Walker Long's Blog, page 3
June 15, 2017
June 9, 2017
Cover Art 2: The Fire Red Arrows
I did the cover for The Fire Red Arrows a while ago, but there were a few imperfections that I’ve always wanted to fix. This new cover is basically the same, just cleaned up a little more. I also left the colors a little brighter, so it’s more vibrant.
The image is made from three different images superimposed. First, and most obvious, are the two cherubs from Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. These famous little angels have been used for everything from wall posters to toilet paper, so I don’t feel too bad putting them on the cover of an erotic short story.
I’ve also given them something interesting to look at for once. I grabbed an image of a girl in a short skirt, adjusted the color to more closely match the oil painting, and applied a “canvas” texture. Then there is a cloud with majestic rays of sunlight peeking out. That was also color corrected and textured.
Check out the story on Amazon if you get a chance!
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June 2, 2017
A Pretty Remarkable Review of Swapship Troopers
Here’s another reviewer who took a chance on Swapship Troopers and discovered that it’s not terrible! Yay!
The naughty parts are suitably hot. The romance is touching. The editing is excellent. I also appreciated the sex-positive and trans-positive tone. It is really pretty remarkable.
Read the whole review here.
May 26, 2017
Cover Art II: Dora’s Box
My publicity image for Dora’s Box was so popular, I decided to use it for the official book cover. I don’t know if this will help the book sell any better, but it’s fun giving my personal touch to the book. Now my four novel-length works all have covers that I drew myself. They’re a set! Collect ’em all.
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May 22, 2017
Review: Social Science Fiction
There you have it, folks! Heinlein would have loved Swapship Troopers. No better endorsement than that.
The story follows what the original book intended and the movie totally missed. The characters and political situations fit the story line. Without giving anything away, RAH would have loved this as a side trip into the Bug War.
Check out the Review on Amazon.
May 15, 2017
Newsletter and #Free #Erotic #EBook
So I finally got my shit together and started a newsletter mailing list. Next step: write an actual newsletter. In the meantime, if you go ahead and subscribe there’s a free book in it for you. My hilarious and suspenseful adventure novella, Invasion of the Snatch Snatchers, can be yours, no questions asked. Just submit your e-mail address and watch your inbox (and possibly your spam folder) for the link to download this wicked fun story.
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April 24, 2017
Self Portrait
There are a lot of different ways authors present themselves. Some create a little logo for their “brand.” I did that, but it feels too impersonal in certain circumstances. Some authors use a photograph of themselves, but I prefer to keep more privacy. Some authors use a photograph of somebody else, but that I didn’t want to come off as deceitful (although it would be an opportunity to be somebody better looking).
Instead, I did what I do when I can’t find good, cheap cover art — I drew it myself. Here’s my very own self-portrait! It looks like me, but not too much like me ;-).
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April 21, 2017
Celebrate #EarthDay With an #erotic #romance by @Patient_Lee
Erotica author Patient Lee is bringing her unique blend of well-developed, relatable characters and steamy romance to Earth Day 2017. And even better, for each copy sold on Earth Day, Patient Lee will plant one milkweed plant as part of her effort to help monarch butterflies. Enjoy a sweet, sexy romance and help the environment at the same time! Check out Milkweed & Gossamer on Amazon.
Jaime just turned eighteen, and she’s so passionate about saving the monarch butterflies, people call her Milkweed. Josh Gossamer is four years older than Milkweed, but they fall for each other while delivering milkweed plants and working in the butterfly house. Milkweed’s family does everything possible to keep them apart, fearing that Josh will talk her into giving up her virginity and then leave her forever at the end of the summer.
But there’s something her family doesn’t know about her brother, Scott, and he’ll do anything to protect his secret, even lie about Milkweed.
The monarch butterfly population in the United States is in trouble. People can help by planting milkweed to give the butterflies a place to lay their eggs and the caterpillars the food they need to survive. This Earth Day story will teach readers about the plight of the butterflies in a sweet, sexy erotic romance.
Will the first time be the last time, or will Milkweed and Gossamer find a way to be together when he leaves for grad school? Find out on Earth Day.
April 13, 2017
How About Word Count?
It’s ironic that in this modern information age, sites like Amazon still list a “page count” on Kindle e-books. Given the range of devices and font options for e-books, the size of a page is entirely arbitrary. I might need 300 page flips to read a novel on my old Kindle when someone with higher resolution and better eyes could do it in 100. That makes it a pretty poor unit of measurement. It’s like — just as a wild example — using a person’s actual foot to measure distance. We stopped doing that hundreds of years ago, and for good reason.
Page count is obviously meant to help print readers relate, but the fact is even in the print world page count is sketchy. Font size, margins, line spacing, all these things can cause page count for the “same” novel to vary widely. If you’ve ever read a Science Fiction Book Club edition, you know that it’s possible to cram a whole lot of words onto a page.
Even the folks who compiled the Christian Bible knew pages couldn’t be depended upon. They numbered chapters and verses — the actual content — rather than tracking the medium that the content was printed on. That’s why to this day, virtue signalling Jesus fans plaster “John 3:16” all over the place and not “Page 900.”
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For my money, the best way to measure a book is with words. Word count describes the length of a book, regardless of how it is presented. A Kindle e-book, a mass-market paperback, a trade hardcover, a large print edition, all have the same number of words.
Of course, readers aren’t as familiar with word count, but it’s been used behind the scenes in the publishing industry forever. NaNoWriMo uses word count to decide when you’ve written a novel: 50,000 or more. The SFWA Nebula awards say a novel is 40,000 words (a novella is 17,500 to 40,000 words, a novelette is 7500 to 17,500, and a short story is under 7500). They don’t use page count. They use words. It’s a proven concept.
So I would encourage anyone who finds themselves in a position to report the length of a book to go ahead and tell people something meaningful. Tell them how many words are in it.
Les Miserables 655,000 words
Atlas Shrugged 645,000 words
War and Peace 587,000 words
The Lord of the Rings 481,000 words
Shogun 429,000 words
Lonesome Dove 365,700 words
HP Order of the Phoenix 257,100 words
Dune 201,000 words
HP Deathly Hallows 198,200 words
Catch-22 174,000 words
Fifty Shades of Grey 155,000 words
Last of the Mohicans 145,500 words
To Kill A Mockingbird 100,400 words
Hunger Games 99,750 words
Nineteen Eighty-Four 88,900 words
Neuromancer 79,000 words
HP Sorcerer’s Stone 77,000 words
Catcher in the Rye 73,400 words
Brave New World 63,700 words
Lord of the Flies 59,900 words
Fahrenheit 451 47,000 words
Lion, Witch, Wardrobe 36,300 words*
Animal Farm 30,000 words
Of Mice and Men 29,160 words
*Note that my book, The Lesbian, the Bitch, and the Bathrobe has 40,000 words. It’s clearly a much better bargain.
April 12, 2017
If You’re Smart and Kinky, You Might Love it Too
I still like to re-read this review from Smart Kinky Diva on Goodreads:
I’ve read this book 4 times now and still discover little details I missed in the first reads.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1962237691?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
