Sunday Update - New Book!

Lots of interesting things going on.  I'm easing back into blogging now. I'll do Sunday Updates for the rest of August and then... well, see below about the fall blogging schedule.

Published: Fables and Enchantments

Fables and Enchantments is a collection of seven children's stories.  Two of the stories were published in Cricket Magazine back in the 1990s.  One was originally sold to a publication called Story Cards, but never published.  You've seen a few of them here on the blog before.

As you may notice, I decided not to do a pen name.  Most of my writing for grown ups is really appropriate for children too.  Where do you draw the line?  I can't.

I'll talk about some of the individual stories later on in a story notes post.  In the meantime, check it out!

Currently available at: Amazon.com (Amazon international stores: UK, DE, FR, IT, ES, IN, CA, JP, BR.)
Coming soon to: Barnes & Noble, Apple iBookstore, Kobo, Sony, Diesel, Smashwords.

Return to Blogging

I'll return to limited regular blogging in September.  (I'll be updating on Sundays for the rest of August.)  The schedule will be:

Sunday Update: What I'm up to, book announcements, maybe commentary and videos.
Writer Wednesday: Story Notes and stuff about writing
Friday Favorites: Reviews and analysis of books and movies and TV shows that interest me

IF (and only if) things go well, I'll expand again to a broader schedule, and separate the story notes from the writing stuff.  I might even bring the serial back.

More Mick and Casey On The Way

I'll talk more next Sunday about my planned publishing schedule, but I thought you Mick and Casey fans might like to know that today I beat out the plots for a couple more unfinished Mick and Casey novelettes.  One might well be a novella.  (I figured out what was missing, and so there's a whole level of subplot to add.)

The stories (and my hoped for publication dates):

*A Fistful of Divas - this story was published here on the blog as a serial. I have done some rewriting, but mostly to clean it up and make it flow better.  Expected pub date: around August 25.

*Stone-Cold Dead at the Trading Post - Mick and Casey get caught in the middle of a battle of the sexes when a woman is accused of killing her abusive husband.  That is, Mick gets caught in the middle. Expected pub date: around September 26.

*Six-Gun Santa - A crazy old drunk takes a bunch of orphans hostage and demands that Santa Claus meet him for a shootout at midnight.  Mick is elected to put on the red suit and face him.  Hoped for pub date: Thanksgiving, or maybe early December.

Return of the Serial?

Wait! What was that?  I might even bring the serial back?  Well, MAYBE... a little later.  If everything goes right.

If I do it, it will be once a week. I'll continue to tell the story of The Case of the Misplaced Baroness.  But I'll ONLY do this if I get my other work done successfully, in a timely manner.  Also if the story doesn't morph into something more "novel" oriented.  (I'm letting the story dictate.)  Also, it would help if I actually start making money at my other work.

Formatting Fun, and Smashwords

Pardon me while I indulge in a little neepery (i.e. geek-speak);  I spent a week working out a new process for formatting my publishing files in html.  I get to skip Word completely.  Yes yes yes yes yes!  If I type in "Markdown" style, I can write anything anywhere and it will not carry formatting junk from one platform to anohter. (I can even type in Word.)

This process creates beautifully formatted mobi and epub files -- very clean, no junk hidden in the files.  (Or such limited junk it's easy to find and kill it.)  HOWEVER....

It is hard to get a Smashwords-compatible Word file OUT of html -- and that means I will only be uploading epubs to Smashwords for a while.  Smashwords will only offer other formats if you upload a Word file.  One of these days, I'll work out an easy or at least semi-automated way to convert my html to a Smashwords style Word document, but until then, only my older books will have those other formats at Smashwords.

That means I won't be able to use Smashwords for coupons for a while (because I don't want to cheat the Kindle users by offering coupons that are only good for ePub users).  Sigh.  I was hoping to reward mailing list subscribers with coupons in every issue.  Oh well.  Mark Coker says that they have other formats in development. Maybe they'll be ready soon.

(UPDATE: I figured out how to get a Word file out of the process with only a moderate amount of hassle.  So full features -- and coupons -- at Smashwords after all!)

Next week I'll talk more about the upcoming publication schedule.  Lots of exciting stuff coming this way.

See you in the funny papers.