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Tony Valdez sent an update for Dax Harrison

Yesterday was the holiday party at Mysterious Galaxy BookStore in San Diego! And apparently they let just about anyone in there. Look! Here’s some silly sci-fi writer peddling his wares...

Surprise! It’s me.

Many many thanks to everyone who came out, including some very awesome friends and family. Not to mention the dozen or so other authors signing books, mingling, and likely ingesting copious amounts of holiday sugar. Here’s just a small handful of folks in attendance...

Shared a table with these funny guys.

La familia. (Aunt and cousin)

Behind every creative dork is his mom cheering him on.

Even had a few hoodlums from the old day job show up!

I think we all wanted to take that insane tentacle tree home.

Somewhere there is video of me rambling into a microphone for a couple minutes. Perhaps I’ll share that around later. Huge thanks to Mary Elizabeth, David, Kelly and the rest of the Mysterious Galaxy staff for inviting me to join their little shindig. It was super fun, and I’m looking forward to partnering up with them again, hopefully in the near future. (Plans are a-brewin’...)

And finally, a massive thanks to my wife Meg. She not only cooked up a storm and entertained everyone at our Christmas party at home Friday night, but then worked a short shift the next morning, came home, and journeyed down with me to San Diego to support me at the book event. All on little-to-no sleep and fighting a nasty cold. She’s amazing, and probably reading this now, shaking her head at the disgusting levels of exploitative cheesiness. (Them’s the breaks. She knows who she married.) 😁

ONE LAST THING! (There’s always one last thing) Just another reminder that I’ve got a handful of these books left to sell directly to the world. I know I’ve been encouraging everyone to buy from the stores, but if you want to grab a copy from me, I’ll have it personally signed and in the mail for you before Christmas! Drop me a line at rockhollywood8@gmail.com.

Cheers!
-Tony

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Tony Valdez liked an update for The Knightmares

Hello Knightmares!

It has been a while, but that’s because I have good news! The Knightmares manuscript has been trimmed down to a lean 134,000 words, and has had changes made that I feel improve the story dramatically.

The manuscript has been turned into the team at Inkshares, and I now await my turn to move into the actual editing process, which I don’t anticipate being too long of a wait. I have put in over 200 hours of work into this project since early September, and am excited to finally get this out into the world so I can concentrate on everything from my next story, the long anticipated book of short stories called Grace Falls and my next full length novel, Vexed, as well as marketing and promotion for The Knightmares.

Exciting times ahead!

Also...the cover is done...
Check out this beauty, eh?

Hope you like!
Talk soon, friends!

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Tony Valdez liked an update for The Seclusion

I’m sitting at my desk this lovely morning, watching the snow fall out the window of my mountainside home and feeling very grateful for all of you. This update is coming a little later than usual, and for that, I apologize. I was waiting to hear back on a few points so that this update could be a bit more substantial than the last few. And, it will be!

I have multiple exciting updates to share with you!

1) Developmental Edit Progress

Since my update at the end of October, I have concluded another round of developmental edit rewrites. The book is now back in the hands of my editor. He is going through one more time (he estimates this will take about two weeks), and then he plans to send the book to a beta-reader to get some third-party, objective feedback. We will then use that feedback to do one more pass before forwarding the book to a copy-editor.

2) Title change

While I like The Walls are Closing In (and we may still use it as a tagline for the book), we have decided that a different title is more marketable, provides a bit of mystery, and is catchier for the future selling of property rights (fingers crossed).

So, without further ado, the new title is:

The Seclusion

3) Genre Change

We are making a few changes to the plot and market the book as YA(Young Adult). This will only marginally change the story but will double the audience. It allows us to not only market the book to fans of books such as 1984, Fahrenheit 541, and The Handmaid’s Tale, but also to fans of books such as The Hunger Games and Divergent.

3) Release Date!

The book has been assigned a tentative release date and an ISBN number (this second part is probably not exciting to anyone but me).

The Seclusion is currently set to publish on:

October 2, 2018!

This is a bit later than I had hoped, but I am beyond thrilled that there is an official trajectory. Between now and then I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that the launch is a success.

One last note - the first two chapters on the book’s page have been updated to reflect the changes that we have been making. Feel free to check them out!

Until next time,

-Jacqui

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Tony Valdez

Lover of good stories found in books, comics, film, tv, games, anywhere

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Tony Valdez liked an update for Beyond The Code

Hello there fantastic followers,

Production of Beyond the Code is going great and I finally have to time to put all my efforts into marketing my debut novel. Part of my marketing plan has been updating Beyond the Code’s facebook page. This page will be chock full of Beyond the Code content such as news on production, concept art, reviews, interviews, and more. So please, follow the link and follow the page for Beyond the Code updates and content.

https://www.facebook.com/BTCInkshares/

For those who have followed Beyond the Code but haven’t yet pre-ordered, please consider joining this club. Just see what these amazing authors have said about it.

Craig Munro, author of Bones of the Past says "Elegant descriptions, endless action and super powers - go check out this urban fantasy"

Tony Valdez, author of Dax Harrison says "Fast paced, action-packed fantasy! I can see the movie in my head already!"

Brian Guthrie, author of Rise says "An amazing concept that you won’t regret supporting"

These awesome authors know their stuff, so trust them when they say that Beyond the Code is definitely worth your support. Help make my first novel as successful as possible before it’s release.

Thank you all for following me on this journey.

Kelsey Rae Barthel

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Tony Valdez liked an update for The Madness of Mr. Butler

Thank you for your patience, everyone. This is a big update, but an important one!

A FULL DRAFT IS FINISHED!!!

Here’s what the timeline has been like:

Throughout the summer, Inkshares has guided me through a developmental edit of the manuscript, guided by my editor, Matt Harry. I’ve been working with a group of other amazing authors as we’ve all helped each other improve the structure of our stories. What I ended up with at the end of this process was a detailed outline of my story, as I decided to rewrite it for the most part.

In mid-September, I got the green light from Matt to go ahead and write the book all over again.

From September through the end of October, I expanded upon the outline I worked on with Matt, writing character sheets involving their personalities and background, as well as fun little things that won’t ever turn up in the story other than being guiding factors in the characters’ actions and decisions. I also wrote in details of the different settings, and I expanded the outline of the story itself into individual scenes. Basically, I was getting to know the world of the story I built. Part of fleshing that out was writing the prologue, which is still up on the book’s Inkshares page.

Approaching November, I made a big decision based on what I learned about my own story. I changed the entire perspective of how it is told. I was writing in third person, as an omniscient narrator, but I felt this was not personal enough. The writing was dry, the humor fell flat, and the characters just felt detached. I was slowing down and feeling a bit uninspired. Then, I decided to experiment with first person, and I wrote a few passages from the perspective of George, the main character in the story. Suddenly, the story felt warm, personal, and it had depth. I was excited for my tale once more!

This was great timing, as November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, for short). For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a free challenge to write a story of 50,000 words within the span of November. I participated, and I sacrificed a lot of sleep, and I completed the task! I FINISHED MY DRAFT! THE NOVEL IS FINISHED!!! And, I kicked NaNoWriMo’s ass by writing 86,298 words in a single month!

So...what now?

After the initial wave of emotion crashed over me as I typed the last words on the epilogue, I was finally able to talk without choking up. One of the first things I said to my wife was "I have birthed the child, now it’s time to raise it." And that’s actually a great little analogy. The book is here. It is born. It is readable and the story all makes sense. But I need to edit it, nurture it, make it great enough to release. I need to feed it and wipe its butt every time I look into its diaper and find a poop. It needs to be in a condition where, if you don’t like it, then it’s because of completely subjective things, not objective problems such as incoherence, plot holes, characters that don’t really make sense, or, God forbid, typos (gasp!).

So, it’s on to the edits. Right now that means I’m going to be combing through the manuscript myself, but I’m getting by with a little help from my friends. Namely, my wife, and the incredible Peter Ryan (you need to check out his book, for real). I’m hunting down a few others, but if you are reading this and feel excited to give what I have a read in exchange for constructive criticism, don’t be afraid to reach out to me.

I feel that I’ll be able to turn in the latest and greatest draft of this thing to Inkshares by January. I’ll let you know when I get it in. After that, I’ll be able to give you updates on the finishing of the developmental edit, the copyedit, and the proofread. When that happens, we’ll also be getting into fun stuff like cover design and planning book signings and release parties and any other tricks I might have up my sleeve. The release date is estimated to be in September at this point, and I will do my absolute best to make that happen.

I am proud of this story as it is now. It’s fun, it’s funny, but it’s also just a good story. I laughed and cried as I wrote it, though that might just be my crazy showing. I hope when this thing gets into your hands next year, you laugh and enjoy the story. But it’s okay if you cry, too.

Thank you for your support, as always. Don’t hesitate to reach out.

I love you all. For reals.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and Happy New Year!

2018 is going to be amazing.

Love always,

-Michael.

Pleeze give my Facebook author page a "like," why don’t ya? It’s here: Tall Tales Told

Or, if you’re more stoked about the extra characters on Twitter, I’m over there at times as well: @Tall_Tales_Told

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Tony Valdez sent an update for Dax Harrison

Hey there, readers!

.

Despite my battling the start of a nasty head cold, yesterday’s signing event at Barnes & Noble went pretty damn good! I sold a decent stack of books, chatted with some cool people, and probably drank an unsafe-for-humans amount of coffee. Special thanks to everyone who came by, and to the awesome BN staff that let me set up shop for the day.

And of 16 names in the hat, the winner of the poster giveaway is... MAY KAYYALI! Thank you so much May for grabbing a copy of the book! I’ll be in touch with you soon.

And now to San Diego, AWAYYYY!

This coming Saturday, December 9th, I’ll be at the Mysterious Galaxy BookStore (hopefully minus head cold). Starting at 2PM, a handful of authors (including yours truly) will take turns getting on the mic and chatting about their books. Then we will split off into individual signing tables. Come join the fun! See the links below for more info:

Mysterious Galaxy Holiday Party (Facebook Event Page)
Mysterious Galaxy Website

ONE LAST THING! If you wish to buy a signed copy of the book, but you can’t make it out to these events, send me an email at rockhollywood8@gmail.com. I have about 20 copies on-hand that I need to sell. If you order directly from me, not only will you get a PERSONALLY SIGNED copy, but I’ll also send it out ASAP in time for Christmas. Got a friend or family member who might like a silly space adventure? Drop me a line!

-Tony

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