C.J. Marsicano's Blog, page 2

The surprise merch!

The merch I mentioned in my last update? It arrived today (Friday, 4/20 as I write this)!

The idea? Resonant Blue guitar picks!

Specifically, these are guitar picks made by the Steve Clayton company… they do custom guitar picks for the likes of Tenacious D (the company also makes replicas of the infamous “Pick of Destiny” from the D’s movie), Bret Michaels (an amusing coincidence considering my wife wanted to use one of his solo songs as our slow dance song at our wedding), Steve Stevens, the Zac Brown Band (another amusing coincidence because a mutual friend looking to have me play guitar for his band has a couple of their songs in his proposed set list), Switchfoot, and others. For those of you that are guitar players, the picks are White Delrins with a thickness of 1.26mm… The black ink drawing of Reina Kawamura (sourced from a copy of Chris’s art sent to me as a progress report – it’s exactly what he added color to later) is on one side, and the back says “RESONANT BLUE, The new novel by CJ Marsicano - resonantblue.com”

I’ve been playing one of my guitars with one of these picks and honestly, I don’t see much of a difference between these and the Dunlop Tortex Sharp 1.5mm’s I like, so on that level alone, I’m very glad I  got these. They are very usable as both pick and as a promotional tool for the book… not to mention, as a souvenir of sorts! Since the main protagonist in the book is a guitarist, it’s very appropriate!

Everybody that pledged for a book will be getting one in the mail (It’ll be in a clearly marked envelope – I don’t want anyone to accidentally throw them out or lose them!) along with the rest of their stuff. I ordered 100, gave one to my wife and one to my mother for safekeeping, and I’ll be using some (hell, I am a guitar player and I always wanted some custom-printed picks of my own!) and giving some away as promos/conversation starters. If I get any requests from folks to buy them, I just might put them up on the Resonant Blue website. We’ll see… (Could you imagine me being in a band and tossing these picks to the crowd a-la Paul Stanley or Rick Nielsen? Whoa.)

By the way… RECORD STORE DAY is tomorrow (Saturday 4/21)… support your local independent record store and buy some music!

Progress Report: E-books, cover, merch…

I’ve gotten the formatted versions of the e-book edition ready for submitting to my digital distributor, and just assembled the front cover for this edition. Both are being submitted as we speak. I looked at one of the e-book versions on my iPad today. Holy shit, this is becoming a reality!

Submission to the printer will follow in the next couple of business days.

I got another merch idea the other day, which I looked into, found was easily, executable even out of my own pocket (i.e., it wasn’t the large expense one would think it would be), and have since designed and placed an order for… well, I’ll mention that when they get here. Probably by the beginning of next week. Let’s just say they fit very well with the story and it’s main and most of the supporting characters…

After the manuscript and dust jacket files get sent to my printer, I’ll be ordering the shirts next.

Thanks as always for your patience.

Quick no-frills update!

Formattting on the printer’s edition is long completed, while formatting for the e-book is underway (and rather complicated – honestly, I’m looking at having someone that specializes in doing formatting for e-books do it, which will be a load off my shoulders)!

After this – cover art being “finalized” (Translation: Fonts/text being added to Chris’s artwork, author picture being taken (sometime during the next week), and then the t-shirts being ordered and the mix-CDs being sequenced and burned.

I’ll let everyone know when the stuff finally heads off to the printer and e-book folks (or if, god forbid, there’s any holdups, fuckups, or any other kind of ups that have nothing to do with actually going upward!).

Have a good weekend!

Back to blogging and back to normal…

I announced a full return to blogging on April 1 (D. Boon’s birthday – he was no April Fool!) after all of the medical drama I went through with my mother the past three weeks, and here’s the start of it at my main blogging home, The Groove Music Life. Everything gets touched on here, including Resonant Blue! Please check it out.

http://thegroovemusiclife.com/2012/04/02/my-blogs-arent-the-only-thing-restarting/

I’ll be doing catalog and occasional new CD reviews at TGML’s sister blog Music Is Like Oxygen as well starting on the 2nd.

http://www.musicislikeoxygen.com

And of course, everything going on with my writing career/activities relating to this book and beyond will be related here at this blog.

And, but, also: Updates will continue through the Kickstarter page as all of the elements for getting the book out get assembled:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cjmarsicano/resonant-blue-limited-edition-first-printing

And there’s also those social media thingys I deal with on a daily basis…

http://www.twitter.com/CJMarsicano

http://www.facebook.com/cj.marsicano

That’s all for now… GOOD NIGHT!

Watch your e-mailboxes…

Hey folks, with everything finally starting to calm down insofar as my mother’s health is concerned (she’s in an accelerated physical rehab clinic as of yesterday and is determined to be done within a week – and she sounds determined to do it sooner!), and while I’m formatting the manuscript for the printer and the e-book people, I can start asking everyone’s details.

I would have waited until AFTER everything was ready for the printer and the e-book folks, but part of the reality I hadn’t accounted for is trying to coordinate things with the person who’s going to take my author photograph for the inside jacket… and the printer wants a complete package (book and cover art/layout) handed to them at once, which makes sense, so roll with that flow – I am.

Sunday Night Quick Update

Granted, It’ll be Monday morning technically when everyone sees this, but since I’m writing this minutes before midnight on Sunday to post on both the blog and the Kickstarter page… I digress.

The medical incident involving my mother (there’s still a couple of kinks to iron out, otherwise the rest of her numbers are where they should be) has had me on low energy. Thankfully, tonight, I was able to sit down and resume copyediting on the Resonant Blue manuscript, something I hadn’t done since Saturday the 10th. Got a good chunk of it done in one evening and if this were an anime, my eyes would be looking like swirls.

So, once that is done – which I’m hoping will be in a day or two, the next step is to start formatting the manuscript for two different places: One for the printer and one for the e-book distributor. As you can guess, that means I have to format the whole thing two different ways for the two different formats… not much different, really, than an audio mastering engineer doing one version of a master for a vinyl record and another for a CD (and lately, a third version for iTunes).

Right now I’m thinking that in between finishing the copyediting and doing the formatting, I’ll be getting everyone’s information regarding deliveries. That’s where I’m at so roll with that flow – I am. If anything changes, you’ll be the first to know!

Quick personal update… back to work soon!

Hey everybody,

As I stated Sunday night after this campaign successfully funded, I said things were going to be delayed because of a medical incident involving my mother. Thankfully, as of last night, she’s officially out of the woods, so I can now breathe a little easier and start to focus on helping get this project into the Hand Copies And Premiums To My Contributors Stage… which will immediately follow the recently interrupted by the aforementioned family emergency Final Edit Stage. Those of you that deployed prayers, positive thoughts, vibes, etc. have infinite thanks coming from myself and my family.

As of this morning I am able to request the transfer the funds from Amazon Payments to my bank account, which means I’ll be able to order the hardcover books as soon as the final manuscript is ready. As usual, there’s Amazon’s usual legal-eagle-mandated caveats/delays like “Please wait five to seven business days blah blah blah…” but then again I should have the final manuscript edited and formatted for both the printer and the e-book distributor by then! Soon as the money is officially in my account, I’ll be surveying everybody as far as mailing and e-mail addresses, shirt sizes, etc.

I’ve also decided on the “company name” to go on the book. I mentioned it on the Facebook page, but I’ll formally announce it when the book goes to press.

Updates will be more frequent as all of this progresses.

Success… And a personal update

Well, the campaign is a success and part one of the ordeal – getting the money to get the books printed and shipped – is over. Over the next couple of days I’ll be getting the different levels of surveys together so that I can get eveyone’s information as to addresses, T-shirt sizes, e-book formats, and the like. I also have to finish editing the book as well as sequencing the mix CD soundtrack that the $50 level pledgers will be getting.

I was working on both yesterday evening when I got a phone call from my mother, urging myself and my wife to head on over to the house because she was getting dizzy and short of breath. We head there and before we know it, we were calling 911. I will spare you all of the details but right now she is in ICU at one of the better hospitals in the area and as of a half-hour before this crowdfunding campaign concluded, she was stabilized. My friends on Facebook and Twitter are a little more prithee to what happened and the positive vibes, thoughts, prayers, and whatever else have you are helping as well. The tubes and wires have the shit scared out of us, though, so we’ll see what happens. When the campaign closed, my wife and I were on the way home from the hospital – not how I envisioned this campaign ending, but under the present circumstances, things could have been even worse.

Part of what I am saying is that if I don’t get to getting everybody’s info immediately, that’s why. But if I do, don’t be surprised by that either – I just might be working on all of that to keep myself sane and busy.

Beyond that, I have to wait until Amazon Payments releases the money (about 14 days) so that I can get it into my account and order the books. Between now and then, I get to finish the final edit of the book (already in progress since I started this campaign), format it for the printer, format it again for the e-book distributor, get the shirts ordered, pay Chris for his amazing artwork, do up the mix CDs, handle whatever other premiums are due to folks, etc.

I shall be keeping everyone updated both here and at this book’s Kickstarter page and the Facebook page for this project. In the meantime, THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY THAT HAS PARTICIPATED.

- CJ Marsicano

The cover art!

As promised, here’s the cover art (before adding the title and author text) to RESONANT BLUE. Artwork by Chris Mendoza from a concept of mine.

BAM! Goal reached!!!

Yes, folks, with 51 hours to go, I’ve reached my goal, to the penny!

If you still haven’t pledged and you’re still watching this, you can still contribute, especially if you want a hand-numbered, signed copy of the book!

To everyone that contributed, thank you!

To everyone that is still looking to contribute, I thank you as well.

Once 8PM EST passes this Sunday, I’ll be contacting everyone for their info regarding mailing addresses, shirt sizes, and the like.

And oh yeah, there’s the matter of my promising to reveal the cover art after I passed the $1,000 mark. I’ll be doing that a little later tonight (unless Chris wants to do a last-minute tweak).