August 2016

So the three print books I ordered from CreateSpace…I checked through them and found that pieces of dialog were together instead of having a line space between them.  This was because I had to line up the text with the top of each page, and as such I removed line spaces to do so.  This was also because Word totally screws the pooch.  It would knock a word that came close to the margin down to the next line every so often, and it totally threw everything off.  The copies are readable and it’s not a huge problem, but it does happen here and there.

So that brings me to yesterday.  Before I noticed that this had happened, I resized the top text on the cover to make it fit a little better.  This caused a 24 hour approval delay during which the print version was not available.  I discovered the formatting issue during this time, and proceeded to fix it by using hard page breaks on each page.  So I get done doing that in a 398 page book, and then I upload it…and CreateSpace says that the gutter size needs to be bigger for a book with this number of pages, even though the previous version had pages within that range and it never complained once about it.  So I had to increase the gutter size, but then guess what happened?  That’s right, it totally screwed the pages all up.  I had to go back through the entire damn book and re-do every single page break.

Anyway, I got it re-uploaded now, so I’m just waiting on the 24 hour approval thing, and then the paperback will be available once again.  This was entirely Word’s fault, and I would love to personally kick the asses of everyone who worked on programming that piece of crap.  It’s such a pain to work with, and more often than not screws everything up instead of handling formatting the way it’s supposed to.  Ugh…what a day.  Anyway, the fixed version of the paperback should be available tomorrow or the next day, and I personally checked each page this time in the proof viewer to make sure it was all correct.

I got my first three copies of Cindy’s Story paperbacks yesterday.  As you can see the text on the top needs to be resized slightly, which I’ve already done.  I’m just waiting for CreateSpace to pull their finger out and approve the updated cover image.  All in all, I’m really happy with it, and it’s a lot thicker than I thought it’d be.  I only bought three to start with because I wanted to make sure they were ok before I bought more.  I’ll buy a full batch once the new cover’s approved, and then I’m going to take them to a local book store to see if they’d be interested in carrying them.

Anyway, just a little update on that.  I’m into chapter four of the final book of the Unseen Things series.  Yes, this will be the final book in the series, and I have a great ending planned for it.  It’s sad to bring it to an end, but I just don’t feel like I have any more story to tell after this one, and I want to move on to other standalone projects.  It was great writing a series, but I really want to focus on solo novels like Cindy’s Story from now on.

That’s it for now.  I’ll post more updates when I have something of interest.

I’ve added a Standalone Novels section to the forums and included a forum for Cindy’s Story.  I realized that now that I have something published aside from the Unseen Things series novels, and will have more standalones coming in the future, it was time for me to do that.  So if you’d like to discuss Cindy’s Story, or any of the Unseen Things series novels, just register on the forums and have at it.

I’ve started work on the next and probably final book of the Unseen Things series, Genesis.  The first chapter is complete, as is the cover and all the other associated graphics.  I’m doing something with this one that I’ve had rolling around in my head for quite some time now, so I figured that since this was likely going to be the final book in the series, it was time to pull the rabbit out of the hat so to speak.

Anyway, after I get this one done and published, I’m going to concentrate on writing and publishing some more single novels, like Cindy’s Story.  I’m not sure what they’ll be yet, but I’ve never had all that much of a hard time coming up with ideas.  I’m sure whatever I come up with will be purely awesome, and I say that in the most awesomely humble way possible. 😉

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’ll pop in to post an update every now and then.

Print copies of Cindy’s Story are now available through CreateSpace, Barnes and Noble, or your regional Amazon.com.

The print copy is $14.99.  It’s a 6×9 paperback with 387 pages.  I just ordered three for myself to start with.  It’s pretty exciting to finally have something in book form rather than just e-books.

I was considering making print copies of the Unseen Things series, but I honestly don’t know if I’d ever sell enough to make it worth the work it would take to do that many books.  I guess we’ll see what happens in the future.  The next series book may well be the final book in the series, so after that I’ll decide what I want to do.

I’m very happy to announce that after months of delays, Cindy’s Story has finally been published.  This is the first book I’ve written outside of the Unseen Things series, and it’s an entirely different genre.  This one is more of a private detective comedy / romantic comedy / drama / mystery.  I know, that’s a lot to get into one book, but I really focused a lot on the comedy in this one, and there are several scenes that include some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever written.

I’m really proud of how this story played out, and I can’t wait for people to read it.  You can get it online at Smashwords, Amazon, Google Play, OmniLit, and soon at most of the other online retailers as well.  You can also get it here on the official site.  There’s a print version coming soon as well from CreateSpace, but I still have to work on the cover for it.  I’ll post a separate announcement when it’s available.  A new trivia section has been added for my standalone novels in the Books & Author Info section of the site, and the trivia for Cindy’s Story has been added to it.

Synopsis: After walking out on yet another convenience store job, Cindy needed to find herself a new job as quickly as possible, otherwise she was going to end up broke and living on the street.  Her apartment manager informed her that his brother, a private investigator, was looking for an assistant, so he offered to make a call for her to see if he could arrange an interview.  With no other prospects, she jumped at the chance for not only quick employment, but also a new career that would get her out of the convenience store business once and for all.

As it turns out, being a private detective isn’t as glamorous as they make it look on television.  It comes with certain indignities and moral issues that she’d never really considered before she applied for the position.  Not only that, but Frank, her boss, seems to delight in pissing her off.  The only thing he seems to enjoy more than pissing her off is complaining about how horrible her coffee is, yet for some reason that she can’t quite seem to figure out, he goes out of his way to help her succeed in any way that he possibly can.  Then she’s got his sister Kayla to deal with.  She’s like a nightmare on wheels with no empathy and no filter whatsoever, so you never know what’s going to come out of her mouth next.

The one thing Cindy’s got going for her is that she’s got a super high aptitude for the job, so all she needs to do in order to succeed is to learn how to control her temper, work hard, and most importantly…learn how to make a decent cup of coffee.  The first two are relatively simple, but the third…not so much.