Crystal Beach - Crow Hill #1 is available on Amazon

It made it through publishing today and is now available on Amazon.

Crystal Beach

Tom...

Crystal Beach - Crow Hill #1

Crystal Beach - Crow Hill #1 is the title of my next book. After a multitude of delays, it's finally close enough to release to mention it here. I hope to have it published on Amazon by Dec. 8th, 2014.

This story is set in the same world as my Merlin books (An Untimely Error series). But it starts approximately 75 years after the Merlin books leave off. Here's the tentative blurb for it:

What's a wizard to do when he's still being punished for a thirty-year-old transgression and the country begins to fall apart around him? Michael Hart doesn't know, either. So he's making it up as he goes along.

An old flame has contacted him looking for a place to go. She teaches at the only school for wizards on the continent and took responsibility for several of the students when the school was evacuated.

The country is falling apart, the Board's still punishing him for actions taken in his teens, and now they're showing a renewed unhealthy interest in him. Michael needs to be able to offer a safe haven to Rynn and the students, but he can't bring himself to ignore the problems of those around him either.

There are always more things to do than time to do them in and, of course, a man with a gun can pose a serious problem, even to a wizard.

I'll post a link here and send a notification on my mailing list when the book is available on Amazon.

Tom...

Extended Availability

Now that Merlin's Target, the last book in An Untimely Error, is available I've been going back and adding the first two to different distributors. Merlin's Awakening and Merlin's Travels are now on both Smashwords (and everyone they distribute to) and Google Play. I've set Merlin's Awakening to free on Smashwords in hopes of garnering more interest in the series. The links for these two books are as follows:

Merlin's Awakening:
Smashwords (free):
Merlin's Awakening

Google Play:
Merlin's Awakening on Google Play

Merlin's Travels:
Smashwords:
Merlin's Travels on Smashwords

Google Play:
Merlin's Travels on Google Play

And the good news is that I've already gotten the first book in my next series written. The first draft is done. Proofreading and editing is now started. It was banging around in my head hard enough that I had to do the final proof of Merlin's Target during the day and then write the new book in my free time at night. The series is called "Crow Hill" but I don't have the title pinned down for book one yet. I haven't found one that seems exactly right.

Merlin's Target will migrate to Smashwords and Google Play after its 90 days in KDP select. Hopefully, I'll have them reformatted and waiting to go when the time period is up and I'll upload them the next day.

Tom...

Merlin's Target

So, I finally managed to finish proofing and editing on Merlin's Target, the third and final book in An Untimely Error. It's on Amazon already and is available at:

http://www.amazon.com/Merlins-Target-Untimely-Error-Book-ebook/dp/B00MTB5VO8

I've almost finished writing the first book in my new series, which is why the third Merlin took so long to become available. I find it difficult to sit down and simply proofread when I have a new story trying to take over my brain.

The new story is a bit of a genre mix up. But it does take place in the same world setting as the Merlin books. The time frame is different, the new series will advance the timeline there by seventy+ years from the end of Merlin's Target. I'll post more about this new series later on, after I get some opinions from beta readers.

Tom...

Book #3 (Merlin's Target) in An Untimely Error close to release

I've finished writing the third book in An Untimely Error. It's titled Merlin's Target and is very close to getting released. I have one more proofread of it to do myself after I take a few days away from it so I can actually see what is written.

Frequently when proofreading their own work, authors tend to read what they intended to write as opposed to what they actually did. If you take some time off from the story and work on something else, it's much easier to see the words that are actually there as opposed to what you intended to write.

So, I have one more proofread to do on it. It's already had two proofreads, basic editing, and been beta read. It's looking good but I want one more pass through to attempt to pick up anything that's been missed so far. Then I'll make it available in Ebook format on Amazon.

Once I do, I'll finally finish working through the proof to get the first book in the series available in paperback, the second and third books available on other outlets than Amazon, and then start working on the paperback versions for the second and third books.

Since Merlin's Target will close out the trilogy (I wanted a traditional trilogy for my first set of books) I've been giving thought to what I'll be writing next. I already have the basic idea for the series. It should lend itself to being longer than a trilogy although I haven't decided just how many books would work best for it yet. More on that once I actually start writing it.

I've also procured a domain for a full website as opposed to just a blog and I'm slowly working it into shape. I'll post a link here once it's ready for visitors.

Tom...

Merlin's Target, #3 in An Untimely Error

 I finally finished the first draft for Merlin's Target. This is the closing book in the trilogy, An Untimely Error. On to proofreading and editing. The amount of time needed for that depends on how clean my first draft is. I need to arrange for a book cover for this one as well, which I should have done about half-way through writing it.

Tom...

Overload

So, I've been ignoring my blog for a while because I've been trying to get too many things done at once. It seems that I've finally managed to get things under control now so I thought I should stop ignoring it.

I have a lot of things going on in Spring. Normally I'm trying to get my garden back up to speed (which takes a lot of work when you live in an area that isn't all that great for gardening, like I do). This year we also stocked up on firewood for next winter already. Got a great deal but ended up getting most of the wood just blocked. Blocked means it is still in rounds, unsplit but cut to the correct size. So, in addition to my normal spring jobs I'm splitting about three cords of blocked wood, some of the pieces bigger around than my torso. Good exercise but time consuming. We got a new batch of baby chickens which require attention as well.

We also had a cat pass away on us. Explaining to the kids what was up wasn't pleasant. We replaced him and the new cat passed away after about a month also. With our two oldest cats still very healthy, we don't know what caused it, so we're staying as a two cat household for the time being until we discover and rectify whatever the problem is.

The overload regarding writing was that I was trying to proof the trade paperback edition of Merlin's Awakening (#1 in the An Untimely Error series) at the same time as trying to edit the electronic version of Merlin's Travels (#2 in the series) so I can submit it to other online stores than Amazon. All of that while writing #3 in the series, the upcoming release Merlin's Target (which will finish the trilogy).

Something had to be delayed. So, I'm focusing on writing #3. Once I finish that I'll have my wife do the first proofread/edit. While she does that I'll go back to the trade paperback copy and finish the proof and make it available. Then I'll do my first major edit on #3 and have it proofread and edited again. While that occurs, I'll do the changes on #2 necessary for submission to other online stores. Then a final proof/edit on #3 and release it on Amazon.

I'm well underway on #3. I'm just about halfway done writing it and since I decided to delay the other tasks I need to do writing-wise the speed with which I'm writing has dramatically increased.

I hope to keep this blog updated more often now that I've pared down my workload into manageable chunks.

Tom...

Createspace Submission Successful

I got everything to pass Createspace's requirements and am currently waiting, rather impatiently, for the proof copy I ordered to make sure that everything looks good. They said I should receive it by the 24th. I hope it arrives sooner than that.

While I wait, I've started writing Merlin's Target, the final book planned in the An Untimely Error series. I've also started to give some thought to what I want to write next after I finish it.

I have an idea. It's a genre combination I haven't seen before, although there is a series by a famous author that comes close. There may be books out there with this specific combination but I haven't seen them if there are. It combines two of my favorite genres to read and I think it has the potential to be a fun world that will allow for interesting stories to be written in it. I won't go any further into detailing it at this point but I'll do so before releasing the first book set in it.

Tom...

Smashwords

Alright! I won the first round of the fight with formatting for Smashwords. My first book (Merlin's Awakening) is up on their site now:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/401932

Now, i get to wait and see if it qualifies for their premium distribution which would get it onto Apple, Kobo, Sony, etc...

While I wait for them to get around to checking it (frequently takes as much as two weeks since those checks are done by a human) I'll work on getting the paperback version formatted and available on Amazon. Then, just maybe, I can get to work on writing the last book in that trilogy. At least these conversions should take less time for books 2 and 3 later on since I'll have done them once already.


Tom...

Merlin's Awakening now available in the Nook Store

Merlin's Awakening - An Untimely Error #1 is now available for Nook. It's located at:
Merlin's Awakening for Nook

Still fighting with formatting for Smashwords.

Tom...

Merlin's Travels - An Untimely Error #2 is now available on Amazon

Well, I got it completed and onto Amazon, and it's still January. So I hit my self-imposed deadline.

Merlin's Travels - An Untimely Error #2

is up and available in Kindle format.

My next project will be getting the Merlin's Awakening Ebook (#1 in the series) available on B&N and possibly Smashwords. After that, I'll get the paperback versions of books #1 and #2 available through Amazon. Then I'll get on to writing #3, which should conclude this series.

I've discovered that I very much enjoy the writing part of writing books. The proofreading and editing, less so. Changing the file to this format or that, depending on where I'm making the book available online, is the least enjoyable thing related to writing that I've encountered so far. Marketing will probably beat that out for least enjoyable. But until I have the entire trilogy completed and available I'm trying to limit what marketing I do. I know that I occasionally get annoyed when I find a series I like and then need to wait for the next book to become available.

Publishing my own books has some bonuses. One of them is that, unlike traditional publishing houses, you aren't limited to getting one book published a year (which seems to be the average for those series in which I eagerly anticipate the next book) and you can get the books to your readers much more quickly than that.

Tom...

Merlin's Awakening Free from the 18th - 20th.

In celebration of my having Merlin's Travels (#2 in the series) just about ready to publish, I'm using the last three free days of my enrollment in KDP select with Merlin's Awakening (#1 in the series). Since the KDP select enrollment is ninety days and expires on the 20th, I decided to use those last three free days before they expired and since the timing coincides with the release of the next book in the series that works well.

Merlin's Awakening - An Untimely Error #1

is free until Jan 20th as a result.

Enjoy...
Tom...

Waiting on Return from Editor

Merlin's Travels - An Untimely Error #2 was finished more than a week ago. After a proofread by myself and another proofread from someone whose grammar and spelling I trust, it was sent off to the editor. As soon as I get it back, I'll go through recommended changes, make the ones I approve of, and get it released on Amazon.

My self-imposed deadline for that was January 20th, but it's currently out of my hands. Assuming I get it back in time, I'll make my deadline, otherwise it might be a touch late. Either way I'm excited to have finished writing book #2, even if there are still some alterations that will need to be made (aren't there always?). I'm taking a short break before seriously starting to write #3 so I can catch up on a few other things I put aside while writing Merlin #2. After that I'll focus my efforts on #3 (tentatively titled: Merlin's Target), the conclusion of the trilogy.

Tom...