I’m excited about a new series I’m developing. It may be published under a different name because it’s definitely for a different market and old Guy doesn’t write that kind of weepy, girly stuff. Anyway, it takes place in a mythical world… Just Like England in 1800! My own personal take on a Jane Austen novel played straight up.
I’ve got the scenes outlined and have a good direction. I’ll be drafting it this month and we’ll see how it shakes out. I’m sort of excited about the concept. This is a small ball kind of series. It’s about a little isolated region that is pretty much self sufficient. It’s far away from wars and foreign intrigue, quite different from Panix. Think of Pride & Prejudice and Cranford/Lark Rising mixed together in a world a tiny bit different than England.
I read an interesting post on Dean Wesley Smith’s blog on being a Writer vs. an Author. I’d say I’m more writer than author. I agree that one has to write a lot to succeed in the new e-pub world. I’ve got a goal to put up twelve books by the end of next year. I’ve got some WIP to tone up and publish and a lot of new writing. More Samantha and Ian, this series. I’d like to do my Brull novel and some original work besides.
It will be an exciting year!
I don’t really want to cry, but waah, waah, waah. I had a bad review on Amazon for Sword of Spells. I’d sold three hundred ebooks in three months and then this review popped up. The guy just didn’t get Brull or Sword of Spells. He thought it was a novel. It’s not, its a serial collection. Any reasonable person would catch that. He didn’t and it cost me. Sales have plummeted from 5 a day to one (if I’m lucky) a day.
Panix hasn’t taken off, but that’s okay. It will. I’m confident that will find a following. The Star Amulet is a kid’s novel (Juvenile-Middle Grade). I need to brush it up a bit and I’ll be changing the series name to ‘The Nile City Adventurers’. Samantha’s also getting a year older. A reader told me she reads more like thirteen or fourteen. She’ll probably end up at fourteen with Ian remaining at ten. No other changes other than some identified typos.
I’ve completed PANIX and it’s final title is PANIX Magician | Spy. It came out at 105,000 words long. I’ve got to thank my wife Bev and Meredith and Donna from the Dave Farland’s Writing Group, the Pied Pipers, for their contributions both typological and plot logical.
This is my first full-sized novel published. PANIX started out two and a half years ago as part of a Liberty Hall Writers Group exercise. It’s changed a bit, but the most of the original concept is still there. It’s good to have it published. You can find it on Amazon at http://amzn.to/sTJPfl If you’re a Amazon Prime member you can read it for free for 90 days.
If you do read the book, I would greatly, greatly appreciate a review on Amazon. Reviews really power sales and any would be wonderful.
The Star Amulet is now available on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords and soon to be up on iBook, Sony and other e-book outlets.
Samantha and Ian are plunged into ancient Egypt at the time of Rameses II and struggle to return back to their hometown in Nile City, MO. They meet up with a High Priest, who is also a magician, a cat who is the daughter of the goddess Sekmet and Bafu, the town sheriff.
The evil High Priestess of Kethmebis is out to get the kids and they have a hard time staying out her her way. Magic and mayhem abound as the the ten-year-old Ian and the twelve year-old Samantha learn to cast spells and that’s still not enough to keep them out of trouble.
The Star Amulet is suitable reading for pre-teen to adult.
Now that I’ve had Sword of Spells up on Amazon for two months, I can announce that SoS has sold 271 copies. Not a world beater, but it’s a darn sight better than letting the stories sit in my computer, unread. In October, 96 copies went out the door and in November it was about 175. I don’t have any reports from B&N or Apple yet. These are kindle sales only.
I still have my BrullofThura twitter account open and, after a week’s vacation, Brull is again tweeting his adventures.
How remiss!!!
I did Nano and wrote out the rest of Samantha and Ian. So I got a little sticker for ‘winning’ Nano for the third straight year.
I’ve had it out for a critique and it’s now in for proofreading. It ended up at about 46,000 words so to fill it up I did a bit of research and started the next book in the series, writing another 5,000 words.
Panix has been proofread and I received a couple of good critiques. I’m in the rewriting phase. I needed some deeper thoughts on the part of my characters and am strengthening some relationships. I also added a section at the start that I can use as the start of a motivation the main character has for the length of the novel.
I have finished the covers and the titles. ‘Samantha and Ian in THE STAR AMULET’ for my Samantha & Ian book. For the other it will be: PANIX Magician | Spy.
Now it’s rewriting and editing until they are in shape to post up on Smashwords and Amazon before the end of the year.
Panix has been through edits and comments. I’ll be incorporating the proofreading edit and do a little rewriting based on some alpha readers next week. I expect Panix will be up mid-November.
I’ve decided that Motes and Meddles isn’t quite ready for prime time so I’ve put it on the back burner for awhile.
So what takes M&M’s place? I promised a little girl who is near and dear to my heart to write a story for her. So I’ve outlined a MG series that chronicles the adventures of Samantha & Ian, a brother sister team who have the misfortune to be transported to 13th century BC Egypt. There’s a broken magical amulet involved that will take Samantha & Ian back and forth in time to different eras. Each time, a bit of mayhem ensues. I expect to get the first book (30,000 to 50,000 word targets for each book) out in December.
By the way, Sword of Spells is up for sale at all major e-book outlets including Amazon, BN Nook and iBook.
I’m about three quarters of the way through a Panix edit, then it’s off to a writers group for a final look see. It’s still on track for a late October release.
No surprises in this edit. Sometimes, you see an event in a different light and that leads to some good sized rewrites. That happens quite a bit in short stories. Typically, I get ideas from weekly flash fiction that I do (flashes are typically less than 1,000 words.) and then will use those flashes for the bases of longer works. In the Brull stories, three of the stories came from much shorter stories, that I used as sketches for the adventures in the book.
Guy publishes his first work! This is the Sword of Spells – The Brull Adventures. A collection of eleven episodes of Brull, the only warrior-mage on the world of Kellar. Called by the gods for a future conflict, Brull must make a life for himself. His weapon, the Sword of Spells allows him to cast ten spells without using an excessive amount of strength. He fined that his talents (three years in the army of Thura) prepare him for the role as a bounty hunter of magicians. So until the Gods call him up for the Big One, he captures (and hopefully, not kills) magic practitioners.
Brull is actually a tweeter. He calls them twits and can use his sword to provide updates on his activities. You can follow him on twitter at @BrullofThura.
You can find Sword of Spells at Smashwords for a very reasonable price. It will soon be up on Amazon, Apple’s iBook and the B&N Nook store.
This is my first publication, but I have ten more in the wings that should be up in the next year. In October, I intend on publishing my second work, a novel, about a magician who tries to find a peaceful existence, but life catches up to him. It’s called Panix.
Tags: Brull, ebook, Smashwords, Sword of Spells
Guy, here. Welcome to my new blog. There isn’t an ‘old’ Guy Antibes blog. The picture to your right is the hero of my latest book, Sword of Spells – The Brull Adventures. The black thing is a section of the Sword of Spells. Brull’s showing it to you. By the way, you can catch Brull’s tweets on twitter: @BrullofThura.
I’ve just published Sword of Spells, independently. I have more books in the hopper and hope to have ten of them out by this time next year.
There’s lots more happening, so stay tuned.
Tags: Brull, Sword of Spells
