news

Minor Update + July Sale

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Update time: Still no idea when Book Depository will have my book up but I’m still betting it’ll be the end of July at the soonest. On top of that, there’s five reviews up on goodreads and a sixth on its way soon.

In other news, I’ve also dropped the Kindle price to $1 USD, with coupons for the paperback and the Smashwords version. For the month of July, you can get the paperback via Createspace for 50% off using the code G4S9JCAB. For Smashwords, use SB57E. I will also be posting a link for a goodreads giveaway as soon its approved (I was hoping that would be today). The giveaway will be US only, I’m afraid.

On July 22nd, I’ll be doing an r/Fantasy Writer of the Day, which is basically AMAs for indie folks. I’m planning on giving away copies of the ebook to celebrate! That’s all for now.

Back to the Grind

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By now, everyone should have their books, except for my one international backer who got a paperback. I’ll let you know when I have a delivery estimate. If you HAVE NOT gotten your book by tomorrow, please let me know immediately. I hope you all enjoy the book and that you’ll leave a rating and a review on Amazon and/or goodreads.

For the rest of the summer (at least through July), I’ll be working on shorts and promotion and getting the next Grimluk book ready. I’ve given thought to starting a Star Trek fanfic, mostly because it’s really hard to get into the official books from what I can tell. I have this idea I want to use that is based around an Orion woman. I’d really like to keep it Star Trek but I don’t know, maybe it would be a better idea to make it my own property instead. Maybe I’ll look around at options or maybe even try to use that as a starting point to looking for an agent.

In the immediate though, I restarted a short I’d begun in February but dropped out of to focus on A Demon in the Desert. It’s set in the same world as Demon but will be standalone. I really like the world and I can play around in it quite a lot. It stars an orc woman who’s good with a gun and has an issue with people routinely accusing her of cheating at cards. I think I’ll submit this one and earn some SFWA/HWA active member credit (it’s damn hard to do that with novels as an indie writer). So it might be a while before anyone gets to read it but I’ll post a snippet when it’s done. Just a small one.

I’m also still trying to figure out how to attract attention to my Patreon. I’m running a promotion right now for the first five level 1 patrons and the first two level 2/3 patrons. Level 1 patrons will get a flash story (1000 words or less) about anything they want. Level 2/3 patrons will get a short story (1000-5000 words) about anything they’d like.

Happy reading, everyone!

Progress!

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Howdy, folks!  I haven’t really made any sort of news post since last week.  Haven’t had much to update on.  Today though, I’m happy to offer a few quick notes.

First, I’ve gotten a lot of writing done this week already.  I’ve been making really good progress with rewrites and should be done with chapter 10 this week.  I also wrote the next Patreon piece for next week.  It was pretty intense and will come with a warning.  I actually felt kinda bad writing it.  Anywho, I’ll be trying to do another one this week as well, trying to build myself a buffer.  And for those of you who keep up with things here, I’ll be posting the stories here after I post a new one on Patreon.  So, next Friday, when I put up the second story, I’ll be posting the first story here.

Secondly, more Patreon talk.  I’m still working out the model for it, so if you have any suggestions for rewards, anything you’d like to see, feel free to tell me.  I still haven’t gotten any patrons, but it’s early days so that’s okay.  I think for story releases, I’ll offer PDF downloads for patrons.  I’m also toying with doing readings of the current story the week after it’s posted.  I’ve been looking at some other writers’ Patreon models and getting ideas from them as well.  So, by the end of the month, I’m hoping to have something much stronger to offer.

Thirdly, I think I’ve gotten my medication routine down.  Things seem to be going smoothly and I’m mostly feeling a lot better than I have in a while.  Which, as you can see, is allowing me to get a lot more work done.  And man does that feel good.

That’s all for now.  Have a good week!

Moving Forward & Support

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Hello again!  I hope you enjoyed the peeks at A Demon in the Desert you got over the month of March.  Things are coming along nicely and I hope to have a bigger update about the book by the end of the month.  In the meantime, I wanted to let anyone who’s interested know that I’ve started a Patreon.  I’m setting it up so that it doesn’t interfere with the writing of the book but that I can put out more content and keep honing my abilities.  How will I do that?  Will, twice a month, I’ll post a piece of flash fiction, between 500 and 1000 words long, or once a month, I’ll post a short story up to 5000 words long.  How much am I askin for this?  Two bucks a month.  I’m not even charging per story, just a base price of $2 a month for 2-5000 words.  The stories I post there will be exclusive until the next one comes out, and some stories might remain exclusive to Patreon.  I’m still figuring everything out.  It’s new territory.

I’ll be posting the first story this weekend, either Friday or Saturday.  First one’s free and I won’t just throw up an old story.  It’ll be brand spanking new.  All shiny and ready for you to read.  So, if you’re interested, just click the picture!

Support Ashe on Patreon!

What’s up, dates?

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So, a little bit of news.  I’ll be posting a snippet each Monday of March.  I’ve had a request to show off a fight scene, so I’ll definitely be doing that.  Just keep in mind, none of this is final draft yet, so what I post and what gets published could look different.

Secondly, I’ve looked into doing an audio book and I’ll definitely be doing that once the book’s out.  So, if you like audio books, that will happen probably in the fall.

Thirdly, I’ll start building up some Q&As and blog posts the closer we get to summer.  Edward M. Erdelac​ has graciously offered to let me take up some space on his blog.

That is all for now.

Keepin this train movin

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This week has been an interesting one.  Let’s take a walk through, shall we?

  • Sunday saw me come up with an idea for A Demon in the Desert that adds a nice new layer to the World.  That idea is included in the previous post.
  • Tuesday saw my facebook likes jump.  That in itself isn’t so strange considering there are two or three social media threads on goodreads.  The big event was Stan Nicholls both liking my page and even commenting on a post.  For those who don’t know, Stan Nicholls is the first name that comes up if you search “orcs” on Amazon.  Back around 99/2000, he put out a trilogy about a band of Orcs and their evil Queen.  I still haven’t read them yet but even still, that’s one hell of an ego boost.
  • Tuesday also marked one year since I started writing Demon, which started off as a half-formed idea built entirely around the concept of Grimluk after talking with a friend one night about an idea I was having that was overshadowing the Orc-swashbuckler story I had tentatively begun.  I may eventually go back to that.
  • Wednesday saw my likes shoot up some more and there have been silly twitter shenanigans all week.
  • Yesterday only really has personal news in two areas.  The first is that a doctor visit got my lovely partner some meds she was in need of.  Which puts my mind more at ease in the “stress of life” arena.  The second was that I weighed myself while there and over the past year and a half, I have lost a total of 83 pounds.  That is its own story and I may post about it at some point but the ultimate point of it is that I lost the weight because I righted something else wrong with my health.  I’m still a fat guy but most of my fat was a symptom, not a cause.
  • Overall, while I didn’t get as much work done this week as I’d have liked, I still got work done and I got my manuscript back up over the 38K word mark.  I suspect I’ll end up somewhere between 50K and 70K total, which does make me feel good but the only real goal for word count is 40K as that’s the minimum viewed for most of the awards.  I’m still making good progress.

I had semi-planned on doing a Throwback Thursday post yesterday and then thought I’d do a Follow Friday today but I will do those next week.  I felt this was more important today.  Also important, at the beginning of March, I’ll be posting some snippets of the book.  If there’s anything you’d like to see that’s not in the first chapter, which is up for your viewing pleasure in my Works section, give me a shout.  I’ve had a request for a fight scene and I’ll be happy to post one.  Anything else is a welcome suggestion.

That’s all for now, folks.  Remember, Orcs are friends, not cannon fodder.

Map work

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I haven’t posted about the map I started for the book on here yet so here’s that, because I decided to work on the other continents.  The new ones being the smaller, central-east and beginnings of the other eastern one.  I can’t decide if I want to make that little one smaller.  The one on the right will have its other side on the left.  You know the weirdest thing about mapmaking?  Trying to make one involving towns and settlements is way fucking harder than a world or regional map that’s just land and water.  Also need to swap out the compass star since I found some good brushes for that.

Tentatively naming the world “Arkod,” A friend said it sounds “hella biblical.”

Construction Continued

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So, on twitter today, my new friend, fellow author, and weird western enthusiast, S.A. Hunt decided to toss my name out in his Follow Friday post. He included the phrase “great writers.” Well shit, now I need to try to live up to that, right? So I spent the afternoon adding old shorts and a flash fiction piece to the Works section.  Also reformatted the Chapter 1 excerpt for Demon as it didn’t hold any of the formatting from open office. I’m still working on making the place look less fucking boring, but until I can upgrade (and figure out what I want in the header section), that’s all I have for now.

Back in the saddle

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Got back to writing again last night.  It felt like a year since I’d last done it but while I didn’t write a whole lot, what I did write came out without too much prodding.  That felt good.  Starting the new year right.  That said, a few things extra to try and get my little one man empire running.  Throwback Thursdays and Follow Fridays are fairly popular thing around the net.  And why not, they’re fun little memes that help people connect with each other more.  You probably know that already though, so what I’m gonna do is use them for my own purposes.

For TBT’s, I was thinking of doing a mini-review/recommendation of an older piece of media.  Something that had an influence on me or pop culture at large.  Simple enough.

For FF’s, well, this one’s not really gonna change, except that I’ll focus on just one or two people at a time.  This will mostly be fellow writers or artists.  We’re a community and we gotta stick together.

I’ll probably stagger them too.  TBT one week, FF the next.  That’s really all I got to say today.