Steampunk

Nov

2015

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.

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

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

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.

And now, the transformation of Book 2…

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.

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?

Nov

2015

The Explorer’s Son Will Be On Pre-Order!

The new design for the covers!

I’ve decided to put The Explorer’s Son on pre-order at Amazon. I will get the pre-orders set up on the other retailers tomorrow. The actual release date will be December 8, 2015!

In the coming couple of weeks, the makeover of all the covers, my mailing list, reformatted versions of the previous books, will be set up. If anyone has downloaded my books from Amazon, you will most likely get an email if you do not have your Kindle account set up for automatic updates. This is not a bullet I’ve fired before, but I think it’s really important that everyone have a chance to experience the refreshed versions of my books. From what I understand, readers who have my books downloaded from other book sellers get the changes automatically.

Mar

2015

A Quick Note About My New Tumblr!

A quick note about a move I made earlier today: I started a new blog on Tumblr! I decided to use Tumblr to do my Steampunk themed blog, however, I may decide to reblog either here and/or at the Goodreads blog if I decide the post is worth doing that full-blown treatment.
This does not mean that I won’t have my own website, it just means that I believe, in my ongoing efforts to seek out an organic audience for my books, Tumblr and Wattpad have the potential for finding those people.
I will still be blogging here about the same topics I’ve really been blogging about in this past year. Many of my readers here are fellow authors, and I think the focus of this blog is really going to be more about the writing life and process than the Tumblr blog is.

Nov

2014

My Books Will Soon Be Live On Google Play!

Hey, everybody! Just thought I’d give you all a quick update as to what’s doing with me and my books lately!
The number one thing is that The Inventor’s Son has now been released for six months! I’ve decided that I will keep the sale going on this book until the end of the month.
It just so happens that I’m half way through the 50k words of my NaNoWriMo project, but I’m actually behind, considering today isn’t the 15th. I will start to catch up once I’ve got all my books uploaded where I want them to go.
Which is the next big thing for this series; I’m uploading them to Google Play! The Beginning is already up there, and as it is everywhere except some places on Amazon, it’s a free download! Having an international audience for my books is really exciting for me, and I hope I don’t run into any snags. I’ve seen the free book on there already, and everything looks OK from there. Once I get all the links, I will update the page where I have my series listed.
Also working on my next post for my character pages, for Marcus and Malcolm Stanwood (since they are probably the next most important characters affecting the story). Coming soon! That’s all I can say.
Also I’ve decided I’m going to see this final Hobbit movie in IMAX. That was very important! You needed to know that!

Oct

2014

The “Meet My Character” Blog Hop

Yes, 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

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 →

Oct

2014

New Book Covers, Part Deux!

Last week I posted that I was doing new covers for my two existing books and I also posted pictures of two possible covers. I appreciate all the feedback I got on that post.

The Slightly Revised Beginning Cover

To review, this is now going to be the new cover for The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning which I did not have posted last week. I will be uploading the new covers to all the outlets when Book 2 is released.
Continue reading →

Sep

2014

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.

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.

…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.

Jun

2014

Thinking of my Writing Journey, Steampunk, and my Blog, So Far

First off, I have a link here to my very first guest blog post:
http://plungingintothenovel.blogspot.com/
K.J. Bryen will be publishing her new book, Lokte in the fall of 2014.
My guest post talks mostly about my writing journey so far and offers some tips that I’ve found are critical to surviving the first months of the self-publishing journey.
However, there is so much more, more than what can be covered in a single post. The entire exercise was quite thought provoking for me. One thought surfaced above all others: I may just have to start another blog!
If I start another blog, it will be dedicated to The Inventor’s Son. Once I start some heavier promoting and get Book 2 out, I’m sure that some readers might want to delve a bit deeper.
I’ve also joined the Google+ community Steampunk Tendencies. Their actual website is http://www.steampunktendencies.com/
When I see how many people are members of this group, and how elaborate their costumes and artwork is, I’m at once encouraged and daunted. Encouraged because Steampunk really does seem to be taking off and becoming more mainstream. Daunted because, compared to many of these people, my Steampunk resume is pretty thin as of yet. It’s such a fun genre, I’m sorry I didn’t get into this sooner.

Jun

2014

Calling all Cars for the Amazon Police!

The REAL new cover for the “Prologue” book!

I have renamed my “Prologue” novella-length book to The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning.
And I uploaded it and published it to Nook Store. When it goes live, I will have the links to both the Amazon page and the Nook Store page.
I uploaded the new cover, but Amazon has not updated it yet as of now. Now, I have the old cover with the new title… It’s sometimes a good thing that I don’t have all that much exposure on Amazon, because sometimes they are not too quick with their updates. BTW, I saw a review yesterday (not for my book) that gave one star because, while the reviewer hadn’t actually read the book, the author made one of the words in the title with an ‘s instead of just plain s. Not on the cover, thankfully for him. But, really? I wonder if I’ll get a one-star review for my book by the Amazon police because I’ve got the cover transitioning from “Prologue” to “The Beginning.” Maybe I will, and when the new cover loads, that reviewer will look like a moron. 😉
Also, you might notice the extra details on the cover. In a few days I will be reworking the Book One cover and uploading that. I realize these updates about my book uploads and grand plans might be a little excessive, but I know that soon, Camp NaNoWriMo will be up and running (like in a week and a half!) and I want to have all this stuff straightened out by then. I also won’t be able to devote much time to blogging here, and I know you, dear reader, will miss me… Mwah!

Jun

2014

Why I wrote a Prequel to My First Book

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