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A Minor Change to The Inventor’s Son Collection

A Minor Change to The Inventor’s Son Collection

Hi, everyone! Very briefly, I wanted to let you know that I have made a slight change to the title of the digital boxed set edition of the first three books of The Inventor’s Son. It will now be listed in the eBook stores as The Inventor’s Son Collection (Books 0-2) because that is a much more accurate description of the contents. “Book 0” is commonly used for numbering a prequel book, but I’ve never been able to use it in the stores since they would not allow me to use anything but whole numbers. Since this set contains the prequel novella, Book 1 and Book 2, I wanted to make sure that the title of the set reflected that, now that I have gone and made sure the numbering of the volumes in all stores all correctly corresponds to the correct books.

The set includes:

  • The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning, book 0, which has added material and is exclusive to the set (or to the mailing list).
  • The Inventor’s Son, book 1 of the series, a full-length novel.
  • The Scientist’s Son, book 2 of the series, a full-length novel as well.

The new retail price will be $4.99 in all stores, and in the coming days, there will be a pre-order set up for The Traitor’s Son! Watch this space.

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The Next Steps with Changes to The Inventor’s Son Series

The Next Steps with Changes to The Inventor’s Son Series

Hi, everyone!

It’s October 1st now, and I have delisted The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning from all sales channels. Google Play books, again, will probably be the first one to have it removed, followed by Amazon. Then Kobo, Nook, and iBooks will probably have it delisted by the end of the day tomorrow. The version they all were selling was the original version, and I’ve since added some material and revised a few things. The revised version is exclusive to The Inventor’s Son Collection Books 1-3 or to subscribers to my mailing list. I’ll be updating the book tables and all the book pages to reflect this change. Any older versions of the eBooks might have links to the Amazon pages, and I’ll try to track these down and redirect them if possible to this page.

There’s more coming! As I come up with the changes, I’ll be posting about them here. Stay tuned…

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Detailing the Progress Made with Updates to The Inventor’s Son Series

Detailing the Progress Made with Updates to The Inventor’s Son Series

Hello, everyone! This morning, I took the first steps to changing the price of The Inventor’s Son back to $3.99. The price has already changed at Google Play because such changes are usually immediate there. I suspect it will be a few days before the change is completely done with Amazon because Nook takes a little time to change pricing as well. Amazon likes to price match as long as one of their competitors has a lower price on a book, and in my experience, Nook has always been the laggard.

I have decided to leave the price of the boxed set at $3.99 temporarily. This is probably because I will be releasing a new boxed set when I release The Traitor’s Son, and it will include The Inventor’s Son, The Scientist’s Son, and The Explorer’s Son, and that set will probably be priced at $7.99. The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning is still up for sale through the end of the week, but it will be unpublished by October 1. It will always be available for free to anyone that wants a copy if they join my email list, and who knows, it might appear on Instafreebie from time to time as well.

So, as for progress on The Traitor’s Son, it is in its final stages. I did get set back a little, but I’m sorted out now that the worst of the power outages, internet outages, and supply shortages from Hurricane Irma are behind us in my immediate area. I’m going to try and streamline the formatting process so that I can get the paperback and eBook copies for sale at the same time this time around, rather than having the paperback delayed for a long time, but if I find that my system is not working, I will release the eBook version early, then release the paperback when I have it finished.

You’ll see more from me soon!

 

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Some Important Updates on the Status of The Inventor’s Son Series!

Some Important Updates on the Status of The Inventor’s Son Series!

Whoa, got your attention? Don’t worry, The Traitor’s Son IS scheduled for release. ARC copies will be available when I create a pre-order (I decided I’m going to do a month-long pre-order for it just like I did with The Explorer’s Son) but in the meantime, there are a few changes I am making with the rest of the lineup.

The most important and impactful will be these two changes:

  1. After October 1, The Inventor’s Son will no longer be “permafree” in any of the sales channels. The price will be set at $3.99 as it had been when it was originally released. If you have not gotten a copy of the book and it’s before October 1, check your favorite online eBook seller. Amazon will probably be the last one to revert to paid status. I have given away thousands of copies of The Inventor’s Son since I made it free last year. With the advent of services like Instafreebie, having the book free in stores makes less sense than before.
  2. After October 1, I plan to unpublish The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning. Again, as with having a free book in an online store, having a book for sale that has always been meant to be a “reader magnet” makes little sense. It will be available exclusively in boxed sets and as a reader magnet. You can find out more in upcoming posts. In the meantime, if you want to read the original version of The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning, you can check it out on Wattpad, but if you want the better version that’s available in the boxed set, for free, then sign up for the SB James Author and Artist Newsletter to have it delivered to your email inbox!

As of now, I have no plans to take the rest of the series down from any of the online sellers like Kobo and iBooks, so no need to worry about that. In fact, I most likely will not make this series exclusive to Amazon. I do plan on participating in future Instafreebie promotions, so you can be on the lookout for that. I find that these promotions, run alongside other authors in my genres, are the most satisfying and successful.

There will be more changes coming so stay tuned!

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Happy New Year

HappyNewYearGears
I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

 

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The New Covers for The Inventor’s Son… Revealed!

I may have mentioned that I’ve been working on new covers for my books. I think today would be a great time to do the new covers reveal. They’ll be in the stores probably next week.

 

IS1800by2880beginning2014

The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning is my prequel book. I felt it needed to appear different than Book 1.

thenewISTBcover

And now, compare the cover I’d had for The Inventor’s Son since last year to the new one…

newiscover2014

I’ve always wanted to make it clearer that these books were not only about Steampunk science fiction but also emphasize the paranormal aspects of the story.

thenewIScover2015

And now, the transformation of Book 2…

newsscoverwithskulland3gears2014

This was the cover I had so much trouble with last year. One of the original concept designs had a vial, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work and look well with the covers the way I was doing them.

thenewSScover

Needless to say, this is a big departure from the original covers! I’m really happy with them. What say you? Should I have kept that “old textbook” feel of the other covers, or do you think that the more contemporary treatment makes them more attractive?

 

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The “Meet My Character” Blog Hop

newiscover2014Yes, indeed, I’m doing another blog hop post! But this time, the theme (Meet My Character) is going to be carried into my regular blog, and I’m initiating a new category on the blog for the characters of The Inventor’s Son. Each character featured will be either the Main Character, Major Characters, or rather important Minor Characters.

The cover of Cora Buhlert's book, Mercy Mission

The cover of Cora Buhlert’s book, Mercy Mission

I was tagged for this hop by Cora Buhlert, author of a number of SF series, including Mercy Mission, Book 1 of the Shattered Empire series, in which her featured character from her blog hop post is the main character.
Here is the rest of Cora’s bio:
Cora Buhlert was born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today — after time spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently working towards her PhD. Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. When she is not writing, she works as a translator and teacher. Visit her on the web at www.corabuhlert.com or follow her on Twitter under @CoraBuhlert. Continue reading →

Posted by SB James in Meet My Characters, Older Blog Posts, 0 comments

Speculative Fiction Blog Hop

The Inventor's Son

The Call of Agon, Book one of The Children of Telm Series

The Call of Agon, Book one of The Children of Telm Series


I have agreed to take part in what we’re calling the Speculative Fiction Blog Hop. The post prior to this one was on Dean F. Wilson’s Blog. Dean is a fellow Steampunk author, as well as the author of The Children of Telm, an epic fantasy series. Continue reading →

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New Book Covers!

Alright, everybody! I’ve gone down to the wire with this… But seeing as how my book is about to get published, and I still am not 100% sure about which version of the cover I’m going to use, I though I’d let you readers see them and get a bit of feedback, hopefully. Once I make my final decision, I will be taking down this post.
Okay, first I will show you the redesign of The Inventor’s Son’s cover. It’s not radically different, but I wanted to make the cover look more like it was a real book cover…

This is the redesigned Inventor's Son cover.

This is the redesigned Inventor’s Son cover.


And now I want to show you the two covers I came up with for The Scientist’s Son. I had a really hard time with this book cover, mostly because, unlike gears, which are so very symbolic of Steampunk and of inventions that it was never a question that would be the theme I’d use. But for a scientist, most symbols are not from that era, but later (like the sign for atoms, etc.), so I had to improvise.
This is one of them, a series of hexagons put together.

This is one of them, a series of hexagons put together.

...Or this one with a skull, which makes it creepy, scientific, and possibly more Steampunk.

…Or this one with a skull, which makes it creepy, scientific, and possibly more Steampunk.


I have my reasons for not using stock photos and images of people in my covers, not the least of which is that I can’t really find many Steampunk themed stock photos that aren’t of grown men and women. I also was leery of having a face on a cover that is supposed to represent the main character. Also, the covers represent books that my main character finds among his father’s writings that help him to follow the clues to locate him. In The Inventor’s Son, he is given a red journal, and in The Scientist’s Son, a green one.
So now that you’ve seen them, let me know what you think, please! PS, I am going to do a new cover for The Beginning also, but it will be very much like Book 1’s cover, only a darker backgroud color.

Posted by SB James in Older Blog Posts, 4 comments

Introducing…The Interrobang‽

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/by-the-dots/
(A little late in the day for this, but I was busy looking over old writing from four years ago and shaking my head at how much it has changed since I write more professionally now…)
And there were are… The trailing off of the sentence or statement… but the punctuation that Dan Brown in particular cannot seem to live without is the interrobang ‽
Did you see that? Or, should I yell/ask, did you see that‽
The interrobang was invented in 1962 according to Wikipedia, and never really caught on much. I had only heard about it a few years ago from one of my co-workers who eventually moved away and is now a sometimes poster on Facebook. To make the interrobang in HTML, like you can right here at WordPress, you need to press a combination of the ampersand, the pound sign (hashtag) the numbers 8253, and the semi-colon. Or, do what I did and copy it from the Wikipedia site and paste it right into the editor‽
For what it’s worth, I never use the combination of the exclamation point and the question mark at the end of a sentence. I consider it bad form, but it is acceptable punctuation, oddly enough.
This post is a bit of a joke, but I hope I informed and entertained all the same. Got a lot going on next week, starting with Camp NaNoWriMo resuming on July 1, so I’m getting my blogging in for the week. How will I get it all done‽

Posted by SB James in Older Blog Posts, 1 comment