And For The Readers….

For those of you who actually tune in for news about my writing (I know, what a concept!) I thought I’d add a quick update. The Blood Contract is currently in the hands of one of my beta readers. I implemented the suggestions of one, and once I receive it back from the other and add my own changes, we should be gold. At this point, I’m still shooting to have it released by the end of the month, and I remain confident I’ll meet that goal.

I’m still deciding on a cover, but I have an idea I may end up going with if nothing else pans out.

Also, as of this writing, The Four-Year-Old Guardian has been rereleased in paperback, implementing the formatting changes I made to Bravado/Dramatique. This has allowed me to cut down the page length considerably, which means cutting costs to the consumer. I plan to follow through with the rest of my releases here in short order.

As always, thanks for reading!

S.L. Madden

The End Is In Sight

Finally, after months of apologies, tears, bleeding orifices, and excuses, the rough draft for The Blood Contract is finally done!

Finally!

I’ll wait for the applause to settle down.

Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, I managed to focus on the computer screen long enough to type the words The End.  I know I’m a few months late (I originally aimed for a June release), but in my defense, this is the biggest book in the Only Human on the Block series.  At nearly 125K words, it’s actually second only to Ascension in length.

Immediately after finishing the draft, I launched into working on my “rough edit,” which is essentially me making the changes proposed in group.  As of this writing, I’m 36% done with my rough edit.  When I finish (which I’m hoping will be this weekend), I plan to print it all out again and hand it over to my beta readers.  After that, I’ll take their suggestions into consideration, along with any other changes I want to make and… it’s release time!

I don’t have a date set in stone, but at this point, I’m aiming for the end of September.  That should give me enough time to accomplish a few things before NaNoWriMo hits in November.  First up, I plan to rerelease Bravado/Dramatique in both print and eBook.  When I released it back in 2012 (has it really been that long?), I was told there were a lot of editing errors.  Unfortunately, I can’t disagree with that.  So the new release is simply going to be a better edited version.  No new material will be added, as I feel it’s a tad unfair to go back and pad out my previous catalogue (unless I decide to do a “director’s cut” treatment down the road.  Hmm….).  To the best of my knowledge, anyone who has previously purchased or downloaded an eBook copy will be able to redownload the new version once I have it ready.

My second item of order is finishing The Shadow Without (formerly known as World of Shadows, and the third book in the Unseen Things series).  It was my NaNo book of 2012, and the rough draft has been languishing for the past several months.  Truth be told, aside from a few big chapters I need to add/modify, the bulk of the draft is done.  If I can’t get it out before November, I have little doubt I’ll be able to release it by the end of the year.

Thanks to all of you who have been waiting patiently (and even the impatient ones) for these books.  My life has been a series of ups and downs this past year, and I can’t say I’ve spent my time wisely, but I want to assure you, I’m back on track.  Once The Blood Contract and The Shadow Without are complete, each series has only one more book.  Then it’s onto new series and characters.

The end is in sight.  And it’s only the beginning.

Thanks for reading,

 

S.L. Madden

Don’t Judge A Book….

First off, I apologize for my absence.  Isn’t it just like a guy to inundate you with love (NaBloPoMo), then disappear with nary a word?  Well, rest assured, my time away was used well.  Sort of.

First and foremost, I published Together Alone (see that bluish text?  I can make a link because it’s an actual product now!).  I had endeavored to have it out by 12/20, and I released it some time after midnight the morning of 12/21.  So close!  It was released with very little fanfare, with only a tweet and a Facebook posting to announce its availability.

Yes, six books in, and I still don’t have a firm grasp on the concept of marketing.  When I should have been building up enthusiasm, performing interviews, offering giveaways, and soliciting reviewers, I was instead putting the finishing touches on it, then moving on to the next book.  I like to think someday I’ll have so many books out, my presence will be hard to ignore, but until then, I continue to rely on word of mouth.

In this instance, however, it turned out to be a good thing, as I discovered once the book went live on Amazon, my cover just didn’t cut it.

This was my first time solely trying to do the cover on my own, and I rather liked the way it turned out.  I always wanted the cover to depict hands reaching in, to signify both the strength of the demon army advancing on Averton, and the desperate plight of the citizens there.  On my screen, it looked pretty good, but in the context of the thumbnail, it was hard to see the red hands against the dark background.  In fact, it just looked like a black square.  To make matters worse, the dark letters against the grey background were completely lost, making it difficult to read the name.

I decided to play with the image some last night, and I ended up really liking the results.  I have yet to see it in thumbnail form (that will have to wait until I get home tonight for me to upload it), but I think it’ll be much easier to see.  And it has some color to it, that I believe will make it pop.

Unfortunately, I didn’t receive any printed orders before changing the cover, or else the original version would end up being a rare copy.  I didn’t even order one for myself, sadly.  However, the ebooks from Amazon and Smashwords currently have the old cover.  This time tomorrow (barring any unforeseen difficulties), the new cover should be available.

Below is the old and new version.  Let me know what you think:

Thanks for reading,

 

S.L. Madden

  

All In the Family

One of the interesting things about living in this day in age is the ability to Google yourself.  You don’t have to be self-published or a celebrity to have an internet presence.  Unless you’re Amish or way off the grid, chances are you have some sort of digital identity.

When I search my name, I get my books and their reviews, along with the customary football and shoe links.  Nothing terribly interesting (although I did stumble upon a review for Bravado/Dramatique on a blog I’d never heard of).

My mother, on the other hand, yields more numerous and humorous results.

For instance, a few years ago on askville, someone asked whatever happened to author Mickee Madden.  One person responded saying they thought the name was a pseudonym (it’s not), postulating she might have been a more prolific, well-known writer who used the moniker to publish romance novels.  My sister answered the question, telling them she was indeed a real person, and that she still writes on occasion.  Elsewhere, I found interviews she did on people’s blogs, biographies, reviews, discussions about when her next books will be out, etc.

So I thought, why not add more stop along the information superhighway (does anyone actually refer to the internet as that anymore?) for those fans who are looking for her?

The final book in her popular Everlastin’ series is nearly upon us.  After years of waiting, Dreams Everlastin’ is due to be released by the end of next month.  She hoped to have it out in September, but her knee surgery and other life intrusions set her back a bit.  Nevertheless, the end is in sight.  We’ve been going through the book in group, and I think you’re all in for a treat.

In addition to releasing the last book, she’s also planning to rerelease the whole series with expanded content, a sort of special edition, if you will.  I’m not sure what the estimated release timeframe is for them, but I’ll pass on the information when it comes up.  And for those of you who just can’t wait, the whole series (as well as some of her other books) is available in e-format on Smashwords here and on Amazon.  I know she’s interested in putting them out in print as well, so keep your eyes open for new in that regard.

As always, thanks for reading (even if it’s my mom’s books and not mine) 🙂

 

S.L. Madden

 

The Shadow Within Is Live

I’ll let the title speak for itself while I let out a huge sigh of relief.

Whew!

I thought I was being pretty conservative by settling on today as the release date, but I was toiling away on trying to fix some formatting issues on the print version pretty much up to the wire.  I was starting to worry I wouldn’t make it, but my hard work paid off.  Not only is the digital version available starting today, but for you old-schoolers out there, the print version is also ready to go.

You can find both the electronic and print versions on Amazon here and here, respectively.

If you prefer Smashwords, you can find it available here.

And if Nook is your thing, here you go.

And if you haven’t read the first book yet (shame on you!), you can find it on Amazon, Smashwords and Nook.

Thank you to everyone for your patience through this process.  It can be trying at times, but it’s always exciting.

I’ll be going through it all over again in a few months when it’s time to release Together Alone.  But for now… I relax.

Thanks for reading,

 

S.L. Madden