K.M. Shea's Blog, page 64

Rumpelstiltskin Pre-order

Rumpelstiltskin is available for pre-order–click here to see it! It took much longer than I would have thought to prep it for pre-order. The fabulous Editor sent a corrected copy of Rumpelstiltskin (I need to figure out a way to shorten that title without using the word ‘Rump.’) to me on Thursday. It took me Thursday and Friday to correct it, and I spent Saturday jumping through hoops to prep it for pre-order. That, however, is over! It’s up now, and all that is left is to wait for its official release!

As usual I will be running my review special. This time Champions who read and review Stilt (Hmm, not convinced.) and email me, will receive an additional short story. I’ll post the official rules before Skin (Nooooo, not happening) goes live.

I’m penning my usual The Original Fairy Tale/Behind the Fairy Tale posts. I’m particularly delighted with the changes I made to this story, and I’m anxious to see what you all think of it. In the meantime, any Champion who can come up with a shortened version of Rumpelstiltskin will have my gratitude. Share your shortened versions in the comments below, please! Until Thursday, enjoy your week, Champions!

Cover Reveal: Rumpelstiltskin

Today I’m very happy to reveal the cover–and some of the story’s details–for Rumpelstiltskin!

I am so in love with the font Myrrhlynn used! Rumpelstiltskin is a mouthful to speak, but she managed to make it elegant.

 

As usual, Myrrhlynn—my cover artist—has outdone herself by designing a cover that is modeled specifically for the story. Rumpelstiltskin takes place in Verglas—which you might remember from the Wild Swans. (The evil King Torgen and the somewhat daft Prince Toril have roles to play in Rumpelstiltskin, too.)

Verglas has a Norwegian flair to its culture–you can see it in the clothes, the architecture, and the food references–so Myrhlynn added the Norwegian, wooden buildings you can spy poking through the woods by the castle. Also, take note of the mountain/mountain range behind the castle. It plays a small roll in Rumpelstiltskin, but it’s an important landmark for future stories. (Cough SNOW QUEEN Cough)

I have to applaud Myrrhlynn. Verglas is a country that I have mapped out a detailed geography for, so it wasn’t easy to create this, and she did a fantastic job running with the story’s details.

Speaking of which, Rumpelstiltskin is still hanging with Editor, but she will be done with it any day. Also, Rumpelstiltskin‘s pre-order page will be going up sometime this week! I will let you all know as soon as I have it running.

Happy Thanksgiving and NEW FREEBIE

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers! To everyone else, Happy beginning of Winter for those in the Northern Hemisphere and Happy beginning of Summer to those in the Southern hemisphere! I know technically the season won’t change for a few weeks, but winter has come extremely early to many parts of America so I find it inevitable.

As I am American, yesterday I celebrated American Thanksgiving! I had a lot of fun with my family and ate waaaay too much food, but it also got me thinking of all the things I’m thankful for. I know all of my Champions are a huge blessing on my life, so as a thank you today I’m releasing the final freebie from the list extravaganza contest, a short MBRC story titled Swindler. You can read the PDF file Here, or check it out on the freebies page.

I am hopeful that I will get a pre-order page up for Rumpelstiltskin early next week! After that it’s just a little bit of housekeeping, and then I will get started on book four of King Arthurs and her Knights! So, now I’m going to roll off and consume leftover pumpkin pie. Enjoy the freebie–I hope it satisfies you MBRC fans!

Freebies

Just a reminder today that Beauty and the Beast (Located here) is free for today and tomorrow. Tell anyone you think might like it!

Also I managed to get a King Arthurs and her Knights drabble written. You can download the PDF here: King Arthurs and Her Knights Drabbles, or on the Freebies page. The last freebie, a short MBRC story, should be posted sometime next week.

Finally, I saw this earlier today and I had to share it with you guys.

B&B Free!

Lot’s of good news to share this time, so we’ll start with the obvious.

I changed the website around a bit to make it easier to use, and to better organize information. As you can see “Additional series” now has a drop down menu. I’ll be doing this to Timeless Fairy Tales when I get a chance as well.
Rumpelstiltskin was officially sent off to Editor yesterday! My beta reader took a peek at it over the weekend and had a few suggestions, so I tweaked it yesterday morning before wishing it good luck. Time will tell what Editor thinks of it.
This is probably the most exciting, but Beauty and the Beast will be offered for free for four days: November 20-23. I’m aiming to blast the roof off with free downloads, so please spread the news near and far! (I will post a reminder that B&B is free next time I write, with a freebie or two in tow.)

In bad news, I’m pushing back the release of Rumpelstiltskin by one week. It will now go on sale the second week of December–although I will be doing a pre-order option this time. Why the bump back? Simply put, it is because I want to give you Champions the best story I can, and I need a little extra time to do that. There are a few things I’m nervous and/or uncertain about, so I need to discuss those parts with Editor so I can change them for the better. I am dedicated to giving you enjoyable stories.

That’s it for today. Thanks again to everyone who gave me book recommendations–I think I will be set for Thanksgiving. My “Want to Read” list on Goodreads is now quite full!

Nope, not going to happen

This week I was planning to release the King Arthurs and Her Knights drabbles, but sadly that is not going to happen. I’ve been editing Rumpelstiltskin so I can get it sent off to Editor tomorrow night. There’s a deadline because starting Friday morning I’m going on a three-day-weekend holiday/vacation. (Yay!) So I MUST finish it. The edit has been consuming me, which is why I haven’t had a chance to produce the drabbles.

The good news is that next week I will have plenty of time to write the drabbles and the MBRC themed short story, so you can expect a double dose of freebies then.

As long as we’re talking about books, though, I wanted to thank everyone for their book recommendations a few weeks ago. I did get a chance to read two Sherwood Smith books–Crown Duel and Trouble with Kings. They were the most highly/often recommended by you, Champions, so I wanted to try them out. I really enjoyed them! I think the heroine in Crown Duel made that book my favorite of the two. She was a little more spirited, and I sympathized with her initial awkwardness when she was introduced into noble-society. (High school, anyone?) However, I did enjoy the feelings of loyalty the second heroine seemed to inspire in everyone she met, and I thought her relationship with her brother was a nice touch. (Typically siblings are cardboard characters set up so the heroine/hero isn’t an only child. It was remarkable that in both books the siblings played important roles!) Both books did cause me to stay up late to finish them, which is an easy way for me to judge if a book is good or not. (Early to bed? Not a good book. Stay up so late I’m a zombie the following day? It was a very good book!) So, yes, thank you for the recommendations!

The most recent piece of entertainment I consumed, however, was going to see Big Hero 6 in theaters. Omgawsh. It made me laugh, it made me cheer, and it tore my heart out of my chest and made me a snotty mess. I thought Up was an emotional roller coaster? Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been topped.

And yes, I am referring to a kiddy-movie.

Tadashi Hamada: older brother to the main character, and my favorite Disney character EVER!

I particularly loved the characters in the film (surprise!) and I feel like it was a great example of how stark characters can be created without following typical stereotypes. After all, 4 of the 6 heroes were major geeks, and the movie still made the characters unique and individualistic.  I also really enjoyed it because I loved all the references to Japanese culture. I actually speak Japanese–or I used to, I’ve lost a lot of my speaking ability although my listening comprehension is about the same–and I admire and enjoy pieces of the Japanese culture.

If you haven’t seen it, give it a chance! (Just take a wad of tissues, because seriously. So much sadness!) Has anyone already seen it? What did you think? Also, because I am a book-hoarder, do any Champions have any additional recommendations?

New Short Story

Rumpelstiltskin–the first draft anyway–is FINISHED! Horrah! I’ll spend the rest of today and next week editing it before passing it off to Editor. Editor will take approximately two weeks to edit it, and then I need a day or two to make her recommended corrections and check the formatting. Keeping this in mind, it looks like you can expect Rumpelstiltskin to be released near the end of the first week of December, or at the very beginning of the second week!

To celebrate this good news, and to comply with my promise from the results of the List Extravaganza contest, I’m releasing a Timeless Fairy Tale short story, staring Severin and Elle of B&B and Friedrich and Cinderella of C&C. You can pick it up here, An Alliance, or mosey over to the freebies section. The short story is actually a pretty good indicator of the big picture plot of Timeless Fairy Tales, so I do hope you all get a chance to read it and I hope you enjoy it.

That is everything of importance I have to say right now, so I’m going to stagger off and prepare myself for editing. Thank you for reading, Champions, and enjoy the freebie!

 

List Results!

Okay, we fell a little short of goal of 75+ votes per book, however, you guys really pushed the books up the list (multiple lists too might I add, not just one per book!) so I’m still planning to release some extras. The goods you can expect are…*drum roll*

A short story that jointly stars Prince Severin and Princess Elle of Loire as well as Princess Cinderella and Colonel Friedrich
A short MBRC themed story
Two King Arthurs drabbles (See explanation below)
Two Life Reader drabbles (See explanation below)

So what are drabbles? Occasionally I will need to get to know my characters better, or sometimes I have a part of a scene stuck in my head that I sadly cannot use in my book thanks to point-of-view conflict, or spoilers for later. Drabbles are what I use to combat this. They’re basically short pieces, usually less than a page long, that typically carry some kind of introspection.

What I love about drabbles is that they are very revealing, short, and a lot of fun to write. Historically I’ve kept my drabbles hidden in folders on my computer, but I thought (hope) you Champions might enjoy reading them.

Today I’m going to release the Life Reader drabbles, you can get them here (Life Reader Drabbles I) or on the Freebies page. You can expect the rest of the goodies to show up before Thanksgiving–I’m hoping to release one thing a week. Thank you to everyone who participated in List Mania! I hope you enjoy the new freebies! (Please tell me what you think of the Life Reader drabbles, and if drabbles are something you would be interested in seeing more of in the future!)

List Extravaganza

Happy Monday, Champions! Thanks for the many well wishes. I’m feeling much better today, and just in time! Today is my 200th post! To celebrate it, I’m offering a challenge–with rewards of course!

Goodreads has an awesome, easy way for you to find books that share certain elements, via its listopia function. In example, Enthroned is featured in different lists that revolve around King Arthur, and Cinderella and the Colonel is featured in a list for ‘Best “Strong Female” fantasy Novels.’

Here’s the challenge. Listed below are some of my books with links that will take you to their details page that show what lists they are a part of. For every book—FROM THE LIST BELOW– that gets 75+ votes on a list, I will write a short story pertaining to that book and post it here on my website—for free obviously.

This means, Champions, you could unlock five short stories. I’m not opening up all my books to qualify for this, mostly because if I did and if you Champions decided to really dig in, I could be writing short stories from now until Thanksgiving!

Goodreads is pretty forgiving. If I have more than one book featured in a list, you can vote for them all, there is no voting limit. Keep in mind that I’m not specifying what list for each particular book you should vote in, however, in order for a book to qualify for a free story it must get 75+ votes on at least one list. I’m not going to combine and tally up the votes from all the lists. I’ll just look at the highest number of votes.

That being said, if a book far surpasses the 75+ voting line, or if it receives 75+ in more than one list, I’ll pass out extra goodies for that book. I’ve been hankering to introduce you all to the concept of drabbles, so I hope one of the books makes this mark! This challenge starts TODAY, 10/20/2014, and will last for one week, meaning it ends Sunday, 10/26/2014. (Or more correctly, it will end Monday morning after I roll my sorry carcass out of bed and boot up my computer.)

Note: Voting for first books in the series essentially means—to me anyway—you’re voting for that series. So if My Life at the MBRC gets 75+ votes, I will release a short story that references material to Farewell to the MBRC. You get my drift?

And the books that will be participating in this contest are…

Beauty and the Beast: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/19447511

Cinderella and the Colonel: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/22703076

Enthroned: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/18301761

My Life at the MBRC: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/17252600

Life Reader: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/17972283

Happy voting, Champions. I wish you well on this challenge! Also, as a shout out, it was recently my cover artist’s birthday. So I want to wish Myrrhlynn a big Happy Birthday! Now get out there and unlock some stories, please!

Sad Panda Strikes Back

Sad Panda Strikes Back--and looks quite angry.

For the poor Champions who have never experienced this metaphor of mine, when under considerable distress I liken myself to a panda. Because even angry pandas are cuter than what I really look like, which is more similar to roadkill.

I apologize for my lack of…well…being around. As this year seems to be the year of bizzaro diseases–2014 comes and suddenly I’m a walking petri dish for the weirdest sicknesses ever–I have come down with another incredibly painful “I’m-sorry-we-don’t-have-antibiotics-that-can-kill-this” sickness, this time affecting my throat and my ears! (Because multitasking wins!)

As soon as I finish this entry I’ll be hopping off to email the wonderful Champions who have been patiently waiting for me to send them the extra chapter of Farewell to the MBRC? I just wanted to let you know I’m alive. Also I wanted to add that next week I’ll be announcing a special contest!!! I need to iron out the rules and get my links lined up, but please look forward to it. If it works it seems like you all will enjoy the outcome.

In random news, I’ve been reading romance. I’ve talked with a few Champions who have mentioned they would like to see the ending scenes be a little more romantic–while retaining my signature level of “Clean-ness,” which is now a word because I’m in pain and I can’t find any cute panda pictures. Anyway, I’ve been reading the Austenland books by Shannon Hale (a MUST READ for any Austen fans) Edenbrook-a proper romance (this book was recommended to me by Editor and is a great favorite of mine) and Jane Austen books to get a better idea of how clean romance can be portrayed. Anyone have any authors or books they can recommend? Please leave me a comment! I’m sequestered in my house for the next few days to refrain from spreading this godzilla virus, so now is the time to read.

Thank you for reading, Champions. And stay tuned for the contest announcement next week!