Tag: Blood of Midnight The Broken Prophecy

Status Report on Sequel, Cover Art

Lyre

I just finished the plot and structure of the first chapter of Blood of Midnight: A Hollow Vengeance. Woo! Very excited to flesh it out. I’m pleased with the way the plot is coming together already.

In terms of cover art, presently, I’m waiting for Lulu’s Global Reach to kick in so that Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy will be available for purchase on Amazon.com in its paperback format. It’s already there in ebook for the Kindle, if you so desire. For the paperback, it’ll take 6-8 weeks to be approved.

While I’m waiting, though, I’m considering showing y’all some love for the month of February and reducing the price of the book to 20.50 instead of 25.50. What do ya think? Five dollar discount for a month? Don’t be afraid to post or “like” and let me know your opinion.

Great Weekend

We had a fantastic writers’ circle meeting this weekend. I introduced our Scrivener-using members to Carol’s Novel Outliner and received some very positive feedback. Everyone came with vague ideas and left with a viable plot.

As for work, not much to report. I’ve been sick with a cold and slowly slogging through the second scene of A Hollow Vengeance. I’ve finally been able to approve the cover for the paperback version of Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy. It should be available via Amazon in 4-8 weeks but until then, it’s available on Lulu if you’d like one.

Ebooks are available through all major distributors. Amazon, Kobo, Barns and Noble, you name it.

If you’ve read it already, I’d appreciate a review on Goodreads. Whelp, back to work with me. Catch ya later!

It Looks Different!

Yeah, I decided I’d update the background for the site as I’m sure you’re tired of looking at the cover art of Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy over and over again all over the page. … okay maybe that was just me. Ha! Anyhow, I hope you like it.

As I write this, yet another proof is on its way to me. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have a paperback ready for mass distribution. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. I didn’t anticipate that the wait-times for tweaking things would be so extreme.

Basically, what I’ve been doing is working with my graphic designer trying to find the best method for compensating for this odd spinal drift that Lulu’s printer has going on. We’ve followed the uploading guidelines to a T and I’m pretty sure there’s a discrepancy between the measurements of their template and what actually comes out of the printer. I’m also pretty sure that their support team doesn’t believe me when I say this. In any case, the first edition limited run that’s still available for a week or so has a pure white spine with the title, author name, and spine art at the bottom printed on it. However, this lovely layout is really difficult to line up when it actually goes to print so I’ve had to mess around with getting the cover art to wrap around the spine. Both versions are beautiful. Kudos to Kristy for her mad skillz. I just wish that I could have had my first choice without having to muck about so much.

You see, each time I try something different, I have to upload the new cover art, order another proof copy (which costs me money), and wait for it to be printed and arrive at my door before I can say yea or nay to approve it for mass distribution. Currently, it is available for purchase at Lulu HERE but after it’s approved for expanded distribution, it will also be available on Amazon, Barns and Noble, etc.

Thank you all, once again, for being so patient with me. The learning curve for this endeavour has been an extreme one!

Signed Books

I sent out my first signed copy of Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy today. What an exciting experience!

I’ve got all the plot elements for the sequel Blood of Midnight: A Hollow Vengeance done and I’ve started work on the plot skeleton. The first scene should be all blocked out by tomorrow. Possibly the entirety of the first chapter if I really get on a roll.

Until next time, folks! Thanks for stopping by. 

Cover Update

This, I hope, will be the last time I have to upload a cover to Lulu. At least on this project. Haha! After futzing around over fifteen (not exaggerating) different iterations of the cover, I have one that finally looks like there will be NO overlap on the covers from the spine. 

Many thanks go out to my tireless graphic designer, Kristy Laporte. You are full of win. Proof is ordered once again. All copies from now on will be Second Edition. People who bought the book within the first month and a half of availability now have a special version that will never be printed again. Woot! 

Updates on Paperback Cover

One-Piece Cover Not Lining Up 

I asked this question in another thread on the Lulu froums, but the response was essentially: “Hey this thread is really old,” and “Just muck around with it. You’ll figure it out.”

Well I’ve been mucking around with my cover for almost a month now. I hired a graphic designer to do a beautiful wrap-around cover complete with spine art and custom lettering. It was done to the exact specifications for an A5 Paperback. I ordered my proof copy and got this:

Cover Whoops

Cover Whoops 2

As you can see, the spine is creeping onto the front cover and the back cover is creeping onto the spine. There’s clearly some misalignment here somwhere.

I’ve read everything I can on the subject. Nothing on the forums or on the site proper has helped. My designer has tinkered with it ad nauseum. I’ve tinkered with it ad nauseum and neither of us can figure out what the heck the problem is. We’ve tried trimming the left-most edge of the back cover by a milimitre or two. We’ve tried adjusting the width of the spine, the size of the art on the spine. We’ve even tried moving the spine and front cover a bit to the right or left but no matter what we do, it just won’t line up.

I keep getting this:

Cover Problems

Yes, that’s a small image. That’s all I have to work with because I can’t figure out any way to make it bigger and see what the heck I’m doing. I think what I’m seeing here is that the spine is now creeping onto both the back and front cover. This is only one of the many, many, many misaligned iterations. The best we’ve been able to do is a one milimeter creep to the right.

I’m at my wit’s end, my friends. Please help me. I’m out of ideas to try and I’m so frustrated I could scream. I really want to put out a high-quality product.

Updates On Sequel, DriveThru Fiction, and Paperbacks

Hi guys! Just a quick post to let you know that I’m almost finished with the skeletal outline of the second book of the Blood of Midnight series. Absolutely loving the template I’m working with. It makes everything so much more manageable. I’m still not 100% sure about the title so I’m not going to announce that yet. Soon!

I’m slowly picking my way through the ins and outs of making my book available on DriveThruFiction. There’s a lot of information there. A lot to work through. Hopefully, it will pay off in the end. Apparently they want me to use Scribus to format my book so I downloaded that. It seems they also want me to use Lightning Source Cover Generator for the cover. I think that’s a service I have to sign up for. I’m really not sure yet. One thing at a time. It is rather frustrating having to go through all of this after already having the book nicely formatted and the cover professionally done and then have to start from the beginning because DriveThru uses a different system. Maybe in the future this will all be standardized? Hopefully.

Speaking of covers, I did some tinkering with the cover for Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy but Lulu’s cover generator didn’t seem to like it. I tried to revert back to the previous version but since there’s no function to do that, I had to re-upload the un-tinkered version. This means that I have to purchase yet another copy of my own book in order to verify that it’s ready for distribution despite the fact that it’s absolutely no different than it was before. 

So yes, do be careful when publishing through Lulu. A few button clicks can cost you twenty dollars and two more weeks of waiting for another proof to arrive before you can restart distribution.

I did not realize, when I became an author that I would actually be spending most of my time fighting with computers and watching tutorials. … I think I need some more coffee.

Computers are Confuzzling

Aha! I managed to get a Goodreads widgit up and running in my sidebar. The ways they recommended doing it didn’t actually work for me and, instead, spit out a bunch of code with a link at the bottom. So I had to be a bit more creative and save the button image and manually link the Blood of Midnight review page to it.

I’m actually kind of impressed that I did that before I even finished my coffee this morning. What else lies in store for me today? I’ve been slogging through Goodreads trying to figure out how to use it. Still pretty confused. I’m sure it’ll be a great resource when I manage to make heads or tails of it.

Still struggling with DriveThru Fiction as well. I’ll let you know when/if that turns out. I really want to get the second proof back from Lulu to make sure the cover clipping issue is fixed before I really throw myself into getting it all configured for another distributor.

Despite the headaches of self-publishing, I wouldn’t trade the agency I have with my work for the ease of having someone else do all of this. I hate waiting on other people to complete the next stage of my plans.

Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy – Paperback Edition Available!

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Here it is my friends! The paperback copy you’ve all been waiting for. And poking me for. And asking when it’s going to be available. Well today is the day! Happy Boxing Day everybody and have a fun-filled new year!

Paperback Updates

So, I got my printed proof last night in the mail and unfortunately there were some errors. 

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As you can see, the spine is kind of creeping onto the front cover so it needs to be adjusted. My graphic designer is working on a solution to account for margins of error in page-cutting and printing. 

I also happened upon a couple of typos that I really can’t let stand. So I’m having yet another beta reader go through it with a highlighter so I can correct all of these things before I make it available. Hopefully, it will be up for Christmas. That would be nice!

Thanks again for your patience.

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