Peter W. Dawes's Blog: The Man Behind the Curtain, page 9

A Taste of the World

Peter Dawes began writing a series of books back in 2006 that now encompass the Vampire Flynn Trilogy and the first two books of the Immortal Seer trilogy (work on the sixth book has just begun). In each book, there equal numbers of hints and assertions about the world Peter occupied. Magic was a large part of that world, as with any fantasy tale, but Peter is only exposed to it in the barest sense because those who know its secrets only want to use him as a weapon. But the magic is there, as are many other things, and the world is a rich and vastly encompassing one despite the limitations on Peter's observations.

Set in the 1980s, 1990s, and then the early 21st century, the world is remarkably similar to our own – such is why the books are classified as 'urban-fantasy'. But unlike our own – or, perhaps, much like it, since one never really knows – there are creatures and beings that live in the shadows, and in the corners of our eyes. We wonder if they're there, or if they're figments of our imagination, and cannot find any concrete evidence that anyone would find compelling enough believe. All we have are stories, like Peter's stories, which are classified as fiction for the sake of appearances.

Tales of magic and fairies, vampires and werewolves, elementals and demons, all have a common thread, much the same as tales of aliens. Most people, or at least many of us, find it appealing to believe that we are not alone in this world of ours – that there are fantastical things to discover right around the corner, if we have the eyes to see and the heart to believe.

So for our story feature this month, we bring you a chance to explore a place where the fantastical is the everyday. A city that is hidden away from the eyes and ears of the world at large, where the not-quite-human make their home. The politics and details are irrelevant to appreciating the story except that it is important to note the city is defended, protected, and shall remain hidden for many more years to come, both for the sake of the beings that call it home and the beings that live in the world around it. But there was a time, in a lifetime that spans many centuries, when Victor Mason lived within its walls.

Though he never called it home.

See the city through the eyes of a boy who has only known one place as home in the short-story called Urchin of Atoranon. It is there you will discover a world of possibilities locked away in a city where vampires are far from the only creatures who go bump in the night.

Written by Victor Mason:

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Other Announcements:

We've been receiving quite a bit of attention regarding our CreateSpace vs Lulu post, so there will be a short, interlinked series of posts on the topic of POD and eBooks, the pros and cons of various services and distribution options. Expect to see the first of them next Monday, July 25. The author begs forgiveness for not being able to stick to a schedule, but promises this will improve as the weeks go on. For now, enjoy the short story.

The Crimson Melodies Team

Victor Mason

Peter Dawes

 

CreateSpace vs Lulu (POD)

Please note: This blog deals with ISBNs and information relative to the physical printing of a book. Ebooks are an entirely different animal that will be handled in a future, separate, blog post.

General Info: CreateSpace is associated with Amazon.com

Another common question we've been fielding: why pay for an ISBN when there are Print On Demand (POD) services that offer free ISBNs?

This was my answer, posted to a fellow indie writer on DeviantART [link] (original thread)

Short Answer in two parts: One, is that CreateSpace offers much, much better prices on POD books than Lulu (seriously, half the price pre-retail markup). Two, considering CreateSpace also offers a free ISBN option that we do not intend to use, by listing ourselves (ie Crimson Melodies) as the publisher for Eyes of the Seer, we have ultimate control over its distribution.

What does that gain us?

Long Answer: An ISBN is tied to the title, author, binding, and [relative] consistency of content (it allows for minor edits without requiring a new ISBN). Note that list/retail price is not a factor. By owning our own we can effectively list it on both CreateSpace AND Lulu* if we wanted to, or any other POD service that we might stumble across in the future.

Pricing and Distribution

CreateSpace does have a $10 publishing option that would allow us to list ourselves as the publisher, but it still constrains us to only using them as our [POD service]. Whereas for the $99 custom universal ISBN charge, and the $40 pro-plan for expanded distribution, (total: $139) the book will be listed not only on Amazon, but also Barnes & Noble, in libraries, AND it becomes available for purchase by "brick & mortar" stores (such as indie book stores). There is a $75 distribution package offered by Lulu that compares to the $40 CreateSpace package (and doesn't require a custom ISBN), but the price-per-book would be at the mercy of the Lulu POD system which we are really glad to be moving away from.

The realistic breakdown: printing a 280 page book on Lulu costs just over $10 before retail markup. On CreateSpace, that same book (if you invest the $40 in the pro-plan) is only $5 before retail markup. (It does need to be noted that without the pro-plan it is about $8 per book, and there is a $5 per year subscription cost to maintain the CreateSpace pro-plan pricing.)

So…

We can sell our books cheaper through CreateSpace, which is what's spurring us to get our own ISBN because it opens up all kinds of future options. If you really, really want to get nit-picky, or are looking for the most bang for your buck, the $10 ISBN and the $40 pro-plan are the best things you could do to keep your costs down, and get quite a few distribution perks.

And, the other thing about CreateSpace, they are a lot more straight-forward about royalties than I can find on the general pages of Lulu's site when it comes to the expanded distribution options. There are only two things that Lulu has over CreateSpaceright now. They [Lulu] have the option to create hard-cover editions, whereas CreateSpace currently does not. And the other thing is more just a marketing ploy – Lulu offers discounts for larger orders, but it doesn't really compare to the out and out savings from CreateSpace.

Actual Numbers

For a 280 page, 6×9 dimension book, retailed at $12.99 (assume CreateSpace pro-plan):

Single Copy Cost

CreateSpace: $4.21

Lulu: $10.10

Author Royalties:

CreateSpace: $6.18 from their e-store, $3.58 on Amazon, $0.98 from expanded distribution channels

Lulu: $2.31 across the board

CreateSpace calculator - [link]

CreateSpace breakdown info - [link]

Lulu breakdown info - [link]

More links with supporting info:

Scope and Assignment of ISBN [link]

Lulu Distribution Options [link]

CreateSpace – buying copies of your own book [link]

-Everything below is new content not in the original post-

*Edited note: The way CreateSpace approaches ISBNs allows you to offer your book through other publishers (ie, POD services) with a custom universal ISBN. However, in the distribution agreement with CreateSpace, you are NOT allowed to distribute your book through another POD service if you are already distributing via CreateSpace. In other words, you can't choose to use CreateSpace to distribute to Amazon (for $3.58 vs $2.31) and Lulu to distribute to Barnes & Noble (for $0.98 vs $2.31). It's an all or nothing choice of one vs the other.

And there really is only a one-time option (barring another revision of the text) to list the publisher associated with a book. ISBNs cannot be reused, so if you obtain one through a POD service, that ISBN will always link that publisher to your book. Also, you cannot use a POD service ISBN and then switch to your own ISBN – quoting from the ISBN article linked above, "A new ISBN can only be issued where there are changes of text, format or binding which would justify this." As previously mentioned, minor edits wouldn't warrant a new ISBN. Essentially, a revision both requires and is the only reason why you could obtain and use a different/new ISBN with a previously published title.

Next week: Why POD? Why not just Ebook? How do ISBNs work with Ebooks, anyway?

Food for thought: We've had Eyes of the Seer out as an Ebook for more than a month now. Last year, we exhibited at a convention with the ARC copy of Eyes of the Seer. We sold more copies at the convention (and it was an extremely poor showing for all the artists there, including us) than we have in a month online. ARC copy was $15. Ebook copy was $0.99 for the month of June. Print still sells, and face-to-face chatting with a potential reader has far more potential than online marketing.

As always, thanks for reading.

Crimson Melodies Team

Victor Mason

Peter Dawes

Adventures in Publishing

There are a few topics that will be covered in this announcement, because there's a lot of updates that need mentioning.

First, to answer a few of the more common questions we've been fielding:

Q: Will Eyes of the Seer be on Amazon or Barnes & Noble?

A: Yes, Eyes of the Seer will be available for download from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble by August 1st. (The date isn't more precise because we're currently working through formatting concerns, to make certain that when we do release the novel it is a quality digital book regardless of the format and where you've bought it. This process will get much shorter for future book releases. In the meantime, feel free to explore using Smashwords to purchase our book in whatever format you prefer – they offer most of the notable ones, like .mobi for Kindle and Epub for Nook.)

Q: Will you be making Eyes of the Seer available in print?

A: Yes, through Amazon's Create Space. For those who were unaware, there was an ARC print copy available from Lulu for the past year, but we've made the decision to move away from Lulu and onto Amazon because it better fits our needs. We're still exploring the options of where and how we'll be able to distribute the book and will keep everyone updated here on our site – it will definitely be available through Amazon, but we're looking into other venues. (Actually, if any other self-pubbed authors know the answer the this question, we'd love to hit you up for some insight.)

Related: I'm certain everyone is looking at our Kickstarter campaign and wondering how we're handling or plan on handling the obvious lack of funding. There's a larger section of this post that is dedicated to a more complete answer.

Q: I missed your giveaway contest when you reached 350 twitter followers. Will there be another one soon?

A: Yes. We've been throwing around the idea that we'll do a giveaway for every 50 follower mark we hit through 500 followers (so one at 400, 450, and 500) and then will do one for every 100 follower mark from there on out.

How does this work? – When we're getting close, within 10-15 followers of the next giveaway threshold, we'll tweet about the contest. Each of the next 10-15 followers who gets us up to, or over, our mark will be entered in a drawing for a free e-copy of 'Eyes of the Seer' (as of the time of this post, this is only available through Smashwords. In the future, we will also be able to give away gift copies through Amazon, and possibly B&N if they offer such a thing, depending on the winner's preference). In addition to our new followers being given a chance to win the book, any of our current followers will be eligible to enter themselves in a second drawing by retweeting our tweets about the contest, or, when we cross the threshold, responding via DM to enter for the drawing. This means each of our followers can have up to 2 entries in the drawing – one for retweeting, and another for a DM sent when we announce we're ready to take additional entries (which will be after we cross the follower threshold). The DM portion of the contest will remain open for about an hour, and then we'll announce the winners of the contest (which are determined using random.org). Total for each giveaway is 2 digital copies of Eyes of the Seer.

Q: Will there ever be any other kinds of giveaways?

A: Yes, and we're currently looking for ideas! We learned a lot from setting up our campaign on Kickstarter, and from the other members of the community on that site, but we'd love to hear what you guys would actually want. Poems? Posters? Signed print copies? Some version of the Twitter follower giveaway for our Facebook fans, and blog subscribers? This is all stuff we're currently tossing around as potential fodder for giveaway contests. Leave us your comments or @ replies on our twitter account, or a wall post on our Facebook page (either page -for those who haven't yet 'liked' both of them, we have two, one for Crimson Melodies and one for Eyes of the Seer)

So, about Kickstarter…

We learned a lot of valuable lessons from our Kickstarter campaign. Yes, we know, it's not going to be funded so we won't actually be getting any of the money. (If you're one of the 6 [at the time of this post] people who committed to being a backer, look for an update in your inbox by tomorrow. There will be 'thank-you' goodies.) But it gave us a chance to discover a few things that will be put to good use from here on out.

We'll still be putting the book into print, it just won't be done as ambitiously as it would have had the project succeeded. Obviously we have to come up with our own capital to buy the ISBN numbers and stock copies to be able to offer to people for giveaways, reviews, and everything else we'd planned to do with them. We also won't be able to put out our two proposed short-story collections before the end of the year, but they will get done, eventually.

That was, after all, the core reason of why we began the Kickstarter campaign to publish Eyes of the Seer – to bridge the gap between what we can afford and what we want to do to get our book into the hands of as many readers and possible. What it means for us is that our plans will simply have to be put on a timetable rather than condensed into a single, solid effort. Basically, months instead of month, and a slow crescendo rather than a thunderous fanfare.

Our thoughts on the Kickstarter campaign boil down to this: we did it too soon. Consider it an over-estimation on our part, one that has both humbled and educated us to our status regarding our fan-base. We have lots of people looking – following links and browsing our content, downloading our samples – which means we're doing lots of things right. But the number of people looking vs the number of people convinced to take the next step and support us financially has been very sobering.

Will we ever use Kickstarter again? Yes, definitely. It's a great system with a lot of possibility, especially for the penny-counting artists like us. And the next time you see us on Kickstarter, we know we'll have all the ingredients to make it a successful campaign. (Namely, a completed trilogy, and all the time in the meanwhile to win-over readers to becoming fans. Or at least that's the current plan. *conspiratorial wink*)

Our final thoughts on the matter are actually better expressed as words of advice to any fellow indie artists considering using Kickstarter to fund a project. Before you submit a proposal, before you make a video (and yes, the video is absolutely necessary), make sure you've got a fan-base who not only enjoy your work but are willing to financially support you to see the next stage of it. A campaign that starts off with a noticeable dent toward their funding goal from the start is a campaign that has a much larger chance to succeed.  (Consider, our campaign reached $85 within the first week but had no further significant contribution spikes despite consistent efforts on our part via email, Twitter, and Facebook to draw attention to the campaign. Part of that may have to do with our ambitious goal of $850, and part might have to do with Eyes of the Seer being "another vampire book". But that's where the financial support from your fan-base is so crucial, like reviews on Amazon – people form opinions based on the observable reactions from other people, and won't take the chance on your work, no matter how good it sounds, if it seems like there aren't many other people taking the chance too. I was reading an article recently that noted something very worthwhile – reviews for [free] content cannot be equated for reviews for content you had to pay for. Same goes for your readers – they might really enjoy it for free, but that doesn't equate to them being willing to fork out their hard earned $$ no matter how little you're asking for. So, in short, be certain where you stand before you do a Kickstarter campaign. As a writer in a world where indies are still stereotyped in an unfavorable way, you need the solid start before Kickstarter will work for you.)

As they say, on-wards and upwards. And as always, thanks for reading,

Victor Mason

Peter Dawes

Femme Fatale, the Vampiress

There are certain stereotypes that seem to come naturally to writers, especially genre writers. For us here at Crimson Melodies, there is one in particular that is worth noting because it crops up rather often.

The femme fatale, the female vampire.

A woman who is a blood-craving immortal is the text-book example of 'deadly woman'. She lures or captures her victims to do exactly what one would assume a femme fatale would do – ending their lives, or at the very least leaving them for dead. Most of the time this takes on overtones of an empowered woman who has been freed of human constrants and expectations, enabling them to do what they want to whomever they want, however and whenever they want to (after the sun is set and before it rises again, at least).

But it seems this ultra-feminist caricature (not to be confused with a true feminist) who carries herself like a fine-wine no one in their right mind wouldn't desire sampling, who can be simultaneously sultry, classy, lust-inspiring, hard-to-get, and above all else in your thoughts, can be taken to a very harsh extreme. It's one thing to see a confident, sexy woman with fangs who holds herself like the diamond in the rough we all secretly hope to find [or be seen as], and another to see a woman who has enough of a chip on her shoulder for all the flak she took while still human (and might still be taking from male vampires) deciding to look down upon the human men enough to not only use them, but abuse them.

There is no clearer example of this than the female vampire-maker who turns a male vampire-child.

What this says about us as writers, I couldn't begin to guess. But to level a few examples from our work: Peter's maker, Sabrina, dabbles in dark-magic not only to keep him in line, but to turn him into a compliant, malleable, sycophantic worshiper dependent on her for both his entire identity and his self-worth. Victor's maker, who changes her name so many times I would really have to include another paragraph here to capture them all, kept him purposely in the dark about nearly everything regarding vampire culture (and it nearly got him killed several times over) and forced him to compromise himself in ways that were both humiliating and degrading, often simply because she could.

And in today's story, there was a man named Walter who worked in a factory to keep a roof over his head while harboring dreams of charcoal and pastels, paper and canvas, who crossed paths with a femme fatale one evening hardly more notable than ordinary, and it changed his life forever. The woman who would become his maker hardly knew his name and didn't have a thought to care if he had been leaving someone behind – the femme fatale, with a twist.

A maker has power over their child, and it seems that a woman with power over a man, more often than not, lets it go to their head in one way or another. Ultimately, there is something they want the man to give them, and worse perhaps is that more often than not they want it voluntarily, for the man to be unable to help himself. Some woman want love, others want power, and there are many who want devotion and gratitude for simply being the one who gave their blood to allow them to cross into immortality.

And when these mistresses of the night don't get what they want, things can get downright ugly. (Victor notes, though, that the sex can be spectacular, at least when the femme fatale wants it to be.)

So what becomes of a man harboring dreams of art when he's turned immortal without his permission? Read: Thick as Thieves Pt 1

Remember, remember

Remember, remember,

the fifth of November,

the gunpowder treason and plot.

I know of no reason,

why the gunpowder treason

should ever

be

forgot

Once upon a time, back in 2008, there was a True Blood fan-fiction writer named Jesiryu that began writing a 98,000 word piece called 'Undecided'. It was the first story of any length that she had written in quite a long while, and was the gateway that lead into the creation of her original character, now also her pen name, Victor Mason.

The mention is relevant only because I still keep tabs on the fan-fic community, albeit from afar and when I have time. But there was a contest held recently (The Unsolved Mysteries Contest) that caught my eye and got the wheels spinning. Admittedly, a large portion of the interest was that it would be an interesting way to promote the book, through our writing, by entering a piece in this, or any contest that peeked our interest. This particular contest (now ended for entries, although I think they'll be doing voting soon) was especially intriguing because it asked for writers to pen an 'alternate history' that dealt specifically with a supernatural explanation of a mysterious event.

Now, we weren't able to enter the contest because, unfortunately, only TB/SVM main characters were allowed. But, it did get Poet and I thinking…

What may have happened in the past that was actually connected to something in our vampire's world? Something that the everyday human wasn't aware of…until now.

We give you, the first installment of the true* events surrounding the infamous Gunpowder Treason. The year, 1605 – just a few months after Victor Mason was first turned, although he makes no appearance in the tale. (His maker, in a rare moment of prudent self-preservation, left England with him in the summer of 1605, before the capture of Guy Fawkes.)

And we also introduce you to Mitchell Livingston, Elliot Taylor, and Nathan Mortimer. An unlikely trio tasked with the impossible – to stop the monarch, King James I, from endorsing the slaughter of every vampire in England.

You know the tale that the humans have in the history books. Now discover what more there was behind…

The Fifth of Novemeber  (Part I)

*true, in our fictional world where Peter, Victor, and the family exist. The piece has been heavily researched and is historically accurate in detail, if a bit exaggerated on the hows and whys and whats of the events that took place.

Feature – Publishing Eyes of the Seer

We're working on a print version of EYES OF THE SEER. Want to help? We have some nifty rewards, like securing yourself a signed copy, bookmarks, poetry prints, and posters. Read More: Our Project on Kickstarter

Minor Characters (and their life stories)

When you introduce a minor character into any kind of story, be it a short one or a novel length one, there are a myriad of reasons why they were needed. A different voice to offer a different opinion. Someone to challenge your main character's world view. An enigmatic wise-man who offers riddles in place of easy-to-follow advice.

All characters have pasts that brought them to where you meet them in the story, experiences that shaped how they view the world and are the reasons why they are serving the purpose they do in your tale. But when it comes to the larger story, we, as writers, don't often get the chance to properly flesh out the minor characters when they make their debuts. For the most part, they seem happy enough with their fifteen minutes of fame and leave you be to continue the story.

Sometimes, though, they have something more to say.

Allen Hughes is a character introduced in Eyes of the Seer. You might not even notice him, considering he has next-to-no page time. His maker, Matthew Pritchard, is the man of note in Peter and Flynn's economy. But it was Allen, Matthew's child, who spoke up as we moved on to plotting future novels. And he had quite a lot to say.

"A Maker and His Child" is a [currently] three-part short story that leaves off at a point Eyes of the Seer readers should recognize. The beginning paragraphs may have a few riddles in them, but you'll have to trust us that they will be answered in time.

A Maker and His Child

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Publishing Eyes of the Seer

So, the book is done, it's out in e-formats on Smashwords.com, but we're not finished with it just yet. We want to get Eyes of the Seer into print, and we want to do it right.

Don't worry, we're not asking for donations. This isn't a charity plea (though we could be very honest about how much we fit the 'starving artist' profile – okay, so it's more just 'artist scraping by' profile, but you get the idea). 'So what is it?' you're wondering.

Think of it as a chance to pre-order your copy of EYES OF THE SEER, with perks.

We know without a doubt that we have an awesome book. We hope that you're one of the people who've already purchased it on Smashwords (and that you might even go back and leave us a review *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*). We can't wait to be able to offer it in print through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. But to do this, and to do it right, we need a little bit of help.

The most important thing is buying an ISBN (which are not exactly cheap – they run $99 at best and you need separate ISBNs for print and ebook editions). Sure, we could put the book out under one of CreateSpace's free ISBNs, or their $10 plan that lets you at least customize the imprint on the book. (IE, free = CreateSpace is listed as publisher. $10, we can list ourselves, but are limited to selling the book from CreateSpace) But we'd really like to have our own ISBN for the print book, and for the eBook too, so we can head out of the gates with full steam ahead on marketing at all the places that become available to us with an ISBN number.

But we don't have to $$ to do this on our own. We could wait, and market the book in it's limited availability until we earn enough $$ to do it ourselves, but there is an alternative.

It's called Kickstarter. And we want you to check it out.

Kickstarter is a site built around the idea that there are a lot of creative projects out there that benefit from a little (or a lot of) extra help to see them done correctly. What we've done is submit a project proposal to them, gotten their approval for the project, and have started our Kickstarter campaign.

So now we just have to get the word out.

The awesome thing about Kickstarter is that there are perks for everyone, including the contributors. And that's the real reason we're using Kickstarter – we KNOW you're helping us out by giving us your hard earned $$, and we want a chance to thank you by giving you, well, stuff.

Some kick-ass stuff, in our opinion.

Here's the deal: for $5, you get your name mentioned in the book and a free copy of the eBook (yes, it's considered "free" because the $5 counts as a "contribution" not as a sales transaction). For $10, you get your name mentioned, the eBook, and one of our cool bookmarks OR 4×6 poetry / art prints (that you can currently see on our Etsy page). For $20, you get all that and a poster.

And by contributing $25, you get a signed copy of EYES OF THE SEER, plus all the stuff listed already. (Also, there's no shipping charge.)

We're hoping that sounds as awesome as we think it does.

The other perk about Kickstarter is this – If we fall short of our campaign goal, you won't get charged a cent. We've worked out the math of how much money we need to do ISBN numbers for both books, buy into CreateSpace's "pro" plan for publishing books on-demand, to print enough to cover prizes and keep a small stash on hand to send to review blogs, and to cover a little bit of our marketing costs (like buying the posters and prints). So if we reach that goal, you get all the awesome things that we've talked about. If we don't…. well, you don't, either, but at least you get your $$ back. (Which is a gauruntee – Kickstarter uses Amazon payments to keep track of the "pledges", so you won't even be charged UNLESS the campaign succeeds – if it does succeed, you get charged on the date we've set as the end of our campaign, July 8th.)

There's rewards for contributing more than $25 too, but what we're really hoping is that most of our funding will come from people who want to pre-order the book, and get a signed copy out of it while they're at it.

Last question you might have: When would you get the book(s), if everything is successful? The eBooks will be instant, since we can email you the coupon code for Smashwords. For the print books, it will be a month after the project is complete, possibly a week or two longer, until you have it in your hands. We have to wait to print them until we receive the money (which can take up to two weeks before Amazon finalizes the release of funds), and then wait for them to arrive here, so we can send them to you. But you should definitely have the book in your hands, signed, by the middle of August, hopefully in time for finishing it as summer reading.

Not familiar with the book but still interested? Check out the first seven chapters, available for free here on Crimson Melodies – Eyes of the Seer

Without further ado, here's the project. We hope you contribute…

And spread the word. Remember, you only get your stuff if this succeeds. So talk to a friend or two and see if they'd be interested. Even $1 can mean a lot toward getting us on our way, which is why we'll be thanking everyone, no matter how much or how little they contribute. It means a lot to us, and we want you guys to know it.

Now come take our stuff! (Like some super awesome people already have.)

Smashwords.com – what, why, and you

From the Smashwords FAQ

What is Smashwords

Smashwords is an ebook publishing and distribution platform, serving authors, publishers, readers and major ebook retailers. Smashwords is ideal for publishing novels, personal memoirs, poetry chapbooks, short and long-form fiction, and non-fiction. If you've written it, we want to help you share it and sell it!

What does Smashwords offer readers?

Smashwords offers booklovers an opportunity to discover thousands of independently published ebooks. We offer affordably priced ebooks for immediate sampling,purchase and download. Most Smashwords books are readable on any e-reading device. One purchase and you gain access to multiple formats.

So, why Smashwords?

We know they're not Amazon. They're not Barnes & Noble. But if you've never heard of them, you're missing out on a huge variety of books, especially in the indie variety.

Publishing on Smashwords.com lets us control the content, the distribution, and the price of our book without any headaches. They keep a modest percentage for every ebook we sell (after a transaction fee) and still allow us to earn higher royalties than published authors get for their books. (Of course, we also don't get an advance or any help with marketing, but that's the trade off of being an indie.)

So here's the reason behind this blog post:

In the past year, we've noticed that our fan-base enjoys our stories enough to come back for more, to give us some great feedback on what we post, but they seem to get shy when it comes to the indie way of doing things (that doesn't involve Amazon).

**We will be on Amason's Kindle store soon, but in the meantime, and for those of you who don't use a Kindle, we're on Smashwords.**

Downloading the EYES OF THE SEER, or any other book, on Smashwords gets you instant access to all the eBook formats, you don't have to pick and choose between a Kindle .mobi file and then need to worry about not being able to read it on your Nook if you ever change readers. Just log back in to Smashwords and you can download the epub file or the PDF, however you want to view it. One purchase, and you get everything. You also get free updates whenever (if ever) we upload a new version of the book. I hope you think that sounds as good as I do.

Moving on to the next hurdle. Billing information. Why should you trust Smashwords with your billing info? …Have you ever head of Smashwords being the target or subject of a security leak? That should be enough reason right there. They know what their doing to keep your information safe, and are a trusted, well trafficked site that takes their business seriously. Using Smashwords is secure, or we wouldn't be trusting them to be able to pay us our revenues.

And after you buy the book, finish reading it in record time because you could not set it down, log back in to Smashwords and leave us a review. It might get you a signed, print copy of the book when it becomes available.

Link EYES OF THE SEER on Smashwords: http://bit.ly/EotSswbook

Interested in seeing the book in print? Wondering how you can get your name mentioned in the acknowledgements (and other rewards)? Click here: http://kck.st/PublishEotS It's called Kickstarter. And we're using it to get published.

Eyes of the Seer ebook available!

It's that day.

As promised.

And now delivered.

EYES OF THE SEER is available for download via Smashwords.com for your ebook reader of choice.

And it's only $0.99 for the entire month of June.

Downloading the book from Smashwords will give you access to this, and all future versions of the EYES OF THE SEER ebook. It WILL be up on Amazon in the next day or so, but sometimes computer-internet-techno-stuff is a challenge that has to be met one hurdle at a time. In the meantime, enjoy the Kindle edition from Smashwords (the only difference is that it won't be delivered to your Kindle device via Amazon's whispernet service – you have to manually load it. We also recommend downloaded Amazon's PC Kindle app to read this and many other books.)

What's in the book that you should look forward to? Other than years worth of blood, sweat, dreams, and determination? A preview of the next book in the VAMPIRE FLYNN TRILOGY (which will be out, Fates willing, in time for holiday gift-giving in December 2011).

EYES OF THE SEER will be released in print by July 1, 2011. Interested in winning a signed copy? Keep your eyes peeled for details… (hint: we want honest reviews!)

But without further ado, we present, for your enjoyment,

EYES OF THE SEER

And, as always, thanks for reading.

The Crimson Melodies Team

Victor Mason

Peter Dawes