‘Dead 2 Rites’ Coming Up for Preorder!

I just submitted Dead 2 Rites for preorder on Amazon. As with the first book, Jake and the Dynamo, this should give me enough time to get th the kinks worked out before the book actually goes up for sale.

As stated before, I’m new to all this. I’m really glad I decided to have a preorder period even though, as a new author, I don’t have any name recognition to build excitement with. Thanks to the preorder period, I’ve been able to adjust keywords and categories to get Jake and the Dynamo situated where it belongs on Amazon’s site: It’s gone through adventure romance and gay romance, and appears to have finally settled in where it belongs with satirical works, harems, and adventure light novels. Next, I’ll email Amazon and ask for a manual adjustment to refine it further.

Then, once it releases, the ad campaign begins.

Even though Dead 2 Rites will not release until September 1, I am beginning the preorder period now so potential readers can see that this series already has two books and that they won’t have to wait long for a sequel. Both novels are only 99 cents on Kindle during the preorder period. They will also be on Kindle Unlimited for at least three months before I push them to other platforms.

Both eBooks are DRM-free with lending enabled because I believe the books you buy should belong to you. Paperback versions will also be available after the release dates.

Order Your Copy of ‘Jake and the Dynamo’ Today!

Right now, Jake and the Dynamo is available for preorder. Featuring brand new cover art and the same fantastic, full-color interior illustrations, this revised and definitive edition is the must-have introduction to the JAKE AND THE DYNAMO saga.

Celebrate with this free wallpaper, courtesy of Barbusco Comics and Nodsaibot.

The novel will release worldwide on .

Jake Blatowski can’t wait for high school—basketball, calculus, and a cafeteria that isn’t under investigation by the health department.

But he’ll have to wait: A computer malfunction has assigned him to the fifth grade!

It’s bad enough that he bangs his knees on the desks or that Miss Percy is going over long division . . . again . . . but Jake has to sit next to Dana Volt, a perpetually surly troublemaker determined to make his life a living hell.

Worse yet, Dana secretly belongs to a coalition of girls who protect humanity from the horde of deadly monsters plaguing the city—monsters that have chosen Jake as their next target!

Jake’s no hero; he just wants to make it to varsity tryouts. But now the impulsive and moody Dana is the only one who can save Jake from certain death—and Jake is the only one who can save Dana from herself.

Order Now

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If you preorder today, you pay only 99 cents for this DRM-free eBook. However, the price will rise after the book becomes available on August 1st.

The eBook will also be available on Kindle Unlimited for three months, and that means it will be an Amazon exclusive for that timeframe. After that, it will be available on other platforms.

The paperback will also become available on August 1, both through Amazon and other publishers. Stay tuned for details.

Volume 1 Is Fine; Volume 2, However …

Looks like the cover for volume 2 has been rejected by KDP because the dimensions are slightly off. Looking back over the files and prep, I’m pretty sure how it happened. I’ll be going back to my artists to get this resolved; I think it’s fixable, but I’ll keep you all posted.

Preparing to Publish

I am currently wrestling with the Amazon’s esoteric system in an effort to get Jake and the Dynamo published in the new edition. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the preview and realized that I and the artists had, in fact, got the dimensions correct. There is just the slightest error here, easy to repair—and props to you if you can spot it.

Looking at the interior, it appears also that Vellum, the software I’m using, behaves as advertised: I haven’t been through the whole thing, but so far, it appears that the formatting is correct with now weird artifacts or margins. I believe this new version will be even more attractive and readable than the original paperback publication, which I was already quite pleased with.

Final Cover Art Is In!

I just got the final covers from the logo artist, so Jake and the Dynamo and Dead 2 Rites are almost ready to go out the door. I need to get some last ducks in a row, but it’s now for sure happening.

I’m really excited and also nervous. I’ve never done this before, so in my head, I’m envisioning getting the printed paperback and finding the cover all screwed up because I miscalculated something. I suppose if that does happen, I can probably (?) go back to the artists to fix it. Both were a pleasure to work with.

I’m currently finishing up my final work on Rags and Muffin, so commissioning the art for that is on my radar along with the launch of the two for which the art is complete. Considering my experience, I might go back to exactly the same people for the artwork.

With that in mind, my thanks to Barbusco Comics for the art and Nodsaibot for the logos. Their prices were reasonable, their demeanors upbeat and professional, and their turnaround times good. Barbusco, especially, is crazy fast.

Project Update with a First Peek

I know I don’t post enough these days; aside from my projects, I’m getting used to the new baby. But I have some good news: The cover art for Dead 2 Rites, the second book of Jake and the Dynamo, is well underway.

My plan is to get both covers completed at once; then I will re-release the first book and offer the second for pre-order. I will hire a logo artist to make the graphics to go over the cover art, but I want to have both covers in hand first so I can offer them to the logo artist to do all at once.

In the image on this post, you can see an initial sketch of Van Halensing, the vampire-hunting rock starlet who features prominently in Dead 2 Rites.

Since I’m new at this, I’m still not comfortable giving a projected release date because I’m unsure how long the logo art will take, or whether there might be some additional delays on the roll-out. But I am still hoping to release Jake and the Dynamo this month and Dead 2 Rites a month later.

In the meanwhile, I am still working on the manuscript of Rags and Muffin, tightening the prose and putting on the final polish before I generate the books. I like the work of my present artist but haven’t decided yet whether to use him for Rags and Muffin or to find someone with a more gritty, and perhaps photorealistic, style, which I think would be more appropriate for this particular book, which is less cartoonish. There are plenty of pro cover designers who would be interesting to work with but also more expensive.

Book Update: ‘Jake and the Dynamo’ and Sequel Forthcoming

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I am working on preparing books for publication, and as always, these things take more time than I anticipate. In fact, in my available time, I have been doing almost nothing else. But that’s okay because I want to make sure I do this process right and get together everything I need for a successful roll-out.

My ambitious plan at present is to have five books published in 2021. If I can’t meet that, I should at least have four. I’ll definitely have three. The three is a given.

The first will be Jake and the Dynamo which will appear with a revised text and brand new packaging. The second will be its sequel. The third will be Rag & Muffin. I’ll announce the others later.

Anyway, one of my other goals is to post here more regularly, so look for consistent content as we move forward.

Update on the State of ‘Jake and the Dynamo’

I have all but finally decided to self-publish Jake and the Dynamo, which was my original intention with the series anyway. This is admittedly a self-own, but I’m having a hard time getting a publisher to acknowledge my existence—and I don’t mean accept my manuscript; I really mean acknowledge my existence. I think something serious has happened to the industry in the last decade because I used to be able to collect polite, pre-formatted rejection slips. Now I can’t even get a “you suck so don’t write to us again.”

I’m currently swimming in a bewildering array of advice, much of it obviously bad or exploitative, about how to move forward with this. I will certainly have to commission cover art, for which I have some leads, and also format the manuscript. I’m assuming the latter task will require learning some new software, though I’m unsure of that as of yet. My former publisher used Vellum, I think, but that’s only available on Mac, and I don’t have one. At the very least, I know something about web and document accessibility, which will probably help.

So that’s what I’m up to right now, which is part of why the content here is so slim. I really want to get the first two volumes of Jake and the Dynamo available in the near future; the first needs republished, and the second needs to be published for the first time. I am in the midst of the draft of the third. I don’t want to be too hasty and have a bad roll-out when a little more legwork could produce a better product (and more sales, of course).

Rag & Muffin is currently on an editor’s desk, and the requested wait period has not closed, but considering how things are going, I expect that it will (about three months now) without my existence having been acknowledged. At that point, I will consider self-publishing it as well, though I might attempt more submissions first.

Brief Update on ‘Dead to Rites’

Just got word from my editor about progress on Dead to Rites, the next volume in Jake and the Dynamo.

My publisher is currently rushing some things to get ready in time for Dragon Con (August 29 to September 2), which has pushed my book release back a bit. I’m crossing my fingers for September, but we’ll see.

Speaking of which, I had a sort-of chance to make it to Dragon Con this year, but couldn’t take the time from work or excuse the expense on the plane ticket, but I am hoping to make it in future years, so at some point I may show up there with other members of the Superversive stable.

Update

I just got the manuscript back from the publisher. It’s gone through the proofreader, so I’m now going over his comments. It came with the note, “The whole thing was hilarious.”