Christopher Dunbar's Blog: Morrigan's Blog, page 10

Events for the first half of 2011

Just like last year, we plan to be at several book and genre events this year. I don't have a complete list of confirmed events, that is confirmations that we have been accepted as authors or vendors through Triscelle Publishing, but be looking for us at these events for the first half of 2011:

AggieCon
ApolloCon
Houston Indie Book Festival
Houston Scottish Festival and Highland Games

We are confirmed for ApolloCon, and we are awaiting confirmation for the other events I mentioned. We are also planning a return trip to The Magick Cauldron for one or more book signings, and we are looking into other book signing venues, such as the Brazos Book Store, Katy Budget Books, and others.

Stay tuned for updates.

Cheers!

Christopher

Thank you friends and fans of Triscelle Publishing, home of the Morrigan's Brood Series, for your continued support!

Chuck…I mean Karl…No That's Charles

Someone brought up a question for me a few days ago. Why do the next few books move on to the early days of the Holy Roman Empire, and specifically why use Emperor Karl I (Charlemagne) as a character in the series. I don't know why I started to find this emperor fascinating. Maybe it's that he's sort of an intriguing figure in that era.

Charles (which is what I call him because most people know him as Charlemagne) was a bit of a throwback in some ways to an earlier time, a time when Celtic chieftains and kings ruled over what had been Gaul. When the Frankish tribe began attacking the Roman Empire, the empire was turning their eyes east towards Greece or Byzantium. This gave free rein to the so-called barbarian tribes to take over Rome and the western part of Europe. At this point the Roman Empire was mostly Christian. The Barbarians weren't and had their own customs about marriage, children, and religion.

A few centuries later, they all converted to Christianity. However, like the Irish, they kept a lot of their tribal customs. Karl was a man that professed himself a Christian, but lived like a Germanic chieftain. I like that. It gives him depth and character. I suppose I thought a man crowned by a pope would have been a little less worldly. However, he had wives and concubines that he loved. He loved his children too, whether they were official or bastards. Even if they turned on him, as several of them did.

He was a great storyteller and started a school for the locals near the palace at Aachen. He enjoyed living and laughed a lot.

Charles knew his world and was a keen politician even though he was somewhat embarrassed to admit that he didn't really know how to read or write well. He recognized when something was outside of the realm of his expertise and found people to explain all sides of the issue to him. Something that I think modern day politicians should readily embrace. Especially since most politicians are illiterate or at least seem to approve of illiteracy, but that's another blog post.

I don't exactly approve of the way he treated the Saxons, but he treated the Basileus of Byzantium and Harun al-Rashid, the de-facto leader of the many tribes who were from the Middle East with respect. Al-Rashid apparently thought enough of Charles to send him an elephant and a clock as a presents. The emperor thought it was a most amusing joke as Abul-Abbas apparently ate more than any other beast in the empire.

Chuck also loved his roasts and his hunts. Despite what the doctors told him, he kept himself busy. 15 years after becoming emperor, Charles started to let his oldest official son, Ludvicus (Louis for ease of reading) sort of take over.

As much as I like Emperor Chuck, I never have cared for his successor. Louis was known to never smile. He forced his bastard brothers to tonsure (take holy orders) to secure his place. It may be a harsh judgment, but as Chuck was known for being friendly and wise and his son was known as 'Louis the Pious'. He didn't have this father's talents on the battlefield, charm, or sense.

So there you go, I guess I like Chuck because he was a man of contradictions who enjoyed himself. He knew his limitations and his strengths. That's why I think he'd be a great book character. There's nothing more interesting than a character that is not quite what he seems to be. At least I enjoy reading about characters like that.

Oopses Need a Home – Yours

Last year / last month / a few weeks ago, we had announced that we had a few oopses from our printer, that is books which have cover blemishes, rendering them unable to be sold; of course the paper inside is in good condition. Previously, we had offered those books for free if you paid for shipping. We had a few interested parties, so we have shipped out some of those books, but we still have two sets of Morrigan's Brood and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War with cover blemishes, and all four books are just resting on my (Christopher) bookshelf behind me, waiting for new homes.

OK, here's the deal. You want a free book? You want me to pay for shipping? I'm OK with that. You live in the USA? Cool. You live outside of the USA? Cool as well. While you are rubbing your eyes in disbelief, USPS Priority Mail has these wonderful fixed rate envelopes, and if you can fit it, they ship it, and I have been able to fit two books, plus padding and bookmarks, into one of those envelopes. USA shipping is around $5 and international shipping is around $15.

So you might be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why on earth would I want to send free, SIGNED (oh, did I not mention that?) books (again, slightly blemished covers) to you and pay for shipping? Insanity, perhaps? I admit that that might be a possibility… Here's the real reason… we desire more reviews of our books. People shopping for new books to read and new authors to follow read YOUR reviews, whether they are on book reader sites like Goodreads, Shelfari, or WeRead, or book buying sites, like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Heather and I both value all of your reviews, good or bad.

For our potentially $30 investment ($15 printing/ordering costs + $15 USPS International shipping), all we are seeking are well-written reviews. Don't get me wrong, we are not offering free books in exchange for positive reviews – we are not trying to bribe you with free books. On the contrary, we welcome both positive and negative reviews that are well-written and thought-out.

So we are hoping that for our potentially $30 investment (per set) that we could find two individuals who would be willing to write well-written reviews, whether you liked the books or not, for each book you receive. If you are interested, simply send an email to chris_dunbar@triscellepublishing.com. The first two people who respond who are willing to accept this offer will be the winners. We would appreciate reviews to be written by February and then posted to at least Goodreads, though if winners are willing, we would also appreciate reviews posted to those other sites I mentioned.

Thank you for participating.

Free Read in the Works for Morrigan's Brood: Dark Alliance

I (Christopher) am in the process of getting a free read put together for Morrigan's Brood: Dark Alliance. The free read will feature the Prologue and part of a chapter from the book. I will post it as a PDF file to Goodreads, to our blog, and to my LinkedIn profile. This free read will contain spoilers if you have not read the first two books in the Morrigan's Brood Series. Either Heather or I will announce when the free read is ready and where we have posted it.

Cheers!

Christopher

Thank you friends and fans of Triscelle Publishing, home of the Morrigan's Brood Series!

Locations of Morrigan's Brood: Dark Alliance

Have you ever wondered where historical (or fantastical, for that matter) events in a novel took place? Usually, you don't have to wonder too much, because the author or publisher places a convenient map or maps in a fantasy or historical fiction novel. If you have read prior books of the Morrigan's Brood Series, you have come to appreciate, based on many of the reviews I (Christopher) have read, the maps showing where events in our stories took place. Morrigan's Brood: Dark Alliance will be no different. In fact, I wanted to give our friends and fans a sneak peak at how we come up with our maps, and to even show a preliminary map from our third book. Even though this is a Dark Fantasy / Historical Fiction / Fantasy Adventure novel, we strive for accuracy in our depiction of the times when and locations where our stories take place.



Before we write a book, Heather (mostly) and I research the times and locations where we intend to write our story. With Morrigan's Brood: Dark Alliance, we chose 801 CE, since that followed the crowning of Charles I (aka Charlemagne, or Charles the Great) by Pope Leo III as the first Holy Roman Emperor, and thus began the Holy Roman Empire (which, as Heather and I joke, was neither Roman nor holy). Much of Western Europe was part of the empire in 801, including much of the modern countries of France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and even a small part of Spain.

Heather the Librarian buys non-fiction books looking at different aspects of the history of the early ninth century, including the life and times of the people, trading and commerce, battles and the military, Charles' family, relations with the Papacy, and relations with other nations and historic figures (i.e. Empress Irene). Through reading these texts, Heather is able to get a good idea of the major towns of the area, abbeys and cathedrals, trade routes, roads, ports, and other location elements that we can use in the story. I back up her research with maps and other information I find online. The challenge has been trying to depict locations circa 801 CE and not an earlier period, such as 770 CE, or a later period, such as 834 CE (both examples were common dates on maps I found online).

When writing the book, Heather identifies the location for a scene or chapter in parentheses. When I performed the layout, I formatted the location names using a style from previous books and removed the parentheses. I then copied all of the names we actually used as locations into a separate document so I could match those ancient locations up with modern locations. I used on-line sources, such as Google Maps, to come up with a list of ancient country names, modern city names, modern country names, links to maps, and geo-codes for all of the ancient cities. I then created a preliminary composite map containing all of those locations in Google Maps, which I will share below.

View Larger Map

Once Heather vets my locations map (by double-checking my historical facts) and finishes her first read, I will submit the preliminary map and the locations map to Khanada Taylor for her to design the interior map. Once finished, the map will look something like this:

Copyright 2010 by Triscelle Publishing. All rights reserved.

I hope you enjoyed this update concerning our mapping efforts. There will be more information to come, and don't be surprised to find this information in Goodreads and Shelfari in the near future.

Cheers!

Christopher

Thank you Friends and Fans of Triscelle Publishing, Home of the Morrigan's Brood Series!

Happy New Year! Also, About Book Three…

Let me ask you a question: When you finished reading Morrigan's Brood and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War, did you want to find out what Marcus, Maire, Mandubratius, Mac Alpin, Claudius, and the others have been up to since the end of Book Two? If the answer is "yes", then I have a treat for you… Morrigan's Brood: Dark Alliance is back from the editor, and we are in the process of getting it ready for publication.



Getting a book ready for publication is a long and arduous process. It includes writing elements (including incorporating suggestions from the editor, rewrites, corrections, proofreading, and sometimes new story content), interior book design elements [including laying out the text, typesetting, interior graphics, (map, scene breaks, drop caps, etc.), and developing new content for the front appendixes (i.e. pronunciation guide, lines of blood drinkers, etc.)], and cover design elements (including the cover art, spine content, rear text, barcode, and ISBN/EAN). In addition, we have to order ISBNs, research eBook formats, set up with our printer, and buy into distribution packages. On the promotional side, we have been developing a promotion and marketing plan that includes interviews, reviews, guest blogs, book signings, and other events.

From time to time, as we go through this process, Heather or I will be providing an update on our progress. As of last week, I converted the manuscript into a book format and combined most of the graphical and font formatting elements, using prior books as a template. Heather making her first pass reading the book. She is incorporating suggestions from our editor, Sarah (Sally) Aalderink, correcting historical inaccuracies, adding content we wrote after sending the manuscript to Sally, and seeing how the work flows.

Khanada Taylor, our cover designer, web mistress, and graphic artist, has already drafted the cover art in black & white, and Heather and I are enamored with what she has shown us thus far. Khanada has previously designed and drawn the cover art and interior art for Morrigan's Brood and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War, with the exception of the triscelle logo, which was designed by Dayna Hartley and me (Christopher).

I will be putting together some free reads and other marketing materials for the new book in the coming weeks. We will also have some book signing events coming up, so we will be sure to announce them when they are confirmed. Oh, and when we can squeeze in the time between getting Morrigan's Brood: Dark Alliance ready for publication and writing books six through eight in the series, we will write and release scenes between books two and three. When are we going to find the time to write those… *shakes head*.

Suffice it to say, there will be more to come. Oh, and we are looking for a summer 2011 release date, either 6/1/2011 or 7/1/2011 (which would be one year after the release of Book Two.)

Cheers!

Christopher Dunbar

Thank you friends and fans of Triscelle Publishing, home of the Morrigan's Brood Series!

A Good Deal for Our Fans

Sometimes the printer sends us uh-oh's. However, these uh-oh's are uh-oh's on the cover. Most of the time the text is off on the spine. However, everything between the covers is perfect!

So in honor of these uh-oh's… we're giving away the uh-oh's. Okay, they're not absolutely free, you have to pay for the shipping. However, Chris and I (Heather) will sign 'em and send 'em anywhere!

We have…

2 of Morrigan's Brood

3 of Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War

If you're interested let us know by contacting us at chris_dunbar@triscellepublishing.com or via facebook (where we'll post this).

The Goodreads Contest Winners Are…!

Our latest Goodreads giveaway contest is over, and we have three winners. All three winners will each receive a copy of Morrigan's Brood and a copy of Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War, both signed by the authors, as well as some bookmarks. Winners are encouraged, though not required, to rate these books after reading them and to write reviews on Goodreads. The contest was open to readers in the US, Ireland, the UK, Canada, and the Isle of Man. 692 Goodreaders registered for the contest. Now for the winners…

Michael Prendergast – UK
Rhonda Romberg – California, USA
Ivory Walters – California, USA

Prizes will be shipped out this week. Please join me in congratulating the winners!

Thank you friends and fans of Triscelle Publishing, home of the Morrigan's Brood Series!

Paranormal Haven Contest Winner and Goodreads Contest Still On

Heather and I (Christopher) would like to congratulate Kulsuma Begum for winning the Morrigan's Brood giveaway contest on Paranormal Haven! Kulsuma will receive signed copies of Morrigan's Brood and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War as well as a few bookmarks. We would especially like to thank Stephanie and Athenna for their reviews, for the interview, and for hosting the contest. Please visit their site and see what they have to offer readers of paranormal and supernatural works!

Of course, there is still an opportunity to win free copies of our works. Check out our Goodreads free giveaway contest below:

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway












Morrigan's Brood (Book #1) and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War (Book #2)
by Heather Poinsett Dunbar and Christopher Dunbar

Giveaway ends December 01, 2010. See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

In case you didn't notice, we have a new look…

Somebody woke up one day and decided the blog needed a face-lift. Well, he (I) spent countless (not really) hours selecting the right template, figuring out how to format the new template, resampling graphics to fit size requirements, recoding widgets, and adding links to where we have stuff out on the vast expanse of the Internet. Sound like a lot of work, right? (Naa…) Anyway, please feel free to offer suggestions on our comments of how we can further improve the appearance and functionality of the blog. Is there stuff you want to see here that we don't have? Do you want to see more or fewer links? Perhaps you think stuff should be moved around? Please make suggestions, because this site is for you.

Thank you friends and fans of Triscelle Publishing, home of the Morrigan's Brood Series!

Heather and Chris got Interviewed

Hey friends and fans of Triscelle Publishing, home of the Morrigan's Brood Series! Guess what? (Well, if you read our last blog post, this is no surprise.) Heather and Chris were interviewed for Paranormal Haven! Not only did they interview us, they are also hosting a contest. If you want to read our interview and / or enter the contest, please click here.



As a sneak peek, here are the questions they asked; for the answers, you will need to read the interview.

Instead of having you tell us about yourselves, can you tell us a little about each other?
Why did you two decide to write together?
How is writing with a partner different from writing by yourself? How is the work divided up?
Can you tell us about your series Morrigan's Brood?
Your series has Roman and Celtic history and folklore in it with elements of vampirism. Why did you decide to write about these subjects?
How many books are planned for this series?
What genre would you place your series in?
There are so many interesting characters in your books. Do both of you have your favorites?

Goodreads Giveaway Contest Open Until 12/1/2010!

Lest we not forget, there is another contest going on for free, signed copies of Morrigan's Brood and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War. We will even throw in a few bookmarks featuring the art work of the lovely and talented Khanada Taylor. So why not enter? Here are the details:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Morrigan's Brood (Book #1) and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War (Book #2)
by Heather Poinsett Dunbar and Christopher Dunbar

Giveaway ends December 01, 2010.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Thank you fans and friends for your continued support!

We are Going to be Interviewed!!!!! Oh, and other news…

I wish to apologize to our readers for delaying the continuation of our About Our Cats thread – I have spent much time preparing for Halloween, looking at alternatives to Lulu for print-on-demand printing, and doing other stuff, though perhaps laziness was also a factor. I will continue soon with the story of Ophelia. But now back to business and the news of the week…

Heather and I (Christopher) will be interviewed in a guest blog post on Paranormal Haven. Cool! Well, OK, for us cool… our first interview, but it was fun, and we hope our friends and fans will find it entertaining as well as informative.



Here's the scoop: November 8th, Paranormal Haven will post our interview. They will also host a contest for signed copies of Morrigan's Brood and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War. We will post a link to the interview and contest to this blog and to Facebook. If you have not heard of Paranormal Haven, they hold contests, conduct interviews, and mainly review books for authors, primarily paranormal romance and related genres, but they still enjoyed Morrigan's Brood and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War (links are to their reviews).

Facebook Fans Reached 100 Contest

We had announced a few weeks back that as soon as Triscelle Publishing had 100 fans, we would give away a signed copy of each book to a lucky winner. Well, we reached 100 fans today on Halloween / Samhain, so we held our drawing, and the winner's name sprung forth… and the winner's name is… Jennifer Steigerwald! Please join me in congratulating Jennifer.

We Still Have a Contest with Goodreads…

OK, so you didn't win a free book, never bought one of our books, but you are interested – just broke or indecisive. Well, no worries, for entry into this contest is FREE! Yes, FREE! And all you have to do is register with Goodreads, which is, guess what… FREE! And if you win, guess who pays for shipping? WE DO!!!! So no, it's not completely free – we pay for the book, the shipping, and for whipping the authors into signing it, so it is not free to us, but it is FREE TO YOU! So why not enter? Here are the details:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Morrigan's Brood (Book #1) and Morrigan's Brood: Crone of War (Book #2)

by Heather Poinsett Dunbar and Christopher Dunbar

Giveaway ends December 01, 2010.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

A Small Request for Contest Winners

Contest winners (though anyone who bought a book can read this as well): We welcome you to provide us with reviews or other feedback of our books, whether that feedback is bad or good. We have thick skin – we can handle it. Reviews for our books can be posted all over the place, but the best places seem to be Goodreads, Amazon, Shelfari, and Barnes & Noble. You are by no means expected to write a review, but your reviews help others determine whether or not they want to buy a copy of our books. Even if you don't like our books, by expressing why you didn't like them – perhaps you prefer mysteries or romance novels and our dark fantasy historical fiction / adventure books just weren't your thing, you are providing valuable feedback to our potential readers. Of course if you really love our work, please shout that out as well.

Heather and I are not big name authors working for a big name publisher. We rely heavily on our readers for telling their friends and their friends and their friends, etc., about our works. While we are investigating other avenues for marketing and promotions, you are our best source for spreading the word. We appreciate any feedback you are willing to provide.

Thank you friends and Fans of Triscelle Publishing and the Morrigan's Brood Series for your continued support!