I have been running free-book promotions on Twitter and Facebook with limited results. But people are reading my books. Now that I will soon have 14 books published and available on Amazon, I can run one free-book promotion per month, as the author’s right to run that sort of promotion without paying for it renews every three months for each individual book.
This month I am promoting The Baby Werewolf for the first time.
Here’s a run-down of the previous promotions.
So, as a reminder, the next promotion I am trying this next week is for the novel The Baby Werewolf.
My new novel, finished the first time the day before yesterday, is not what writers call a rough draft. My writing process consists of doing rough draft, revision, and proofreading chapter by chapter. Or, as I call them, canto by canto.
It was written following an outline that existed first in my imagination as it was played out like a television show, dreamed up episode by episode knowing what would ultimately happen by the end of the story.
So, the process about to begin is not a second draft. It is not a revision-step either, though minor revisions may happen in the final pass before publishing. It is merely a final proofread where the story is reread as a whole, and given necessary corrections of typos and boo-boos. As a writing teacher, I have seen too many young writers skip this final, critical step. They don’t go back and read the whole thing as one piece of writing, stepping back far enough to view the work of art as a whole. How can any good writer only read the thing through as he or she writes it and figure it is good enough as it is? It may be that, but it is probably not.
Adjustments will occur for me because this new novel uses characters from a series of novels in which time passes and people change. Those adjustments are what you can safely call revisions. The character of Milt Morgan is appearing in the novel as a narrator. He has appeared in the story cycle three times now, in three different novels, and this is the first time he is ever used as a first-person narrator. He has changed and grown up a bit from novel to novel. This time he is no longer a virgin. He has freed himself from the cycle of abuse that he and his older sister both endured from alcoholic parents. He has a deeper understanding now of what magic really means and what meaning it gives to his life to call himself a wizard. But he has yet to come to terms with how lying and fantasizing about life can lead to consequences. That part of his future story will be tackled in another story that is a novel in my head, but not yet written out in novel form. That is a future writing project called TheWizard in His Keep. So, I must check this novel to be sure that all the pistons in the engine of his personal story arc firing properly in this book to ensure that it carries him forward into that new adult character he must later become. Those pistons in the engine are what revision is really all about.
Characters will die in this novel, as they do in almost every novel I write. Usually at least one bad guy, and one good guy. Of course, the doomed ones are not fated to change in this book. The story is set. I won’t be surprised by a death in this story the way I was with Snow Babies, and The Bicycle-Wheel-Genius. Of course, this story is about Immortals, and it is possible that a character dies in this book who doesn’t stay dead.
The final pass through The Boy… Forever will not be a rewrite either. Rewriting is what I am doing to AeroQuest where whole chapters (cantos) are added and left out, New characters are created. Old ones are deleted. And the plot changes in how the details come together. And though the main plot points remain, spread over four books instead of one, they are reorganized and better fleshed out.
That book is becoming books. The original and the rewritten are quite different from each other. For one thing, the new versions will make use of my cartooning skill and allow the books to be far more illustration-filled. Rewriting is a total do-over.
So, my baby book is still not quite ready to be born. But it is a complete book. Only the messy business of giving birth remains.
The planet Stanley was beautiful in a primitive sort of way, but covered with an endless, nearly unbroken jungle on its entire land surface. Strange reptilian birds fluttered through stifling, pollen-saturated air. Primitive Lemurians called out from height to height in the tops of the jungle canopy. Their simian cries spoke of fear and death and loneliness, the need of the semi-intelligent to cling to each other in the face of the predatory jungle darkness.
The pinnace rode upward on a pillar of repulsor force, using magnetic pulses to push away from the planet’s wild green surface. King Killer, Dr. Hooey, and Willie Culver watched it go with grim faces. Marooned on a jungle planet full of unknown creatures that hunt all that lives and breathes.
“What will we do now?” asked Willie.
“We’ll be fine,” assured Hooey. “What Admiral Tang doesn’t know is that I’ve already read how this turns out. There is an Ancient archaeological site in the southern hemisphere that contains an Ancient artifact known to the Time Knights as a “transmat”. It turns anything that steps onto it into a tachyon stream that can physically transport anyone or any physical thing to any other time and place in the galaxy that has another transmat.”
“What are you saying?” said King. “You are planning to scramble our molecules and send them on a particle beam across space? You really know how to do this? You’ve done it before?”
“Well… no. I’ve never done it before. But the book says I will figure it out in time to save us from certain death. You and I will be fine, King.”
“What about me?” asked Willie. “Do I make it out too?”
“Well,” said Hooey, “you’re kinda the one-episode character. The kind the writer sends along on the mission to allow for a terrible death without killing off a main character.”
“What! I’m gonna die? AAARGH!”
“Don’t panic yet,” said King. “We are quite capable of surviving this. All of us.”
“Yes, quite,” said Hooey, “now we need to head for the archeological site.”
“Is it close by?” asked Willie.
“About eight hundred kilometers to the south.”
“Good Lord!” growled King. “You aren’t making this any easier, are you?”
“What do you mean?” said Hooey. “I just have to follow the right timeline. I didn’t choose any of this.”
At about that moment something large gave them a glimpse of itself in the undergrowth. It was the creature soon to be known as the Stanley Damnthing. It was a large porcine predator with ears like an elephant, a mouth like a toothy wolverine, and the overall body shape of a ten-ton hog.
I am closing in on the end. It is hard to talk about anything other than what would spoil the ending as I am finishing that part. But there are certain things I have come to expect about how one of my hometown fantasy novels ends. Somebody dies. There is reason to cry. And life goes on. There are a few things to laugh about, and a few things to glow with pride about. And if it is a good novel, finishing it will leave me deflated and exhausted. I think this will be a good novel. I am feeling those effects already.
I am no longer willing to rely on the definition of the words, “traditional publishing”, anymore. My book, Magical Miss Morgan, is now out of print because Page Publishing has a need to charge me for keeping my book on their Print-on-Demand paperback book machine and in their e-book database . I paid those parasites to edit and publish my book. They made money off a totally incompetent job of editing, trying to pass off incorrect proofreading whose corrections all had to be re-corrected by me. Their publishing consisted basically of buying me an ISBN number and providing the same level of publishing services as Amazon does for free.
The cover was basically designed by me. I did the drawings and photoshopped them onto the background. They provided the the Title/Author graphic.
So, really, I paid them close to three thousand dollars for things I had to do myself anyway.
Well, I own the rights completely to the formatted manuscript and the cover. I spent three months getting it all legally returned to me, which they could’ve done in a week if my case manager hadn’t gotten married in the middle of the process. I am obviously not entitled to special treatment of any kind, since I wasn’t willing to pay their pointless maintenance fees.
I will now republish this book on Amazon and never again publish anything where I rely on anybody but me in the process. It is a very good story about a Middle School English teacher who is a combination of me and a female colleague who was a very gifted teacher. It also tells a tale of making reading assignments such a magical experience that fairies invade your classroom. It was a contest novel that didn’t win anything but made it to the finals in the judging. Nobody reads my books because I have no means of effectively marketing them, but this is one of my best and deserves to be available for as long as I can make it so.
Tron and Maggie needed the Megadeath and her crew to bolster the defense forces of Outpost. So, it was simply a matter of finding a ship they could spare to send Artran to safety with Ged on whatever planet the hunter now inhabited.
“I can’t afford to send a single Pinwheel or White Sword out of system. We lost too many to defend our planet already. And we have to assume this base is no longer a secret to Grand Admiral Tang.” Tron glared at his difficult wife.
“This is our only son we are talking about,” argued Maggie. “He is a cargo worth protecting. That’s why we are bothering to send him to Ged Aero in the first place.”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance, sir,” offered Bill the Postman (secretly Scarpigo Snarcs). “Your wife is going to win this argument, or I don’t know anything about wives.”
“Have you been married before?” asked Tron, fixing the clown with a laser-eyed look from both his artificial eye and his natural one.
“Of course not! I told you I knew all about wives didn’t I?”
“So, what’s your worthless advice, then?”
“I am disguised as a competent member of the Imperial Scout Service. So, I can take him to his destination without being fired upon in any X-boat that is delivering mail.”
“How is that secure enough for my precious boy?” asked Maggie.
“Well, I will be delivering the Imperial mail. You know the Imperial Space Navy does not shoot down its own mail service, even on the frontier.”
“He has a good point, Maggie,” said an exasperated Tron.
“What about Star Dogs? They do attack Scout ships of all kinds.”
“That’s true, dogs does chase postmen,” offered Quintillius Blorghoffer (secretly Cinco Snarcs disguised as a Scout Service Postman), “But me brudder an’ I is two of de bestest secret-type agent-men going, an’ our X-boat is secretly armed with a meson cannon, don’t ya know. Ain’t that right, Pontoffel Poggs?”
Zero Snarcs (disguised as the above-mentioned Poggs the Postman) vigorously shook his head.
“He says you don’t?” asked Maggie angrily.
“Oh, he don’t know no better. He shakes his head like that when he means ta say yes. He’s just too stupid to talk.”
“Okay, I have my doubts now, too,” said Tron.
“Please, sir,” said Tiki Astro, “I am fully programmed to problem-solve and defend Artran. Who better to send along with him as he travels in secret than I?”
Tron looked at the artificial child. With his new skin covering his metalloid body, he was completely indistinguishable from a real child. He would indeed be the perfect travelling companion to keep Artran safe.
“Yes. That settles it. Artran goes in the X-boat with the three idiots to be with Ged Aero in relative safety.”
Maggie sighed and nodded agreement.
Happy Jack sighed and then hugged his artificial son goodbye.
The three idiot postmen and the two children boarded the balloon-shaped X-boat and immediately took off from Outpost.
Once they reached the orbital jump point, Bill the Postman turned to Pontoffel Poggs (which was actually Scarpigo Snarcs turning to Zero Snarcs) and said, “Okay, boy, spin the directional dial and then spin the distance dial.”
Poggs (who was actually Snarcs) spun both dials like he was playing Intergalactic Wheel of Fortune.
“It says we are jumping a hundred and twelve parsecs into the middle of unknown space,” warned Blorghoffer (who was also secretly Snarcs).
“That’s perfect!” said Bill (secretly… well, you know). He then smashed the jump button and folded space to a distance that would normally destroy an X-boat.
After an undeterminable amount of time they exited jump space into a black void. But at it’s center glittered a multitude of artificial lights from a construct seemingly sewn together with steel beams and made from junk spaceship fuselages, broken satellites, abandoned space stations, and unidentifiable metal things from unknown space.
“Ah, I didn’t actually think that would work,” said Bill.
“Where are we?” asked Artran and Tiki at almost the same moment.
“This, my boys, is Nomad. This is the home of the Star Nomads.”
“An’ I always thinked that Star Nomads be Myths,” said Blorghoffer.
“Just because something is a myth doesn’t mean it’s not true,” said Bill.
I am past the 50,000 word mark. It is almost finished. Here I wish to show you the main characters of the novel through illustrations I have created over the years..
Milt Morgan is one of the four main narrators of the novel.
He is a fifteen-year-old Belle City High School freshman in 1976. He is the most imaginative of the Norwall Pirates softball team and liars’ club.
He tells his portion of the story in the form of journal entries.
Anita Jones and her boyfriend the Superchicken (Edward Campbell)
Anita Jones is the most central of the four narrators in that she is the cousin of Icarus Jones, the character at the center of the whole plot.
She is a fifteen-year-old freshman girl who has had a steady boyfriend since the spring of 1975. She tells her part of the story by writing letters about Icarus and the things happening in the little town of Norwall in the summer of 1976. She is writing to her cousin Dot who is much more interested at the start about Anita’s boyfriend Eddie than she is about cousin Icky.
Brent Clarke is the high school freshman athlete and leader of the Norwall Pirates. He is interested in becoming a policeman or detective, and as one of the four narrators, he tells his part of the story through his investigator’s notes which he takes religiously on practically everything.
He feels responsible for all the Pirates, especially Icarus when he comes under attack during the adventure in the summer of the Bicentennial year.
The fourth narrator is Sherry Cobble who has a twin sister named Shelly and is dedicated to being a nudist. In fact, she very much wants to convince all the Pirates to be comfortable with their own naked bodies. Realizing that dream, though, is complicated.
Especially because it’s Bible Belt Iowa and her nudist family is looked at as being the somewhat crazy hippie-type kind of people that are barely tolerated by the law.
She writes about it all in her Lovely Nudist’s Diary where she can write about her naturist beliefs, successes and failures, and her boyfriend, Brent.
Icarus Jones is the central character of The Boy… Forever. He tries to kill himself early in the year of 1976 and finds out by jumping off the MacArthur Bridge in St. Louis that he cannot die naturally. And worse is in store. Beyond the fact that he is an immortal, he is being pursued by an undead Chinese wizard who is a dragon in human form.
Fiona Long, usually called Fi, convinced her stepfather to move to Norwall, following Icarus as he moves to Norwall from St. Louis. She tells everyone in her freshman class that Fi is really short for Firefang, and she is a red dragon in human form.
She becomes friends with the Pirates. She learns to trust and like Anita and Sherry. And she is mightily attracted to Brent who is actually Sherry’s boyfriend.
Fi’s stepfather, Tien Long, is the villain. He is in reality a Chinese Celestial Dragon in human form. He also needs Icarus’s blood to continue to live his long, nearly-immortal life.
It is almost done, this novel. And as you can probably tell from the character pictures, this is not the first novel about the Norwall Pirates. So, it is a pirate novel with dragons and immortals in it. It has been fun to write. And soon it will be complete.
As a novelist in poor health, every time I start a new story, already worked out in my head or not, it becomes a race to finish. My time is limited because I simply cannot last for very much longer. My body is failing, and each step on the path of life hurts and is hard to take. Like Icarus above, I am flying dangerously high and possibly too near the Sun. The novel The Boy… Forever, in which Icarus Jones is the key character, is swiftly coming to a close. The villain has already died the first time, and the hero is approaching the orb of the Sun. I am hoping to have it published within a month of right now, and hopefully long enough before my own rendezvous with the Son comes to pass.
This will be book number fourteen that I have published. It is already four novels more than I had realistically believed I could publish before six incurable diseases and the prospect of cancer, heart attack, and stroke that I have lived with since 2000 all does me in.
Ironically, this book that I am racing to finish before I die is about characters who are immortal, or make themselves immortal by consuming the essence of other immortals. And, of course, it is also another Pirate novel, feature the Norwall, Iowa 4H softball team and liars’ club that has a part in most of my other novels whether they are set in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s.
Brent Clarke is the leader of the Norwall Pirates.Anita Jones, Icarus’s cousin, is one of the novel’s four narrators.
The novel is currently 49,685 words in 160 formatted pages. It will be finished by about 52,000 words. I hope to have it complete by the middle of next week.
Further I figure to start another novel project immediately afterwards. Who knows how many more I can achieve before the end shall come.
Canto 72: When the Ocean Rises Up (the Blood-Red Thread)
As the Leaping Shadowcat pulled into orbit around the third planet of the Red Giant called FarStar 181 and its white dwarf companion Littlebit 181, we were playing a fierce game of Antarean Canasta while watching local television to get a clue or two about what was happening in the star system. The planet Farwind was a center of trade, culture, and travel along the Galtorrian Imperial Rim.
“I have a run of five showing,” I said to Sinbadh, Ham, and Duke Ferrari. “It will cost you each a thousand credits to find out if I can complete it.” I was winning the hand again and glorying in it. I regularly made killings in card games because I could keep track of all the cards and the odds in my head.
“Something just isn’t right here,” moaned Ham Aero. “I’ve never seen a nerdy guy like you win so often at a game of chance.”
“Oi seconds the observation, Doctor Marou,” said Sinbadh. “Ye play a cutthroat game ye do.”
“Why thank you, Mr. Sinbadh. I may not be a capable pirate like you, but I earn my respect in more than one way.”
“Aye, ‘tis true,” sighed Sinbadh. “I can’t afford to call yer jolly bluff, Doc. I folds.”
“Me too,” said Duke Ferrari stroking his handlebar moustache with a nervous finger as he tossed his hand down. “I don’t know how you are cheating, Dr. Marou, but I must say, you are good at it!”
“Well,” said Ham with grim determination, “I may lose all my savings, but I have to know if it’s a bluff or not.”
Ham threw the last of his credit chips onto the game board.
“I was hoping somebody would,” I said. I laid down the six and seven of clovers to make a run of seven. “I guess I win.”
“Nobody is that good at cards,” Ham said, shaking his blond head sadly.
The holo-news was describing a recent political rally in the government center of Farwind. People there were upset about the despotic rule of the Galtorr Imperium. The taxes paid to old Emperor Slythinus were bad enough, but the local sector head, Emperor Mong of the planet Mingo, was placing burden after burden on the people, and on top of that, demanded that they yield up their buried dead to Centralis Controllis, the Master Computer of Mingo Sector.
“I guess I’m going to have to go down there and make an official appearance,” said Duke Ferrari. His face was long and worried. “The political situation here is still degenerating.”
“Word has come,” said the talking head from the holo-news, “That Sector Duke Han Ferrari has returned to us and is in orbit even as we speak.”
Ferrari was aghast. “How did they know that?”
The warning sirens from the auto-sensors came on at that same moment. A system defense boat was fast approaching from the upper atmosphere of the planet.
“Oh, God help us,” said Ham, overturning the game board and scattering my earnings everywhere. “We have got such trouble!”
We all followed Ham from the lounge area to the bridge. The screens were showing a large system defense ship bristling like a porcupine with defensive weaponry.
“It’s definitely a government ship!” said Duke Ferrari. “If we let them arrest me without resistance, it’s possible they will let the rest of you go free.”
“That clunky thing cannot out-fly me,” swore Ham, “If you want me to run…”
“No,” said the Duke. “Let’s hail them.”
The captain of the defense boat was quickly called up and on screen.
“You are here for me, I take it,” the Duke said to the on-screen captain.
“Yessir!” The captain of the other ship saluted crisply. “By the command of the people of Farwind, we humbly request that you let us escort you to Farwind Downport.”
“Escort us?”
“Yes, your highness. The people of Farwind have just completed a coup of the government. We want a democracy like you tried to institute on Coventry, and we want you to lead us!”
The Duke’s surprise was enormous. “The people decided this?”
“Yessir! There’s only one little problem for you to deal with first. The governors of the Imperium have fortified themselves inside the undersea dome at Farwind Center. It’s a well-guarded and very secure facility. The people want you to lead the assault.”
“Good god, man,” moaned Ferrari, a hand dragging across the left side of his face where he’d just slapped himself. “I’m no military leader. Is this mission even possible?”
“We hope so, sir. It’s the will of the people.”
Ferrari looked at all of us aboard the Shadowcat. “I can’t ask any of you to sacrifice yourselves on this fool’s mission. We will be killed and it will all be for nothing.”
Ham grinned. He was handsome when he smiled. “If Goofy were here right now, he’d say what are we waiting for?”
“You… you mean, you want to come with me?”
“We live for adventure! Don’t we, guys?”
“Well, er… woof, that is,” said Sinbadh.
“No, I surely don’t,” I said.
“See,” said Ham, “it’s settled! When do we attack? And why do you call yourself Shirley Doant, professor?”
After running a second free-book promotion on Snow Babies, things look as bleak as ever for my publishing goals. It started well. Seven books ordered on the first day tied the best I had ever done on a give-away. But the second day saw a new record set with only one additional order. The three days after that… nothing. I can’t even give my books away for free. If you are reading this today and want to help, click on the link above. You understand e-books. You would be helping me out even if you never read it.
But, I have no illusions. My book is good enough to make a splash if people read it, but nobody will for a variety of reasons. People who knew me growing up in Iowa would be happy to read and support me if the message could get through. But my contact with them is limited by Facebook and its algorithms. Facebook will connect any political post to those on my friends-list who will argue with me and call me a socialist libtard cuck, but even family members don’t get notified of any post that is even remotely like an ad for one of my books. I try to post that kind of thing on friends’ pages, or direct message them, and Facebook steps in to call me a spammer. It is entirely a matter of me trying to advertise without paying any ad money to the greedy bahstidds of Facebook’s data-collection empire. (And yes, I know I misspelled the word about illegitimate birthings.)
My book ads fell on mostly deaf ears (or, rather, blind eyes) on Twitter as well. The #WritingCommunity is supportive, but they are all writers like me, dedicated to getting their own books read and loved. I know that many of them see a free-book ad like mine and think, “Ah, one more hack novelist’s hack novel that takes forever to read, and if I read it, they will never read mine in return.” I know they generally think this because I have slogged through some poorly written Indie novels and left a positive review, and got not even a thank you in return. Of course, nobody there actually knows anybody else. And, like me, they can’t afford to spend money on other people’s books. Although, like me also, they do now and again find books they can’t resist and spend money they can’t afford on those. Those authors won’t read my books either though. (Except for Ted. Ted Bun reads and loves my books as often as I read and love his.)
I will continue to slog through. I will continue to write and read what others wrote. I will continue to labor at this marketing-waste-of-time-formality thing. And I will continue to be depressed about the results. Besides, how else am I to proceed? Great writers are supposed to die alone in poverty and addiction, with no friends and no money. How can I pass up a reward like that?
Catch a Falling Star 