[As usual, two weeks lag here, if you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward). If you’d like your news fresher, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]
Still occasionally snowing around here. Got some last night, but not even a footprint accumulation, for all the palm-sized flakes at one point. Still 32f this morning, so breakfast and home.
Cheated over the weekend. Instead of taking the weekend off, we had our (North) Writer’s Lunch, so I skipped martial class entirely and started the origin story for my spy. Got about 4,000 words done over the weekend, instead of sewing or music, but that was fine. Back to Corsac Fox this morning. Over 60k. Shaping the final confrontation and battle in such a way that it sets up #4 and #6.
Kickstarter news: I’ve got most of the responses, so I’ll start doing fulfillment this week. Everyone’s getting Corsac 1, Auberon, and Science Officer. The fun will be sorting out all the other things people bought. 100 people, some variable combination of things I have to track and deliver.
Did see the new Dust-jacket-hard-copy of Flight yesterday. That will be going up for printing, and once we have an approved copy, we’ll be drop-shipping most. Do have one friend in Finland who’s getting a copy, but that’s a special case and he overpaid excessively because he knew it would be a pain the ass.
Next time, I might open things up farther, but that’s Canada, France, and Finland, all of whom inquired. Depends on shipping costs. Might be worth it.
And Maria has finished the colored versions of Haydar, Ethir, and Yanouk. Sent her all the hexcodes to do Uly and Dan next, and that’s the color plates. Everyone will get a pdf with “lower quality” plates as part of our stretch goals. About a dozen folks will be getting the “freaking HUGE” files that Maria sent us. (60mb jpg sorts of things. Poster sized, if you wanted to actually print them and hang them. If anyone does, I’d be happy to sign them at some con some day. FYI)
Might finish Corsac 3 this week. Will be close. Also need to finish the spy story (Chase Haig is the character name) and have that ready for y’all next month.
I have also gone back through most of my short fiction that has never seen the light of day. Editing pass. Creating cheap covers, both using Bookbrush and learning Affinity Photo, with free art from Pixabay.com. Writing blurbs. Generating vellum files. Once Fabulous Publisher Babe™ reviews, those will go up for sale on the KRP store and eventually wide.
In case I forgot to mention, www.knottedroadpress.com/shophas all the novels and most of the non-fiction in place. All the short fiction will go up over the next however long it takes.
Amazon et al generally keep 30% of cover price. (Except for the $0.99 books, where they keep 70%), so if the book sells for $5.99, I make about $4.07, give or take. Stuff we sell on the store, at present, we net 100% of the proceeds.
Might drop some prices, but I don’t want to entirely cut off Amazon and the others as sales platforms, because they are also my advertising platforms as well. “You might like…” and “Blaze Ward has a new book out…” sorts of things.
Publishing news: Boundary Shock Quarterly has recruited Daniel Keys Moran as a columnist. (I know, right?) He’ll start “The Once and Future Writer” with either issue 23 or 24. I am still hoping to find someone who can talk about both the history of SF as well as some of the genres, from a scholarly or fandom standpoint, so it you know anyone, hook me up.
Also, because I work with the publishers of Mystery, Crime, and Mayhem as well as The Thrill Ride, they are similarly looking for folks to write about the non-fiction aspect of things, from a scholarly POV. Poke your old professors or nerdier friends and send them my way.
Not much past that. Slow day here as I wind things up.
Chat more next week.
Shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
—————————-
Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!
If you’re reading the free version (which is published two weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.