This is my test promo that the ladies will put on their blogs

The Soulstone Chronicles For a nice big read. For fantasy with romance. For romance that crosses aeons. Follow the adventures of a polyamorous god who’s managed to get himself born human. http://www.lulu.com/Frontain http://soulstonechronicles.bravehost.com/ http://kmfrontain.blogspot.com/

And one more promo to go today

Here's for an interesting Yahoo group. HOMO-PROMO YAHOOGROUP:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homopromo Do you love to read about hot handsome men getting it on together? You might call it 'gay romance', 'original slash' or just 'M/M'. Well if that's what you like to read do I have the yahoogroup for you! Homo-promo is a place to swap gossip, post reviews, hear about new releases, contests and promotions, and chat with your favourite writers of that spicy manlove we all love. (Bisexual, threesome and other M/M+ content also welcome.) M/M and M/M+ writers are also welcome to join our happy band which already includes the following authors: Lena Austin, Ally Blue, Rachel Bo, Kay Derwydd, Kate Douglas, Fiona Glass, Jeigh Lynn, Jet Mykles, Willa Okati, Barbara Sheridan, Kira Stone, Silvia Violet, Emily Veinglory & Samantha Winston.

Another fellow author promo, and another test

This promo is from Kay Derwydd. She put straight html on her promo. So let's see how it works on my blog. Press Release from ERWF Member Kay Derwydd: "Novel Visions" by Kay Derwydd Available at Chippewa Publishing http://www.chippewapublishing.com $2.00 Jonathon Cayle is a horror novelist visiting New Orleans for a two-week long book signing stint. Unhappy with his life back in Atlanta with his girlfriend, he is grateful to be able to explore his preference for men while he’s out of town. What he finds in New Orleans, however, is the last thing he ever expected. **Excerpt** He sat down on the bed, kicked his boots off, and draped his coat over the end of the bed to let it dry out. The stability of a regular mattress was a welcome relief. He was sick to death of Nadeen's obsession with waterbeds. He switched on the television to the news then began to undress. He only watched the news half-heartedly, feeling a bit out of the loop with the local bits, but he left it on as he went into the bathroom to fill the tub. He had an hour before Jess would be back and a nice soak in hot water would do him some good. As he sank down into the steaming water, he felt calmness sweep over him. Now this was heaven. No Nadeen, no ringing phones, no socialite visitors; just himself, a hot tub, and the decadence of New Orleans right outside his window. With the soothing effects of the water, he was finally able to think about his next book. He was in town to do the signings for The Hart Files, but he knew the plotline demanded another book. Rather, the main character demanded another book. Kain Hart: now there was a man to be reckoned with, and what better place to do a book signing for a vampire novel than New Orleans? Jonathon smiled and closed his eyes; if only Kain Hart were real. He chuckled quietly. If Nadeen knew he lusted after men, she would have a fucking heart attack. Jess knew, however, and she was constantly trying to set him up with some cute guy she knew. Jonathon groaned at the thought of finally touching a man again. The last time he had was nearly a year ago, long before he started dating Nadeen. Within two weeks of the beginning of their relationship, she had made it clear she was not fond of gays and lesbians. Jonathon's heart collapsed in on itself that day, but he stayed with her; only the gods knew why. As the steam wafted up around him and the tub, Jonathon felt himself drift off to sleep several times. If he had more time, he would give in. Every time he did, he was treated to a delicious dream of Kain Hart, his darkly sensual vampire from his latest novel. Oh, if only he were real. With a Kain Hart to keep him company, Jonathon would never return to Atlanta or Nadeen. He could not help but grin at the thought of the socialite bitch's reaction should that happen. So lost he was in his daydream of Kain, he did not hear the knock on his suite door until the person was nearly banging on it. **** http://chippewapublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=65&osCsid=39c41bcf9792a7e07f1c663e8c0f0712 _________________ Website: http://www.purpletriangleprose.com Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/kay_derwydd Visit: http://www.forbiddenfruitzine.com

a thumbnail test

I'm trying to figure out how Fiona got that picture in her promo. So here goes my test. http://ca.geocities.com/kmfrontain/dispositionthumbnail.jpg Wrong code obviously. Second time around. Here goes. Yay! That second republish worked! So now I know. Odd but I can't then cut and paste my blogged photo as I did for Fiona's. I have to go get more advice.

A press release for Fiona Glass

I am joining a blog circle with the ladies at ERWF, so here's the latest e-short from Fiona Glass. Yes, Fiona is one of those lucky ladies published with an e-publisher. Her publishing history was my motivation for upping my novel prices and dumping ebooks from my storefront (I'm not poking my claws at you Fiona! Seriously! You've inspired me to ask for more. Along with my wise friend from Halifax, who I shall name My Wise Friend from Halifax.) Press release from ERWF member Fiona Glass: 'Elfmeet' by Fiona Glass Chippewa Publishing LLC http://www.chippewapublishing.com $2.00 New and just released by Chippewa, this is a short fantasy tale about an elf who has grown up believing he is human. His life changes for good the day he runs away from home and meets a real elf in a village inn. Extract: As they reached the door, the landlord glanced up, and called out in alarm. “Hey, young ‘un, don’t you be going off with the likes of him. One of the fairies, he is, or as near as dammit, and you know what they say about folks what goes with the fairies.” “They say they never come back unchanged,” Jon replied. “But that’s all right, I’m not sure I want to stay the way I am.” With that, he grasped Kes’ hand more tightly and followed him out of the door. The night was cool and clear. A new moon was rising over the village roofs and tiny snowflake stars dusted the sky. As they left the houses behind, the stars grew ever brighter until they filled Jon’s sight, sparkling like jewels against the black cloth of the sky. He breathed deep. “They’re beautiful,” he said. “I never really stopped and looked at them before.” Kes smiled and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Yes, they are beautiful. There are lots of beautiful things in this world that men never take the time to see.” Just past the last straggling buildings, he led Jon along a narrow path and into the woods. It was quiet in here with the deep silence of air that was rarely disturbed, and Jon felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There was magic in the air, and a faint, silvery music that tinkled in the breeze, and if he wasn’t much mistaken, there were eyes amongst the leaves. “Who are they?” he whispered, holding as close to Kes as he could. “Just the rest of my tribe; don’t worry, they will watch over us and bless our mating,” Kes whispered back. Jon found himself in a clearing full of white flowers and the longest, softest grass he had ever seen. The trees formed a circle; their branches raised high to give a clear view of the sky. The moon had vanished behind some wispy cloud but the stars were still there, larger and more brilliant than ever, forming a vast and glittering necklace around the world. He stood and stared in awe until Kes tugged and he tumbled down amongst the grass stems in a tangled heap of leggings and limbs and hair. _________________ E-books: One Degree of Separation from http://www.torquerepress.com Elfmeet from http://www.chippewapublishing.com

Hee hee! Finished my next book cover.

Now that all those ebooks are no longer hanging over my head, I think I'll publish my next set by January 2006. That's The Disposition of Ashes. And then I'll go ahead with The Redemption of Tehlm Sevet and The Sun Bane. But I have to finish the next in the series. I am on the final edit of Disposition Three. I'm playing with the idea of a beta reader for this set. I have to have someone that can take the time and then delete the file when done. Otherwise it's me, me, me again--writer, proofreader, editor, publisher. So. I'm off to Lulu to fix those files again. Changed all book lists at the front to exclude ebooks.

Bother! Bother! Bother!

I must now create another version of each book, excluding the references to the books being available as ebooks. Bummer.

Forget the comments. Have gone ahead with it.

So I picked up the phone and called my wise friend in Halifax. And yes, she says my view on prices is skewed, skewed skewed. Forget about thinking of being fair, fair, fair. Forget the ebook as a format. Sell the paperbacks. So I'm off to Lulu again to make all the books available as paperbacks only (except of course the free to read previews). See, she reminded me that few people would buy a Christmas present, for example, that was under 10$. Many people would happily dump 50$ on a present, of which one set of my books is a close mark. Here I was worrying about affordability when I should have been pricing for content. She said an interesting thing. She said that when you have a skill, you undervalue it. For example, she can sew. She looks at a pricey dress and sees at once how to make it, goes home and does so. A person that can't sew sees this pricey dress and thinks it's worth having, forks out a wad of cash because she wants it, just wants it, has to have it, doesn't care about the price. All along I've believed it's worth having my books in the hands. I've just not acted on this, thinking to "prove" my work with the ebook format. But I don't have to prove it any more than I gave out the free to read files of the first two books of the set. Anyone that likes my genre will buy once they've read those. This has already happened in one case. I'm not out there to prove myself to anyone but the reader. So out with the pyschology of give-them-something-affordable. On with the pay-for-the-paperback plan. There's nothing like holding a book in your hands while you're cuddled up in bed with a hot tea.

Well, I did it. I jacked my prices.

After visiting page after page of books sold in ebook format, and discovering that many were not even novellas but still cost 2$ US, I finally jacked my ebook prices from 3$ to 4$. It's still reasonable, but then, I may take the ebooks off the market soon. I don't see anyone taking advantage of the prices, other than one person that may have bought all four available ebooks (after downloading the two free to read pdf files). That's the same person that put me up for The Fruity Awards. I'm making a logical deduction here. Who else would nominate me but someone that read all three of the Bound set? I suspect whoever it is also read all of the Gryphon Set. So I had one reader buy them all, all four available ebooks. I'm happy this reader did, and happy he or she had the lower price, but then I started thinking, what if people visiting my site look at the low prices and think perhaps I can't keep up the pace of my storytelling. One friend of mine said that a reverse pyschology thing happens sometimes. You offer a low price and the potential customer at once thinks you're offering crap. Hmmm. I didn't believe her at first. She told me this months ago. Now I believe her. Especially after seeing ebooks for sale at 2$ that shouldn't be referred to as books. E-shorts would be more applicable. If I sold my books based on their prices--let me work the math--5000 words at 2$ is the same as 131 197 (Bound in Stone Two) at what? That would be 131 197 divide by 5000 times 2$ equals...52$ minumum. Ah, wonderful. I shall up my ebook price at once to 52$ dollars. Then everyone will know it's a good read. Well, of course, that's just silly. 52$ for an ebook if the ebook is non-fiction and niche oriented, but not for fiction. So it's 4$ that I set my price today. Reasonable. Very reasonable. But I'm seriously playing with the idea of taking the ebooks off the market and offering only paperbacks. I mean, I have my free to read files out there, and that's enough of a giveaway. Offering the rest for 4$ each is almost a giveaway. That reverse psychology thing may still be at work. Perhaps the reader would fork up for a book or two in the hand better than ebooks read on the computer. With Lulu's new supersaver shipping, taking the ebooks off the market is very doable, even if I market outside of the US. For an order between 25 and 100$ US, there's free shipping. A set of three of my books is under 100$ US. You'd have to order at least two to get the free shipping. Conceivably, a reader could go along ordering two books of the series at a time, or three at a time, for as long as I publish them in sets, and get free shipping. I'm thinking as I write the blog at this point. I'm really, seriously thinking of taking those books and making them available as paperbacks only. I already planned to make The Disposition of Ashes available as paperback only. There's only so much I wanted out there on the web in ebook form. I had thought to make it the first six books in the epic, but now I'm re-thinking it. I've only been published since the end of August. I've only marketed on-line. I'm not interested in forking out wads of cash to promote, so it's bound to be slow growth until word of mouth starts occurring. So do I keep those ebooks up there, or do I make them all, except for the free to read pdf files, available only in hardcopy form? I'd appreciate comments on this one. Constructive comments. I know I have detractors of the self-published occasionally reading my blog. Those persons likely won't have any decent advice on this matter. Don't bother commenting stupid shit that doesn't help me forward my purpose. I'll just delete any comment that doesn't make a legitimate, constructive point that helps me or any other self-published author out there.

The Lulu glitch mysteriously vanishes

Last night, seven hours after I tried to fix up all the covers on-line, the glitch that stopped me vanished. But it was too late to continue, so I did it all this afternoon. Done. All covers fixed and all books available with the newest front cover and text versions. :-)

Memoware is back! Back, baby, back!

Whoo hoo! One good thing this weekend! Now I'm just off to edit my home pages again and put the quick link for Memoware back up, and the site didn't lose my download numbers. Wheee. So as of now, Gryphon One is at 431 and Bound One is at 384.

Yay! Another Lulu glitch weekend!

I'm being sarcastic. Can't get my new book covers up until the Lulu guys fix this latest glitch, another conversion problem. So I have to wait until Monday, 'cause that's when they come back to work. Darn. Anyway, when the Lulu programs are working, they're great. When they're not, they're a bitch, but being someone who knows some tech shit, I do know glitches happen. Like shit happens. I still love you, Lulu guys! Don't worry! I'm just going to thump around all weekend cursing your glitches. Seriously, I still recommend Lulu over all other POD publishers, because--did I mention?--they don't charge up front fees before you publish. Really, no one should have to pay a thousand bucks to get their book in print. No one. As well, editing and proofreading fees should be something you shop around for, not something that you're forced to take from in-house services because you are also forced to pay an up front before publishing fee. At Lulu, you can hire their recommended editors/proofreaders, or, as I said, shop around elsewhere. Get it for free if you can, through exchanged services. Anyway, there it is. Can't do much till Monday about my book cover fixes.

Make another version day

Today I spent the afternoon using Adobe Photodeluxe to make a fix to all my front covers. And now I'm on Lulu making yet another version of every published book to include these fixes. What was it? I had the Soulstone Chronicles on the front covers instead of The Soulstone Chronicles. So this afternoon was a cut and paste job, including a finicky hunt for the right gold print to replace the bad "the". And now the covers all have the correct "The". Since I was doing this fix, I took the time to also edit the text of each novel. Again. This time, after conversing on-line with someone for whom I was doing a "beta" reading, I relooked up my use of the ellipis (that's those three dots that many people use to show dropped words). In my old dictionary, the ellipsis is used more often when quoting another writer and dropping some of his text. The em dash, however, was more appropriate to dropped words in the speech of my characters. Now perhaps the new dictionaries have changes in this rule. I don't know. But I murdered all the ellipses I could find. I didn't quite follow the rule exactly, however. I didn't use an em dash with a period at the end for an incomplete sentence. It looked so stupid, especially when the sentence wrapped around to have a ." on the very next line. So I didn't make --." Those two hypens become one em dash in MS Word if you have autoformat on. What happens is you make a word, then two hypens--no spaces between words and hypens--and then you continue on to the next word. MS Word automatically changes the two hypens to an em dash the moment you go the next word after the words paired to the double hypens. You can manage an en dash this way too. An en dash is sometimes the preference of some publishers. It so happened that the last time I formatted a book, it was done for a publisher that like em dashes, so I kept them. How to make an en dash with MS Word: type a word, a space, a hypen, a space, a word, a space and at this point Ms Word alters the hypen to an en dash. You don't want a hyphen between thought concepts in a sentence. Hyphens are only for compound words like red-brown. So I fixed the text of my manuscripts, and as well fixed the page telling what books were available in the series. And now I'm still on Lulu fixing each published book. Another version day. Whoopee. Ah, well. Had to be done. The more perfect I get them, the happier I'll be.

This month's statistic day

Memoware has been down since November 19, and so I no longer have it as a quick download site for people wanting to read the introductory ebooks. For now, readers must go to the applicable book pages on Lulu and click the preview button to read Gryphon One and Bound One as pdf files. Unfortunately I did not write down the numbers before Memoware crashed, but Bound One was in the 370 range ( I think 374), up from 162. Gryphon One had gone to the 420 range, up from 297. But it seems it's the end of Memoware. I am waiting for Google Print to put my books live and will make that another download site for those wishing to get a booksize preview of my fantasy epic. I have no idea if Google print keeps track of the number of downloads. No sales this month. Disappointing, but I have to admit I slacked off promoting. I joined a new forum that I love, and started another novel that has nothing to do with The Soulstone Chronicles. It's slashy again. And looking good so far, from the responses I've had on crit groups. But then, I followed "the rules" more on this piece. I have a lot more saids, and a lot less adverbs. So naturally I can now be "approved of". On the plus side, I was nominated in an awards contest. The blog for that is earlier. Won't get into the details, but obviously my published books were deemed good enough by someone that read all of the Bound in Stone set. I'm still happy about that. On the ambiguous side, I had a comment in the previous post from someone who made a test blog just to post anonymously. I've left it there, all sarcasm and courage intact. It's the first comment I've had in months, and only the second legitimate (not spam) comment I've had in total--makes a sad face--but it tells me at least someone is reading these posts. So. Onward. Last month's number in brackets. My bravenet website 297 (183) My little used Yahoo website 30 (7) Gryphon One 330 (253) Gryphon Two 66 (50) Gryphon Three 12 (9) Bound One 121 (86) Bound Two 11 (7) Bound Three 5 (3) So that's it. Will have to think about more promotion, but I keep getting distracted by my new story.

I'm in the most recent SelfPublisher News

So this month I am a highlighted author in Selfpublishers News. Selfpublishers News issues a pdf file that is sent out monthly, and discusses enterprising authors that choose to buck traditional publishing, myself included. http://www.selfpublishernews.com/default.php So I come out looking really overconfident as usual, or hyper. And I sent bad information about how long it took me to write my massive epic, and this was put in the edition instead of the corrected version that I sent after. I had originally written to the editor that I'd written my series (so far at 17 books) in five years, but I had been misled by a postmark (I occasionally send chapter copies to myself for copyright reasons). Other than for three chapters written many years ago, I did it all in three years. So now I look even more hyper, don't I? Hey! At least I sent Selfpublishers News a smiley picture! I'm happy! Smiley. Smiley. Smiley. Yes, that's my big grin face in the December edition. (Confession: I fixed the horrible grey teeth, warts, bulbous chin, red eyes, circles around them, and the hair standing on end. Totally faked picture. That is not even me. Except for the grin.) After sending in that interview, the fellow I mentioned that did volunteer proofreading for me read two more books and caught some more mistakes for me. Thank-you, Larry! Every author should have a Larry. They're indispensible. Actually, anyone can email me if they find a mistake in spelling or grammar. No problem. I'll fix it and make a new edition and up the count on my version number at Lulu just for you. Yep. Just don't bother correcting my Canadian English. Nope. Won't change that for no one. After all, we Canadians are out to conquer the world through entertainment. Resistence is futile.

Lulu now has supersaver shipping

Lulu is now offering a supersaver shipping for orders totalling between 25$ and 100$, for both domestic and international orders. http://www.lulu.com/help/node/view/15#supersaver And what does that mean for me? It means my readers can get free shipping if they buy two of my books. One book will cost almost twenty bucks in shipping, but two will cost nothing in shipping. There. I am now able to promote my books more readily to Canadians. At last. Thank-you, Lulu.

Lulu having down time

Well I actually received a message from the guys at Lulu saying Lulu is migrating to new "network infrastructure hardware", and therefore will suffer down time. And I can't help but wonder if any Lulu honchos noticed my blog and that I'm prone to complaining whenever their pdf converter is slow, like 24 hours slow. Nah. I'm probably being paranoid. Anyhow. They at least gave warning. And now I pass it on to you. Apparently when they say down time, this also means visitors will experience problems viewing pages and downloading books. First down time happened this morning, but no notice of when another might occur. But at least they're upgrading to accomodate an increase in traffic. So be warned! You may hit a down time when visiting any Lulu book pages.

My latest fun site

So my latest place to hang about is this site: Erotic Romance Writers There are a few ladies on it, who, like me, like homoerotic fiction. So I've been having fun getting to know them. I even have my own forum on the site and posted my first Sticky. I'll post the post here. Following is About me. Apparently I need a little sticky post to let everyone know about me, other than a long [i]me[/i] song, and a binary word, and a post on my latest weird sex story with cuttlefish. So. About me. I am so boring. :oops: Um. Really. I put everything interesting in my stories. And then I act like a nut to get attention, but only on the net. At home, my neighbours think I'm normal. I think. As an author, I mostly like fantasy. That's about all I'm into, or SF. With lots of men doing naughty things, of course. When I'm not writing about cuttlefish addicted to pussy. Where was I? Yes. I'm boring. In an attempt to be less so, I published six of my obsessions in two months on Lulu.com. I figured what the hell. Better to dance than to never dance at all. I stopped enjoying the dance with editors and agents. That's more like shuffling against the wall, hemmed in on all sides and with only one avenue open to escape--the only exit that isn't jammed with frantic, would-be dancers. Or as I like to call it, the self-publishing door. I still have eleven books to publish, plus one not finished in the series, and any number that might pop out after. Then, of course, there's my cuttlefish, and a few other ideas that have been floating about. So the partially published obsession is called The Soulstone Chronicles. Short description: how bad can it get for a god? I have, for a long time, noticed that many TV stories, comics, and even books make one massively powerful character that somehow advances to a higher state of being, and then vanishes from the view of the reader/viewer. I decided to see what happened if I followed such a person beyond the ken of the typical character, which of course led to this question: what can I do to make a god miserable? My answer was this epic. I hope you all read the introductory e-books. :D And just prior to that, I posted this: 01101000011011110110110101101111011001010111001001101111011101000110100101100011 My favourite word of the week. Has been since I joined this group and discovered it. And since someone on another community wrote some silly numbers instead of plain English, I'm now on a binary stampede. And my first post was titled: Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, And had this in the post: Now just sing that to the Meow Mix commercial. Or is it cat chow? I'm missing one me in the title. Oh, well. I also posted a story I'm working on, and a rant about ebook prices, but I won't get into them this blog. Back to my fun site.

I have had a nomination for being fruity.

At least once a week, I do this narcissistic thing wherein I put in my author name and/or book title in the Google search engine to see if I have been noticed. And today I discovered that I was noticed. I've been grinning since. Here's the link: Official Nominees for the Fruity Awards So three of my books have been nominated, all of the Bound in Stone set. I'm still grinning. I think this is just fantastic. Whoever nominated me, thank-you. I'll just grin the rest of the evening, and go to bed feeling a bit more happy with the world. Any of you interested in erotica about man love, not necessarily written by men, should check out this site and follow the links to the various other sites. http://www.bysable.com/ERWI/index.html

Well at last Amazon has my book pages up properly.

It's been a month and then some since I bought basic ISBN distribution from Lulu for Gryphon One, and Amazon had no front cover or book description up until this week. And why this week? Because after Lulu misled me into believing that Amazon would eventually get the cover and description up, I realized that I'd have to do it myself. So I did some digging and found the right information, in Lulu's international distribution FAQ, not the basic distribution FAQ. And I contacted Amazon, and put up the description, and then ftp'd the covers. So it's done. I can actually make links to Amazon now without being totally embarrassed. Here's the one for my author page with both Gryphon One and Bound One on it: Both books. And here's the links to the books separately. Gryphon One. Bound One.