Happy Sunday!

Just a quick update on how things are going ahead of Bane of All Things’ Nov. 9 release.

I am finalizing the manuscript with the copy editor. A copy editor scrutinizes the manuscript for the niggly things related to punctuation, American vs. Canadian spelling, and consistency with a style guide (like The Chicago Manual of Style). They are also a last pair of fresh eyes to catch things that may still be unclear to a reader or details that may be inconsistent from one end of the story to the other (like details of a character’s appearance).

The manuscript will go next to the interior designer. They will turn the manuscript from a Word doc into a stylish layout and file format ready to become an e-book and sent to the printer for the trade paperback edition.

For the cover of the book, that falls to Tim Barber of Dissect Designs, who has done a number of fantastic covers for Inkshares. I look forward to when I can share with you the real cover and that do-it-yourself placeholder down below can finally be retired.

There will be lots more work to do in the months that remain before launch day. Advance promotion is critical – this will include distribution of ARCs (advance reader copies) to generate reviews on sites like Goodreads before Nov. 9. The hope, of course, is that the reception from these advance readers will be generally positive—they get an advance copy of the book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Taking time to reflect

I found myself rather reflective this morning on the long road to get to this point.

I landed the deal with Inkshares for Bane of All Things on May 1, 2019. That’s just three years and two months after I began writing the first draft in March 2016.

That could be considered fast, especially for a debut author. On the other hand, I first started working on this idea in 1999! Two other failed versions of this story – two other full-length novels – came before. 

Over those years, I worked on other stories that might also be published someday. But I kept coming back to this one, determined to unlock its mysteries. Figuring out the best way to tell a strong and engaging story is the most difficult and the most rewarding thing that’s within my ability to do. I am compelled to do it.

While Bane of All Things was a completely fresh start from those two previous efforts – think of it like the recent Planet of the Apes reboots versus the original movies of the ‘70s – it did benefit from an already established foundation. This world and these characters were already entrenched in my mind and that made a big difference. There is absolute truth in the saying that every overnight success was years (even decades) in the making.

It remains to be seen if Bane of All Things will be a success. But no matter what happens, I remain grateful and humbled that you chose to be part of the adventure with me.

Stay safe and keep reading!

Cheers

Leo

Hey all,

 If I’ve learned one thing in this publishing process, it’s never to promise "we’re almost there" or "the end is in sight."

So I’ll just repeat what Inkshares is telling me: the book is coming out July 14th. There’s also this:

Happy Friday everyone. Thanks for your 4+ years of patience.

Hello!

I am beyond excited to let you know that your copy of The Devil Inside is coming soon! The official release date is May 11, 2021!

Back in the fall of 2017, you were kind enough to pre-order a copy as part of my funding effort to get the book published. It was supposed to release last year, but—as with many things—the pandemic delayed it.

I am grateful and appreciative of your support (and your patience) while the book waited in the queue for its turn with the editor and proofreader.

Right now, it is with the printer, and it should take about two weeks to print the hard copies. From there it will ship to the fulfillment center and then it will be on its way to you! If you ordered a paperback, you will also get a free e-book copy as well. The link for that will arrive in your email when it is ready for download. If you don’t see it, be sure to check your spam folder!

But I want to make sure you get your copy after all this time, so this next part is important: If you ordered a paperback and have moved to a new home since September 2017, you will need to make sure Inkshares has your shipping address and email. Otherwise, they will send your book to the wrong place.

If you have any trouble with that, contact Inkshares customer service at and they’ll be able to help you out.

Thank you again for all of your support. I’m looking forward to all of you getting your copies, and I hope you enjoy the story (and when you’re done, I would love to have you leave a review on Amazon or GoodReads!).

Take care,

Susan

PS. And if you also see this message via my author newsletter, I apologize for the double message. There are, however, a few people on the Inkshares platform that have not subscribed to my mailing list and I don’t want to accidentally overlook anyone!

 No matter what type of publisher you have...

Publishing my first book with Inkshares  was the best thing I could have done for my career as an author! Today, I have my second book out, and it’s on a traditional contract with a NY publisher. But no matter what type of publisher you have, you have to  share your work yourself. I don’t think mass emails work. 

Below is the email I developed and sent individually to my close friends and colleagues to celebrate my new book birthday today. (Feel free to use as template/cut and paste if helpful.)

Wherever you are on your writing journey, hang in there and best of luck! If you’re a reader only, thank you for the support you give us! 

Best,

Kris 

Note: If you buy the book today, it will help support my fledgling career as an author since rankings of sales at launch signal to independent booksellers & Amazon that this is a book worth promoting and featuring! If you buy the book in the next 3 days—ebook, hardback, or audiobook—100% of the royalties will go to NoKidHungry.com, a nationwide effort to help end childhood hunger in the US. If you buy the book anytime, it helps. 

Publishing  Here and There...

ONE MURDER MORE, a traditional mystery, was one of Inkshares first books! Published in 2016, it was a good experience. I believe had I not gone with Inkshares initially, I would never have been published! I just didn’t have it in me to  weather the rounds of agent queries and unsold manuscripts that so many of my author friends describe. 

Once I had that first book "out there", I felt I  could take a chance on what might happen if I went the so-called "traditional" (old-school) publishing route. It worked, too!  My debut thriller, ALL THAT FALL, first for me in that genre, is coming out next week with a NY-based traditional publisher, Crooked Lane, distributed by Penguin Random House. I landed a two-book deal with them, so there is a third to be written, in the wings.

My experience with the different types of publishers has, at least so far, been more similar than not. I’ve had about the same level of attention given to, both very responsive to my questions, and both (and I found this surprising with the traditional publishing) allowing me significant input into the title and cover design. With respect to marketing, both gave what you might expect  for an unknown author in a genre, meaning some (which is important, and I’m grateful for that) but not a lot. 

 

My advice if you are a writer is, to the extent you are able to (I know it’s hard), don’t worry too much about "how" you will get published. Try something, and if that doesn’t work for that book, try something else. The beauty (and the frustration) of being a writer in this day and age is you have options to get your book in front of readers, from  traditional to hybrid to self-publishing.  And you’re on your way, you’re on Inkshares,  that shows you’re serious about it!  

If you’re a reader or  writer and  interested in learning a little more about my path, my process and my books: 

https://www.kriscalvin.com 

Here’s a sampler, my interview this week in The Big Thrill Magazine: https://thebigthrill.org/2021/03/up-close-kris-calvin/…

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Happy reading and writing!

Kris 

Hello Everyone! 

Only a month left to get your nominations in for Beyond the Masquerade! So if you love the action packed adventures of Luna and Ranger and want more, let Inkshares know with their new nomination feature! If the project gets enough, it may be the next chosen to move on in the 2020 All Genre Manuscript Contest! 

Hey everyone,

Happy Corned Beef and Cabbage Day!

It looks like I haven’t sent out an update since August, which was…three, four years ago? I think many of you would agree that these past twelve months have seemed to stretch on forever. Hopefully as the vaccine rollout picks up steam, we’ll start to see more and more aspects of life from the Before Times returning to normal. You know, like people actually going to bookstores to buy books. Which was a really poor segue for a…

SHOWTIME UPDATE

I haven’t wanted to send out an update because, well, I don’t have much in the way of big updates to share. But I figured I should pop in just to let you know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.

Anyway, I checked in with Avalon, my copyeditor, this week and unfortunately Inkshares is still seeing some lags in the development processes of their books (thanks, COVID), causing their schedules to be set back by a couple months.

I don’t want to share any potential dates for copyediting or release since that would only be disappointing if we’re not able to meet those dates. But when we have something firmly set in stone, I will let you all know. However, Avalon assured me that Inkshares isn’t rushing any part of the process, and she’s excited about getting to work on Showtime.

In a bit of good news, Inkshares’s publishing schedule for the coming months looks to be pretty robust (take a look on Amazon) with a good number of delayed books being released. So while it’s not my turn yet, the fact that books from their back catalog are being released is a good sign that things are ramping up again.  

CONTEST AND NEW PROJECT

While news on the Showtime front is a bit quiet for now, my writing has not slowed down. The new book is done! It’s the most horror-centric thing I’ve written and is called Monsters. And no, it’s not about people who refuse to wear masks during a pandemic.

Inkshares is running a new contest, and I’ve entered Monsters.

Instead of pre-orders, Inkshares is choosing contest winners based on which books are nominated using the NOMINATION button that you’ll find on each individual book’s page.

Per the contest: “...we want to know what book projects have piqued your interest most. Which stories are the most compelling, and whose writing is the strongest?”

I’m not opening up the Monsters page for pre-orders (I cannot in good faith ask you to pre-order a new book when my previous one has not been published yet), but I am asking for something else. I’ve posted the first three chapters of Monsters and if you like what you read, please consider clicking the FOLLOW button, leaving a quick review, and, most importantly, clicking the NOMINATE button near the top of the page. It’s a short and sweet form that basically asks you why you like what you read and feel like it’s worthy for publication.

While potential publication for Monsters would be farther out, securing a slot in the Inkshares publication queue would give it a head start, effectively cutting out the long, grueling process of another pre-order campaign.

The nomination process will close on May 1st (with winners selected the month after), and here’s the page for Monsters: CLICK HERE TO NOMINATE.

ALL ABOARD THE DIABEETUS EXPRESS

As a fun side project, I started doing homemade sugar cookies with commissioned designs. If you have a need for custom sugar cookies in your life, let me know at rruszin17@aol.com.

AND NOW FOR THE COMEDY PORTION OF THE SHOW…

Q: What do you say to console an English major?

A: There, their, they’re

Thanks again for your support and patience, and I’m excited to share more news with you all when I have it!

Ricky

                                                            Two books in one year!

O, Gigantic Victory Trilogy! is hot off the presses. For the first time, my three raucous/tender/exciting/triumphant books of baseball poetry about the San Francisco Giants and their World Championship seasons are available under one cover. It’s 319 pages of baseball poetry. If you hate baseball, or the Giants, this book is not for you! But it’s a grand-slam home run gift for any Giants fan (not for little kids). Writing these books was so much fun! Available on Amazon.com and e-readers and fine Bay Area bookstores. Self-published with iUniverse. They did a very nice job.

More importantly, Inkshares has slated Going, Going, Gone! for a Fall 2021 publishing date. Adam, Barnaby, and Avalon have done a fabulous job with this baseball-time-travel tale. They found a free-lance copy editor who knows his baseball very well. He made scores of helpful suggestions. Please mention Going, Going, Gone! to your friends. It’s taken ten years to get this project to this point. I wrote it to be the most exciting baseball novel ever. I hope that readers find it thrilling.

I have included the text from the publicity flyers, below. 

Feel free to ask me any questions. Please connect on Facebook, and especially, Instagram.

STEVE HERMANOS’ RAUCOUS SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS BASEBALL POETRY IN ONE VOLUME FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Featuring:

O, Gigantic Victory! The 2010 Championship Season

Orange Waves of Giants! The 2012 Championship Season

Floating Giants! The 2014 Championship Season

“Hermanos makes me hunger for the upcoming season.”

—The New York Times

“It’s perfect.”                                                  “Brilliant and hilarious!”

—Ken Burns, filmmaker                               —Brian Murphy, KNBR sports radio 

 A great gift for Giants fans! Relive the twists and turns of the glorious Orange Dynasty!

Available now at Amazon, on e-readers, and at fine bookstores everywhere. Please patronize your local bookstore, the beating heart of any town.

$21.99 paperback; $6.99 Kindle. 357 pages of raucous and exciting baseball poetry. Not for little kids!

More info than you want to know: SteveHermanos.com

SteveHermanos@yahoo.com.

ARRIVING SEPTEMBER 14, 2021! 

GOING, GOING, GONE!

A BASEBALL NOVEL

BY STEVE HERMANOS

“A rollicking rollercoaster ride…”

—David Henry Sterry

“An astonishing triple play of baseball, time travel, and unforgettable characters. Funny, imaginative, and thrilling!”

—Zack Hample

“Joyous invention. A delight.”

—Lamar Herrin 

Available September `14, 2021. Published by Inkshares, the world leader in publishing crowdfunding. 

Pre-order now at Amazon.com and at your local bookstore.

TMI: SteveHermanos.com

SteveHermanos@yahoo.com.

Instagram: @stevehermanos

Fellow Contestants/Site Members: While considering works to nominate, please take a few moments to read a chapter from my books, Between Midnight and Dawn and Even Blue Birds Sing: A True Story. If you want a book to tug at your heart strings, taking you from laughter to tears and back, these both should fill that prescription.

Between Midnight and Dawn is a memoir covering my husband’s career as an ICU nurse. Ray was not your ordinary, play-by-the-rules nurse. When circumstances looked impossible, he innovated, sometimes with striking results. If you know someone who is a health care worker or who is thinking of becoming one, or if you have been a patient, the pages will be affirming and will bring to light what it means to truly presence with another human being.

Even Blue Birds Sing: A True Story, though centered about the very serious topic of domestic violence, is not all doom and gloom. Despite her horrific circumstances, the real-life person about whom this story was put to paper wanted me to add humor where I could. If you enjoyed Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, you will enjoy this tale of resilience in the face of overwhelming odds and an impossible, Sophie’s Choice type decision. 

Thank you, and best wishes with your own writing adventures! Karen Buyno