That’s a long word, isn’t it? Okay, it’s not that long. Anyway, in this case it’s an indication that if you’re reading this looking for information/news on the Aneka Jansen books or my other sci-fi stuff, you should go look elsewhere:
Witches and Ray-Guns is taking over as the place to go for all my books.
I now have three blogs related to my stories and me. There’s this one, Thaumatology, and Witches and Ray-guns. The original idea was to keep the sci-fi and fantasy series separate, and I wanted a blog for ‘other things.’ However, I admit it would be easier to handle things if they were all in the same place, and it’s confusing to some, so here’s the bit where I ask your opinion.
If I merge the blogs everything will move to Witches and Ray-guns. I will continue to put links here whenever I am releasing an Aneka book for a while, but the aim will be to stop that at the end of this year. If you’re not a fan of my fantasy stuff you’ll get more announcements about books you aren’t interested in, but I’m not especially loud so I hope that won’t be a problem.
Does anyone think this is a terrible idea and will hate me to the end of days for doing it?
Is out. Coming to iTunes and Amazon soon, I’m told, but it’s available on Audible.
You can listen to a sample on those pages. Now I need to look into getting it promoted…
Okay, silly title, but… It was not my intention to give Smashwords a one day lead on Hope, in fact I set the process going with Amazon a few minutes before I uploaded to Smashwords. Amazon do not usually take almost 24 hours to get their act together and I’m going to prod them to find out what’s up. I was holding off on the announcement until it came through on Amazon, but several people have already noticed the book’s out.
You can download the seventh Aneka Jansen book here. Right now. Right there!
I’ll let you know when Amazon respond. And apparently they were listening. It’s now available:
And, once again, it’s available at Smashwords.
Don’t try to figure out who the blonde on the right is guys, you’ve never met her. Hope will be out on Thursday. I mean, if I released it tomorrow no one would believe me, right? (But it might go a little early. Maybe.)
Meanwhile, another thing of note is http://witchesandrayguns.wordpress.com, which is a blog I just started to handle more “me” stuff rather than book stuff. If you’re a big fan of Aneka and think I suck, don’t go look at that blog. Otherwise you may find some useful bits and bobs being posted. It does echo to my usual social media targets too.
If you follow me on Twitter you’ll have seen that Gabrielle de Cuir finished up the review recording for Steel Beneath the Skin a couple of days ago. I’ve spent the last couple of evenings going through it. As it stands there’s 11 hours 32 minutes of audio here and I’m still working through it. I got to the end of part 3 last night and I thought “should update the troops.”
So… I’m kind of jazzed. (Just to be clear, I don’t think I ever use that phrase in real life, but it somehow seems right. I may be buzzed instead). There are a couple of things that I think need fixing, but it’s technical stuff. So far I have not come across a single sentence where I’m thinking “Oh I really don’t see that as how it should sound.” Gabrielle has captured the story and the world as well as I could have hoped for. I am enjoying listening to something that I know backwards. I mean, I’ve read Steel a lot of times. Some of you have possibly read it more often, but I’ve read it a lot and I’m not a big one for re-reading books. It takes a lot to spark that interest again. Monday night I came home feeling fairly bad and watched a movie to try to get myself in a fit state to listen. And then I sat down to part one, and when it finished it was about forty minutes into Tuesday and I had work in the morning, and I still had to force myself not to start part two.
Part four tonight. Can’t wait.
…writing something. Seriously, there’s nothing much to tell, but I felt like I needed to post something. So, uh…
Did I mention that Aneka 7 has a title? The seventh in the Aneka Jansen series will be called Hope. I have figured out the problems with it, more or less, and I’m aiming to have the first redraft ready by the end of this week. Publication is going to be around Easter.
The second in the Ultrahumans series, Shadows, has been languishing in Plot Hell for a while now, but I recently had an epiphany. when Hope is done I’ll be kicking off on that again. It needs more work than Hope so I don’t have a release date, but it should be soon(ish). I already have a cover for Shadows which I think may be one of the better ones I’ve ever done, but I’ll share that closer to release.
And that’s about all I’m going to say for now. Have a good week!
So, the road to audio continues. At the weekend I was sent the first 15 minutes of the audiobook of Steel Beneath the Skin to approve. I approved. It’s just… strange. I listen to audiobooks a fair bit and this is someone reading my writing to me. I think it’s going to be good, but I may be prejudiced.
I also put the cover up on ACX, and DeviantArt. It re-rendered it because audiobook covers are square. You get a bit more leg than on the ebook and paperback. I won’t repost the picture, but you’ll find the big version here.
As an aside, Kate On A Hot Tin Roof, the first of the Unobtainium series, is in proofing. Expect that to hit the stands very soon.
…contact with the enemy.
In this case, I’m the enemy. I am not happy with the next Aneka book. It needs… more. Not sure what it needs more of, but it needs it. I remember watching The Dark Knight in the cinema and coming out thinking, ‘That film was too long. It needed cutting.’ It took me a while to realise that the only bits you could cut, being essentially extraneous to the plot, where some of the best bits of the film. There’s nothing wrong with the film, but it just seems to go on forever. (And it’s actually not as bad on the second viewing.) This book is a bit like that, but instead it’s something I need to add. The word count is a little short, but that’s not the main problem. It just seems a bit abrupt, maybe. What’s there is fine, but there needs to be more… something.
Whatever, I am not putting out a book I’m not happy with, but I am going to get a book out and I have one that I can have ready for the the beginning of February. Going to mean I’m working hard to have it ready, but I can, and will, do it. It’s something new. Steampunk is the closest genre I can get to it, but it’s not exactly steampunk, nor is it dieselpunk. Retro-sci-fi fits nicely, but like most of my stuff it doesn’t really like being categorised.
So, look for Kate On a Hot Tin Roof appearing in early February. When I have an exact release date, so will you.
Well, me, but the person who will be turning Aneka into a real person is Gabrielle de Cur. The selection was made based on my own preferences and a little audience testing, and Gabrielle has accepted my offer so we’re winging our way to an audiobook of Steel Beneath the Skin.
Seriously, this was not easy. I’ve been listening to auditions as they came in and a few were just not what I wanted (for this book; if I do others there are some names I’ll be remembering), but the majority went in the maybe pile. I’ve flicked through other recordings on the ACX site as well to see the range these ladies can manage. Last night I sat down with the 12 audition recordings I had and narrowed those down to four I thought fitted the series well. And then I listened to those recordings, several times. In the end, this is an entirely subjective choice and I know it. It really came down to two choices and my ‘test audience’ liked Gabrielle. I made her an offer and was accepted quite promptly.
Then I went off to look at her resume, so to speak. I hadn’t actually thought of doing so until the last minute. It went something like, “Oh wow, she did the Ender’s Game audiobook.” (Not my genre, but I know it’s a big thing.) “Oh… wow, she won an award… Oh wow, she was nominated for a Grammie!” So at least one of us has a clue what we’re doing here. I consider this a good thing.
You’ll find Gabrielle over on Skyboat Media’s web site. You’ll find me hiding under the table.
Steel Beneath the Skin 