-Has just been ordered. 10 days processing, then shipping. Assuming it looks good, I'll then be taking orders for hard and softcover copies of the 2nd edition! Remember, you locals will save big on shipping be ordering through me when I do my big order.. that is, you wont pay ANY shipping.
I'm kinda rushing myself so that I'll have a small stock on hand for the Vancouver Sci-Fi convention. I'm also going to be ordering a couple posters for the con- specifically updated versions of these 2:
Alisia Glow (Text updated from this version to reflect the new shorter title)
Regan's ZombieKiller Illustrated cover (Lower left barcode thing changed a bit)
I'm gonna get em in 20"x30" for display/sale. If anyone else local wants a copy of one of those, or any of my posters available, order though me NOW to make me eat the shipping cost for ya!
Lemmie rant about costs of some of those nonsense...
Gripe#1- shipping to Canada-
Lifehack 2nd edition softcover is $19.95
Shipping that book to canada: almost another $26. And THAT is why I have my stuff shipped to the US and a fraction of the cost, then get my wife to bring them back on her next trip across. Even after gas, it's a big saving.
This is also why I wanna order a bunk batch for anyone local who wants a copy. (That, and then you don't have to deal with paypal, or online shopping, or waiting for the shipment)
Gripe #2-
Retail markup-
For world distro, there's a markup applied for the 'end' retailers, which means the physical store you would order them through, or buy from. (Not that barns and noble or any big store is ordering my stuff- they don't even know I'm out there unless a customer asks for lifehack)
The retail price of the hardcover Lifehack is 39.95. About HALF of that is the retail markup! I had heard 30% was a typical cut for a store, which I can understand... but 50%? Yeek. I WAS hoping to retail the hardcover for 29.95- which I can still do for copies I'm selling locally myself, but yeesh. 39.95... Who's gonna pay that? Well, it's a good thing there's the softcover for $19.95. Much more reasonable and competitive. Thanks to some changes to the guts of the publisher, I can get the price that low, about 7 bucks cheaper than the first edition. The 2nd edition softcover is the version I plan to promote, the hardcover is mainly for a handful of 'collectors'.
Joseph Picard's writing projects and life ramblings including the kiddos, and life in a wheelchair.
Showing posts with label anime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anime. Show all posts
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Monday, June 25, 2007
Watching Yute, and the house of the Rising sun
Although currently on hold while Lifehack is being revised, I'm still really excited about Watching Yute. The first draft is about 30%-50% done. Before I go any further, let's have a pretty picture:
This is a drawing of one of the main characters, Cheryl Lowe. I've been using this pic for some early hype materials. It probably won't be on the cover... While I draw my characters in an anime style, again, here, have a link to my gallery, ) I think I'll keep it away from the actual final book, since I don't want people to look at the cover, see 'a cartoon' and dismiss it as something for kids. Sure, the public is slowly wising up to anime being something for more than just kids, (despite the crap they throw on tv in the afternoons) but still....
Anyway, what's Yute all about?
Yute is referred to a little in Lifehack in terms of a military base, but 'Yute' is actually a region in my world which is largely desert.
Deep in the most arid region, there is a ruined city. Not much is known about it, but it's generally assumed to have been built be the ancestors of the continent's aboriginal people, the Aguei. The most prominent building in the ruin is a large temple, and in this temple is a giant statue of a horned dog. It lays quietly there with a fairy contented expression.
As part of a Federal/Aguei treaty, the military guards the temple, and has a small outpost nearby. As you can imagine, this posting is rather quiet, leaving the personnel there to quietly take their watch, and live with each other.
Here's our hero, Cassidy Stanton:
-she gets transferred to the Yute ruin after impressing the ruin's CO, Marcus. She accepts the offer for a change of scenery, having been freshly dumped by her girlfriend.
Meanwhile, thanks to the events in Lifehack, the government is passing prohibitive laws against nano-technology, which leaves a stress-filled nanite researcher in a panic. He has a project running quietly around the temple that not even his bosses know about. He wants to shut it down, but he lacks any way to get back to the temple, and finds himself deceiving some dangerous allies in order to cover his butt.
---
Yes, my protagonist is a lesbian again. Why? Lifehack touched on some fun aspects, pushing off from the rehashed hollywood guy/girl relationship, and opening itself to all kinds of orientation awkwardness. In Yute, I want to approach the idea from another angle, a little more seriously, and without the "waaah, the girl I love is straight!" factor.
Really, Yute is a lot more about interpersonal relationships than Lifehack was. It's still a sci-fi, but there's next to zero gunplay, and zero zombies. It's a much slower pace than Lifehack, so I'm hoping it won't throw people off..
Right now, as I said, I'm putting the writing of the first draft on hold while Lifehack gets reworked. This is a bit of a relief, I was getting very close to a very dark, touchy section. I knew it was coming, and had a nightmare about it.
In this dream, I watched some of the worst moments that will be in the story in slow motion, over and over like some Oliver Stone movie gone mad. All the while, the Doors song "House of the Rising Sun" was playing.
That's definitely going on the official, unofficial soundtrack.
(On a side note, Cassidy's favorite song is "No Heaven" by DJ Champion)
---
Next post will be about the third planned fiction, Echoes...
---
.
This is a drawing of one of the main characters, Cheryl Lowe. I've been using this pic for some early hype materials. It probably won't be on the cover... While I draw my characters in an anime style, again, here, have a link to my gallery, ) I think I'll keep it away from the actual final book, since I don't want people to look at the cover, see 'a cartoon' and dismiss it as something for kids. Sure, the public is slowly wising up to anime being something for more than just kids, (despite the crap they throw on tv in the afternoons) but still....Anyway, what's Yute all about?
Yute is referred to a little in Lifehack in terms of a military base, but 'Yute' is actually a region in my world which is largely desert.
Deep in the most arid region, there is a ruined city. Not much is known about it, but it's generally assumed to have been built be the ancestors of the continent's aboriginal people, the Aguei. The most prominent building in the ruin is a large temple, and in this temple is a giant statue of a horned dog. It lays quietly there with a fairy contented expression.
As part of a Federal/Aguei treaty, the military guards the temple, and has a small outpost nearby. As you can imagine, this posting is rather quiet, leaving the personnel there to quietly take their watch, and live with each other.
Here's our hero, Cassidy Stanton:
-she gets transferred to the Yute ruin after impressing the ruin's CO, Marcus. She accepts the offer for a change of scenery, having been freshly dumped by her girlfriend.Meanwhile, thanks to the events in Lifehack, the government is passing prohibitive laws against nano-technology, which leaves a stress-filled nanite researcher in a panic. He has a project running quietly around the temple that not even his bosses know about. He wants to shut it down, but he lacks any way to get back to the temple, and finds himself deceiving some dangerous allies in order to cover his butt.
---
Yes, my protagonist is a lesbian again. Why? Lifehack touched on some fun aspects, pushing off from the rehashed hollywood guy/girl relationship, and opening itself to all kinds of orientation awkwardness. In Yute, I want to approach the idea from another angle, a little more seriously, and without the "waaah, the girl I love is straight!" factor.
Really, Yute is a lot more about interpersonal relationships than Lifehack was. It's still a sci-fi, but there's next to zero gunplay, and zero zombies. It's a much slower pace than Lifehack, so I'm hoping it won't throw people off..
Right now, as I said, I'm putting the writing of the first draft on hold while Lifehack gets reworked. This is a bit of a relief, I was getting very close to a very dark, touchy section. I knew it was coming, and had a nightmare about it.
In this dream, I watched some of the worst moments that will be in the story in slow motion, over and over like some Oliver Stone movie gone mad. All the while, the Doors song "House of the Rising Sun" was playing.
That's definitely going on the official, unofficial soundtrack.
(On a side note, Cassidy's favorite song is "No Heaven" by DJ Champion)
---
Next post will be about the third planned fiction, Echoes...
---
.
First Post, AZU-1:Lifehack
Hey folks. I've been convinced to start blogging about my writing adventures, though I intend to hit on other topics form time to time, such as my new little daughter Caitlin, and the experience of hosting international students.
I'm not going to dump everything out in the first post, so this time I'll just focus on my current writing project, the revision of my first book, AZU-1: Lifehack
Pretty cover? It's going to be entirely different when the revision is done. I'll have to post a peek at the first draft of that later. For one thing, I'm taking the "AZU-1" out of the title. It's confuses things needlessly. Here's the official tease blurb for the book:
For those of you unfamiliar with the book, yeah yeah, 'ZOMG, lesbian!' Alright, are ya done? Yes, it's a major part of the story, as the last line implies.
Why did I write about a lesbian crush in a book about zombies? Ooh, maybe you should ask why I wrote about zombies in a book about a lesbian's crush? Deep, zen.
It's really as much about Regan (our heroine) and her crush on Alisia as it is about the zombie problem. I generally refer to the Regan/Alisia thing as the sub-plot, but it's really half the book. Hey, let's have a peek at our heroines for a sec-
This is a bit of an older pic. Click it for fullsize if ya want.
The brunette is Regan Grier, and the redhead is Alisa Terone. Now I have to explain the anime connection, don't I?
2002. I was fresh out of GF Strong physio rehab after my injury that put my in a wheelchair (more on that in future posts, and future books..) and I was finding that my anime-flavored are was getting pretty predictable, so I made a stab at pumping up a detail level a bit.
The first thing I drew was Alisia who at the time, didn't have a name. I didn't have any intention of drawing her again, why does she need a name? She had a snazzy looking sci-fi-ish rifle, and was dressed in blue camo. Head over to my gallery if you want to see more, by the way.
Then I drew a gal with the notion in my head of making a slightly 80's themed 'rocker girl'. Black leather 80s, not neon 80's with huge hair. For some reason, someone told me shw looked like a lesbian, and it just stuck.
I was so enamored with these two designs that they just kept coming. Image descriptions got longer and longer, and.... well, to make a long story short, about four years later, I ended up with a book.
But it needed me to step back get some frank feedback, and revise. A lot of errors were made partly because it wasn't planned as a book to begin with, so now I'm fixing stuff. Making is stronger, faster, better than it was before. They say you always want to tweak this or that, and that a project is never truly ''done ''done, but to be really happy with it, to be proud of it, and let it rest, I have to do this revision.
Meanwhile I have four other book projects waiting to be handled. Next post: 'Watching Yute' and the house of the rising sun!
I'm not going to dump everything out in the first post, so this time I'll just focus on my current writing project, the revision of my first book, AZU-1: Lifehack
Pretty cover? It's going to be entirely different when the revision is done. I'll have to post a peek at the first draft of that later. For one thing, I'm taking the "AZU-1" out of the title. It's confuses things needlessly. Here's the official tease blurb for the book:
She lost her brother.
She learnt to fight a legion of the dead.
She spent two years alone, scavenging to survive.
Then to make things difficult, she fell in love with a straight girl.
She learnt to fight a legion of the dead.
She spent two years alone, scavenging to survive.
Then to make things difficult, she fell in love with a straight girl.
For those of you unfamiliar with the book, yeah yeah, 'ZOMG, lesbian!' Alright, are ya done? Yes, it's a major part of the story, as the last line implies.
Why did I write about a lesbian crush in a book about zombies? Ooh, maybe you should ask why I wrote about zombies in a book about a lesbian's crush? Deep, zen.
It's really as much about Regan (our heroine) and her crush on Alisia as it is about the zombie problem. I generally refer to the Regan/Alisia thing as the sub-plot, but it's really half the book. Hey, let's have a peek at our heroines for a sec-
This is a bit of an older pic. Click it for fullsize if ya want.The brunette is Regan Grier, and the redhead is Alisa Terone. Now I have to explain the anime connection, don't I?
2002. I was fresh out of GF Strong physio rehab after my injury that put my in a wheelchair (more on that in future posts, and future books..) and I was finding that my anime-flavored are was getting pretty predictable, so I made a stab at pumping up a detail level a bit.
The first thing I drew was Alisia who at the time, didn't have a name. I didn't have any intention of drawing her again, why does she need a name? She had a snazzy looking sci-fi-ish rifle, and was dressed in blue camo. Head over to my gallery if you want to see more, by the way.
Then I drew a gal with the notion in my head of making a slightly 80's themed 'rocker girl'. Black leather 80s, not neon 80's with huge hair. For some reason, someone told me shw looked like a lesbian, and it just stuck.
I was so enamored with these two designs that they just kept coming. Image descriptions got longer and longer, and.... well, to make a long story short, about four years later, I ended up with a book.
But it needed me to step back get some frank feedback, and revise. A lot of errors were made partly because it wasn't planned as a book to begin with, so now I'm fixing stuff. Making is stronger, faster, better than it was before. They say you always want to tweak this or that, and that a project is never truly ''done ''done, but to be really happy with it, to be proud of it, and let it rest, I have to do this revision.
Meanwhile I have four other book projects waiting to be handled. Next post: 'Watching Yute' and the house of the rising sun!
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