Wednesday 30 January 2013

New Territory for me - logo design

Today, I launch on an experiment: I need to design a logo. I'm launching a new set of short stories aimed at the m/m erotica market called 'Fantasy Boys XXX' and rather than just launch the books onto Kindle and the other usual outlets, I'm creating a blog to host posts about upcoming stories, story listings etc  and so I need to come up with a logo.

I've already had a think about it before I start launching into layout and the like. I want to make it simple, probably monochrome and with an outline that people will recognise. Monochrome so that I can change its colour as advertising requires. Recognisable outline so that the words become secondary to the shape that is easily recognised at different sizes.

The other thing I have to consider, although it's called Fantasy Boys XXX, this is both erotica and romance, so I need to convey that in the logo.

If this one comes off, sometime next month I'll need to work on another logo, completely different, a set of novellas for middle grade with some camouflaged teaching of non-verbal and verbal reasoning, maths and comprehension.

Tuesday 22 January 2013

Trying out something new - a standing desk, and other things

Yes, your read that right, yesterday, I went out and bought a low table (actually a television stand) to put on my desk to turn it into a standing desk. And no, I haven't lost my senses, I have a very good reason: two weeks ago, I hurt my back and I believe slouching in my office chair has had some input to the weakness in my lower back. So, this is the first full day of my standing desk. I used it all yesterday afternoon and, apart from cramp in my right foot, which is due to my talipes, I felt really good, no sore back when I stood up and, actually, it's seems to make me relax my shoulders more as well.

So, now to work: I'm currently putting the finishing touches to a vid for our latest set of anthologies, which has taken me a week to produce - it's been a while since I did any vidding :) And then, hopefully by the end of the morning, I get to go back to my current WIP, the sequel to Death In The Family (I had a couple of revelations during my time off from writing while vidding, and there's an extra character going in, plus some scenes hitting the bin, because I don't need them).

Saturday 19 January 2013

My GoodReads Review of Fragile Bones by T.D. Green

Fragile BonesFragile Bones by T.D. Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can't say I 'enjoyed' this book, because that term seems superficial against what is a dark and emotional read. Fragile Bones is a no holds barred examination of how low a soul can go and a struggle for...I was going to say 'redemption', but no, I don't think it's that, Nathan's struggle is to do with being more than what his terrible life has made him.

This book is first person POV, incredibly tightly so, since Nathan is very self-centred, and I don't mean that in a mean way, it is his fight to escape the barren, unfeeling background he had come from that makes him so. As Michael, Nathan's companion and 'saviour', says at one point, he has had much, much more time to come to terms with his past than Nathan and it is their darkness that brings the pair closer and closer. The writing style of this book is thus, sometimes not easy. I read it in two sittings, the first of those was slow going and I had to put it down for a breather. However, when I came back to it, something had clicked and I dived right on in and finished 80% of the book in one go, because there was always something more in the story that I wanted to find out, a little more growth in Nathan.
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At this point I want to mention a couple of beautifully imagined scenes: they are both moments of Nathan/Michael interaction. The first is set round a camp fire and is where Nathan finally begins to understand what is happening to him. It is tender and inspiring, one of those 'keep reading, there's more to come' moments I mentioned above. The second is just a small scene, an electrical storm and a power cut, nothing incredible, but the moment between Nathan and Michael is snarky and warm at the same time. There is a real connection between the characters.

This is an intensely character driven story, if you like complexly plotted, highly directional works, this one is not for you. If I'm being picky, I would have liked a wee bit more structure around what was happening to Nathan, something that linked things like his death, the attack by thugs when he is back in the city and his eventual grasp of himself, more definitely, but that's just me, lovers of pure character would have no such quibbles.

Finally, this book had the brutal frankness of the likes of 'The Lovely Bones', and an awakening in Nathan that reminded me of a book I read in school called, 'I Am David'. It's an emotional rollercoaster with very little relief for the reader, but that is what kept me reading. Get to the end, it's worth it.

View all my reviews

Wednesday 16 January 2013

My Thoughts on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Since I am going to be discussing the movie in detail, consider the following four pictures as spoiler space, some of it quite pretty dwarves :)



Okay, so what did I think of The Hobbit - hmm, well, firstly, I'd like a non-director's cut, please, where they put the story back together in one movie, because, that film was all beginning. It lacked pace, because it was never going to get anywhere. The Hobbit is a short book, it has a beginning, middle and an end, and, even with adding in all the extra info from the appendices, that film did not require that long to get to the point it did.

I thought the beginning before the credits was allowable, although a little indulgent on time, there was a lot that could have been cut out, including all the stuff with Frodo and Bilbo (even though it was fun and what I'd term 'a darling', it was unnecessary). However, the bit with Bilbo and the dwarves in The Shire was excellent, well paced, fun, introducing characters and setting the scene well. Unfortunately, the film, as far as pacing goes, went downhill from there.

After they left The Shire, it became a collection of walk, run, grimace and pace a bit, walk, run, grimace some more. There was very little development of plot, it stayed on one level, the only thing that grew was the realtionship between Thorin and Bilbo and even that was pretty one-dimensional. We seemed to always deal with the dwarves as a group (apart from Thorin and one gem of a moment between Bofur and Bilbo before they get caught by the goblins), which meant that after the intros in The Shire, which was skilfully done, it was all homogeneous fighting for most of the cast and dry watching for the audience.

I did think Martin Freeman was entertaining as Bilbo, he was playing Martin Freeman as he always does, but it worked for the character of Bilbo. I did not however get much growth from him, he doesn't change, even after he'd taken on the Orcs to save Thorin, I didn't feel he'd grown, although attitudes to him do change, and I was wondering if that was deliberate, or not. I'm not sure.

The three dwarves that made an impact on me were Thorin (god can he brood well :P), Kili (nice eye candy, yes, that's shallow, but he is quite pretty), Bofur (he made a mark in every scene he was in, nicely done James Nesbitt, nicely done).

I also enjoyed Sylvester McCoy as Radagast The Brown. He was so sweet and he won my heart when he saved the hedgehog, Sebastian. It was twee and slightly pointless in this movie (did I mention, we didn't really get anywhere as far as plot was concerned), but I'm a sucker for cute animals and that bit made me smile. The whole chase across the moorland with the Orcs was a bit OTT though and what happened to Radagast after that? I might have missed it, I was losing interest in that chase by the time it finished.

The action sequences, like much of the rest of the movie, were slow and repetitive  The worst bit being the whole getting caught in the middle of the rock giants' fight. There was absolutely no point to that section, it does not add to the movie at all, you could have had Bilbo fall off the path in the rain storm and needing to be saved and have achieved exactly the same, not very tense, moment from Thorin that followed. The whole lurching around improbably on moving cliff edges was pointless and, since all the characters ended up exactly the same way they had started, nothing progressed, not even the relationships.

I dread to think what mass of filler will be in the middle movie, or maybe the trilogy will just have a very long ending. Whichever, I don't think I'll be bothering to see them in the cinema. The 3D that we were forced to watch because the cinema didn't have a 2D showing, was pointless, the only scene where it had any effect for me was the last one where the eagles fly round the rock and I really wanted to fast forward through all those damn chases. It wasn't a terrible movie, but it was too long and needed to finish the story.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

After the formatting comes the publicity...

So, there was me thinking that after 4 days fighting with html and Smashwords Meatgrinder, I may be able to get back to some actual book writing today, but no, apparently, I have to be creative in a different way today: I have to come up with a pile of tweets to advertise the Wittegen Press Giveaway Games Anthologies.

This is the bit I have to practice at: publicity. I would love it if our books would just magically get picked up by our readers, or even go viral, but, no, we have to work at selling them and that's a fine line between information and spam. We always do an intensive, one an hour or so, tweet campaign around launch time for any book. We've found one tweet an hour can be informative, but doesn't bother folks too much. We also have some lovely folk who regularly retweet us to spread the word, so here's a big thank you to them for their support. :)

We've also posted on all the other social media sites we use regularly, Facebook,  LiveJournal, Google+ and we have a newsletter mailing list for anyone wanting to subscribe to our updates, but I think I'm going to have to come up with an ad campaign before I can send out more than one message to those in a week. I'll have to have a think about that one, since marketing creativity is just not the same as literary creativity.

Ah well, I never thought of a career in advertising, but this self-publishing business means I have to be author, agent, publisher AND marketer, so I'm learning!


Monday 14 January 2013

Wittegen Press Giveaway Games Anthologies Official Release Announcement

Wittegen Press is pleased to announce the arrival of 8 new anthologies.

In July 2012, Wittegen Press gave away a short story, or story part every day to their readers. Each story was only available for one day, but now the 28 stories from The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games have been gathered here into 8 different volumes.

If you would like to purchase all the stories in one volume at $3.99/£2.48 there is:
Myriad Imaginings by Natasha Duncan-Drake and Sophie DuncanMyriad Imaginings : All The Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

2 writers, 31 days of writing madness, the result: 28 fabulously diverse stories for your reading pleasure, including horror, fantasy and science fiction, paranormal adventure, young adult and erotica.
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/myriadimaginings)

If you are a particular fan of Natasha Duncan-Drake or Sophie Duncan and would like to purchase just their stories we have two options for you at $2.99/£1.92:
Half of Everything by Natasha Duncan-DrakeHalf of Everything: Stories by Natasha Duncan-Drake From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Natasha Duncan-Drake

Many genres, 14 exciting stories in this anthology of shorts and novellettes by Natasha Duncan-Drake. Whether you're looking for horror, Sci-Fi or something else, you'll find what you're looking for in this collection.
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/halfofeverything)
The Other Half of Everything by Sophie DuncanThe Other Half of Everything: Stories by Sophie Duncan From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Sophie Duncan

Many genres, 14 exciting stories in this anthology of shorts and novellettes by Sophie Duncan. Whether you're looking for horror, Sci-Fi or something else, you'll find what you're looking for in this collection.
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/theotherhalfofeverything)

If you would like to collect only certain genres of stories we have five volumes available at $1.99/£1.28:
Book of Darkness by Natasha Duncan-Drake and Sophie DuncanBook Of Darkness: The Horror Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

Ghosts, zombies and haunted dolls are just a few of the disturbing creatures you will meet in this volume of short stories and novelettes.
Sleep Of The Damned by Natasha Duncan-Drake
BFF by Sophie Duncan
Just One Day by Sophie Duncan
The Crosses We Bear by Natasha Duncan-Drake
Queen Of My World by Sophie Duncan
Dead Not Dying by Natasha Duncan-Drake
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/bookofdarkness)
Beyond Our Horizon by Natasha Duncan-Drake and Sophie DuncanBeyond Our Horizon: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

A thief discovering an affinity with dragons and a university professor being forced to confront his past are just two of the short stories and novelettes in this volume.
Queen of Heaven by Natasha Duncan-Drake (Sci-Fi)
To Life Reborn by Natasha Duncan-Drake (Fantasy)
The Gift by Sophie Duncan (Fantasy)
The Machine by Natasha Duncan-Drake (Contemporary Fantasy, M/M Romance)
Song For A Soverign By Sophie Duncan (Fantasy)
All In The Mind by Sophie Duncan (SciFi)
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/beyondourhorizon)

Supernature by Natasha Duncan-Drake and Sophie DuncanSupernature: Paranormal Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

Discover the touch of the supernatural in this volume of short stories and novelettes.
The Name Is The Game by Sophie Duncan
Cleave To Until Forever by Natasha Duncan-Drake
The Vampire Who Loved Me by Natasha Duncan-Drake
Girl In The Mirror by Sophie Duncan
Timothy by Natasha Duncan-Drake
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/supernature)
Romantics by Natasha Duncan-Drake and Sophie DuncanRomantics: Erotic Romance Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

From a police officer working undercover to a commadore on a back end of nowhere space station, these protagonists all have sexy times ahead, with a heavy side of romance in this volume of short stories and novelettes.
Incubus Shadows by Sophie Duncan (M/M/M, Fantasy)
Undercover by Sophie Duncan (M/M, Crime Drama)
God of Love by Natasha Duncan-Drake (M/M, Fantasy)
All That Glitters by Natasha Duncan-Drake (M/M, Romance)
Connections by Natasha Duncan-Drake (F/M/M, Sci-Fi)
A Special Catch by Sophie Duncan(M/F, Sci-Fi)
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/romantica)
Bright Young Things by Natasha Duncan-Drake and Sophie DuncanBright Young Things: Young Adult Speculative Fiction Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
by
Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

Meet a university rock band with a lupine secret and an alien with cat ears and a tail, among other young protagonists in this volume of short stories and novelettes.
Samling Born by Sophie Duncan (Paranormal)
Lost Kitty by Natasha Duncan-Drake (Sci-Fi)
The End Of The Journey (The Hidden War #1) by Sophie Duncan (Contemporary Fantasy)
The Beginning by Natasha Duncan-Drake (Urban Horror)
A New Path (The Hidden War #2) by Sophie Duncan (Contemporary Fantasy)
(http://www.wittegenpress.com/brightyoungthings)

Saturday 12 January 2013

Wow, my head is spinning with html and formatting guides

Well, titles actually turned out to be not so hard in the end. Tash and I made use of Google Drive and a Google Spreadsheet and it only took a few hours over a couple of days to hash out titles we agreed on and thought fitted the anthologies. AND THERE WAS NO BLOODSHED! :D  I'd be interested to know what folks think of the titles.

So, at last, 8 anthologies - DONE! :D

On top of figuring out the titles, it only took four days of formatting and reformatting in MS Word with the Smashwords Style Guide at my fingertips at all times AND THEN formatting into html as well. MS Word has a nasty habit of sticking in hidden bookmarks when you're not looking and then has a great bug which means you have to unclick the 'hidden bookmarks' box and then reclick it to be able to see them so you can delete them! It completely messes up the Meatgrinder for Smashwords if you leave them it, so I checked and rechecked all the links and bookmarks in the documents to make sure Word hadn't managed to include some more about half a dozen times (not that I'm paranoid or anything).

Ironically, the html for Mobi Pocket Creator to create the prc for the Kindle upload was much simpler. It's precise html, rather than relying on .doc+Meatgrinder to get it right; I could control everything in the document. I may try out the new epub upload facility in Smashwords next time I do a book, because I can generate the epub from the html version, but it will be with a smaller book. There were just too many anthologies for me to try it out this time.

I'm super excited about these anthologies, they're a real cross-section of the genres Tasha and I like to write, plus some challenging genres for us (neither of us had written much horror before). We've also put into words our thoughts around the origins of the stories via author's notes at the beginning of each story, which we've never done before and they'll hopefully provide some insight into our mental processes.

Seekrit Message: We don't officially launch the books until Monday, in order to give Amazon loading a chance to happen, but just between you and me, we now have available on Smashwords all 8 variations of the stories created for The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games :). 

I think Tash has done a great job with the front covers. We wanted them all to recognisable as one collection, but also be able to have different symbolism on the covers, so we went with words creating the different pictures. Personally, my favourite is the howling wolf and moon for Supernature, the paranormal anthology.

We've also tried to put the stories together in variable collections that will appeal to different folks. It was time consuming, but we thought some folks wouldn't want erotica and ya, or they might not be interested in horror. Hence the 8 anthologies.

Some may want all the stories, so we have:

Myriad Imaginings: All The Stories From The Giveaway Games

2 writers, 31 days of writing madness, the result: 28 fabulously diverse stories for your reading pleasure, including horror, fantasy and science fiction, paranormal adventure, young adult and erotica. Each story was only available for one day, but now all 28 stories have been gathered here into 1 volume where you can meet: a spy who becomes a vampire; a young professor with a mental gift beyond his intellect; a zombie cat and many more enthralling characters.




Others may want to pick by author, so we made two anthologies, one of Tasha's stories and one of mine.

Half of Everything: Stories by Natasha Duncan-Drake From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

Many genres, 14 exciting stories in this anthology of shorts and novellettes by Natasha Duncan-Drake. Whether you're looking for horror, Sci-Fi or something else, you'll find what you're looking for in this collection.






The Other Half of Everything: Stories by Sophie Duncan From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

Many genres, 14 exciting stories in this anthology of shorts and novellettes by Sophie Duncan. Whether you're looking for horror, Sci-Fi or something else, you'll find what you're looking for in this collection.






Then we thought some folks might just go for one genre, so we split the stories down into the 5 genres we aimed the stories at during the games: horror, sci-fi and fantasy, paranoraml, erotic romance, or young adult.



Book Of Darkness: The Horror Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

Ghosts, zombies and haunted dolls are just a few of the disturbing creatures you will meet in this volume of short stories and novelettes.







Beyond Our Horizon: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 

A thief discovering an affinity with dragons and a university professor being forced to confront his past are just two of the short stories and novelettes in this volume.







Supernature: Paranormal Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 

Discover the touch of the supernatural in this volume of short stories and novelettes.








Romantics: Erotic Romance Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 

From a police officer working undercover to a commadore on a back end of nowhere space station, these protagonists all have sexy times ahead, with a heavy side of romance in this volume of short stories and novelettes.






Bright Young Things: Young Adult Speculative Fiction Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games 
Meet a university rock band with a lupine secret and an alien with cat ears and a tail, among other young protagonists in this volume of short stories and novelettes.







Thus, all these will be available on Amazon by Monday and then hopefully Apple, B&N, Kobo, WHSmith et al in the next month, since it'll take a lot longer to reach them via Smashwords premium catalogue.

Now I'm going to go fall in a heap and wait for the automated publishing processes to finish! O.o




Wednesday 9 January 2013

Titles, titles, titles

Well, this morning will be spent with a blank sheet of paper, a list of short stories and a headache (probably)! That's because it's title time and I have eight (count 'em) yes, I said 8 anthologies to name and since they're going to be published in the next week or so, I can't put off the title wrangling any longer.

I am not alone in the title search, thank goodness, since my sis, Tasha, is responsible for half the stories in the anthologies and is therefore 50% responsible for the titles. However, she's busy creating the front covers, so I think I owe her to come up with some titles. Our process for working on titles together is really very simple:

  • I (or she) sit and think for a long time, scratching scalp and grinding teeth
  • Eventually, some ideas are thrown down in an email and winged off to the other party
  • By return of email comes 90% of them shot down in flames, laughed at or just politely ignored, but maybe one or two are going in the right direction
  • Then there follow ten to twenty emails where those possibilities are followed down blind alleys, thrown away entirely and even lead to jumps of literary logic that only a twin could understand.
  • Eventually, after a few discussions where everyone's darlings are swatted out the way, we'll finally settle on something both of us feel fits.
  • Then we sit on it, change our minds and go over it again.
  • Finally, after much gnashing of teeth, one, two, three or four words drop out the other side of process.
Having broken it down, maybe the simplest way to describe the process would be, we argue a lot ;P.

So, now I just have to start the process for all 8 anthologies - now, I wonder if I should go with 8 separate emails, or one big email. Maybe a spreadsheet....


Saturday 5 January 2013

Formatting E-books - wow it takes a long time!

We're just about ready to publish the anthologies from The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games now, having spent a few months editing the short stories that went into the month-long games. Sooo, that means it's formatting time and I have just spent a day doing just that.

31 days in July meant there were 32 (yeah the last day had two stories) stories or story parts to compile into different anthologies. We thought we'd do more than one anthology since the stories are in a wide variety of genres and we wanted to offer different purchase options. Thus, there are 8 different anthologies:

I'm currently compiling the first anthology, since all the others are just subsets of that one with some titles being changed. We've added in author's notes at the front of each story to give our readers some background on how we came up with the ideas, which we hope will be interesting, and with those added in, the full anthology is running at 250K wds. Thank heavens for word macros to help with the inserting of html tags (and the check list my sister wrote the first time she created an ebook, which I always check)! I've finally finished the formatting of the html version, which is the one we use to generate the .prc file for Kindle, but now I have to do the word document for the Smashwords version. The only pain is the table of contents, because word does enjoy inserting bookmarks when they're not needed.

After that, I'm just waiting on the covers, which Tash is creating (I have one that Tash did as proof of concept and it is great, sneak peak below) AND coming up with titles - Horror Anthology and the like do not really inspire someone to open a book, so we want to come up with titles for each anthology. Anyone who knows me knows I have issues with titles, so this may take a while!

Anyway, onwards to Smashwords formatting! :)


Friday 4 January 2013

Back to Writing - Again!

Having spent most of December coding for the Wittegen Press website and yesterday upgrading my laptop from Win 7 to Win 8 (which went rather well actually, except it took me a while to discover how to find all the installed programs through the Search Charm), I am finally getting back to the last fifth of the sequel to Death In The Family.

I know I'm going to have to do some re-reading to get back into the flow today since I tried picking up the last scene I was on before coming to a halt and I came up empty. I think, looking back, I was struggling on those last few scenes, they need a lot of rework and a short break has done my inspiration good. Still, I want to get this first draft finished in a few weeks, so it's time to put my head down and get on with the job! :)


Tuesday 1 January 2013

Happy New Year!

A Happy and Prosperous New Year!


So 2013 what's in store:
I'm looking forward to 2013. :D

I have a pile of reading to do now that the bustle and joy of Christmas is over. I'm already part the way into Fragile Bones by T.D. Green and then I have Planet Word to read by J.P. Davidson and then The Ghost Story 1840 - 1920: A Cultural History.

I'm working hard on my writing projects too:

  • finishing the sequel to Death In The Family so that it should be out in early 2013. 
  • expanding the novella Bonds of Fire into a full novel.
  • developing book 2 of The Haward Mysteries with my sister, Tasha. Remy and Theo will be getting into another mystery in the first half of 2013.
  • developing a new series of m/m erotic and romance short stories for lovers of lovers in sci-fi and fantasy called Fantasy Boys XXX.

As well as writing, I've been doing a little revamping of the Wittegen Press website. It's mainly back end work making it more maintainable, but the consequence is the book and author listings have a new look and feel with some extra information. You can now check out our authors' blogs right there on their author pages.

So, it's all go in 2013!

I hope everyone has a great year!