Thomas Cardin's Blog, page 8

Gifts of Vorallon Promo Stills

I am storyboarding out a promo trailer. So far it is going to be a mix of stills, and motion graphics with text and effects. Here is an example of some of the stills, a teaser if you will. I bet those who've read The Final Warden can easily figure this one out.

Gifts of Vorallon Promo Trailer

I am storyboarding out a promo trailer. So far it is going to be a mix of stills, and motion graphics with text and effects. Here is an example of one of the stills, a teaser if you will. I bet those who've read The Final Warden can easily figure this one out.

My Author's Journey

I would like to talk a bit about WHY I went the self publish route, and what I found when I got there.

I am shy and insecure about selling myself. I knew I didn't have the energy in me to face the rejection process of finding an agent then finding a publisher--I wanted to save all the positive energy I had for writing my book and I focused on honing it as best I could.

I owe a great deal to author, Hugh Howey. I became an instant fan of his Wool books when I was somewhere between the first and second drafts of my book. I followed his journey, and it struck a chorde with me; here was this humble, personable man who knocked it out of the park--and look how open and upfront he is with his fans! Very inspiring for me and he showed me just how I could go about keeping the focus on my work and not on my self promotion.

I found beta readers by getting engaged in discussions, talking with readers--getting to know my audience. I found readers from among my friends and online aquaintances that I have known for many years. Gaming buddies who I have never met face to face but have already shared virtual lifetimes with!

I edited and edited, then proofread and honed the book some more. I painted my own covers and designed my interior graphics (helps to be an artist in my day job), learned how to do my interior layout through CreateSpace's wonderful resources. I was able to do it all myself! But that 'myself' includes friends and family (my supporting wife in particular).

The process began over two years ago and yielded a 200,000 word fantasy which I divided as cleanly as I could into a trilogy (I did that back when I was still thinking I HAD to go the traditional route--and research showed that debut authors books were rejected if they had wordcounts above a certain threshhold.)

The division of books has also allowed me to focus on the three parts individually...insuring that each was given my undivided attention and its own rich cover. It has also allowed me to test the waters, to a certain extent, with a low price point that insured someone buying the ebook versions would pay less for all three books than the typical cost of a traditionally published ebook.

At the time of this posting I am a few days away from the release of my third book and reviews have been wonderful--Better than I had ever hoped for my efforts.

There has been one drawback to this whole process that I did not see at the outset however. I am finding descrimination against Indie Authors, something I never wanted to be a target of. The people in the writers group I joined after last years NaNoWriMo are truly wonderful people, but even they have cast disparaging comments my way, calling me 'prideful' and 'unwise'...when all I really have ever been was insecure and non-assertive.

I want people to look past the dividing line. What counts, all that should really count, is the story in the reader's hands.

Sneak Peek time

The Return of King Levant

By Thomas Cardin

Author’s note: This is an adult dark fantasy of a man’s descent through the underworld and eventual return to the world of the living. It is a place that the beings of this fantasy call Nefryt. There is no connection here to a Christian or any other earthly version of hell, it may not even be considered by some to be a place of eternal punishment. Rather it is pure myth and fantasy of my own.  
-1-Levant danced with his daughter hugged to his chest, her feet in the air. Though years of frowning lined his mouth and cheeks, today he had many reasons to smile into Velace’s upturned face. The satisfaction of forcing his quarrelsome ministers to wait through this one last dance delighted him.  Joy at dancing with the perfect image of her mother, alabaster skin, ruby lips curled now in a delighted smile, and a cascade of raven hair. The spearhead of all these thrills was the promise of greatness in the rich amber depths of her eyes.

His smile had begun just that morning when the emissary from the Council of Mages had knelt before him and proclaimed her talented. She would be every bit the sorceress her mother had been. He sighed at the memory of the woman who had put him on the throne and held his kingdom together with her arcane talents. Together, they had established an indomitable rein, and together they had brought Velace into the world.Levant ignored the crowded dance floor, lined with celebrants who left him barely enough room to twirl and spin his daughter. Their faces were a blur in his periphery. No scowling leer in their midst forewarned him. No flash of steel betrayed the slender blade of the assassin.

Fiery pain entered his lower back. The sensation of his legs vanished as though they had never existed. His eyes remain locked in his daughter’s wide-eyed gaze as they fell. In reflex, he thrust her away, freeing himself to fight. The blade struck again—ice at the base of his skull. Fire and ice; the two eternal punishments promised by the dreadful keeper of Nefryt.

As she tumbled away, a silk-clad doll, he sought to tell her not to be afraid. He could not. He could no longer speak to tell her whom to trust among his ministers. His body ceased and his soul fell away, denying him of all such wants.

The ancient myths proclaimed the soul to be the vessel that held the spirit. The vessel did not die, but continued through death to be reborn again. Levant modified that myth to add that one’s thoughts and memories went with the soul.

Without a body, he could no longer see or hear, but to a degree, he could feel. He could feel a dark void surrounding, cold and filled with an ethereal wind that blew through him. Wind brought numbness—not the absence of sensation; it was a cool, diffused tingle spiked with pinpricks of ice. The cold prodded at him like fingers stepping through his consciousness, awakening memories and plunging his awareness into them.

The woman was painted with swirls of blue and red dyes from the hairline of her thick white mane to her exposed cleavage.  The paint contoured her slender face and enlarged her eyes, transforming her into a creature of elegance and mystery to a young boy of six summers. She stood in her window over the alley while he lurked below, watching her wipe wetness from her face with a white lace cloth. Within him, she awakened something other than arousal. Something dark and heady in the core of his being that he longed to experience.

He knew her routine intimately, noblemen and officers of the guard would enter her home, sometimes there would be laughter and giggles to start, sometimes silence or voices pitched too low to be heard from below her window. Her low, needful moaning invariably followed, punctuated by the accelerating gasps and breaths of her companion.

His arousal was a yearning for something to be sated. Not a physical need, not at the age he was then, but something feral and bloody just the same. His hands would clench and knot, whitening his knuckles as he listened. Through tightly clenched teeth, his breath would come in the same gasps as the unseen man above. To his own ears, he sounded like a spitting cat.

“Do you know why I show you this, Levant?” The voice was that of a man, smooth and rich. Timeless. It drove at his consciousness, startling him from the memory.

“Why?” Levant thought, and many other thoughts spun around with it. “Who are you? Am I dead? What do you want of me?”

“I am the will behind the arm that thrust the dagger into your back,” the voice said. “You have prayed to me many times and known it not. I am the vengeance you yearned for while you lurked below Mithea the whore’s window. That was when we first met, you and I. Of all the nobles who sought her pleasures, only your father was marked by her. Do you know why she ruined your father’s reputation?”

Rage burned fresh in his awareness again, stifling every memory and consuming every frigid barb of the fingers groping through his mind.

“That was me as well,” the voice continued. “Oh, Mithea had her reasons. Your father was a cruel man. Her pleading moans of desire were not enough for him. Had you lurked beneath her window during your father’s visit, and it was only once, you would have heard her scream. You would have heard her begging for release, much as those souls in your oubliette have begged you. While she healed, it was to me she prayed for vengeance, and I answered her.”

“The Lord of Vengeance,” Levant thought. His memories whirled to crude statues and effigies of a monstrous figure, glimpsed in dark woodlands where foul creatures dwelled. Leading his army through a high mountain pass in the Aether Wall to outflank the forces of King Nimek, he had seen one such statue of enormous proportions carved from the dark basalt by the hands of ogres. It depicted a stooped fiend covered in scales with long arms that touched the ground with sickle claws. He had seethed at the delay it caused as his men warily passed it by in single file, at the farthest extent that the narrow pass would allow. Their eyes stared wide as they whispered the name of fiend. “Lord Chreen.”

“Yes,” Lord Chreen said, his voice still musically smooth. “I am Lord Chreen. You are dead, and I am not content that our time together should end.”

Self-Publishing

Some humble self-publishing tips from my experience so far: Note. I wrote this initially in reply to a wonderful post on Hugh Howey’s website here.Step one: Write the very best book, novella or short story you can. Make it clean, make it professional, whatever it takes.

You have written the very best book you can, right? If not, return to step one. Your books won't announce themselves. Amazon does not shelve your ebook on a display for passers by to see once you have uploaded it for the Kindle. The world will not know your book exists until YOU begin shouting it out from the mountaintops.

The Voice: If you want to have your work read, you need to find where the readers for your genre are and tell them about your book, individually if you have to. Each and every reader you find is a wonderful thing. Not for the two dollar and something cents in royalties, but for their voice. You want them to  enjoy the experience of reading your book, and this assumes you have done your very best to write an enjoyable, clean, and professional (appearing) book. Remember step one?

To gain their voice you must tickle that nerve. Once you have, and it may not happen, as Hugh Howey says, until the 10th book or more. On the eve of releasing my third book I can see this now, and I am not saying that I am there--though for a few precious first readers I am. I made something they enjoyed. Their gift to me is their voice.

They may take the time to write a favorable review, or simply give it a Like. They may post about your book on their blog or facebook page, or to their reading group. They may tell some personal friends about your book, some may even put a copy in their friends hands for you--or lead them to a point of sale for your work. That is what gets you read. This is the start of your network.Treat these readers well, be accessible to them. Ask them if they would like to beta or alpha read for your next book, but make sure you tell them to pull no punches.The actual shouting: Spend a few minutes of your day looking for more of these readers. Don't spam for them in any forum. Make one announcement for your book on any given forum that allows you to do so, follow their guidelines to the letter. If it is allowed, be sure to make working links in your announcement that take readers directly to a point of purchase for your book. Once you have made your announcement, introduce yourself--most all of these forums have a place to do this as well. Mention a few of your favorite books (not your own) and authors you enjoy (Hello HUGH!). Do not, under any circumstances, start plugging your work. You are there to engage with these people. Some will be readers, some will be other authors doing what you are doing.Improving: You are going to learn something when you get engaged with these groups. You are going to learn their likes and dislikes--write what you want, and write to improve. Keep those likes and dislikes in your mind and you will improve, increasing the likelyhood that your next book may reach a few more readers and return a few more voices.

Take 2

More polish, cleaned up the composition a bit more. Narrowed down the color scheme to a clean triad.

Lord of Vengeance cover - take 1

I am really liking how this is shaping up. I need to step back and mull this one over for a while, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. Let me know what you think!

The results of the 5 day free promo!

529 downloads!


If you are one of those readers - Welcome to the world of Vorallon! Best wishes to each and every one of those readers! Thank you as well to my current readers, those who helped spread the word for a new independent author.


I invite you all to friend and follow me here or on goodreads, my two most common haunts. Send me your thoughts, your conundrums, typos you found--I look forward to hearing from you.

I hope you find joy and adventure in this forbidden tale. If you did, please show your support with a like or a review or a mention on your blog or among your friends.

529 downloads!If you are one of those readers - Welcome t...

529 downloads!

If you are one of those readers - Welcome to the world of Vorallon! Best wishes to each and every one of those readers! Thank you as well to my current readers, those who helped spread the word for a new independent author.

I invite you all to friend and follow me here or on goodreads, my two most common haunts. Send me your thoughts, your conundrums, typos you found--I look forward to hearing from you.

I hope you find joy and adventure in this forbidden tale. If you did, please show your support with a like or a review or a mention on your blog or among your friends.

Cover update

I thought I would show some process here.

My main goal tonight was to help right some wrongs I had with the figure and the perspective. I cleaned up the red cloak, changed the collar and such to aid the form of the figure. I shortened the waist a bit. Tilted the head back--face is still sketchy--and had some fun with the updraft of wind in his hair. He is fairly malleable still, as long as I keep everything on dozens of layers. Seperating shapes from shading workds well for me.