Yes, it’s Colonel Kurtz time here on the old farmhold.
I’m on the quivering, bleeding edge of getting the book out in print (Both Hardcover and paperback), but to steal a quote from another witty luminary:
“My path is strewn with cowpats from the devil’s own satanic herd!”
So, no idea when I will finally have my book available through KDP, to which I have found a MASSIVE error in Amazon’s software that refuses to complete the publishing process. To wit, I am waiting on their crack team of customer service and tech support to fix for me.
Also, I have not been well informed as to how to get the hardcover, now completed with Ingram Spark, to be available for purchase ANYWHERE! So patience, contact customer service, and be ready to follow instructions. I’m also quite shocked with how high the price has to be to actually earn anything for myself. I’m not a charity you know, Signore Printero!
Just so you know, the price of the hardcover when it comes out is not that high so I can pocket a ton of dough. I will be earning less than 10%. Of course this is fantastic when you consider traditional publishing, but if you compare it to the profitability of a hedge fund manager (over 70% on average)… I’m kinda getting the short end of that stick. Which for a book that costs around a fifth of that to print… I gotta wonder where’s it all go? Ahhh, good ole shipping and handling I guess. pfft.
I said it before, I’ll say it again… please forgive the hysterical sobbing in the corner. I’m just trying to survive.
On a positive note, I’ve had to rename one of my main villains because well… I’m not about to give him a girl’s name. “A Boy Named Sue” be damned. The positive was the new name I found in Old Norse is epic. It just nailed it, and with it came a whole slate of personality. I remember some writer… really good one too… that I can’t remember his name (Oh yeah… Elmore Leonard!) who said he had this same problem with a character he had created. Gave the guy a good creole name for his murder mystery and the guy just wouldn’t talk to him. Changed him to an Irish guy and he couldn’t get him to shut up. I loved that story. Just perfect.
In the downtime from writing Book Two I’ve been tearing at a lot of foundational philosophy for my setting, and realized its a deep deep DEEP construct for me to explore philosophically, as well as theologically. Yes, lots of lectures on medieval religion and faith have been watched, as well as getting into the Apocryphal books some more. Learning tons about Medieval life and how it would be altered by the nature of Akiniwazi and more. One of the most startling realizations I had is that the discovery of steampower may not have been quite what I thought it was. It adds a more… complex? Sure… I can go with complex nature to the growth and evolution of the Forsamling society.
More fun is how I’m starting to understand the Skaerslinger culture a bit more and the history of the sects. I swear, I thought I knew pretty solidly how this was going to end up. I still kinda do in broad strokes, but writing this project has been like going into thick woods and popping out half way up a mountain with a vista of a huge world beyond yet to go!
I’m very excited to keep moving on, and in some respects this delay has been good and bad at the same time. The frustration level is through the roof, while the learning has been phenomenal. I wouldn’t say that I’ve become an expert on anything, but I have had my eyes opened to how much I do not know.
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