Works in Progress

So, as I wrote last week, I’ve spent the last six days focusing on my own novels, mostly the Legends books as I spiff them up in preparation for the release of The Shattered Drum, the last one in the series. I’d hoped to start work on Song of the Shaman, the second installment in my spinoff series, also set in Russia but in the 1540s, an even more troubled time in that country’s history than the 1530s, and involving some of the same characters. But now that Friday has dawned, it’s pretty clear that’s not going to happen during this break. So what have I been doing?

Well, the second edition of The Golden Lynx has appeared on Amazon for print and Kindle, although we’re still working out the kinks when it comes to linking the files—both print and Kindle and first and second editions. You can get the new e-book no problem, but running a search stubbornly turns up the older print edition, no longer available for sale (the print link above will take you to the right place). It looks as if Amazon is correcting the print/Kindle links as we speak, though. And the customer service rep did a stellar job of cleaning up the e-book formatting, which had become inexplicably distorted in the “Look Inside This Book” feature despite being perfect in the e-book itself. If you happened to see it in its multi-size, multi-font, all centered glory, try again. I swear, I do know how books should look!

The new Golden Lynx is also uploaded to Ingram Spark, although not yet available because I want to check the physical proof before I approve it for distribution. It has an official publication date of July 30 and an on-sale date of August 15. That was another learning experience, although the print proof passed on the second try and the site seems in general easy to use, if more expensive than CreateSpace. Both have great help files and extraordinary customer service, so in general it’s been a positive experience. Useful, too, as some of my fellow Five Directions Press authors want to list with Ingram Spark as well, and now I have a better sense of how to prepare their files and what to warn them about.

In addition to that, I’ve revised The Vermilion Bird (insignificant changes such as adding the book link for The Shattered Drum and stripping out one ad for another) and The Winged Horse (small but significant changes to make Tulpar more consistent with his later self). The box set of Legends 1–3 will be ready as soon as I finish reading through The Swan Princess, which I’m doing now. The second box set will soon follow. The Shattered Drum is available for preorder on Kindle. The print edition has already been proofed twice and has only the teeniest adjustments still to include in the final PDF. That will probably go up next weekend, to give the computers time to link the two editions before the release date.

With all these changes to account for, I’ve updated the Five Directions Press site, the books and bio pages on this blog, and my own site. I’ve even discovered the magic button that relinks this blog to my author site. Any day now, I’ll have a moment to record an excerpt from The Shattered Drum and add that to the two sites—maybe on Thursday, when my next New Books in Historical Fiction is supposed to take place. The print excerpts must wait until the official release of the Kindle book on July 16.

I’ve had a couple of weird experiences during all this. CreateSpace has twice freaked out about whether I have the right to update my own novels—this after six years!—forcing me to hunt down and scan the official copyright registration forms that I fortunately signed up for. Meanwhile, the Electronic Copyright Office registration site has been down since Tuesday, so I can’t clear up the mystery of why my application for The Swan Princess remains open even though I mailed the deposit copies in April 2016 or verify that my registration of Shattered Drum “took.” Which could get exciting if CreateSpace starts questioning my right to produce those novels....

But otherwise, it’s been a very productive week. And now I have to run off and work on The Swan Princess corrections, because I have only three more days before work barrels back down the pike at full speed!