Alex Epstein's Blog, page 9

The Anubis Gates

I really enjoyed Tim Powers' DECLARE so much I went to library to grab a couple more. LAST CALL and THE ANUBIS GATES looked good.

I was a few pages into THE ANUBIS GATES when I realized I had read it a few years ago.

But it was so good, I read it again. Just finished. Yep, just as good as I remember.

I am beginning to get a handle on Tim Powers, I think. I have a feeling he does an awful lot of historical research, and then works his stories around the historical facts of the time. In DECLARE, ...

Write Hope

As part of the Write Hope project, I'm auctioning off a signed copy of THE CIRCLE CAST. If you want to help Japan relief, and get my book, please bid on it!

A couple of LibraryThing reviews

Two nice reviews from LibraryThing:

"A spellbinding tale of the formative years of Morgan le Fay... beautifully written." - LizLupton

"A woman. Not a witch. Not a fairy. This story is about a woman, in a very harsh and unforgiving man's world. I liked it. I loved it and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a little fantasy, even if you know nothing about Arthur and his Round Table. Actually I would recommend it to anyone who was looking for a good read! It's truly a keeper!" -- Crystal...

Another Spring, Another Schmooze

If you're in Montreal on the 4th, swing on by Réservoir for another Soirée Schmooze; we'll be upstairs.

Morgan le Fay, Arthur's lover and nemesis

You know, I don't think I've really gone into detail about my interpretation of the story of King Arthur, Morgan le Fay, Lancelot and Guinevere. It's a little involved, so bear with me.

I've always thought there were some missing pieces to the King Arthur story.

Let's start with Arthur's kids. He doesn't have any. Not legitimate ones, at least. Guinevere never gives him any kids.

Now, I have lots of friends who don't have kids. But they also don't have kingdoms. In medieval times, for a king not...

Interview and Book Giveaway on YA Fresh

Today, I'm interviewed on YA Fresh. I talk about the mystery at the heart of the King Arthur legend, my writing routine, my first sale and other fun stuff. And I'm giving away a signed copy of the book. Check it out!

Denise Jaden Interview

Denise Jaden, author of the highly acclaimed YA novel LOSING FAITH and the forthcoming APPETITE FOR BEAUTY, interviewed me on her blog! She asks me about my characters, my day job (which is screenwriting), my path to publication, my number one bit of writing advice, and what I wrote when I was a teen. Check it out!

Epub, Kindle, AZW, MOBI, iPad

Okay, I have made an Epub version of THE CIRCLE CAST, suitable for iPads. And a MOBI version, suitable for Kindles.

That took some doing. Calibre, the very fine free software that converts your document into an Epub, translates your input into XHTML. So the easiest way to control the formatting of your ebook is to turn your document into HTML, fuss with the HTML, and then convert from HTML into the ebook of your choice.

So I recoded the RTF document I got from the graphic designer into HTML us...

Epub

Okay, I have got an Epub version of THE CIRCLE CAST. That took a little doing. Calibre, the very fine free software that converts your document into an Epub, seems to work best on HTML. So I had to recode the RTF I got from the graphic designer into HTML by hand, and then massage the HTML using TextWrangler.

I'd really like to figure out how to get the original fonts to appear. The book's beautiful title treatment is CCNearMythFables font, not a font most people will have on their computer. Ca...

How to Kindle a Book

I was looking around Amazon for free content for my Kindle, and ran across an e-Book that neatly answered a nagging question I had: how do you turn a book into a Kindle eBook?

Conveniently, Amazon will send you a free copy of their book Publish on Amazon Kindle with Kindle Direct Publishing, provided of course that you have a Kindle to send it to.

It turns out pretty much all you need is an HTML file of your book, and about fifteen minute. The KDP software turns an HTML file into a Kindle book...