Soon-ish

Earlier this week I posted the following update for backers of my old Dragonfriend Kickstarter project. I offer it here for those patient souls who have been asking me "When is the next book coming out?" Translation: "When are you going to publish it you dope?!" Here is my vaguely specific and "waffle-y" response:

"Hi folks! I just wanted to give you a quick update on the status of Giantkiller -- primarily because some of the Dragonfriend backers are owed a copy of the new manuscript in one form or another, but also because I'm excited about getting closer to an actual publication date.

Just this past weekend, I was finally able to send off the Giantkiller file to the same pro editor who pummeled Dragonfriend into shape. Iguana Proofreading's Darren Robinson informs me that he should be finished critiquing and proofing the book sometime in the next three weeks! I'll review his suggested edits (which have been dead on and saved me from some embarrassing errors on Dragonfriend -- exactly the reason I did a "Help me hire an editor" Kickstarter project), make the necessary changes, then format and upload the book. Hooray!

I'm not going to give an estimate as to when all of this will be finished because I'm always wrong when I do. Suffice it to say it will be "soon-ish."

Thanks again for your support of the original project. As I mentioned in the project proposal, any leftover funds would be used on the sequel to Dragonfriend. Between purchasing the cover art and hiring Darren again, that's exactly what happened."

 My excuse for the delay is that I've been blessed with some great animation work and while there is no downside to being fully employed, it hasn't left a lot of time for Giantkiller. That said, I promise to keep chugging along and deliver the book to you in a "soonish manner." Which, in this case, I hope, means before the end of the year.

...waffle waffle waffle...

Dragonfriend Postcards and Bookmarks

Hot off the presses, these beauties arrived early last week. Designed by the excellent Mike Wykowski, I love how they turned out and look forward to giving them out at readings and signings. Penguin sprang for a bunch of postcards for my picture book, Road Trip, and I was surprised at how helpful they were in terms of generating reader interest. I mailed them out to bookstores and left stacks of them at places where there were likely readers -- libraries, bookstores, schools, churches, etc. -- and received invitations to read/sign from these places as well as some mentions of postcard inspired purchases on my website.

Naturally, I had to have some postcards for Dragonfriend and, as publisher, made the savvy executive decision to have some bookmarks printed, too. Yeah, that's me, savvy.

Got any promotional suggestions you'd like to share? Please leave them in the comments.

Behold my Super-Awesome Backers!

A Few of My Backers

I am a very fortunate man. During my recent (and hopefully not too annoying) fundraising effort on Kickstarter, these folks stepped up to the plate and made a contribution to Leonard's cause. Because of them, the book went from "Gonna publish it someday." to "Gonna publish it this summer." Some are family, some are friends, and some are complete strangers -- all are SUPER-AWESOME!!!

Here they are in all their alphabetically-ordered, super-awesome glory...

Jim Allen

Ed Brown

Anne Chivetta

Chris Chivetta

Chris Cusack

Peggy Etra

Patricia Eschbacher

Roger Eschbacher, Sr.

Rick Fiedler

Coleen Forward

James Giannini

Toni Gilbert

Paul Gross

Cyndi Ruprecht Hunt

James Judd

Chris Landes

Traci Newman

Brian Palermo

Adam Pava

Keith Robinson

Japke Rosink

Lisa Tucker-Ruprecht

Stephen J. Ruprecht

Andrew Thomas

Jeff Zimmer

Look upon their names and feel awe because they are true giants and giantesses of SUPER-AWESOMENESS!!!

To the Editor!

Just a quick update to let you know I sent the manuscript for Leonard off to the editing service, yesterday. Hooray! I opted for their full-service treatment which not only includes a proofread (punctuation, grammar, etc.), but also a more detailed edit and overview. A professional edit is the main reason I launched the Kickstarter project so it's truly a thrill to finally get the ball rolling in that department.

My editor told me I could expect to get it back in around three weeks, possibly sooner. Once that happens, I'll make the suggested changes, then start cranking on getting Leonard the Great: Dragonfriend listed on Amazon, both in Kindle form and as a physical book.

In other news, steady progress is being made toward completion of the first draft of the sequel to this book. On Friday, Leonard was swallowed by a monster. Hope he survives. ;c)

Ten and Counting

Almost there! Only ten days away from the completion of this project and I'm getting more excited by the moment! I've been slowly lining up what needs to be done and what needs to be ordered (software, postcards, etc.). The plan is to go through the manuscript one last time before shipping it off for editing and proofing.

In the meantime, I'm pushing forward to complete the first draft of the book's sequel,  Leonard the Great: Giant Killer. At this point, I'm at just under 50k words (around two hundred MS Word pages). My goal is to average between 500 and 1000 words a day until completion -- hopefully by the end of May. My word count "sweet spot" for the sequel will be around 60k.

I'll be keeping track of my first draft progress with a word count widget I ran across (over on the right of this page). I know it sounds kind of silly, but little things like that are a great motivator for me and the ability to update my word count provides a feeling of accomplishment. Hey, I guess we authors all have our little mind tricks, eh?


This is so cool. Thanks again, everyone!