Steve Umstead's Blog, page 19
February 23, 2011
Journey to self-published, Part 6 – The End?
No, not the end…just the beginning apparently. It's official, I'm published, and anyone, anywhere can purchase the novel I worked so hard on. But now…how do I let everyone know it's there? I'm afraid I don't have any easy answers for this one, nor is this a complete story. The journey is ongoing, and will [...]
February 22, 2011
My self-publishing journey, Part 5 – I'm published!
Still there? My diatribe hasn't bored you to tears? The journey's almost to an end. Well, not really – but I'll get to that in a bit. So I clicked upload, and my baby was sent to Amazon for review. Wow, I thought. That was quite painless. What happened to writing dozens of query letters, [...]
February 21, 2011
Review of Asylum Lake by R. A. Evans
Just wrapped up Asylum Lake by R.A. Evans last night, and I have to say I really quite enjoyed it, even though I'm definitely not a typical horror reader by any stretch. It was very well written, the descriptions were vivid enough to show the scene in one's imagination, yet not overly wordy. The characters, [...]
February 20, 2011
My journey to self-published, Part 4 – Cover Art
So what is the next step in publishing my own ebook? Oh, right, one of the most important facets of a new author's ebook. The cover. Cover you say? Who cares about the cover – since when do people judge a book by its cover? Get rid of that thinking right away. In the online [...]
February 19, 2011
My journey from dreamer to author, Part 3
You've read my motivation, my journey to finishing a novel. The next step was a huge decision point. Do I (a) sit down and start writing query letters, or (b) look into self-publishing and print-on-demand, or (c) investigate this ebook rage/fad/phenomenon, or (d) go back to my regular life and call it a day? After [...]
Scrivener's hidden magic
For those of you who have been following my journey, or those of you who have met me online over the past couple of months, you've probably heard my constant, possibly annoying praise, of a little piece of software called Scrivener. It's what I used to write my NaNoWriMo novel this past November. Microsoft Word? [...]
February 18, 2011
My journey from dreamer to author, Part 2
I came home from my business trip on December 4th, didn't touch the manuscript. I knew I had to set it aside for a while so that I could go back over it with fresh eyes; find mistakes, errors, inconsistencies I had glossed over during my 26 day sprint. But man that was tough to [...]
February 16, 2011
My journey from dreamer to author, part 1
Just over a year ago, I was approaching a milestone age…not one that most are proud of reaching, one that made me start to reflect on what my goals were as a youngster. Among other things, one of those goals was to be a published writer by the time I hit that milestone. The problem [...]
February 13, 2011
Gabriel's Redemption Excerpt for #samplesunday
One large wallscreen dominated the wall opposite the ultra-modern food dispenser, the image showing a view from the Marcinko's forward video feed. Jupiter was visible just on the edge of the screen, with its moon Callisto closer to the center, the entire scene sprinkled with stars. In the very center of the image sat two [...]
February 9, 2011
Gabriel's Redemption Now Available
I'm proud to say that as of this week, my debut novel Gabriel's Redemption, the first in a planned triology, has been published on Amazon.com for Kindle, BarnesandNoble.com for Nook, and Smashwords.com for multiple formats (iPad, Kobo, online HTML, etc.) It's been an amazing journey from unpublished and aspiring to published and selling. The explosion [...]
