Monday, January 21, 2013

back in action

For the past six months I've been out of the country, and away from my computer. Now I'm back in the United States--though no longer in San Francisco--and I'm getting back to work on the fantasy novel too. It stands at about 96K words, and I'm hoping I can bring it to a close in less than 15K more. I've set myself a deadline of February eighth for the completion of the first draft, and I'd like to have it revised and finished less than a month after that.

I'm still on the fence about what I'll do with it then. The two books I've self-published on Kindle still haven't achieved any significant number of downloads, and I've been unable to discover a way of getting more exposure for them. Because of that, I have little confidence that publishing the fantasy novel will be any different. But I remain ambivalent about the traditional publishing process, too. It seems like a tremendous amount of additional work, with more compromises inherent to it, and relatively little chance of greater success. The plus with Kindle is that the book can be made available to a worldwide audience pretty easily, with no unavoidable cost. The drawback is that you end up with your book in a sea of other titles, and so far I haven't been able to find a reliable way of making a book float to the top of that sea. I've gone the Kindle route twice already. Maybe it'd be worth exploring the other option.

In any case, as I continue to ponder the benefits and drawbacks of either form of publishing, I also continue to move along with the book. Besides continuing the story itself, today I spent some time working on a teaser for it. Here it is:

Ostracized from society because of the birthmark that mars his face, Grillis Bloodborn has come of age in the forest, cutting wood and tending pigs. Upon the death of his grandmother, the only family he has ever known, he sets out on a quest to find favor with the gods for her soul. This single, well-intentioned desire provokes a chain of events that transform Grillis into a fugitive, and throw the fate of an entire people into peril.

Athemon Arnmakh has lived all of his short life as a second-class citizen, condemned to squalid poverty and brutal persecution. When the treatment he suffers reaches levels of unprecedented violence, Athemon begins to hear a voice in his head—a voice that tells him not to take any more abuse, a voice that offers him the power to punish his tormentors. Eagerly, he claims that power, using his own rage as a fuel. But Athemon will learn that payback comes with a cost of its own.

In the depths of the unconquered forests a tribe lives in harmony with nature and with their gods. Verlvik is of that tribe, and yet he no longer belongs to it—the Great Goddess has chosen him for Herself. Expelled from the lands he knows, and thrust into a mystic journey of visions and miracles, Verlvik begins to discover the answers to questions he never before thought to ask. And what he learns may change the world forever.

Three young men, rejected by their peoples and thrown together by the fates. Read their story, and join the brotherhood.



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