Today is the day! Bane of All Things has at last left the nest!
It’s a rather surreal feeling, to say the least, considering this tale first began as a short story idea some 22 years ago. I have of course worked on other, unrelated stories during that time, which may eventually see the light of day. BoAT itself went through two full reboots to become the novel it is today, comparable to how the Planet of the Apes film franchise has been reinvented.
But here we are. Don’t forget tonight’s launch event at 7 pm EST – here again is the Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3nZuswz
If you have any issues or questions with receiving your pre-ordered copies of BoAT from Inkshares, please contact hello@inkshares.com
Help spread the word!
Word of mouth is vital to an author’s success. Any promotion today and in the coming days through your social media channels would be greatly appreciated. Reviews posted to Amazon and Goodreads are also critical to help a new novel stand out and get noticed.
Thank you again for your support and your patience. This day could not have come without you. I am eternally grateful.
Stay safe and keep reading!
Cheers
Leo
Happy Sunday!
Here we are, just two days away from the official release of Bane of All Things! Though my local Chapters Indigo locations (that’s our big bookstore chain here in Canada, for my American and overseas friends) may in fact be putting the book out on the shelf as early as today.
THE UNBOXING
Yesterday was the Big Event at my house -- the official unboxing of my copies of the book from my publisher, Inkshares. I have posted that video to social media and you can view it here on Facebook, or on LinkedIn. This was my first time seeing, and holding, an actual print copy myself!
GETTING YOUR PRE-ORDERED COPIES
Over the past week or so, you should have received an email from Inkshares to confirm your mailing address ... if you have pre-ordered print copies coming your way. For ebook copies, you will soon receive an email notification that your download is ready and you can choose the ebook format you prefer to receive.
If you have any other questions or concerns about your account and ensuring Inkshares has the correct contact details for you, please reach out to hello@inkshares.com
TUESDAY LAUNCH EVENT: Submit your answers for the prize draws!
Don’t forget, the virtual launch event I am hosting on Zoom, at 7 pm EST, on Tuesday. Here is the link: https://bit.ly/3nZuswz
As I said last time, this is a fun event that will include prize draws with Jeopardy-style questions. It only takes one correct answer to be in the draw. Please submit your answers to me in advance:
Cheers
Leo
BANE OF ALL THINGS, DEBUT NOVEL LAUNCH
Tuesday, Dec. 7 is launch day for Bane of All Things! I will be hosting a launch event on Zoom at 7 pm EST. Here is the link: https://bit.ly/3nZuswz So, mark your calendar!
Join me for a relaxed and casual hour (or more), in which this humble author will sport stylish new headwear and wield his pointy sword (within the constraints of his living room ceiling, of course).
We will have readings! You can quiz me about the book, about being an author and about what’s next. There will be refreshments of your choice … because it’s a virtual event, so drink’em if you’ve got’em.
AND … we will have prize draws for those who have correctly answered, IN ADVANCE, any or all the following questions:
LET’S PLAY JEOPARDY!
Please submit your answers to me BEFORE Dec. 7. I will then draw winners during the event.
Your questions in the form of an answer are:
· >;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;; This European castle stands in for Dragon’s Claw Abbey – the “fictional” locale that is featured on the cover of Bane of All Things.
· >;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;; This recessed cupboard for storing sacred vessels in a Christian church inspired the last name of my heroine, Josalind Aumbrae.
· >;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;; This is the title of Book 2 in the series (the answer is out there!)
Becoming a bona fide published author has been a looong time in coming, and I really look forward to celebrating it together with you on Dec. 7.
Cheers
Leo
Good day! Here we are—less than three weeks from Bane of All Things’ release on Dec. 7.
It’s been a heck of a ride to get here. The pandemic delayed BoAT’s publication date by about eight months, while my ongoing contest with cancer has added fresh twists since August.
Despite all these speed bumps, it’s onward and upward!
None of it would have been possible without your patience and support. Thank you again for going on this adventure with me.
Unboxing pending
Before Dec. 7, I will receive a box of books from my publisher, Inkshares. It will be my first time seeing the final product in its physical form. My wife, Natalie, is intent on filming this “unboxing” so that I can share it on social media. So, stay tuned for that.
Save the date! Virtual launch event on Dec. 7
I had hoped to have a live launch event at a local bookstore or a pub. But given the continued concerns with the pandemic (and my own health), I will be foregoing that. Instead, I will host an hour-long virtual event on YouTube, at 7 p.m. EST on Dec. 7.
This event will feature me reading from BoAT, drawing for some prizes, and taking comments and questions from attendees. Details will soon follow.
Book giveaways
If you are reading this, odds are you already pre-ordered BoAT many moons ago and will have a copy or copies soon coming your way. But just so you know, my publisher is currently running a Book Giveaway on Goodreads.com with AmazonKindle.
This Giveaway runs until Nov. 29 and is open only to U.S. residents. I will, however, be doing other giveaways for my Canadian (and overseas) supporters (also as part of the Virtual Launch Event on Dec. 7). Please stand by for more details.
Making sure you receive your print copies
Again, if you did pre-order print copies of BoAT, it was many moons ago. If you have had any change of address in the past couple of years, please log into your Inkshares account to verify the mailing address you provided with your original pre-order is still current. This may require a password reset.
If you have any issues with account access or a password reset, please contact hello@inkshares.com. And if you aren’t sure what email address you have associated with your Inkshares account, let me know and I can quickly look it up for you.
My health
Just yesterday, I had the first of my tri-weekly immunotherapy treatments, which are intended to bolster my body’s ability to target and destroy cancer cells on its own. This comes after my radiation therapy three weeks ago and follows the surgery for tumor removal that took place at the beginning of October.
Other than experiencing the same kind of fever response you may get following a flu or COVID shot, I am so far handling the immunotherapy meds well. My recovery overall continues to move along.
That’s all for now. Stay safe and keep reading!
Cheers
Leo
Hello, hello, hello!
I am chug, chug, chugging along! I received my copy-edited manuscript back at the end of October. Then I spent a couple of weeks going through each note on every page. I submitted the reviewed copy edited manuscript on November 9th. Since I have never done this before, I was a little unsure of what to expect.
As I did my initial graze through the whole document I was shocked at how thorough this copy editor person was. Shocked and delighted. The amount of time and care they took to fix emdashes, point out inconsistencies, and "just confirm this was what was intended" was a whole new level of oversight for me. And I was relieved. This is not just me throwing all of the words into a sentence and hoping my primitive knowledge of commas will get us to the end. A very smart stranger read 409 pages of something I wrote and then took the time to make notes. And not just vague notes, specific, granular notes.
This must be how that shoemaker in the fairy tale felt when he woke up one morning and found that elves had made everything better in the night. I didn’t even know people like this existed, these copy editors. I believe they might be modern day elves. The next step will be to send this spiffed up manuscript to the typesetter to have it poured. Pouring is what makes it look like a real book. Again, kind of sounds like magic to me.
I hope you have a magical week. too.
Your friend,
Meghan Godwin
Happy Spooky Season! This is a roundup of where things are at with my participation at the World Fantasy Convention (WFC 2021) this week, Bane of All Things’ release on Dec. 7, and my health.
WFC 2021
Note, this event is live and virtual from Montreal – so all times are in the Eastern Time Zone. I am attending virtually, and you can, too. The cost to do so for the whole weekend (which starts on Thursday with the first panels at 4 p.m.) is US$75 or CDN$100.
More information about the registration, attendance options, and how to register, can be found here.
My activities at WFC:
Here is the full conference programme.
Bane of All Things’ release date is Dec. 7!
I emphasize this because the old and no-longer-relevant November release date is still displaying on a few online retail sites. This is due to a digital glitch in the global distribution machine that my publisher is working to get fixed. Don’t be fooled! The date is and remains Dec. 7.
Mustering the Street Team for that big day
In early September, I put out the casting call for kind souls who would have the time and the interest to help drive social awareness of Bane of All Things ahead of its release in December. Many of you have responded and signed up – thank you! If this includes you, we have of course already touched base, and I will be following up further through November.
If you are still looking to participate on the Street Team but haven’t connected with me about it yet, please drop me a line at leo@leovaliquette.com
Different ways that folks are participating on the Street Team include:
My health
Tomorrow will mark four weeks since cancer surgery. My treatment and recovery continue to go well. I told you last time that the next step would be CyberKnife radiation therapy. This treatment did take place and conclude this past week without any issues or complications.
My largest complaints at present are really little things that, too, shall pass – side effects from medications that I must remain on for a couple more weeks before starting immunotherapy (and then we will see how my system handles that).
One current side effect is that I am holding lots of water weight. Kindly bear that in mind if you do tune into my WFC sessions this week and see my rather puffy face vs. the author photo of that leaner fellow with whom you may be more familiar .
That’s all for now. Thank you again for your continued interest and support.
Stay safe and keep reading!
Thank you all for following my story. Although this book never got funded I did manage to finish writing and editing the novel and got it published through other means. It is now available as an ebook on several websites in several different countries.
If you are still interested in reading Other Life (Now titled Start.Earth) it is available to purchase as an ebook at the following websites (Physical version to come soon):
Barns&Noble
Smashwords Store
Apple
Odilo
Scribd
Chapters/Indigo
Cover
Good Sunday morning! Tomorrow will mark two weeks since the surgery that removed a cancerous “plum” from inside of my head. I continue to do well and to improve every day. My outlook for both treatment and recovery are good.
The next stage in my treatment will be five consecutive days later this month of targeted CyberKnife radiation therapy. This should have few side effects or ill effects of any consequence.
This therapy demands high precision targeting and control which will require my own custom iron maiden mask … of a sort (example pictured below.) This mask will be used to position and hold me in place during the treatment sessions. I just might mount this war trophy on a wall somewhere with my pointy sword afterward!
After radiation therapy concludes, we will then begin with immunotherapy. As I have said before, this is a regimen of medications designed to train your body to better identify and fight cancer itself – teach a man to fish rather than just give him a fish.
Let me take this opportunity to say that the standard of care, consideration and professionalism that I have experienced throughout all this – from the surgical and other care teams at my local hospitals here in Ottawa, Canada – was and continues to be outstanding, despite the extreme pressures placed on the whole system by the pandemic.
AND … BIG NEWS FOR THE BOOK LAUNCH!
Two days after I returned home from the hospital, I got some unexpected and totally awesome news: I have made the programme for the World Fantasy Convention (WFC 2021) taking place early next month in Montreal (I’ll be attending virtually). This is pretty much the top event of its kind in the world.
To say this was great news at a great time is a gross understatement. I will be on one panel, and I have also been given a slot to deliver a reading from Bane of All Things.
I bought my ticket to WFC 2021 two years ago and applied to its programming in March with no expectation of what might come of it as a debut fantasy author with a small and unconventional US publisher. I could not have expected better.
And ... another great Canadian author has also been gracious enough to provide a promotional blurb for the book:
"A dark and engrossing epic fantasy that starts off small but just keeps building. I’m really looking forward to what comes next!”
That comes from James Alan Gardner, author of They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded. Check him out!
That’s all for now. I definitely feel that the cup is half full.
Stay safe and keep reading ;)
Cheers
Leo
Greetings friends and supporters. We’re certainly due for an update on the state of Tantalus Depths, and I am thrilled to say this update is a really good one.
About a week ago, I received my first round of copyedit notes for Tantalus Depths. They were wonderfully thorough and picked up a ton of minor punctuation and grammar errors that managed to elude my notice through more than a dozen full readthroughs. They were easily fixed, and the book feels much cleaner for it.
You’ll remember that the development editing process took almost two years to complete, due to extensive rewrites and passing through multiple draft stages. Copyedits, I am happy to say, are much simpler and more straightforward, and mostly just involve clicking "accept" on every grammar change my copyeditor suggested. I made sure to read each sentence in context to ensure that none of the suggestions accidentally changed the meaning of the sentence, and I caught a couple that would have done so, but even with that close attention to detail, I am proud to say that it still only took me a few hours to make every single change expected of me for this stage of the process. While it took me months to get through a round of development edits, I was able to finish all my copyedit notes and send them back to my publisher in less than a week.
This very well may be the first time in our five-year development process where we’ve actually been ahead of schedule, and we are rapidly nearing the end. My copyeditor will go over the changes I’ve made, and barring one or two more potential correspondences to correct a few outstanding issues, we will soon be done with the copyediting process and be ready to move on to the proofreader. After that, Tantalus Depths will at long last be completely finalized and ready for its release.
It’s been a long road to get here, friends, but we are rapidly gaining momentum in the last stretch before the finish line. Expect some very exciting announcements in the next few months, including a cover reveal and our long-awaited official release date.
I never thought it would take this long to get this book into your hands, and I do hope future projects will move more smoothly now that I know what to expect. But I can definitely say with confidence that the book is ten times better now than it was before this process began, and I could not be more excited to see what happens when my world finally enters yours.
Stay tuned, my friends, and watch the skies.
The Void is calling...
CANCER UPDATE, OCT. 07, ‘21
Good day, everyone. Yesterday, I returned home from a surgery to remove the Melanoma tumor from my head. Surgery went well and the prognosis is good. Now, I face a couple of months of recovery at home and treatments with radiation and immunotherapy.
Bottom line: This is the first day of the rest of my life, and life is good.
The dark irony in all this is that my two main characters, Ryn and Josalind, each have “demons” of a sort in their heads. And it turned out that I did, too. But different than them, I can say at this stage that mine is easier to excise.
Thank you for all your support and good wishes.
Cheers
Leo