David Burrows's Blog, page 26
September 6, 2014
A fantasy book review - Wings of Wrath, by C. S. Friedman
Wings of Wrath by C.S. FriedmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this book although the ending felt sudden. That's the problem with kindle -- you don't know when you are approaching the end unless you glance to the page bar.
I wasn't motivated to read the book constantly which is a sign of a really good book. I could pick this one up, read a few pages and put it down. I recently read 6 books in a week and this one took me nearly two weeks. Having said that -- it is enjoyable but there's lots of padding. The tale continues from book 1 of the series, feast of Souls. I felt that was the better book as it introduced some distinctly new and fresh ideas.
Souleaters are a great fantasy creature, pretty much a dragon by another name, unless I am misunderstanding the tale. The King is pious and doesn't want to use Magisters or Witchcraft, but you get the sense that he may have to chose. Magisters are also a great creation, very singular people and very dark and territorial.
Overall, a good read and I'm reading the final version next. legacy of Kings.
View all my reviews
My Favourite Fantasy Book Review Sites
I'm not sure I trust some reviews on Amazon, so what's the best way of getting a good book recommendation? These are my favourite sites to get ideas for what to read next. They are well worth checking out.
http://sfbook.com/
http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/
http://www.risingshadow.net/
http://dragonsheroesandwizards.blogspot.co.uk
These reviewers work very hard at putting together good fantasy book reviews and they do an amazing job. I've just read Karen Azinger's The Steel Queen and Michael Sullivan's The Riyria Revelations based on their recommendation and both authors have very readable books.
Keep up the good work guys.
http://sfbook.com/
http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/
http://www.risingshadow.net/
http://dragonsheroesandwizards.blogspot.co.uk
These reviewers work very hard at putting together good fantasy book reviews and they do an amazing job. I've just read Karen Azinger's The Steel Queen and Michael Sullivan's The Riyria Revelations based on their recommendation and both authors have very readable books.
Keep up the good work guys.
August 31, 2014
Amazing Fantasy Art
This gorgeous artwork could almost be a scene strait from Shadow of the Demon http://davidburrows.org.uk/shadow_demon_burrows.htmlArt from http://byzwa-dher.deviantart.com/art/DRAGONS-ATTACK-455300621
August 26, 2014
Check out My Pinterest Page
Below is the link to my Pinterest page. Have a look. All comments welcome.
https://www.pinterest.com/davidjburrows/david-burrows-fantasy-books/
https://www.pinterest.com/davidjburrows/david-burrows-fantasy-books/
August 25, 2014
Tips for Writing a Book - How to Self Publish
This route is challenging and the author needs to have knowledge to do these tasks themselves or pay for the following services; book editing, copy editing, a cover design, writing a blurb for the covers, writing press releases, web design, marketing and web promotion (including SEO). I previously advised to try to get published rather than self-published for this reason. How to get published
An advantage of self publishing is all of the profit is your own. Many literary agents with want between 10-20% of the profit. You would also be surprised how little profit there is on a book as most of the cost goes into the manufacture of the book (paper) and also a colour cover.
I have used Lulu and Createspace. I originally used Lulu, but found their prices in the US were very limiting. LULU have now improved and books published by a UK author are more competitive now. I have not found much difference between these two companies. I think Createspace comes across more professional and books appear on Amazon etc more swiftly than Lulu. Lulu can be very picky several months after publishing, alerting you that the line spacing is incorrect. (At this stage, I am not discussing e-publishing. I shall cover that separately. However, both companies offering some form of encryption so your book simply can't be copied to other easily.)
You will need an ISBN bar code as that is the reference book shops use to sell books. You can get your own, or you can have Lulu or Createspace supply one. In any event you need to get an image of the ISBN bar code to put on your books and some sites exist that will do this for you. You simply type in the ISBN number and they generate the image. With Createspace they add the image for you. With Lulu, it depends whether you upload a one-piece book cover or not, from memory.
To self publish on either companies, you need to have as a minimum a word document, although I preferred to create my own PDF file. That gives you more control on the layout of the book. When Lulu etc create a PDF file for you, the layout may change on each time that you run the PDF converter. That means you have to buy a book just to check it is formatted correctly. Createspace have a useful tool that lets you check teh formatting after it has run the converter. Warning, you need to be certain of the page layout requirements before you start. I pushed these to the limit as you or your reader pay for every page and also for postage. It is an advantage therefore to have fewer pages to save you and your readers costs. I used CutePDF which was a free download. There are other free PDF converters. Guidance on how to create a PDF is given here.
You must look at the book layout template -- e.g. for Createspace click here. This has to be perfect, otherwise it will be rejected. An example of the cover requirement is here. My books are generally about 80,000 words in length (200 pages).
Once you have PDF versions (or if you want, a word document) both Createspace and Lulu are quite good when it comes to uploading these. it takes some practice and both sites have help lines in their forums.
My advice is to get a good book cover that is eye-catching and matches your content. Both Lulu and Createspace have adverts for cover designers but I would suggest getting a recommendation from the forums. Check what the artist can do though, before committing to them. They should be prepared to send a first draft and to let you talk through the cover design to make any amendments. You also need a cover that looks good when it is shrunk down for use on websites. Book covers are too large generally and some websites require a thumbnail image of only about 200 kbytes.
Both Lulu and Createspace offer extended reach type distribution where your book will be available all over the world. You have to pay for this and it is usually not too expensive. However, without marketing, that is not very helpful. That is a subject for another discussion.
Be warned - self publishing can be expensive and so you have to be astute as to what you pay for. The market for advice and general help is huge and also costly. The following are typical costs -- in my experience. You may be able to find better deals.
Book editing - I have been quoted anything up to £1000 per book
Copy editing - Generally about £1 per page
Cover design - Anywhere between £100-300. However, some folk will charge a lot more
Distribution charge (paid to Lulu etc) - £40
Paying for a domain name (eg david.com) - .coms are expensive £80 per year, .uk are cheaper at about £20 per year
Paying for a host site - £40 per year (sometimes including in the cost of a domain name)
The cost of a webdesign package - I use Webplus and that was about £90. It is sometimes on offer and you can get the older versions more cheaply. There are free web design packages!
Marketing - you pay as much as you want! Most people do this for themselves 9not successfully in many cases)
Paying for draft books to check the quality - probably need to buy 3-4 copies and postage (total of about £50)
This is not a cheap business and there are a lot of sharks out there that will fleece you. You can take short cuts and rely on friends and family, but then the quality may not be sufficient to sell books, if that's your aim. I usually put a profit on a book of about £0.7 per book so that the overall cost is not off-putting. I therefore need to sell a lot of books to recover the initial costs.
Please feel free to ask questions.
Best wishes, David
My previous articles are:
Read How to Get Self Published
Should You Pay for a Review -- yes or no?
Tips on Book EditingWriter's Block -- Inspiration from ArtworkMaking Your Writing Interesting
My top tips
Choosing a genre
How to Start writing a Book?
Creating a Plot for Your Book
An advantage of self publishing is all of the profit is your own. Many literary agents with want between 10-20% of the profit. You would also be surprised how little profit there is on a book as most of the cost goes into the manufacture of the book (paper) and also a colour cover.
I have used Lulu and Createspace. I originally used Lulu, but found their prices in the US were very limiting. LULU have now improved and books published by a UK author are more competitive now. I have not found much difference between these two companies. I think Createspace comes across more professional and books appear on Amazon etc more swiftly than Lulu. Lulu can be very picky several months after publishing, alerting you that the line spacing is incorrect. (At this stage, I am not discussing e-publishing. I shall cover that separately. However, both companies offering some form of encryption so your book simply can't be copied to other easily.)
You will need an ISBN bar code as that is the reference book shops use to sell books. You can get your own, or you can have Lulu or Createspace supply one. In any event you need to get an image of the ISBN bar code to put on your books and some sites exist that will do this for you. You simply type in the ISBN number and they generate the image. With Createspace they add the image for you. With Lulu, it depends whether you upload a one-piece book cover or not, from memory.
To self publish on either companies, you need to have as a minimum a word document, although I preferred to create my own PDF file. That gives you more control on the layout of the book. When Lulu etc create a PDF file for you, the layout may change on each time that you run the PDF converter. That means you have to buy a book just to check it is formatted correctly. Createspace have a useful tool that lets you check teh formatting after it has run the converter. Warning, you need to be certain of the page layout requirements before you start. I pushed these to the limit as you or your reader pay for every page and also for postage. It is an advantage therefore to have fewer pages to save you and your readers costs. I used CutePDF which was a free download. There are other free PDF converters. Guidance on how to create a PDF is given here.
You must look at the book layout template -- e.g. for Createspace click here. This has to be perfect, otherwise it will be rejected. An example of the cover requirement is here. My books are generally about 80,000 words in length (200 pages).
Once you have PDF versions (or if you want, a word document) both Createspace and Lulu are quite good when it comes to uploading these. it takes some practice and both sites have help lines in their forums.
My advice is to get a good book cover that is eye-catching and matches your content. Both Lulu and Createspace have adverts for cover designers but I would suggest getting a recommendation from the forums. Check what the artist can do though, before committing to them. They should be prepared to send a first draft and to let you talk through the cover design to make any amendments. You also need a cover that looks good when it is shrunk down for use on websites. Book covers are too large generally and some websites require a thumbnail image of only about 200 kbytes.
Both Lulu and Createspace offer extended reach type distribution where your book will be available all over the world. You have to pay for this and it is usually not too expensive. However, without marketing, that is not very helpful. That is a subject for another discussion.
Be warned - self publishing can be expensive and so you have to be astute as to what you pay for. The market for advice and general help is huge and also costly. The following are typical costs -- in my experience. You may be able to find better deals.
Book editing - I have been quoted anything up to £1000 per book
Copy editing - Generally about £1 per page
Cover design - Anywhere between £100-300. However, some folk will charge a lot more
Distribution charge (paid to Lulu etc) - £40
Paying for a domain name (eg david.com) - .coms are expensive £80 per year, .uk are cheaper at about £20 per year
Paying for a host site - £40 per year (sometimes including in the cost of a domain name)
The cost of a webdesign package - I use Webplus and that was about £90. It is sometimes on offer and you can get the older versions more cheaply. There are free web design packages!
Marketing - you pay as much as you want! Most people do this for themselves 9not successfully in many cases)
Paying for draft books to check the quality - probably need to buy 3-4 copies and postage (total of about £50)
This is not a cheap business and there are a lot of sharks out there that will fleece you. You can take short cuts and rely on friends and family, but then the quality may not be sufficient to sell books, if that's your aim. I usually put a profit on a book of about £0.7 per book so that the overall cost is not off-putting. I therefore need to sell a lot of books to recover the initial costs.
Please feel free to ask questions.
Best wishes, David
My previous articles are:
Read How to Get Self Published
Should You Pay for a Review -- yes or no?
Tips on Book EditingWriter's Block -- Inspiration from ArtworkMaking Your Writing Interesting
My top tips
Choosing a genre
How to Start writing a Book?
Creating a Plot for Your Book
Writing a Book - How to Self Publish
This route is challenging and the author needs to have knowledge to do these tasks themselves or pay for the following services; book editing, copy editing, a cover design, writing a blurb for the covers, writing press releases, web design, marketing and web promotion (including SEO). I previously advised to try to get published rather than self-published for this reason. How to get published
An advantage of self publishing is all of the profit is your own. Many literary agents with want between 10-20% of the profit. You would also be surprised how little profit there is on a book as most of the cost goes into the manufacture of the book (paper) and also a colour cover.
I have used Lulu and Createspace. I originally used Lulu, but found their prices in the US were very limiting. LULU have now improved and books published by a UK author are more competitive now. I have not found much difference between these two companies. I think Createspace comes across more professional and books appear on Amazon etc more swiftly than Lulu. Lulu can be very picky several months after publishing, alerting you that the line spacing is incorrect. (At this stage, I am not discussing e-publishing. I shall cover that separately. However, both companies offering some form of encryption so your book simply can't be copied to other easily.)
You will need an ISBN bar code as that is the reference book shops use to sell books. You can get your own, or you can have Lulu or Createspace supply one. In any event you need to get an image of the ISBN bar code to put on your books and some sites exist that will do this for you. You simply type in the ISBN number and they generate the image. With Createspace they add the image for you. With Lulu, it depends whether you upload a one-piece book cover or not, from memory.
To self publish on either companies, you need to have as a minimum a word document, although I preferred to create my own PDF file. That gives you more control on the layout of the book. When Lulu etc create a PDF file for you, the layout may change on each time that you run the PDF converter. That means you have to buy a book just to check it is formatted correctly. Createspace have a useful tool that lets you check teh formatting after it has run the converter. Warning, you need to be certain of the page layout requirements before you start. I pushed these to the limit as you or your reader pay for every page and also for postage. It is an advantage therefore to have fewer pages to save you and your readers costs. I used CutePDF which was a free download. There are other free PDF converters. Guidance on how to create a PDF is given here.
You must look at the book layout template -- e.g. for Createspace click here. This has to be perfect, otherwise it will be rejected. An example of the cover requirement is here. My books are generally about 80,000 words in length (200 pages).
Once you have PDF versions (or if you want, a word document) both Createspace and Lulu are quite good when it comes to uploading these. it takes some practice and both sites have help lines in their forums.
My advice is to get a good book cover that is eye-catching and matches your content. Both Lulu and Createspace have adverts for cover designers but I would suggest getting a recommendation from the forums. Check what the artist can do though, before committing to them. They should be prepared to send a first draft and to let you talk through the cover design to make any amendments. You also need a cover that looks good when it is shrunk down for use on websites. Book covers are too large generally and some websites require a thumbnail image of only about 200 kbytes.
Both Lulu and Createspace offer extended reach type distribution where your book will be available all over the world. You have to pay for this and it is usually not too expensive. However, without marketing, that is not very helpful. That is a subject for another discussion.
Be warned - self publishing can be expensive and so you have to be astute as to what you pay for. The market for advice and general help is huge and also costly. The following are typical costs -- in my experience. You may be able to find better deals.
Book editing - I have been quoted anything up to £1000 per book
Copy editing - Generally about £1 per page
Cover design - Anywhere between £100-300. However, some folk will charge a lot more
Distribution charge (paid to Lulu etc) - £40
Paying for a domain name (eg david.com) - .coms are expensive £80 per year, .uk are cheaper at about £20 per year
Paying for a host site - £40 per year (sometimes including in the cost of a domain name)
The cost of a webdesign package - I use Webplus and that was about £90. It is sometimes on offer and you can get the older versions more cheaply. There are free web design packages!
Marketing - you pay as much as you want! Most people do this for themselves 9not successfully in many cases)
Paying for draft books to check the quality - probably need to buy 3-4 copies and postage (total of about £50)
This is not a cheap business and there are a lot of sharks out there that will fleece you. You can take short cuts and rely on friends and family, but then the quality may not be sufficient to sell books, if that's your aim. I usually put a profit on a book of about £0.7 per book so that the overall cost is not off-putting. I therefore need to sell a lot of books to recover the initial costs.
Please feel free to ask questions.
Best wishes, David
My previous articles are:
How to get published
Paying for a review -- yes or no?
Book EditingInspiration from ArtworkMaking it interesting
My top tips
Choosing a genre
How to start?
Creating a plot
An advantage of self publishing is all of the profit is your own. Many literary agents with want between 10-20% of the profit. You would also be surprised how little profit there is on a book as most of the cost goes into the manufacture of the book (paper) and also a colour cover.
I have used Lulu and Createspace. I originally used Lulu, but found their prices in the US were very limiting. LULU have now improved and books published by a UK author are more competitive now. I have not found much difference between these two companies. I think Createspace comes across more professional and books appear on Amazon etc more swiftly than Lulu. Lulu can be very picky several months after publishing, alerting you that the line spacing is incorrect. (At this stage, I am not discussing e-publishing. I shall cover that separately. However, both companies offering some form of encryption so your book simply can't be copied to other easily.)
You will need an ISBN bar code as that is the reference book shops use to sell books. You can get your own, or you can have Lulu or Createspace supply one. In any event you need to get an image of the ISBN bar code to put on your books and some sites exist that will do this for you. You simply type in the ISBN number and they generate the image. With Createspace they add the image for you. With Lulu, it depends whether you upload a one-piece book cover or not, from memory.
To self publish on either companies, you need to have as a minimum a word document, although I preferred to create my own PDF file. That gives you more control on the layout of the book. When Lulu etc create a PDF file for you, the layout may change on each time that you run the PDF converter. That means you have to buy a book just to check it is formatted correctly. Createspace have a useful tool that lets you check teh formatting after it has run the converter. Warning, you need to be certain of the page layout requirements before you start. I pushed these to the limit as you or your reader pay for every page and also for postage. It is an advantage therefore to have fewer pages to save you and your readers costs. I used CutePDF which was a free download. There are other free PDF converters. Guidance on how to create a PDF is given here.
You must look at the book layout template -- e.g. for Createspace click here. This has to be perfect, otherwise it will be rejected. An example of the cover requirement is here. My books are generally about 80,000 words in length (200 pages).
Once you have PDF versions (or if you want, a word document) both Createspace and Lulu are quite good when it comes to uploading these. it takes some practice and both sites have help lines in their forums.
My advice is to get a good book cover that is eye-catching and matches your content. Both Lulu and Createspace have adverts for cover designers but I would suggest getting a recommendation from the forums. Check what the artist can do though, before committing to them. They should be prepared to send a first draft and to let you talk through the cover design to make any amendments. You also need a cover that looks good when it is shrunk down for use on websites. Book covers are too large generally and some websites require a thumbnail image of only about 200 kbytes.
Both Lulu and Createspace offer extended reach type distribution where your book will be available all over the world. You have to pay for this and it is usually not too expensive. However, without marketing, that is not very helpful. That is a subject for another discussion.
Be warned - self publishing can be expensive and so you have to be astute as to what you pay for. The market for advice and general help is huge and also costly. The following are typical costs -- in my experience. You may be able to find better deals.
Book editing - I have been quoted anything up to £1000 per book
Copy editing - Generally about £1 per page
Cover design - Anywhere between £100-300. However, some folk will charge a lot more
Distribution charge (paid to Lulu etc) - £40
Paying for a domain name (eg david.com) - .coms are expensive £80 per year, .uk are cheaper at about £20 per year
Paying for a host site - £40 per year (sometimes including in the cost of a domain name)
The cost of a webdesign package - I use Webplus and that was about £90. It is sometimes on offer and you can get the older versions more cheaply. There are free web design packages!
Marketing - you pay as much as you want! Most people do this for themselves 9not successfully in many cases)
Paying for draft books to check the quality - probably need to buy 3-4 copies and postage (total of about £50)
This is not a cheap business and there are a lot of sharks out there that will fleece you. You can take short cuts and rely on friends and family, but then the quality may not be sufficient to sell books, if that's your aim. I usually put a profit on a book of about £0.7 per book so that the overall cost is not off-putting. I therefore need to sell a lot of books to recover the initial costs.
Please feel free to ask questions.
Best wishes, David
My previous articles are:
How to get published
Paying for a review -- yes or no?
Book EditingInspiration from ArtworkMaking it interesting
My top tips
Choosing a genre
How to start?
Creating a plot
August 22, 2014
Apologies to Fantasy Fans :(
As you can see by my recent posts, I have been reading a lot on holiday. The weather in Edinburgh was overcast. Mots my reading has been about historical fiction so my blog has been devoid of fantasy for a few weeks. However, some of these books are excellent tales and not too far removed from fantasy. There's battles galore, heroics and impossible odds. If you are stuck for something to read then a tale about ancient Rome, or Saxon England in the making is well worth a read.
A Review of the Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell
The Pagan Lord by Bernard CornwellMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I think this is the best book of his series to date. There's some nice twists in the tale. I wasn't too keen on the start as Uhtred has fallen foul of the Church on several occasions and you'd think he would have learned by now. But the tale develops nicely and there's a few new characters including many more Uhtreds that it does get a bit confusing. The book is a skilful depiction of Saxon England in the making and well worth reading. An enjoyable romp.
View all my reviews
A Review of Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell
Death of Kings by Bernard CornwellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This Saxon series is brilliant and Uhtred is a superb character. The prose was a little clipped for my liking, as the author adds a level of arrogance to the central character. Uhtred is also getting old and his future is never certain, especially being pagan in a Christian world. There's a nice development with various prophets predicting the future, non of it bright for the Saxons. Uhtred has his own answer to this and his ploy makes great reading. As usual, the battles are brilliantly described and you get a real sense of being in a shield wall. Fantasy fans would also like this book.
View all my reviews
A Review of Avenger of Rome by Douglas Jackson
Avenger of Rome by Douglas JacksonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Definitely my favourite of the series so far. For historical fiction fans -- this has everything. A build up to an epic battle, plots, intrigue and more than its fair share of twists. General Corbulo is a great character and very believable Nero's degeneration is nicely handled. I liked the comradeship that developed between Valerius and Tiberious. A bitter sweet ending that I hadn't seen coming. An excellent book.
View all my reviews
