I’ve also removed a few of the sidebar widgets. The Links/Blogroll widget has been turned into an actual Links page, since I had enough links that I thought they might as well have their own page. I’ve also created menu items for my Facebook and Twitter accounts under the “Contact” menu to give those higher visibility, and I’ve provided a link off to my annathepiper.org blog for those of you who might care to follow that. (I’m a lot more prolific on that blog than I am on this one, which remains writing-related!)

Meanwhile, I’ve updated the FAQ, Faerie Blood, and Defiance pages to reflect the status of my former Drollerie works. Since I’ve seen a few folks on Goodreads have continued to add me to their To Read lists (hi, Goodreads folks!), I just thought I’d issue a reminder: Faerie Blood and Defiance are to my knowledge no longer for sale with any ebook vendor. (If they are, and you can point me at a link, let me know! Drollerie needs to take any further instances of the book down if they’re out there.)

But if you haven’t read the book or the short story and you want to, I’ll be happy to hand-sell a copy to you. For Faerie Blood, I’m asking five dollars for an EPUB or PDF copy (and I’ll convert it to other formats on request). For “The Blood of the Land”, I’m asking 99 cents. The best way to pay me for either will be via Paypal to my gmail address, annathepiper. If you’d like to discuss alternate payment arrangements, drop me an email to the same gmail address, or visit my Contact page.

These prices will stand until my plans to self-publish Faerie Blood and Bone Walker go through, as per my previous Kickstarter post. Anyone who’d like to go ahead and buy Faerie Blood now will receive the Drollerie release copy, though I will also provide updated copies to known purchasers of the book once the self-pubbed version is ready.

Note also that I am pursuing self-pubbing “The Blood of the Land” with new cover art and layout; what you’ll get now if you want to go ahead and buy it is my manuscript copy. Again, though, if you buy the story now, I will keep track of you and provide you a free copy of the self-pubbed copy later!

As always, thanks for your support, folks. Y’all on Goodreads, hope you’ll like my book!

I want to hear from you if you fall into any of the following categories:

1. You’ve run a successful Kickstarter campaign (what incentives worked to get you supporters?)
2. You’ve supported a successful Kickstarter campaign (what incentives got you to support the campaign?)
3. You are a prior reader of Faerie Blood and you want more in the same universe (what would get you to support this campaign?)
4. You haven’t read anything in the Warder universe yet and you want to (same question as previous)

Note that the overall point of this Kickstarter would be to get Bone Walker finished and purchasable in electronic and print formats, with the side bonus of doing a second edition release of Faerie Blood. Thus the things I’d need to pay for would include:

1. Commission of cover art for both books (cost TDB, I have a query out to a potential cover artist)
2. A proper edit pass over Bone Walker (estimated cost $700), since it absolutely must be edited by someone who isn’t me; a query is out to a potential editor
3. Initial setup cost with either Third Place or the University Book Store, depending on who has better rates, to get both books printable on the Espresso Book Machine (estimated cost $150 to set up both books)
4. Cost per book and per page of printing individual copies of both books (cost TDB, as Bone Walker isn’t finished yet, but Faerie Blood would probably run me $2 per book and $.03 per page)

Look behind the fold for my thoughts on potential incentives. I want your feedback on order of incentive levels, combinations of potential incentives, and viable pledge levels for them! Also, if you can think of any really nifty incentives I don’t include here, do please let me know!

Here are my initial thoughts on a rough draft of potential incentives and pledge levels:

$5 or more:

A DRM-free copy of Bone Walker‘s electronic edition, in .mobi, .pdf, and .epub formats, and your name in the Acknowledgements section of that book.

$10 or more:

As above, plus a DRM-free copy of Faerie Blood‘s electronic second edition, in the same formats, and your name in the Acknowledgements section of that book.

$15 or more:

As above, plus a DRM-free copy of the Warder-universe short story “The Blood of the Land”, with new layout and cover art.

$25 or more:

As above, plus a signed print copy of Bone Walker.

$50 or more:

As above, plus a signed print copy of Faerie Blood‘s second edition.

Now, all of the above are incentives I am reasonably confident I can offer. Here are others I could offer if enough extra money is raised:

Since this Kickstarter is specifically for Bone Walker, Book 2 of the projected Kendis/Christopher trilogy, I will be focused on finishing that book. However, enough extra money would also raise the potential of me also doing the as of yet unnamed Book 3, which is projected to take place partly in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and to follow up on the backstory with Christopher’s mother, alluded to in Faerie Blood. This would be the biggest and most important extra potential incentive!

Also there are:

1. The first Warder universe novella, featuring my psychic chick of size who is asked to help find out who murdered the Warder of Providence, Rhode Island. This work is already in progress so would be the first one I’d offer as an extra incentive.
2. The second Warder universe novella, featuring a geeky tuba player who must help a Warder save migrating sea dragons.
3. Warder universe novella #3, featuring the young Millicent Merriweather becoming the Warder of Seattle in 1953.
4. Depending on how things work out with a potential cover artist, I could investigate the idea of prints of cover art.

And in terms of incentives for ridiculously high pledges, I would totally be willing to consider commissioned short stories, novellas, or even full novels set in the time and place of the supporter’s choice, as long as they were within the Warder universe. And I’d totally consider naming characters after supporters as well.

So talk to me, people! How should I improve upon these potential incentives?

Note also: for people who have already purchased Faerie Blood, I don’t want to make you pay for it twice, so I want your feedback on how to make these incentives worth your time as well if I’m going to be offering a second edition of the same book!

1. There are already a whole lot of urban fantasy novels out there;
2. I’m not romance-y enough for the paranormal romance end of the spectrum, read, I have no sex in this novel, and there’s barely any kissing;
3. I’m also not dark/gritty/apocalyptic enough for the urban fantasy end of the spectrum. There’s not much actual violence in this book, and my heroine isn’t a badass, she’s a fiddle-playing geek who only just finds out about her fey heritage and the magic she’s inherited from her mother–she doesn’t have much time in the story to actually do anything seriously badassed with it.

Given these things, I am extremely dubious about my ability to pitch the novel to any further big pubs or agents. For one thing, I’ve already pitched it to most of the big pubs, with the exception of DAW, and the main reason I haven’t sent it to them at this point is my aforementioned wariness of the current urban fantasy market. For another thing, I’ve also already pitched it to the agents in which I’m actively interested. Part of me is still nagging that the couple dozen agents I’ve pitched it to isn’t enough work on pitching it–but on the other hand, a lot of the agents out there seem to have gotten slammed with so many queries now that their slush piles are crazytalk and their response times have accordingly increased dramatically. There are some agents whose response time has gotten to be over a year, and that’s assuming you get back a response at all.

So given all this, I’m seriously tempted to go the self-pub route with Faerie Blood and any further related stories, and focus other energies on newer things to be pitched to the big pubs.

My question for you therefore, O Internets, is this: if I were to do a limited run of print copies of Faerie Blood, would you buy one? I’m thinking about it because there are two Espresso book machines right here in Seattle, and one of them is right down the hill from my house at Third Place Books. I have two books (by other people) that are the output of this machine, and while it had trouble with the thicker one which is over 500 pages, the shorter one, which is comparable to Faerie Blood in length, is not badly assembled at all. If I were to get new, cover-quality art for the novel, it’s conceivable that I could therefore do a small set of print copies.

So I’m putting hard thought into this. I am looking at Third Place’s posted rates for their printing services, and pondering the possibility of doing a Kickstarter to raise the money.

Talk to me, Internets. Would you be interested? Because if I get enough people going hell yeah, I will move forward with this.

ETA: It has now been suggested to me on Google+ that I should consider a Kickstarter not for Faerie Blood specifically, but rather, for finishing Book 2, Bone Walker–and offering print copies of Faerie Blood as a potential incentive! I like this idea quite a bit and am going to be thinking about it very hard. If any of you out there would like this too, I really want to know about it!

It’s a bit weird, being back to square one with this book, even if at a smaller scale than several traditionally published authors I know who’ve had a series fold out from underneath them. At the same time, though, it’s also a bit of a relief.

Faerie Blood is now in the queue at Carina Press, for all the same general reasons I was interested in them before: i.e., they’re queer-friendly, they’re digital and therefore appealing to me as a tech geek, they’re taking all genres and do a lot of ‘other genres with heavy romantic elements’ stuff in particular, they now have a solid and established track record. In this specific case, though, I’ve also noted that they’ve published at least a couple of authors who’d been previously published elsewhere–at least one author for example who was previously published through Dorchester. So I’m hoping that this’ll mean they’ll be receptive to my work.

Relatedly, I am one, count it, one single chapter away from finishing the sixth draft of Lament of the Dove. Once that happens, I will be putting out a call for beta readers. (I’m cognizant that we’re moving into the Christmas/Solstice season, though, so I will be trying to schedule around that, and targeting sending Lament off in early January.) Watch this space for further details on that, people!

And since it’s Cyber Monday, let’s make this easy!

I have three CDs left from my previous stock. These include both a PDF and an ePUB copy of Faerie Blood, and along with it, a PDF of my short story “The Disenchanting of Princess Cerridwen”. If you’d like one of these, five bucks to all comers, including the cost of shipping it to you if you’re not local to me.

ETA: All three CDs have now been spoken for. However, if you’d still like a CD copy of Faerie Blood vs. one just emailed to you, talk to me and we can work something out!

If you’d like to just buy a copy of Faerie Blood directly from me, let’s call that four bucks, and you should specify if you want a PDF or an ePUB copy.

If you’d like a copy of my short story “The Blood of the Land”, previously published in the anthology Defiance, you can have that for .99. Again, please specify your desired format.

And I’ll give you Faerie Blood and “The Blood of the Land” both for an even five bucks.

The best way to pay me would be via PayPal, addressed to my gmail address annathepiper. If you want one of the CDs, you should also email me directly at the same address with an appropriate address to send the CD to you!

I will keep these prices valid not only through today, but also through the rest of the holiday season. Please feel free to spread a link to this post around as well if you so desire!

I’ve been off of Amazon for a bit already, but I’m seeing now that I’m off of B&N’s site and off of Google’s ebooks site as well. Fictionwise and Mobipocket and Scribd and eReader.com still have me, but I expect I’ll be vanishing off of them eventually. Moving forward, I will be willing to direct-sell copies of Faerie Blood to interested parties until I find it a new home. For now I’m not going to repost it anywhere myself. Once the reversion of rights is complete, I do want to re-query it to what markets are still available, most likely in conjunction with Bone Walker once I finish writing that. So until that time, if you’d like to read it and you haven’t already, please feel free to contact me directly and we’ll talk.

And if you know other Drollerie authors, especially if you’ve purchased their work, please consider giving them virtual hugs–and express to them that you did in fact buy and enjoy their work. Drollerie authors have written some wonderful things, and I hope that all of us will be able to find good places for our work in the future.

Most of all I’d like to express my appreciation for the work Deena has done, as well as Selena and JoSelle who have worked tirelessly with us authors to try to get all of our books back into our hands. As one who has suffered her share of medical difficulty, I very much feel for how Deena’s health issues have impacted her, and I am hopeful that she will have as easy a recovery as possible.

As always, thank you all for your support!

serasempre

There are rumors that Drollerie may be sold, but at this time they are only rumors. I have however taken the step of asking for the return of my rights to Faerie Blood. I don’t have a confirmed date as to when this will happen, given that it (like all other outstanding things that editor Deena needs to take care of) is dependent upon her ability to get to it. But given that this is now in the queue, if you want Faerie Blood, you should go ahead and get it from the site of your choice. Drollerie’s own site is your best bet as that’s the source most likely to get me any payment for it.

Or, if you are so inclined, I have a small number of CD copies of Faerie Blood still available. If you’re local to me, you can have one for $5. If you’re not local, you can have one for $7.

What I will do with the book once I have it back remains to be seen. Much will depend upon whether Drollerie is in fact sold (in which case the possibility exists that new management may be interested in keeping it), or on whether I can find a home for it where the book hasn’t already been queried. I have received Good Advice that one way to go about that may well be to finish Book 2 and query them together. We’ll see.

Bone Walker remains the most likely means through which I could query Faerie Blood anywhere else, since that’ll wind up being a full novel. The current novella-length pieces I’m thinking about for the Warder universe (the Oscar story, the Elizabeth/Ross story, the Millicent origin story) will also have to be considered.

More on this as I know it, all.

If you HAVE come by because of Norwescon and you’re interested in buying my book, arrange to find me before EOD on Sunday and I’ll sell you one of my small number of Faerie Blood CDs. That will get you an ePub AND a PDF of the book, both DRM-free, along with a free short story, “The Disenchanting of Princess Cerridwen”. I’m offering Norwescon attendees a special price of $5 per disk!

So say hi if you are at the con and you see this, and tell me how your con is going! Better yet, find me and do it in person.

Like most of the rest of the world, my heart aches for what’s going on in Japan. As an American there’s not much I can do from here–but what I can do is donate my money, which I have already done. But as a writer, I can also donate what tiny profits I get from my labors. And I’d really like to do this. So here’s a few things I’m going to do.

One: I have six, count ‘em, six Lightscribe CDs left over of the discs I made of Faerie Blood, with the additional free story “The Disenchanting of Princess Cerridwen”, back in the fall of last year. Same price as before ($8 to local persons, $10 if I need to mail the disc to you), but I will donate 100 percent of that price to Doctors Without Borders so that they can do what they need to do.

I have four of these left in green cases and two in yellow. First come first serve. If more than six people are interested, I will burn more copies of the same disc and offer you your choice of case color.

Two: If at least twenty people are interested, I will do a commissioned short story in the Faerie Blood universe, 8-10 thousand words, and it will star Kendis’ kitsune housemate Jake, who is Japanese-American. It will likely feature his meeting and romance of his future partner Carson.

As with the CDs, I will donate 100 percent of any money raised to Doctors Without Borders. I won’t set a hard price; let’s call this a Pay What You Think It’s Worth effort. If people would like to buy in on this, I’m going to set a deadline of letting me know to be two weeks from today, March 28th. And I will commit to delivering the story by the end of April.

If you want to work with me on either option One or option Two, I can take Paypal at my pro gmail address, angela.korrati. If you’re not Paypal-enabled, talk to me offline and we can talk about arrangements to send a check or money order and a proper receipt in exchange by snailmail.

If neither of these options appeal, I wholeheartedly encourage you to please, please, PLEASE find a charity of your choice and donate what you can to those relief efforts. And if you would, please consider spreading the word of these two offers through whatever channels you have at your disposal. Thanks all.

In fact, we have considerably more titles available on B&N’s site now, so I encourage all my fellow nook owners to check our titles out and see if any are to your tastes! (Chocolatier’s Wife. C’mon, with a tasty title like that on Valentine’s Day fer chrissakes, you know you wanna…)

FB’s info page has had this link added. Spread the nookity love, y’all!