working with local artist/printmaker Nick Naughton, who teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute. W want to use his letter press to turn The Saltness of Time into a fine art book with great paper and locally bound. That is, if we can fund it through Kickstarter. Nick's been very busy this summer so this will probably be a fall project. He would also do etchings for illustrations and, wow, is that guy good, and he likes realism. Former KC television news photographer John Tygart has agreed to do the video work for the promo spot with Pete Wilkerson doing the sound and editing. Then if we get funded we'll include costs to use them to document the process so that backers can receive not only the book but a DVD about the process.

Haven't heard from my agents for a long time about SPILL: Big Oil + Sex = Game On. Always afraid to press them because the news may be bad. I still have hopes one of the traditional publishing houses will publish that book. They still have the big marketing connections that are so important in this whole game. I think the day is far down the road when you might see a self-published ebook reviewed in the New York Times.

An odd thing has happened with SPILL. Its Facebook page has received a lot of likes from some hotties in India. I know it has "Sex" in the title, but is that all it takes to get attention? And from women? I have no evidence that a single one of them has bought the book and read it. So what is going on? Some of them even post it on their info pages as books they like. The whole thing baffles me. But I enjoy looking at their profile photos. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spill-Big-Oil-Sex-Game-On/134440113311148

Best news is I've started writing again. I found a project I stalled on several years ago, but think I can move it forward. It's a science fiction work set in the near future here in KC on the Plaza. It's one of those stories where time stops for everyone except the protagonist. That's been done, but I think I have an interesting twist.