Vincent Trigili's Blog, page 14

The Sac’a'rith is on its way!

The Sac’a’rith is on its way to the professional editor as planned! The reports from the pre-readers were great. I am once again amazed at the wide variety of things they mention. Just as with the last book there was almost no overlap in their feedback. The pre-readers do not know this yet (well I guess they will as soon as they read this) but I have re-written the ending since they have seen it… twice!

It should take ten to fourteen days for my editor to work through it, and then a million years for me to work through all her notes. That should put us on track for a Christmas release of the ebook (not sure on the paperback yet, that always lags behind). I do have mock ups of the cover, and have shown them to a few fans so far and the reception has been great. I do not want to do the reveal until the design is final, but I will leave you with this hint… the main character, who is a zalionian, is on the cover.

Also, as I revealed on our Facebook page, there will be my first attempt at a map included in this release. I am having a hard time getting the map to look right on the E-Ink displays, but I hope to have that resolved soon. On my Kindle Fire HD, which is an LCD screen, the map looks good, so it should be fine on the Nook Color, IPad, and other full color e-readers and tablets. I only have limited hardware to test with, so hopefully my guessing is correct.

Work on Volume VI, Spectra’s Gambit, is going well. I have around sixteen thousand words done, and since most of my books are around one hundred thousand words, we can call that about sixteen percent done. The beginning of it overlaps with both Resurgence of Ancient Darkness and The Sac’a’rith’s endings so it is taking some work to smooth that out. I think everyone will enjoy the connection, especially since I am bringing back a certain large orange cat from The Enemy of an Enemy.

Do not forget to sign up on the Lost Tales of Power email list to be kept in the know! I save the best news bits for that list… and I may just be thinking about sending a special promotion code to that list in the coming weeks for those elite fans to share with friends and family.

I get asked from time to time by fans, “what can we do to help?” The biggest thing fans can do to help make this a successful release is to spread the word about the series to everyone you can. So post reviews everywhere you can about the books, and spread the word to friends and family! If you do social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) spread it there too.  The more excitement we can raise, especially as the release date gets closer, the better. Thanks!

Facebook

Hey everyone! I have noticed some readers have found me on Facebook and are trying to add me as a friend. Please understand my Facebook account is not public, so I am not accepting random friend requests. Because of these requests I have create a Facebook page that you can like and follow. If enough people like it I will start doing giveaways and other events via it. If most people stick with this blog, then I will ignore it. So it is your call! Spread the word and get the likes up, and I will toss fun freebies like bookmarks, used post-it notes, and all manner of memorabilia. Here is the direct link:

https://www.facebook.com/VincentTrigili

The Sac’a'rith Heading Out To Pre-Readers!

The Sac’a’rith is on its way to pre-readers! This is a major stepping-stone in the life of a book. For those that do not know, this is roughly how the process works. First an author gets an idea for a story, maybe “Young rising star in the navy sent to investigate mysterious happenings.” Then the first draft is blasted on to paper (err… by that I mean typed in to a computer). For me I use an iterative process where I am constantly editing as I go. In contrast, some authors just drive through and don’t look back until they are done with the first pass.

Either way once that first draft is completed, then the author himself does a few editing passes over the entire manuscript. Then, in my case, it goes to my wife for a first editing pass. At that point the manuscript is not release quality, but it is very much readable. Pre-readers (some call them beta readers) are invited to review the manuscript at this stage. This is done before final editing because if the pre-readers find any issues, they will have to be fixed before paying for full editing. If it went to editing first, and was changed in any real way after that by the pre-reading feedback, then it would have to go back to editing and that would double the editing costs for the project.

The goal is to send to my editor on October 7th, then to get the cover art finalized by mid/late October (while the editor is working on manuscript). Once I get the book back from her, I will need time to go through her edits (which typically will be on every single line of the book) and approve or not approve them. Then my wife will typically do one final pass if there is time to make sure I did not mess up our editor’s hard work (which I have been known to do).

Then from there I need to work on formatting for the various distribution channels, and making the paperback version. I hope to do a cover reveal in late October, so be on the look out for that.

I am hoping to get the book out in early December so that it is on the “New Release” list for the peak of the ebook buying season (the week following Christmas). The schedule is very tight, but I am going to do my best to hit it.

Please spread the word about my series, and if you have not signed up for my email list, please do! People on the email list get special updates and news not found anywhere else! For example, the pre-reader invite went out them, and they have a teaser about Spectra’s Gambit that no one else knows! Click to sign up!

Getting Close on the Fifth Book

This just a fast update for everyone on volume 5: The Sac’a’rith. I have completed the first draft and my wife has started on her edits. Our goal is to target a release date ahead of the Christmas season (which for ebooks starts the day AFTER Christmas). We want it to be on the “new release” list at that time for maximum exposure. It is going to be a very tight timeline coordinating our editor, cover art, formatting, conversion, publishing, and everything else while dealing with all the traveling I tend to do between October and January.

The Sac’a’rith takes place at the same time as Darkness did, and actually ends a little before Darkness did. I will be releasing a full calendar at some point, but until there here is a bit of a teaser:

IE = Imperial Era (similar to BC, counts backwards)

EM = Era of Magic

12/01/01 IE – Enemy of an Enemy starts

01/20/02 EM – Enemy of an Enemy ends

02/01/02 EM – The Academy starts

08/30/42 – The Academy ends

05/15/55 – Rise of Shadows starts

12/30/58 – Rise of Shadows ends

01/01/59 – Resurgence of Ancient Darkness starts

01/01/59 – The Sac’a’rith starts (approximate)

05/30/62 – The Sac’a’rith ends (approximate)

01/25/63 – Resurgence of Ancient Darkness ends

Spectra’s Gambit will take place near the end of Sac’a’rith and run until after Darkness ends but those dates are less certain at this time. So that is your fast update for today! Now I need to get back to whip cracking!

Amazon Matchbook

Hey everyone!

Big announcement from Amazon! They are planning to start a program that they are calling Amazon Matchbook. This program will allow anyone that has bought a print edition of a book (all the way back to 1995) to get the e-book for a discounted price, or even free! It is up to the publisher to opt-in to the program, and set the price. I will be setting all of my e-books to free to anyone that buys (or has bought) a copy of the print edition for the launch of this program. I know many other independent authors are planning the same. Amazon has not announced an official date, but the rumor mill says it will launch in October. Surf on over to Amazon for their official page on this.

New Cover for The First Quartet!

Hey just a fast announcement here. Yoly over at Cormar Covers made a new cover for me for The First Quartet, and I just uploaded it to Amazon and Smashwords. I will get it on the other stores soon. Here it is:

I also fixed the gender issue in Appendix A where the prophet kept switching form male to female pronouns. She is a female prophet, so all the male gender pronouns were wrong. Sorry about that. I will ask Amazon to push out updates, but they usually take their time on sending them out to current Kindle customers.

Update on Book Five, and More

It has been a while since I have updated everyone here, and I apologize for that! I have been working hard at getting The Sac’a’rith written. I am about sixty thousand words into writing the book, which is a little bit more then half the length of Darkness. I had hoped to be finished with it and working on Spectra’s Gambit by now, but so far with every release I have way over estimated my ability to write quickly, so I guess no sense in breaking with tradition, right?

Just a reminder since it has been a while, my fifth book, The Sac’a’rith, will be in the same universe as the first four, but has all new characters, and is in a separate area of the universe. It more properly reflects the direction that I want to go, which is a multi-dimensional universe where many stories take place in with overlapping themes, times, characters, and so on.

My sixth book, Spectra’s Gambit, will feature Spectra and Dusty, but with a new story line distinct from the first four books. I am keeping quiet about that story line for now, but it will also feature a new cast and a new location.

For the seventh book, I am thinking it will focus more on primitive realm, and some adventures there, but I have not decided for sure yet. Another story I want to tell is the foundations of the Empire, which could be a trilogy. Basically what I am saying is that I have several story lines in mind for book seven, so it is still up in the air.

That is all for now, time to get back to writing!

Andrew Butcher!

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that Andrew Butcher featured me on his blog! Drop by his page and show him some love in return! Check it here: Andrew Butcher’s Blog

Update Email from Amazon Regarding Enemy of an Enemy

Did you get an email from Amazon saying there was an update to Enemy of an Enemy? Read on to find out why.

This morning I was surprised to wake up and find an email from Amazon saying that there was an updated version of my book ready for download (I buy my own books so that see things like this). To be clear, I did ask them to do this, but they told me it would go out in four weeks, instead of barely twenty-four hours.

Here is what happened. In November of 2010, I release Enemy of an Enemy and while many enjoyed the story, I got some bad reviews due to poor editing. I carried on, and released two more books. Thanks to the sales from those books I had finally made enough to afford the services of a professional editor. So in April of 2012 I re-released Enemy after having an editor clean it up. It was a very significant change to the text, but no changes where made to the story.

At that time I did not know that you had to inform Amazon that you changed a book and I could no find no way for those that had gotten the book already to get a new copy. So I just posted to my blog about it, and hoped the word would get out somehow.

Recently while chatting with another author I found out there is in fact a way to get Amazon to notify all readers of the changes to your books, and turn on the “update is available” button next to the name of the book in their Kindle. So I went ahead and did that. I figured better late then never. That is why that email went out.

I hope they limited the email to only those people that got the book before April of 2012, but I have no way to know that. Any which way, everyone can now get the newest version which includes the new cover!

Did you get an email? Please let me know, and let me know when you grabbed your copy of Enemy. Thanks!

New Cover for Enemy of An Enemy!

So, I have been unhappy with the cover on my first book for years now and I decided to finally do something about it. So here it is, the new cover: