Attack of the Kindle Cases: Part 3

After using the New Yorker Kindle case for a while, I noticed that M-Edge had started advertising that soon you would be able to create custom covers using your own pictures and photographs. Hmm, what would make a good Kindle cover for me? Hmm …

New Version of “Flock of Crows” Available!

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been working on a new edition of A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder that, among other things, restores the infamous missing epilogue, plus fixes various issues with the layout from the most recent edition, which was a scan produced by BookSurge of the original DarkTales edition of Crows.  This edition is now available at my Lulu storefront and should become available at Amazon.com and other outlets over the next few months.  I also plan to do a Kindle edition once the ISBN and distribution is finalized.  In the meantime, please visit my Lulu store and check it out there!

Dragon Stones

Last week’s Scene of the Month post was an excerpt from Dragon Stones, which prompted my friend Almostgotit to plead, “More Dragon Stones, please!”  So after careful consideration, I have decided to give Almostgotit, and anyone else who wants it, more Dragon Stones (which are not to be confused with, say, kidney stones).  In fact, here’s the whole thing:

Okay, So I Lied

Earlier, I wrote a brief story about how I got into the horror field; now, as promised, is the story of how I got out.

Dragon Stones Now On Amazon, B&N

Today, during my semi-monthly auto-Googling, I discovered that Dragon Stones has made its way out to Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and the like.  Interestingly enough, Long Before Dawn hasn’t reached those outlets yet, but it is available from online bookstores in the U.K.  Go figure.  Perhaps the British are more amenable than the Americans to proper vampire stories, where the vampires are monsters.

Anyway, for all my legions of fans out there who have just been waiting to be able to purchase my two latest books from somewhere other than Lulu.com (you know who you are), your wish has been granted!  You can get Dragon Stones from Amazon.com or BN.com, and Long Before Dawn from Blackwell Online and WHSmith in the U.K.  Both should be available elsewhere as well.

Recall

A while back, I sent a copy of Dragon Stones to the artist in Italy.  With his sharp artist’s eye, he noticed that the cover illustration of the dragon was not anti-aliased properly.  This problem has now been fixed, and the cover art looks much better — the lines are smooth rather than pixellated and the details are sharper.

I’m of the mind that anyone who bought Dragon Stones with the pixellated cover art is deserving of a pristine copy that looks the way the artist intended.  If you have a copy of the book and would like to get the updated version, please let me know and I will send you one free of charge.  (Obviously you shouldn’t post your address information in a public comment, so feel free to e-mail me at the listed address.)

Now, some might say that this could be an expensive thing for me to do.  But don’t worry.  I know how many copies of Dragon Stones have been sold, and it won’t be.  (Too bad …)

“Dragon Stones” Now Available

Dragon Stones is now available direct from Lulu.com!  I’m still putting the finishing touches on the formatting before submitting it for distribution via the usual channels, but at this point I think that further changes are unlikely.  (And if I do change something after you buy it, then you will have a rare limited edition copy!)

As I’ve mentioned, Dragon Stones is a fantasy novel, so anyone who’s been a little squeamish about reading A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder or Long Before Dawn or (especially) Night Watchman needn’t fear — the goriest thing in Dragon Stones is a swordfight between a couple of the characters (but I won’t spoil anything by saying which).  If you enjoy fantasy novels, check it out — I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!

In other news, I’m still editing and formatting my ghost story Father’s Books as my next release.  Although it’s a horror novel (again), it’s not nearly as, um, intense (*COUGH* gory *COUGH*) as Night Watchman or Long Before Dawn, so even the squeamish might be able to read that one.  I’ll have my wife look at it and report back; nobody’s as squeamish as she is!

Galley Ho!

This is just a short note to let all who may be breathlessly waiting for Dragon Stones know that it has entered what might be called the “galley” phase, where I order finished copies from Lulu.com and go through them with a highlighter to fix any remaining formatting or style issues (at least, things that I consider formatting or style issues).  I’ve already been through this process with Long Before Dawn and it probably took about two months, but I expect it to go faster this time now that I’ve already done one.  I expect to hit my target of releasing Dragon Stones some time in June, though it won’t be available from book stores until 6-8 weeks after that due to the ISBN lag time.

In the meantime, I’ve started editing my next release, Father’s Books, a ghost story (of sorts) that I wrote after A Flock of Crows.  By now I’m sure everyone realizes that I can’t write a “normal” ghost story, but that’s the easiest way to label Father’s Books right now so I’ll stick with it.  More information will surely follow!

“Long Before Dawn” Available From Lulu.com!

Long Before Dawn is now available from Lulu.com in both print and electronic versions. Huzzah! It will eventually be available from Amazon.com and other booksellers, but that is still a week or two away as I have yet to receive my ISBN. I will post a follow-up when this is ready. In the meantime, if you’re interested in purchasing a copy of Long Before Dawn directly from my Lulu storefront, you can do so here (check the link in the sidebar) or here.

In the past, I’ve made a habit of giving free, signed copies of my books to anybody who asks for one. This is partly because I’m more interested in having readers than in making money (although I wouldn’t turn down big bucks for the movie rights), partly because hardly anybody asks for one, and partly because I’m not really comfortable exhorting people to buy my stuff. (This is why I need an agent.) However, it’s been pointed out that giving away books online could get prohibitively expensive, so I’m going to have to forgo the “free” part, and exhort people to buy my stuff*. I will still be more than happy to sign copies, though. If you’re interested, drop me a line.

Thanks, and happy reading!

*Please buy my stuff. (Maybe if I keep saying it, I’ll get used to it.)

“Night Watchman” Review

I stumbled across an Epinions review of Night Watchman today. I was surprised to see this, given that Night Watchman came out over five years ago, but it’s nice to know people are still reading if after all these years. (Yes, it’s a recent review … 1/26/08.) Although the review is not unalloyed praise (3 out of 5 stars), it is positive overall, and raises some valid points that I would probably address if I were rewriting the book now. Still, I think Night Watchman does hold up pretty well for a novel that I wrote when I was about 23 years old. (Never you mind how old I am now.) You can visit the reviewer’s Epinions page here and his home page here.

Long Before Dawn is an even older* book than Night Watchman; I started working on that shortly after getting married, and finished it at the ripe old age of 22. But since Dawn was never published, I’ve had the opportunity to go back and “improve” it a couple of times since completing it. I think that this most recent set of revisions, done to get it ready for Lulu publication, has tightened up the plot and characterizations significantly. We’ll see if the readers (all ten of them) agree!

*In fact, Long Before Dawn is so old**, I originally wrote it using the MS-DOS program PC-Write. PC-Write couldn’t handle a document that long, so I had to split it into three or four files for editing. Ahhh, good times …

**And Long Before Dawn isn’t even my oldest book; there’s one more, older still, called Three Detectives, that I actually had an agent working on for a while. He was never able to sell it, unfortunately. This is a (you guessed it) detective novel, set in Utica, NY, that I wrote after a marathon Nero Wolfe reading session. Perhaps it will see the light of Lulu some day, but I doubt it.