Category: Bone Walker
Kickstarter update!
| April 14, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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I am delighted to report that as of last night, Dara handed me what we think will be the final version of the video for my Kickstarter project. We’re waiting on one last bit of feedback to see if Dara needs to tweak the text captions–but other than that, people, I’m about ready to have the nice folks at Kickstarter approve this thing. Once they do, I CAN GO LIVE.
I’ve lined up a bunch of lower-tier rewards geared around the ebook and print copies of Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, as well as the postcard and poster reproductions of Kiri Moth’s art. At the top of the lower tier of rewards, we’re talking an extra novella as well–this’ll be the as of yet untitled story of Elizabeth Breckenridge, my psychic, who must help Ross Taggart solve the murder of his Warder sister. I’ll be offering this as a reward since it’s already partly written, and I am confident I’ll be able to finish it up to offer for all y’all who might be thinking of supporting at high enough levels!
Limited upper tier rewards will feature the original preliminary sketches of the artwork of both books, as well as the pencil-and-ink original of the final artwork for both books. AND, I will be offering one of my two print copies of the Drollerie edition of Faerie Blood, signed by me of course, at this level as well. Everybody who throws in for any of this level of reward will also get everything up to the $100 level–i.e., both books, as well as the postcard, poster, and digital versions of the art.
And the highest-tier, crazytalk level rewards will involve things like getting your name on the Dedication page, or having a character named after you in the third book of the Faerie Blood trilogy, or if you’re feeling really ambitious, you can commission a Warder universe novella with a character named after you.
So yeah, we’re getting REAL close, so watch this space for events as they happen! And speaking of getting close, we’re ALSO closing in on the final cover art for Faerie Blood. Check it out, this is the last round of art that Kiri sent me!
Music By the Willow
Here, have a snippet from Chapter 12 of Bone Walker
| April 2, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker |
Test print copies of Faerie Blood! Whoa!
| March 31, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
Okay, I say this entirely cognizant of how I am a big ol’ geek and of how much I loves me my ebooks: whoa, it gave me a bit of a shiver when 
solarbird
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- Front Cover
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- Back Cover
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- Page One
These, O Internets, are the only two print copies of the Drollerie edition of Faerie Blood that will ever exist. Dara and I have had Third Place Press print them up so that we could have a prop for the Kickstarter video we’re about to do–to show you exactly what the machine they use to make books can produce! And even knowing this, knowing these aren’t really the “official” printed copies of the book I’d like to share with you all, the sight of them still made me go holy crap this is a book with my name on it, in a way that the Drollerie ebook on my Nook or my iPad or iPhone never has.
apel
I cannot wait to see the second edition of Faerie Blood, complete with Dara’s full layout and Kiri Moth’s awesome cover art, in this printed form. And I really hope y’all will get as big a kick out of it as I will, and jump in on the Kickstarter when it goes live! Join me, won’t you? Thank you!
SURRENDER THE MANUSCRIPT!
| March 22, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker |
In honor of my first official Actual Writer’s Deadline, I’m cheerfully swiping that battle cry from mizkitrachelcaine
Time to get down to Serious Business, people. I have to hand over Bone Walker to JoSelle on April 15th. Which means I have to write like a Crazy Writing Thing until then, because I’m still only about 32K in on this book. It is therefore now Crunch Mode time on the novel.
Which means also that I’m backing off hard on social networks until further notice. This means keeping tabs on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, LJ Friends list posts, or Dreamwidth reading list posts is just going to have to wait. If you need to get in touch with me, DM me on the network of your choice, or else just email me directly, since I will be monitoring my email.
But until you hear from me otherwise, people, I’m going to chugging through the rest of Bone Walker, as well as continuing to work with solarbird
And oh yes, I did just drop 635 words on Chapter 11 of Bone Walker tonight. I mention this not because of that number, but because of what happened in the words in question: i.e., I just hit Kendis’ first occurrence of telling Christopher she loves him. I was not expecting it at this point in the story, but it felt appropriate, so there ya go!
More bulletins as events warrant!
Good gods this is going to be a book cover!
| March 14, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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I’m getting excited over here, people, I gotta say. Because OMG OMG OMG look what Kiri Moth sent me tonight! (Those of you on the social networks, you saw this already, but here it is for LJ and DW and blog and Goodreads peeps!)
OMG a Cover!
It’s a mockup, I know, but HOLY CRAP it’s starting to sink in for me that I’m going to have an actual, honest-to-gods, drawn-by-a-professional-artist book cover. ON MY BOOK. That I’m going to be printing and making for all of you folks out there! I can’t wait to fire up the Kickstarter. Dara and I need to make a video, the last thing I need to do before submitting the project for review. And this shiny, shiny thing from Kiri is going to figure prominently in the You Want to Support My Kickstarter, Don’t You? Video of Awesomeness. 
Because I mean damn. I’m swooning over this already and this is just the mockup, people! I cannot wait to see what it looks like in final full-color glory!
Another peek at Kendis!
| March 11, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
Kiri Moth has sent me another sketch of Kendis, you guys, check it out! As per the good advice I got in from fellow author Tia Nevitt, Kiri used pics of the classical violinist Midori as a pose guide, and now we’ve got a much neater pose here.
I’ve asked her to tweak a couple things about Kendis’ features here–this outfit, while awesome, makes her look a bit Romani–and she also looks a bit too old and a bit too much like Gina Torres. And while having a young Gina Torres play Kendis in the Faerie Blood Movie in My Brain is delicious, delicious awesomesauce, we should avoid having her look too Torres-like on the cover.
But that said? WOW. We’re getting closer and I cannot wait to see the final version!
Another Look at Kendis
ETA: OMG, and now I have a color version of Kendis as well! Violin/fiddle players, let me know: do you think the instrument as drawn in this picture is too big? solarbird
Kendis Thompson IN COLOR
Have you read Faerie Blood? Want to blurb my Kickstarter?
| March 10, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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Kickstarter update time, people!
I’m deep in talks with my cover artist to finalize reward levels, and decide on tasty, tasty rewards to offer you guys (I ain’t going into public details yet, but you may assume that the words ‘cover art’ and ‘prints’ are being liberally thrown around in this conversation). And I’ve got to think about what the hell to put into a video for this thing before I submit it to the Kickstarter people for review!
But this is a potential point for you, yes YOU, O Internets, to come in even before the Kickstarter gets off the ground!
If you’ve read Faerie Blood, I need your help. I’d love, love, love to have brief pithy reader reaction blurbs I could quote on the Kickstarter’s project page. Funny quotes would be especially awesome! Really funny quotes I’d also be eying as potential fodder to be read out loud, by yours truly, in the project video.
So if you want in on this, talk to me! Anybody who contributes a suitable reader reaction quote will totally get something shiny out of the Kickstarter rewards pool!
Bone Walker Kickstarter update!
| February 22, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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Just to let you guys know I have NOT forgotten or abandoned this, O Internets: there is new news on the Bone Walker Kickstarter front!
As I’ve previously reported, I’m in talks with a cover artist for not only Faerie Blood, but also Bone Walker and the still as of yet unnamed Book 3. But as of this week, I’m also in possession of an editing agreement I’m about to square away!
Which means that once I hand off Lament of the Dove to Carina’s submissions queue, the big plan for March is going to be finishing Bone Walker. Then I shall hand it off to be edited in the latter half of April, with a target of having it back to me by early May.
And! I’ve pinged Third Place for an appointment to discuss printing of Faerie Blood with them. Dara (who will be firing up her considerable layout experience to do the layout for the print edition) and I will be going to talk to them about that soon!
Which all means, O Internet, that April is beginning to look very, very good for a target timeframe for the Bone Walker Kickstarter. As soon as I have all the numbers for projected costs to bring unto you the second edition of Faerie Blood as well as Bone Walker, I am going to officially get this show on the road.
Getting excited about this, and I hope you guys will join me for the fun!
New cover art for Faerie Blood on the way!
| February 20, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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I’ve already noted this on my various social networks, but to note it again here in greater detail: I’m pleased to share with you all that I’m in talks with artist Kiri Moth to do new cover art not for Faerie Blood, but for Bone Walker and Book 3 as well! I very much like her light, airy style, and cannot wait to see what she does with Kendis. Big, big props to tiggymalvern
We’re at the stage of Kiri doing some preliminary sketches, and when she has some to share with me, I’ll see about posting one so y’all can get an idea of what the future cover for Faerie Blood is going to look like. Stand by for the shiny, all!
Plan of action for Faerie Blood, second edition
| February 18, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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For those of you who may be wondering what the status is on my plans for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, there are a few new developments I’d like to share!
First and foremost, I’ve been doing a bit of judicious Googling and also asking around to get a sense of whether I should use one of the services available to deploy a new version of Faerie Blood out into the wild, or whether I can save myself some money and just do it myself. The answer to this question appears to be the latter. I had a lovely little email exchange with romance novelist Courtney Milan, who kindly advised me on how she got her recent self-pubbed Unraveled out: i.e., she deployed directly to Amazon, B&N, and Apple herself, and used Smashwords to hit a couple other services like Kobo and Sony. Moving forward, I’m going to be looking with more depth into how to do these things.
Secondly, I also asked Ms. Milan if she had preferred software for creating her ebook editions. She pointed me at this excellent guide by Guido Henkel about how to do ebook formatting, with a focus on epub and mobi versions. Boil it down to its essentials, and what you get is “do a bit of tweaking to your original manuscript file, throw in some HTML and CSS, and then fling it through Calibre”. As y’all know, I’m a professional techie. HTML and CSS? Not a problem. So yeah, I can totally do this formatting myself.
(Mad, mad props both to Ms. Milan and to Mr. Henkel, by the way. If you’re a romance reader you should totally go read Ms. Milan’s Turner series, the first two books of which I have reviewed here and here! And if you’re not already familiar with the ebook creation process and you want to be, you should go read Mr. Henkel’s guide and thank him for his work!)
Third, in commencing the tweaking of Faerie Blood‘s previously released RTF file, I’m finding some things that need tweaking. After several hard rounds of editing on Lament of the Dove, my older tendency towards ellipses, which is still present in Faerie Blood, is standing out hard. So I’m going to clean those up.
Also, since this book was originally written in 2003, its ‘present day’ setting is in fact 2003, and that now reads a bit weird to 2012 eyes–especially in regards to things like my mentions of older-style cell phones and passing references to pay phones as well. I’m going to tweak these things a bit since it won’t impact the story any, just incidental details to give a better ‘present day’ feel to any new readers who may pick me up. I am aware that this will require me to adjust my perceptions on ages and timing of certain things that took place before this novel; that’s okay. None of those things are actually in released work yet, so they’re still flexible!
And! I was sad to have realized that the first edition of Faerie Blood didn’t have a proper dedication or a proper acknowledgements section. I will be correcting both of these problems, along with an Author’s Note that will mention the changes I’m describing here.
Fourth, I will definitely be pursuing working with Third Place Books (and possibly also the University Bookstore) to engage their espresso book machine to generate any print copies of Faerie Blood–about which I am more excited now that I’ve learned that these machines are not restricted to trade paperback size. So step one here is going to be to get solarbird
Fifth, I am investigating a particular artist recommended to me by tiggymalvern
Last but not least, please note that all of these plans do not preclude proceeding with a Kickstarter for Bone Walker! Before I move forward with that, though, I’d really like to nail down a cover artist, since it will be important to me to have professional-looking art that can give all three books of this projected trilogy a unifying style. More on this as it happens, too!
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