Category: - Thaddeus White

Updated the Books tab, and rambling about bookstores

7/10/2014

It's been quite some time (far too long, really) since I amended the Books tab above. Possessing the technical aptitude of a cucumber sandwich it took me perhaps longer than it should've, but it looks rather better now.

I did, however, make an unpleasant discovery. Diesel, the e-book store, has closed. It seems to have happened around March this year.

I can't say I used it, usually preferring Amazon and sometimes Smashwords, but it's depressing when a bookstore goes under. More competition in the marketplace is a good a thing.

As well as the other retailers listed on my Books tab (Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Versent Books and Inktera) it's also well worth checking Abebooks. It's not so much a store as a marketplace for new and second hand books. I've used it a few times, and got a second hand copy of Philippe Contamine's War in the Middle Ages for less than half the cost of a new version.

Speaking of competitive pricing, Malevolence: Tales from Beyond the Veil, is likely to come out within the next couple of weeks. If you pre-order via the publisher's website you can not only enjoy the devastatingly delightful writing (including my short story, Saxon & Khan) that much sooner, you can enjoy getting it for less than the standard retail price as well.

Thaddeus

Competition to win a free copy of Sir Edric's Temple

9/17/2013

I'm nearing the final furlong of the text of Sir Edric's Temple, and so the time has come to start a competition for one lucky reader to win a free copy of the e-book version.

The terms and conditions are pretty simple. To enter, all you need do is leave a comment with a guess (1 per person, of course) regarding the mortality rate of Bane of Souls, my first book, to one decimal place. I won't spell out precisely the method of calculation (to prevent anyone working it out) but will say that anonymous deaths do not count, and the population that the deaths are drawn from is *not* the whole population of Highford but the named cast in the book. As you'd expect, the nearest guess is the winner (in the unlikely event of a tie the first person to make their guess wins).

The e-mail (which is unpublished) which you enter for your comment will be the one to which I'll send the e-book.

I intend to send the free copy on the day Sir Edric's Temple is released on Smashwords (Amazon and physical versions will follow shortly thereafter). There's no firm date as yet, but I'm hopeful it'll be before Christmas, with a release in October likely.

So, get guessing. If you're unsure if you'd like the 35,000(ish) word comedy then an excerpt of the start is up here and should provide a good guide as to whether you'd like the book or not.

Best of luck, everyone.

Thaddeus

Support Bane of Souls, and an Altmortis update

2/23/2013

Hopefully people reading this are fans of Bane of Souls. If not, why not download a sample and give it a try?

If you are already, then congratulations on your excellent taste. There's also an opportunity to support Bane of Souls simply by clicking here and recommending the post I wrote nominating it.

Of course, if you wish to do that and also make a comment giving your honest view of the book I'd be especially grateful, but I know that most won't fancy faffing about signing up for a new discussion system (although it'd pretty quick, I discovered).

Damien Walter, of the Guardian, deserves great credit for his initiative. Self-published authors can easily get lost in the crowd and ideas such as Mr. Walter's really can help to increase a writer's profile.

As it's been a while (longer than I thought) an update on Altmortis is in order. The maps and cover are entirely done. The cover will be released when the book is, or maybe very shortly beforehand, and the maps will be out when I finish the final redraft but before publication.

In terms of writing, two small rewrites are needed for the start and a section later in the book. However, these are pretty minimal and I don't expect them to take ages, with luck. The redraft (chapter-by-chapter) is now up to Ch8 of 20, though there are some knottier things on a to-do list for when I finish up on Ch20 (typically matters that require multi-chapter changes).

At the moment the release date window of H1 2013 remains probable, huzzah!

So, please do click the link and recommend Bane of Souls, and I'll try to make sure the next update doesn't take quite so long.

Thaddeus

Progress and lack thereof

1/21/2013

I made a good start on several new pieces in early January, with which I'm pretty pleased. However, in the last week or so my productivity has declined somewhat, I must admit. Yesterday I got cracking with a new scene (well, it's more of an add-on to an existing one) and it was good to get some more fresh writing done.

I've still got a couple of big jobs ahead, the largest of which is rejigging the chapters. At present there are 20 and when the book's done that would equate to roughly 5k each, which is too long, I think. So, I'm going to shift most of the chapter start points around. Happily, the main storyline is entire in the right order so it's just a question of where the guillotine falls. However, a few secondary storyline bits and pieces may need moving about. I also expect this to throw up the odd continuity error and some redrafting will be necessary just to ensure the start and end of chapters/scenes don't jar.

I've also got a new review, from the lovely Boom Baby (a fine reviewer of books and not a terrorist toddler, I hasten to add). You can read the 4/5 review here.

In addition, Bane of Souls is also the Indie Book Club Book of the Month over at Goodreads. A discussion thread about it can be found here.

Thaddeus

An update on where things stand

11/11/2012

It's been a little while since I updated, but fret not, I'm still beavering away.

Redrafting is a mostly mechanical process (problems are identified, listed and then corrected), and I'm up to Ch8 (of 20) of the second redraft. Here and there changes have been a bit tricky but mostly it's going smoothly. Sometimes more creativity's needed (for significant additions/changes) which can be a welcome change from typos and straightening out continuity.

I'll probably take a bit of time off around Christmas/New Year. That said, I plan that most years and end up working because I prefer that to Christmas telly (apparently this year's Top Gear Special is on in February. Hopefully it'll be better than the Indian one).

Regarding Bane of Souls, I'm going to see about approaching more book reviewers for, er, reviews. There are quite a few blogs who do this and it'll hopefully generate some helpful reviews (helpful in the sense of both being positive but also offering some pointers as to where I can improve). Obviously it would've been more cunning to do this immediately, but this is my first book and self-promotion, unlike

And last but not least, the promised Bane of Souls quiz is now up on Goodreads! So, why not see how closely you were paying attention to Captain Urquhart's assorted vices and how Horst was tested by Lucia? The quiz can be found here: http://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/21668-the-bane-of-souls-quiz

Thaddeus

Bane of Souls is now up at Goodreads.com

10/30/2012

Little bit of a Ronseal post, to be honest.

I've been meaning to sign up to Goodreads.com for ages, but I've only just gotten around to it. The site's pretty good, and allows readers to rate books without writing a whole review. That's quite clever, because the proportion of people who write reviews is very low, and just clicking 1-5 stars without having to go in-depth or justify the rating is handy.

The book can be found at: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16114425-bane-of-souls

So, if you've read Bane of Souls why not add it to your shelf and perhaps rate/review it?

I'll probably add some questions in the future, and maybe a quiz.

Thaddeus

Bane of Souls out at Barnes & Noble

6/26/2012

Bane of Souls has come out as a Nook Book at Barnes & Noble. That leaves just Sony and Blio (Baker & Taylor) to go.

I've slowly been getting back into the swing of writing (always takes me a while when I've spent ages redrafting or, in this case, doing all the boring formatting stuff). Pretty happy with the last major characters, whose introduction I've just written.

Thaddeus

Bane of Souls released on Kobo

6/21/2012

Bane of Souls has now come out on Kobo. That just leaves Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Baker & Taylor, I think.

I've also gotten around to doing some fresh banners (one for Kobo, the other for Diesel). Whilst I really like the Amazon/Smashwords ones I didn't want them all to be almost identical.

Both Kobo and Diesel provide ePub non-DRM versions (NB no version of Bane of Souls has DRM, which is, generally speaking, the work of Satan). So, they're good for almost every eReader (Kindle users can of course buy from Smashwords or Amazon).

Bane of Souls has also just come out on Apple at the iTunes store. So, if you want to read it on your iPhone or iPad, now you can.

Drumming up interest is the biggest challenge right now, due to the sheer volume of books out there. So, if you read it and enjoyed it, please do tell your friends and consider writing a review. That sort of thing can really help a new author, and would be greatly appreciated.

Thaddeus

Thaddeus enters the Amazon (with a Diesel)

6/17/2012

Bane of Souls is now out on Amazon, which I'm quite pleased about. I published there directly to save time, but Smashwords will still be automatically distributing the book to a wide range of other retailers.

Quite happy to get this done as I'm neither very good at nor fond of technical, finickity things. Fortunately , formatting the Smashwords version did almost everything necessary for Amazon too.

I think that's the last concrete piece of work needed on Bane of Souls. From now on I'll be splitting my time between writing Altmortis and marketing Bane of Souls. Very much looking forward to getting back to writing, especially as I'm still just a quarter of the way into the first draft, which is always the most fun.

Edited extra bit: Bane of Souls is also now out on Diesel, in ePub format (used by most eReaders, though not the Kindle). You can buy it here.

Thaddeus

Bane of Souls Goes Premium

6/13/2012

One of the biggest reasons to publish on Smashwords (alongside it being free) is the Premium Catalogue.

Basically, if you format your book pretty well then it gets classed as premium and this means it will automatically get shipped to half a dozen retailers without you having to do anything.

I'm very pleased (and relieved) to say that Bane of Souls now has premium status. In a few days to a week I think it'll be shipped to other stores and hopefully become available at them shortly thereafter.

As has been noted, there seems now to be a slight issue/delay with Amazon, which is why I'm planning on publishing there directly as well, but it's still a fantastic feature.

I can't say for certain when the direct Amazon upload will happen, but if I can I'll try and make some progress over the weekend. The formatting is very slightly different to the Smashwords method but similar enough that already having the Smashwords version cut down on my workload quite a lot.

After the Amazon version is up I'll mostly return to working on Altmortis. It'll be nice to get back to writing.

Thaddeus