Darren Shan's Blog, page 17

Archie on Google audio

Anyone fancy listening to an AI Archibald Lox audio book?!? Intrigued by the extistence of AI narrators, I tried launching the Archibald Lox series as audio books a few months ago, on Apple, but it was a mess. I wasn't able to have any kind of editorial control over the process. I wasn't able to control the price of the audio books (Apple hiked the prices far higher than I wished). And I wasn't able to have the omnibus Volumes adapted, meaning I had to use the nine small books of the series,...

Fundraiser still live

The fundraiser for THE TERRIFIED TROLL came to its scheduled conclusion this morning. I'm delighted to be able to announce that not only did we hit our €10,000 target -- we exceeded it! The campaign total, as I type this, now stands in excess of an amazing €11,500!! This isn't actually the end of the road for the campaign. If a campaign hits its target, as we have done, Indiegogo allows the fundraisers to keep it open, so that new backers can continue to buy the perks on offer. We've decided...

Troll portfolio

I had a brilliant, productive three hours late in November, working with Eva Byrne on storyboarding our Terrified Troll picture book. I'd written several drafts of the story over the last few years, and Eva had produced loads of sketches, but this was the first time that we sat down as a pair and fine-tuned it into a working storyboard. We now have a clear working plan for how the book is going to play, with each page of the story sketched out, so it will *just* be a matter of Eva now translatin...

Meet Darren Shan!!! p.s.

When I posted yesterday about your chance to buy one of my Terrified Troll fundraising PERKS and either meet with me or go on a tour with me, I forgot to mention that the prices had been heavily discounted, a couple of them VERY recently. Doh!!! So I'm going to quickly mention the perks again -- sorry for the content overlap! So, yeah, if you want to meet me in Limerick for two hours, it will cost €200. A similar meeting in Dublin will be €250, and in London it will be €275. (Dublin and Lond...

Meet Darren Shan!!

My fundraiser to raise the funds needed to produce a numbered, hardback, limited edition of my first ever picture book, THE TERRIFIED TROLL, is coming along very nicely. The artist, Eva Byrne, and I set ourselves a €10,000 target, which seemed like a scary sum to be working towards, but with YOUR amazing help, we're almost there, and have passed the 96% mark, with a week still to go -- hurrah!!! We created a series of very special PERKS to help us raise the money, and one of those perks is t...

Limerick Leader troll interview online

The Limerick Leader interview with myself and Eva Byrne, about our picture book, The Terrified Troll, and our fundraiser to raise the money necessary to finish and publish it, has now been added to the online version of the newspaper. It's a lovely piece, that give us loads of space to talk about how we know each other and came to work on the book, and how we're going about bringing it to life. You can read it by clicking here: https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/ho...-...

Books, Films, Random Lunacy and Trolls!

A lovely article went live today over on the BOOKS, FILMS & RANDOM LUNACY blog, highlighting my fundraiser to raise the funds necessary to complete my first ever picture book, which is called The Terrified Troll. https://gdbastow11.wordpress.com/2023... As the blogger notes, as well as being able to pre-order the book (thus ensuring a copy of the signed, numbered, limited edition first printing), you can choose from a nu...

Cirque Du Freak fanzine 2023

The Cirque Du Freak FANZINE is an annual FREE online publication, made BY fans of the books, FOR fans of the books. It features fan art, fan stories, cosplay photos, etc. This year's edition went live shortly before Halloween. I meant to include a link to it then, but I wad on holiday and... um... forgot!! Sorry!!!! Anyway, better late than never, right?!? And by not directing you towards the fanzine last month, it means you get to enjoy it THIS month!!! To access the fanzine, click ...

Limerick Leader and prints

There was a lovely article in my local newspaper, THE LIMERICK LEADER, yesterday, in which myself and Eva Byrne were interviewed about our forthcoming picture book, The Terrified Troll. The article hasn't yet been uploaded to their website, but here are some photos of the piece that I took. (The only thing I didn't like about it was that photo of the top of my head that made it look like Lord Loss had been ripping out chunks of my hair just prior to the photo shoot!!!!) As you hopefully know...

Zoom with Darren!

I've started scheduling the first of my Terrified Troll Zoom chats with those who purchased that perk early. It's not too late for YOU to get in on the act, if you want an up-close-and-personal 40 minute online chat with the one and only... Darren Shan!!! Hmmm... I just realised that paragraph might read as pure gibberish for those of you who haven't yet heard about my forthcoming picture book, and the fundraiser I'm running to make it happen! OK, to vey quick recap... I'm working on a p...