annathepiper: (Aubrey Orly?)

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, my writing’s rather stalled out hard after the release of Victory of the Hawk earlier this year. I’ve released a couple of short stories for sale this past summer and fall, but that’s about it. I’ve been struggling to try to find the mental energy to keep going on other projects, and that’s been challenging–partly out of weariness with juggling the Kickstarter obligations with my obligations for Carina, and partly out of the simple fact that I do have a technically challenging day job, and it’s often difficult for me to muster enough mental oomph to pull words out of my brain when I get home from work in the evenings.

But I’ve gotten really tired of that state of affairs, and I think I’ve managed to replenish enough creative stamina to get back to work. SO!

I am very pleased to announce that I finally have some working titles for the three Warder universe novellas that are the final obligations I need to clear off my plate for the 2012 Kickstarter. To refresh everyone’s memories, these novellas are:

  1. What I was previously referring to as my “psychic chick of size” story, in which Elizabeth Breckenridge, a psychic in Providence, Rhode Island, must assist her client Ross Taggart in tracking down what or who murdered his sister Edith, the Warder of the city. This story now has the official working title “A Power in the Blood”. Bonus for those of you who have read Faerie Blood and Bone Walker: Luciriel, Queen of the Unseelie Court, will be making a guest appearance in this story. It’s actively back in being worked on again, thanks to Scrivener!
  2. A story featuring a tuba player who is recruited by the local Warder–a woman who also happens to play in the same community orchestra–to help her guide a migration of supernatural sea creatures when she discovers they’re being hunted. Possible working title for this story: “A Last Sweet Breath of Song”.
  3. And last but most definitely not least, an origin story for Millicent Merriweather, the Warder First of Seattle in Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, and how she first came to Seattle and became its new Warder. The possible working title for this is still kicking around in my head, but it’s likely to involve “Bone” somehow. (I realize this is repetitive given the title of Bone Walker, but there’s also a theme of “blood, breath, and bone” that I’m playing with here. I do however reserve the right to change my mind once I make it around to finishing this story up!)

I don’t have a target release date for these stories yet. I am however going to target finishing “A Power in the Blood”‘s first draft by the end of November, as a sort of unofficial Nanowrimo. December, the plan will be to hand that off to whoever would like to beta read it for me, while I shift over to writing story #2. Then I’ll need to finish writing Millicent’s story.

There is ALSO a potential fourth novella brewing in my head, one which will feature Christopher’s cousin Caitlin Hallett, and her imminent conflict about whether she’s going to take up her father’s mantle and be the next Warder of St. John’s–because she’s about to fall head over heels for Gabien Desroches of les Gardiens of Quebec. And when two young people of the Warder lineage fall in love, somebody is going to have to leave their home. In the meantime? They’ll have to save St. John’s, too.

I am not sure yet whether I will be releasing these stories for individual sale or whether I will do them as a collection. If I do the latter, chances are very high it will be under the title Walking the Wards.

Stand by for more data on this as it happens!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Aubrey Orly?)

For those of you who are my Kickstarter backers:

I have arranged with PS Print to get a second shipment of posters since the first shipment arrived damaged. When that second shipment arrives (ETA currently somewhere between the 20th and the 23rd), I’ll get those posters out to you. I also need to start sending out the postcards, since I have those as well.

Props to PS Print’s customer service who were very willing to work with me on getting this satisfactorily resolved.

***

I am deploying an updated digital file for Faerie Blood out to the places where it’s sold. The differences in this file are:

  • I’m correcting a long-standing typo of the name of the demon Azganaroth in Chapter 20
  • Adding a bit of extra styling to fix wrapping issues with an mdash early in the book
  • Adding the same “Also by the Author” list of my titles that appears in Bone Walker
  • Adding ads for my other books and for the soundtrack at the end of the book, similar to Bone Walker

This updated file has been deployed to Smashwords, and as soon as it clears review there, I will be using Smashwords to deploy out to B&N and Kobo.

Which, by the way, is a thing I’m going to be doing now. My sales numbers on B&N and Kobo are low enough that I am electing, moving forward, to use Smashwords to deploy out to those sites instead of deploying to them directly. I will also be looking into Smashwords to deploy to iBooks as well.

The overall reason for this is to simplify my book deployment process some, and to cut down on the number of individual sites I have to check for sales numbers. If I use Smashwords to deploy to B&N, Kobo, and Apple, that’ll cut the number of sites I need to check from six to three.

***

Pleased to report that crossposting to Dreamwidth and Livejournal is working again. But in case you missed a couple of my recent posts that had crossposting issues, here they are:

***

Last but not least, I was pointed on Facebook to this rather nifty little video, called “What is up with Noises? (The Science and Mathematics of Sound, Frequency, and Pitch)”. Pretty much what it says on the tin, and it’s a lovely little exploration of the science of sound and how we hear things. Check it out.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Great Amurkian Novel 2)

As I’ve just told the backers of my 2012 Kickstarter, all owed copies of the print edition of Bone Walker have been sent out to their recipients. This is very gratifying, as it gets me that much closer to being able to finally finish off my Kickstarter obligations.

This means that the rest of the copies in my personal stock are ones I can sell, free and clear! A couple will be handed out as part of my ongoing Goodreads giveaway, which ends at the end of this month. So if you’re a Goodreads user and you’d like a crack at a free copy of the book, hop right over here and clickie! I’m offering two copies of the book to Goodreads users in the US and Canada.

ALSO: reader and supporter David is about to finish up his own giveaway for print copies of Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, as well as a copy of the soundtrack. That giveaway is in progress over here, and it ends on March 8th, so time is running out! Your chances of winning are still VERY good, so go give it a look, won’t you?

Meanwhile, the sales on the ebook editions of Faerie Blood and Bone Walker are over, and both books have reset to their $4.99 price points. But they’re still available on many major ebook vending sites, as well as directly from me! As always, links to buy are on the official Faerie Blood and Bone Walker pages.

And since the rest of my stock of copies of Bone Walker are free and clear to sell, don’t forget, you can order those directly from me (see the Buying From Me page) or buy one via the Bandcamp page!

Any questions, let me know! And as always, thank you for your support.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Little Help?)

THIS JUST IN:

I have an ETA on when the rest of the first Bone Walker print run is expected to be done, and when I can therefore pick books up. This ETA is this coming Monday, one week from today.

If you are a backer of my 2012 Kickstarter and you are owed a copy of Bone Walker, OR a postcard or poster of the cover art, please consider this your reminder to let me know ASAP if your contact data has changed! It is very, VERY important to let me know this so that I can send you the long-overdue stuff you are owed!

You can visit the project page and scroll down to your reward level. There, you should see a link you can use to update your address data on the survey I sent out before asking for that very thing. Update your physical address AND your email address if necessary; I know of at least one backer who’s changed email addresses since I originally ran the project. She’s already told me about her change, but if anybody else out there has new email addresses I need to know about, I need to hear from you about that as well.

Alternately, you may DM/PM me on the social networks, or email me at my annathepiper address on gmail to get me your data.

Speaking of the posters and postcards: they’re not ready yet but I hope to have them ready soon. Please stand by for updates on that too!

Any questions? Let me know!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Great Amurkian Novel 2)

Bone Walker’s official page has now been updated with all of its Amazon links, both US and International. It’s pre-orderable everywhere Amazon has it posted. So if you’re a Kindle user, you can have at it! Pre-orders would be very helpful as they’ll count towards my February sales and help bump up the book’s early Amazon ranking. There are four pre-orders already, which is awesome!

Also, if you’re someone who’s read one of the pre-release versions of the book and you are so inclined, please consider rating or reviewing it. That’ll help too!

And! Bone Walker now also has an official Goodreads link, so if you’re on Goodreads you can add it to your shelves right over here. Same commentary re: early reviews and ratings applies here, too.

I’ve gotten in some good commentary from proofreaders (thank you, Talya, Jennifer, Maria-Katriina, and Anne!), and I have Emma looking at the test MOBI for any formatting problems. I do still need volunteers to check my test EPUB as well.

Carina Press has given me final text for the official copyright notices at the front of the book, for use of my Carina books’ covers and blurb copy in the back. I still do not have an official cover or copy for Victory of the Hawk there, so Victory may or may not get an ad into the print edition. It will hopefully have one in the ebook at least!

(Also, Carina’s editorial staff sent around a helpful mail to all the Carina authors after working with me on this, with a how-to for how to use allowed Carina material for promoting our titles with them in our self-pubbed works. Which is pretty awesome. Kudos to Carina’s team for that. ^_^ )

Last but not least, I’ve started whipping up a few tweets to fling around Twitter to encourage people to go preorder the book. If you’re on Twitter and feel like signalboosting me, here, have some example tweets you can use! Or feel free to make up one and use the bit.ly link!

All that keeps a dark spirit from destroying Seattle is a half-Seelie mage! Bone Walker by @annathepiper, out 2/3! http://bit.ly/1FRTDpV

Kendis Thompson thinks she’s mastered her magic. A dark spirit and a dragon prove her wrong. Bone Walker out 2/3! http://bit.ly/1FRTDpV

The Unseelie Court wants Kendis Thompson–and they’re willing to destroy Seattle to get her. Bone Walker out 2/3! http://bit.ly/1FRTDpV

Still to come:

  • Dara beginning work on the print edition and the PDF
  • I need to file official copyright for the book
  • I need to launch an ad for it on Goodreads
  • Proofreading changes will get rolled into the master file

Getting close to this being a real live book. SO EXCITING!

ONE LAST THING: Dara has a question for folks pertaining to CD Baby’s release of the soundtrack! She wants to know whether you think CD Baby’s automatic appending of “(Original Soundtrack)” to the title is a good thing or a bad thing. If you have thoughts on the matter, tell her over here!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan YES!)

First up, I had a couple of excellent Boosting the Signal posts this past Friday! Cory Dale sent me an excerpt from her new release Demon Fare, and Jake Elliot, fellow member of NIWA, came by to tell me about his “mock-epic” fantasy The Wrong Way Down. Check their posts out if you missed ‘em when they went up!

***

Second, Bone Walker has a release date! AND A COVER! \m/ The ebook edition will be officially releasing on February 3rd! The official Bone Walker page has been updated accordingly! And the cover is now included on the homepage as well!

And as soon as I have a viable test mobi, I will be putting the book up for pre-order on Amazon. Other pre-order links will be following as soon as I can make them.

All hail Dara for her cover work and Kiri Moth for the art!

***

Third, speaking of Bone Walker‘s march to release, I have already asked current proofreaders to get any noted typos back to me by Wednesday the 14th. Because Dara needs to commence work on the print and PDF versions ASAP in order to maximize our chances of having the print edition ready by Conflikt. So if you’re proofreading and you didn’t already see a request about that, do please get back to me by Wednesday!

On a related note, however, if you’d like to sanity-check ebook formats for me, stand by. As soon as I have a viable test mobi, I will need it tested on any and all available Kindle devices. I personally own a Kindle Fire HDX 7″ and will be using that for testing purposes. But all other types of Kindle will be welcome.

Likewise, I have two Nooks: a Nook HD and one of the new 7″ Samsung Nooks. I also have a Kobo Mini. Both will be used to test. If you have other type of Nook or Kobo device, though, those would be helpful.

AND, any iOS device owners comfortable with using iBooks OR Android device owners comfortable with getting books onto your devices, testing from you would be welcome too. Though tablets will be most useful once we have the PDF ready to test.

***

Last but not least, don’t forget, Faerie Blood remains on sale for 99 cents to celebrate Bone Walker‘s imminent release! It will remain on sale until the end of February, at which point I’ll bump the price back up. So if you haven’t gotten the ebook of Faerie Blood yet, now would be a REALLY good time. ;D

And if you’re so inclined, do please spread the word about the sale! The sale price applies wherever Faerie Blood‘s ebook edition is sold, and I will honor it for any requests to buy the book directly from me as well!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Great Amurkian Novel 2)

Bone Walker, book 2 of the The Free Court of Seattle, is now decreed by me to have February 3rd as its official release date!

Tonight, Dara will be making the cover for the ebook editions for me. Once I have that, I’ll be creating entries on all the various ebook vending sites where Faerie Blood is sold, and will be making the book available for preorder in as many places as possible. When I have those links, the book’s official page will be updated accordingly!

IF YOU ARE PROOFREADING, I will be required to upload the final version of the book to Amazon no later than the 24th of this month, which will mean I’ll need all proofreading feedback back before then. I will be working on the epub and mobi editions TONIGHT, and will get those ready for sanity checking. So if you have ereaders of any kind and are available to format-check the ebooks, I would like to hear from you!

IF YOU SUPPORTED THE KICKSTARTER and are due an ebook of Bone Walker as part of your rewards, you WILL be getting the ebook before its official public release date. Watch the update mails I send around for further updates on when the book will be available to you.

IF YOU WANT A PRINT EDITION, Dara and I will be doing everything in our power to get the print edition ready before Conflikt, which will be the weekend of January 30th through February 1st. Whether we will have books will depend hugely upon how fast Third Place can print me, so the sooner we can get that done the better. I will ALSO need proofreaders for the print edition, so if you want to volunteer for that, I’ll need to hear from you too!

Are you excited? I’m excited! :D And looking forward to getting this book to you all!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan YES!)

Folks, this is what the top of my Not Recently Played playlist looked like this morning:

It's a Real Album and Everything

It’s a Real Album and Everything

I had the distinct pleasure of listening to this on the way into work this morning, and have never been more pleased to tell Dara, in the parlance of my day job, “QA signs off on this release”.

I’m particularly excited about the instrumental tracks. The fiddle playing shines like diamonds, a testament not only to the skill of our three fiddlers, but also to Dara’s engineering and the final polish from the official mastering engineer. The Kitsune at War and Bring the Storm tracks in particular capture the mood of those bits of Bone Walker perfectly. And I gotta say, the Klopfenpop remix of The Burke-Gilman Troll kicks all the ass in a tri-state radius. I’m pretty sure it left no unkicked ass anywhere between Vancouver and Portland. :D

Release of this thing should therefore be coming REALLY SOON. I’ll be letting all backers of appropriate levels know when the digital download of the soundtrack is ready for you. Dara will be moving forward with that as well as with the creation of the physical CDs. She’s made some lovely case art using the covers of both the novels, and has picked out some gorgeous paper to use for the liner insert as well. Looking VERY forward to having these to sell when we hit Conflikt at the end of this month!

Don’t forget, if you actually want one of the physical CDs, preordering on Bandcamp will be the best way to get it. And if you haven’t listened to the preview tracks yet, you can find them right over here.

And let me encourage you all to please share the heck out of this link, too! Remember, Dara and I as well as the various musicians who all appear on this soundtrack are indie artists here, and if we want to have a prayer of selling this thing to the general public, every little bit of word of mouth helps so much.

Lastly, let me finish up by noting that I’m also very close to having the Bone Walker manuscript ready to release to proofreading. I need to put the sample chapter of Faerie Blood into the back of it, and I have ALSO gotten permission from Carina Press to cross-promote my Carina books in the back of the book as well. So I need to do that work.

Once this is done, I’ll be ready to have the book proofread. I’ve had two people express interest already in proofreading, but if anyone else wants to volunteer, let me know ASAP!

Thanks again to all for your patience and support!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Aubrey Orly?)

If you missed them over the weekend, I put up two Boosting the Signal posts featuring recent releases from Dragonwell Press–for The Blackwell Family Secret: The Guardians of Sin and Nine Planets.

Check them out, won’t you? Dragonwell is the venture spearheaded by fellow former Drollerie author Anna Kashina, and a couple other former Drollerie authors have shown up there too–notably, Cindy Lynn Speer, who wrote The Chocolatier’s Wife, which I adored. Their website is here.

***

Meanwhile, as of last night, I finished the editing sweep for Bone Walker! Which means I’m now significantly closer to getting this book ready to finally deploy to Kickstarter backers, and then to the world! \m/

***

And speaking of Bone Walker, don’t forget–Faerie Blood remains on sale for a tidy little 99 cents for all ebook editions! Details are here.

As always whenever I put one of my indie books on sale, the price applies to all places where the book is sold, and also to anyone who’d like to buy the book directly from me (which is the best option if you’d like the fancy PDF).

***

And continuing the Bone Walker theme, don’t forget either that the soundtrack for Bone Walker is available for pre-order right over here on Bandcamp! There are preview tracks and everything!

Dara’s busily working on the cover art and liner notes for the CD, and if you’d like one of the physical discs she’s having made, a pre-order will be the best way to get it!

***

And speaking of pre-orders–Victory of the Hawk IS already available for pre-order on some sites. I’ve seen it show up on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and Google Play! So if you’re a customer on any of those sites, do consider grabbing the book. Links are on Victory’s official page!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Great Amurkian Novel 2)

Ladies and gentlemen, I have finished my edit pass through the second draft of Bone Walker. Which now puts me SIGNIFICANTLY closer to delivering this novel to my Kickstarter backers, and then to the world at large!

All the mad props go to editor JoSelle and also to backer Susan, since their two edit passes combined to help me fix quite a few things in the manuscript. I rarely make actual typos. But I do periodically repeat words, leave words out, or replace a word I intend with some other (correctly spelled but nonetheless incorrect) word. Susan caught a whole bunch of places where I’d done things of this nature, and JoSelle caught others.

What happens next? Now I need to write the front and back matter for the book, which will include the Acknowledgements and the Author’s Notes. I’ll be adding blurbs that I’m getting in from a few folks, and I’ll put in an updated About the Author section and probably some data on my other books as well. I expect to have these things done by this coming weekend.

Once those are finished, I’ll be putting out a call for volunteers to proofread what will hopefully be the final master copy that I’ll use to start generating the official ebook. So if any of you all might be up for proofreading that, let me know!

The ebook I create will be the epub, from which I’ll also be creating a mobi to deploy to Amazon. As we did last time, however, Dara will be taking my master working file and using that to create the print layout and the PDF edition. The epub, mobi, PDF, and print masters will also need checking, so I’ll be putting out a second call for THAT.

Meanwhile, I’ll be moving forward with buying Bone Walker its own ISBNs as well as filing copyright on it, and working with Third Place to prepare them for creating the print books as well. More bulletins on all of these things as they happen!

And last but definitely not least, Dara has been moving forward with creating the artwork for the soundtrack release. As I’ve been doing my edit pass this weekend, she’s been working on the liner notes for the CD. It’s been a very busy weekend for both of us!

But Bone Walker is COMING. And I’m really excited to be about to deliver Kendis, Christopher and Elessir’s next story to you all!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Great Amurkian Novel 2)

I have now commenced editing on Bone Walker, book 2 of the Free Court of Seattle! As of this writing I’m four chapters in, and plan to be chugging through the rest of the chapters as my vacation from the day job continues. I anticipate being done with this editing pass by next week.

Once that’s done I’ll be putting out a call for final proofreaders. Some of my Kickstarter backers have already seen the first draft copy; the second draft copy won’t be much different from that. I’m basically juggling edits from editor JoSelle as well as a proofreading pass from beta reader and backer Susan, and I’m getting constructive commentary from them both. But it’s line-edit level commentary and proofreading, and I will not be making structural changes to the novel at this point.

However, when I’m done, I WILL still need eyes on the final draft. I’ll need a proofreading pass as well as people who can sanity-check both the ebook and print release files. I’ll put out a call with more details when I’m ready for that stage.

Dara would also like to call to your all’s attention that the soundtrack IS at the mastering engineer, and that she’s got a post up about pre-orders over here–featuring the melding of the Faerie Blood and Bone Walker covers that she did for the CD disc art!

If you backed the Kickstarter at $25 or above, you’ll be getting a digital copy of the soundtrack. But if you want a physical copy, or if you weren’t in on the Kickstarter, you should pre-order! Dara’s offering a special freebie to one pre-orderer, too, so go over to her link to check that out. Encourage others to pre-order as well if you’re so inclined!

Back into the editing now, all! And watch this space for more Bone Walker updates!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan YES!)

I’ve already told my Kickstarter backers this, but for the rest of you, I am delighted to announce that Dara has officially sent the soundtrack for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker off to be mastered!

We are very excited about this, as it means we’re very, very close to being able to finally deliver this long-overdue reward to my Kickstarter backers. But it also means that Dara’s also able to deploy a brand new album! We’re even doing a replication run for it, so that we’ll have physical CDs to sell at Conflikt next month.

Want to check out what Dara did? You can find the album available for preorder RIGHT NOW right over here. So many exciting things going on on this. We’ve got vocals from Leannan Sidhe and Alexander James Adams, you guys. We’ve got multiple awesomely played fiddles. And we’ve even got a bitchin’ remix of the Burke-Gilman Troll set, courtesy of nerdcore master Klopfenpop.

What’s NOT up yet on the preview are readings by yours truly! I’ve read excerpts from both Faerie Blood AND Bone Walker for this soundtrack, and I’m here to tell you, I have much more respect now for people who do audiobook narration for a living. I only did four pieces over a weekend, and my throat really felt the work. But Dara did a masterful job layering my readings in on top of the instrumental sets, and we’re both very proud of how those tracks came out!

Important note on those readings, too–the Bone Walker readings are a little spoilery, so if you aren’t one of the Kickstarter backers who’ve read the early draft of the book, be advised about that. I tried to not get TOO spoilery with the excerpts I chose, which are both very action-heavy, but there will be some things in there that will probably make you go “WUT” until you actually read the book.

And SPEAKING OF THE BOOK–I’m about to go on two weeks of vacation over the holidays, during which I plan to be editing like a mad editing thing, in order to get Bone Walker ready to ship by Conflikt. And now that we’re signed off on the release of the soundtrack, Dara will be able to step up the pace on the cover design as well as desktops, postcards, and posters for backers. I’ll be bringing postcards and posters to Conflikt, too!

VERY excited about this, and looking very much forward to getting Bone Walker to you all!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Book Geek)

And now, a long overdue update on Victory of the Hawk! AND Kickstarter stuff!

Have been running annoyingly behind on getting this monster done, and managed to miss most of VCON for the second year in a row working on catching up. Got to the point that now I’m within scope for getting this monster’s first draft done by the end of this week, and shortly thereafter, there will be development edits.

How fast I can charge through those will, in turn, impact how fast I can charge through line edits. If all goes well, I could conceivably be done beating on this book by the end of the month. I’d like to be done before I scamper up to Canada again in November, this time for Operation SWING!, in which there will be ridiculous amounts of De Temps Antan!

If I’m done with edits on Victory by then, I’ll be swinging around to finally working on the edits on Bone Walker. When I go up to Canada for the De Temps Antan shows, I’ll be taking the entire week off–and between the two shows, I’ll be holed up in Cumberland working on edits on whatever’s popped next off the queue.

Once I can finally actually free up enough brain for the Bone Walker edits, they should go reasonably quickly since they’re all line-level edits, and I’m not going to be making any structural changes to the book at this point.

When Bone Walker‘s edits are finished, Dara and I will work on layout and on the design of the cover. And when that happens, I’ll have a better idea of when the final ebook and print editions will be deployed. The likely timeframe for this is early 2015, at this point. I’d like to have Bone Walker out before Victory is due to drop in April 2015.

Meanwhile, Dara has been doing a hard push to finish up the Bone Walker soundtrack. She’s very close to finishing the musical bits, although she and I still need to do the recordings for the readings I’ll be doing as accompaniment to the musical tracks. My ability to musically participate in the album has had to fall to the wayside, due to my having to focus on writing actual words, about which I’m sad. But on the other hand, we’ve gotten in excellent people to work with Dara. Especially Alexander James friggin’ Adams, about which I am not sad int he slightest.

When Bone Walker is cleared off my plate, I’ll be turning my attention to finishing up the novellas in the Warder universe, also due to Kickstarter backers. All three of these are still untitled, but to refresh your all’s memories, they are:

  • Origin story for Millicent Wray, who later is Millicent Merriweather, Warder of Seattle
  • Story set in Providence, RI, about a psychic who must help a man solve the murder of his Warder sister
  • Story of a musician who helps a Warder stop the hunt of migrating deep sea creatures

And once all THIS is done, well, we’ll see what happens next. What’s most likely to pop off the queue is the long-overdue Queen of Souls, which needs to be cleaned up so I can try to query it somewhere.

Wish me luck, folks. The rest of this year’s going to be busy, and next year promises to be more of the same!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Book Geek)

And now, a long overdue update on Victory of the Hawk! AND Kickstarter stuff!

Have been running annoyingly behind on getting this monster done, and managed to miss most of VCON for the second year in a row working on catching up. Got to the point that now I’m within scope for getting this monster’s first draft done by the end of this week, and shortly thereafter, there will be development edits.

How fast I can charge through those will, in turn, impact how fast I can charge through line edits. If all goes well, I could conceivably be done beating on this book by the end of the month. I’d like to be done before I scamper up to Canada again in November, this time for Operation SWING!, in which there will be ridiculous amounts of De Temps Antan!

If I’m done with edits on Victory by then, I’ll be swinging around to finally working on the edits on Bone Walker. When I go up to Canada for the De Temps Antan shows, I’ll be taking the entire week off–and between the two shows, I’ll be holed up in Cumberland working on edits on whatever’s popped next off the queue.

Once I can finally actually free up enough brain for the Bone Walker edits, they should go reasonably quickly since they’re all line-level edits, and I’m not going to be making any structural changes to the book at this point.

When Bone Walker‘s edits are finished, Dara and I will work on layout and on the design of the cover. And when that happens, I’ll have a better idea of when the final ebook and print editions will be deployed. The likely timeframe for this is early 2015, at this point. I’d like to have Bone Walker out before Victory is due to drop in April 2015.

Meanwhile, Dara has been doing a hard push to finish up the Bone Walker soundtrack. She’s very close to finishing the musical bits, although she and I still need to do the recordings for the readings I’ll be doing as accompaniment to the musical tracks. My ability to musically participate in the album has had to fall to the wayside, due to my having to focus on writing actual words, about which I’m sad. But on the other hand, we’ve gotten in excellent people to work with Dara. Especially Alexander James friggin’ Adams, about which I am not sad in the slightest.

When Bone Walker is cleared off my plate, I’ll be turning my attention to finishing up the novellas in the Warder universe, also due to Kickstarter backers. All three of these are still untitled, but to refresh your all’s memories, they are:

  • Origin story for Millicent Wray, who later is Millicent Merriweather, Warder of Seattle
  • Story set in Providence, RI, about a psychic who must help a man solve the murder of his Warder sister
  • Story of a musician who helps a Warder stop the hunt of migrating deep sea creatures

And once all THIS is done, well, we’ll see what happens next. What’s most likely to pop off the queue is the long-overdue Queen of Souls, which needs to be cleaned up so I can try to query it somewhere.

Wish me luck, folks. The rest of this year’s going to be busy, and next year promises to be more of the same!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan YES!)

I’m still dealing with my obligations to Carina Press for the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy, which means I haven’t been able to put attention to finishing up editing Bone Walker and prepping it for release. To wit: AUGH.

Meanwhile, Dara and I both have had medical crap to deal with, as many of you know–my medical crap from last fall, as well as Dara’s eye surgeries, plural. She’s got another one coming as well, since she developed cataracts after the last procedure, and that’s got to be dealt with. To wit: AUGH.

AND, as Dara’s been posting about a lot lately, she’s had to throw a LOT of time into renovation of one of the tenant spaces in MurkSouth. This has taken a huge amount of her time and our money, though now she’s finally finished with that, and if I may say so she’s worked magic in that kitchen. You can see before and after pics here.

BUT, we do finally have some progress to report! Even though I’ve been stymied on dealing with the book, Dara’s made some progress on getting the soundtrack done. She’s had significant progress on the instrumental sets–and we do also have some very, VERY exciting news.

We got Alexander James Adams.

Those of you in the Pacific Northwest fandom community, and hell, any of you who are into filk and SF/F-based or pagan-based music at all–you know who I’m talking about. He who stepped in to take up the mantle of song when Heather Alexander went off to Faerie. THAT Alexander James Adams. We are beyond delighted to have him joining us on this project, lending not only fiddle, but backup vocals and some drum work to various tracks.

And now Dara’s got a preview track to share with you all. It’s right over here!

This album is going to ROCK. :D

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan YES!)

I’m still dealing with my obligations to Carina Press for the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy, which means I haven’t been able to put attention to finishing up editing Bone Walker and prepping it for release. To wit: AUGH.

Meanwhile, Dara and I both have had medical crap to deal with, as many of you know–my medical crap from last fall, as well as Dara’s eye surgeries, plural. She’s got another one coming as well, since she developed cataracts after the last procedure, and that’s got to be dealt with. To wit: AUGH.

AND, as Dara’s been posting about a lot lately, she’s had to throw a LOT of time into renovation of one of the tenant spaces in MurkSouth. This has taken a huge amount of her time and our money, though now she’s finally finished with that, and if I may say so she’s worked magic in that kitchen. You can see before and after pics here.

BUT, we do finally have some progress to report! Even though I’ve been stymied on dealing with the book, Dara’s made some progress on getting the soundtrack done. She’s had significant progress on the instrumental sets–and we do also have some very, VERY exciting news.

We got Alexander James Adams.

Those of you in the Pacific Northwest fandom community, and hell, any of you who are into filk and SF/F-based or pagan-based music at all–you know who I’m talking about. He who stepped in to take up the mantle of song when Heather Alexander went off to Faerie. THAT Alexander James Adams. We are beyond delighted to have him joining us on this project, lending not only fiddle, but backup vocals and some drum work to various tracks.

And now Dara’s got a preview track to share with you all. It’s right over here!

This album is going to ROCK. :D

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Default)

Just to bring folks up to speed on where I am with all the things I’m trying to pull out of my head: my long-waiting Kickstarter backers, y’all will have noticed I have not yet delivered unto you Bone Walker or any of the other remaining rewards. This is a combination of four factors: one, Vengeance of the Hunter pretty much eating my brain for the last few months; two, my abrupt return to the land of Medical Fun (spoiler alert: not really fun); and three, emergency eye surgery on the part of Dara, as I’ve previously posted; four, delay on getting the rest of my edits back from JoSelle, who’s been working on editing Bone Walker for me.

As of this writing I am in what will be hopefully the final line edits for Vengeance. My goal is to finish this edit pass and hand the manuscript back to my editor this weekend. She will let me know if I need to do any remaining tweaks to it, and the goal is to get it squared away before I go offline for surgery on November 11th.

I have also been talking with JoSelle about getting those edits on Bone Walker back, and our game plan moving forward is that she will be doing everything in her power to get them to me by end of November. Either way, I will be commencing my edit sweep on Bone Walker on December 1st. If I have enough brain for it following surgery, I’ll actually start before–but this is me allowing myself some time for recovery to happen. Ditto on finishing the shorter works due to Kickstarter backers.

Related to those shorter works as well–I’m working on getting some cover art together for “The Blood of the Land”, the short story I’d previously done in the Warder universe. Once that’s ready I will be making that available as an immediate freebie to Kickstarter folks, and slightly after that, will be deploying it onto the various places where Faerie Blood is already available for sale.

Meanwhile, Dara’s having had to do eye surgery has thrown her for a loop in getting soundtrack work done, too, but she is recovering from that nicely and we hope to resume work on that ASAP. I also need to hand Dara the data she needs to do the poster and postcard layouts for the Bone Walker cover so that I can get those out to folks as well.

Kickstarter folks, as soon as I’m done with the Vengeance edit sweep, you’ll be hearing from me further. I’m really sorry for this ongoing delay, and that I have to ask for your patience for a little longer. Hang in there. Bone Walker is coming.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Hard Day)

Just to bring folks up to speed on where I am with all the things I’m trying to pull out of my head: my long-waiting Kickstarter backers, y’all will have noticed I have not yet delivered unto you Bone Walker or any of the other remaining rewards. This is a combination of four factors: one, Vengeance of the Hunter pretty much eating my brain for the last few months; two, my abrupt return to the land of Medical Fun (spoiler alert: not really fun); and three, emergency eye surgery on the part of Dara, as I’ve previously posted; four, delay on getting the rest of my edits back from JoSelle, who’s been working on editing Bone Walker for me.

As of this writing I am in what will be hopefully the final line edits for Vengeance. My goal is to finish this edit pass and hand the manuscript back to my editor this weekend. She will let me know if I need to do any remaining tweaks to it, and the goal is to get it squared away before I go offline for surgery on November 11th.

I have also been talking with JoSelle about getting those edits on Bone Walker back, and our game plan moving forward is that she will be doing everything in her power to get them to me by end of November. Either way, I will be commencing my edit sweep on Bone Walker on December 1st. If I have enough brain for it following surgery, I’ll actually start before–but this is me allowing myself some time for recovery to happen. Ditto on finishing the shorter works due to Kickstarter backers.

Related to those shorter works as well–I’m working on getting some cover art together for “The Blood of the Land”, the short story I’d previously done in the Warder universe. Once that’s ready I will be making that available as an immediate freebie to Kickstarter folks, and slightly after that, will be deploying it onto the various places where Faerie Blood is already available for sale.

Meanwhile, Dara’s having had to do eye surgery has thrown her for a loop in getting soundtrack work done, too, but she is recovering from that nicely and we hope to resume work on that ASAP. I also need to hand Dara the data she needs to do the poster and postcard layouts for the Bone Walker cover so that I can get those out to folks as well.

Kickstarter folks, as soon as I’m done with the Vengeance edit sweep, you’ll be hearing from me further. I’m really sorry for this ongoing delay, and that I have to ask for your patience for a little longer. Hang in there. Bone Walker is coming.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Great Amurkian Novel 2)

Item the first: Debut Carina author Sonya Clark would like y’all to know she’s having a giveaway for her forthcoming release Trancehack, which is futuristic paranormal romance. Call it PR with a side helping of SF, if you like! Deets can be found right over here.

***

Item the second: speaking of my fellow Carina authors, the awesome Joely Sue Burkhart and Raelyn Barclay are running Coyote Con, a virtual convention, all this month! What’s a virtual convention? It’s a series of online chat discussions on various interesting topics, pretty similar to what you’d find at an actual convention in person.

I’ve been in a few of these panels now myself, and there are more to come as the month progresses! And for those panels you may have already missed, Joely and Raelyn are posting transcripts too, so you can catch up on those here.

The panels I was in in particular were Epic Fantasy, Self Publishing, and LGBTQ/Diversity.

There are a couple more panels today, and there’ll be more the remaining weekends of the month. And one chat room’s also dedicated to just general hanging out too! The full schedule is here!

***

Item the third: I will be going to Orycon from November 8-10–the weekend right before my forthcoming surgery, in fact. So unless you’re one of the people likely to show up for the annual Murkworks Thanksgiving Day Homeless Waifs Turkeyfest, this is going to be the last chance to spot the elusive Wild Anna outside her natural habitat. If you’re going to be there, find me and say hi, mmkay?

Likewise, I am going to GeekGirlCon this coming weekend, right after I go see Great Big Sea in Edmonds. I’m going to be REAL busy this weekend. :D

***

Item the fourth: This is your friendly reminder that I am down to three print copies of Faerie Blood, so if you’d like a print copy of this book, talk to me! Getting it directly from me remains the only way to acquire it since I currently have no way of selling it online. I ask $15 if I’m going to hand deliver it, $20 if I need to mail it to you.

I also have a small stock of CDs that contain the various formats of the ebook edition, both the original Drollerie release AND the current Second Edition as well. For these, I ask $5 each.

I will have both of these items with me at GeekGirlCon and Orycon as well!

***

Item the fifth: Kickstarter backers, just so y’all know, I have totally had my brain eaten by Vengeance of the Hunter edits. I ran behind on it, and am scrambling along with my editor (who is made of solid gold awesomeness, All Hail Her Name) to get the manuscript finished up so that we don’t impact the schedule. We’re in the middle of line edits now. I will be jumping back to Bone Walker the instant we sign off on this book.

***

Item the sixth: I have not forgotten the series of posts on advice on self-publishing; these too have had to be paused while I charge through edits on Vengeance. They will resume soon. Thank you for your patience on that; I’ve seen quite a few hits on these posts, so I do want to finish the series up.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Great Amurkian Novel 2)

Item the first: Debut Carina author Sonya Clark would like y’all to know she’s having a giveaway for her forthcoming release Trancehack, which is futuristic paranormal romance. Call it PR with a side helping of SF, if you like! Deets can be found right over here.

***

Item the second: speaking of my fellow Carina authors, the awesome Joely Sue Burkhart and Raelyn Barclay are running Coyote Con, a virtual convention, all this month! What’s a virtual convention? It’s a series of online chat discussions on various interesting topics, pretty similar to what you’d find at an actual convention in person.

I’ve been in a few of these panels now myself, and there are more to come as the month progresses! And for those panels you may have already missed, Joely and Raelyn are posting transcripts too, so you can catch up on those here.

The panels I was in in particular were Epic Fantasy, Self Publishing, and LGBTQ/Diversity.

There are a couple more panels today, and there’ll be more the remaining weekends of the month. And one chat room’s also dedicated to just general hanging out too! The full schedule is here!

***

Item the third: I will be going to Orycon from November 8-10–the weekend right before my forthcoming surgery, in fact. So unless you’re one of the people likely to show up for the annual Murkworks Thanksgiving Day Homeless Waifs Turkeyfest, this is going to be the last chance to spot the elusive Wild Anna outside her natural habitat. If you’re going to be there, find me and say hi, mmkay?

Likewise, I am going to GeekGirlCon this coming weekend, right after I go see Great Big Sea in Edmonds. I’m going to be REAL busy this weekend. :D

***

Item the fourth: This is your friendly reminder that I am down to three print copies of Faerie Blood, so if you’d like a print copy of this book, talk to me! Getting it directly from me remains the only way to acquire it since I currently have no way of selling it online. I ask $15 if I’m going to hand deliver it, $20 if I need to mail it to you.

I also have a small stock of CDs that contain the various formats of the ebook edition, both the original Drollerie release AND the current Second Edition as well. For these, I ask $5 each.

I will have both of these items with me at GeekGirlCon and Orycon as well!

***

Item the fifth: Kickstarter backers, just so y’all know, I have totally had my brain eaten by Vengeance of the Hunter edits. I ran behind on it, and am scrambling along with my editor (who is made of solid gold awesomeness, All Hail Her Name) to get the manuscript finished up so that we don’t impact the schedule. We’re in the middle of line edits now. I will be jumping back to Bone Walker the instant we sign off on this book.

***

Item the sixth: I have not forgotten the series of posts on advice on self-publishing; these too have had to be paused while I charge through edits on Vengeance. They will resume soon. Thank you for your patience on that; I’ve seen quite a few hits on these posts, so I do want to finish the series up.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

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