July 2025 Newsletter
Hey, Folks - Yes, I’m late again, but for a slightly different reason. I was cranking on a round of edits for book 2. With my new editor, we call this the first round of edits (really it’s more like the third round, but more on that in a bit).
As always, the biggest hurdle is publicity. I appreciate any reviews on my amazon page or my goodreads page; tell your friends, I really appreciate it.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard?ref=nav_profile_authordash
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DHZZQPFG
Two big items this month. First up, I’d like to welcome a new artist, Steve Rookard, to the team with a technique that I honestly didn’t think of before. Take a look below
First, this is a sample from his portfolio, not an image that’ll be in the book, so don’t jump to any conclusions. Second, you might be thinking ‘whoa, this is a way different art style than anything you’ve shown us before’ and you’re right, BUT, we’re not done showcasing Steve’s techniques. Steve draws in 3d, but there are some techniques that he uses that, honestly, really surprised me and open up a world of possibility.
This is another drawing from Steve’s portfolio and, yes, it’s still a 3d drawing. You may recognize it as a U.S. Army LMTV (Light Medium Tactical Vehicle). What Steve does is he exports to another drawing software and uses some finishing techniques to transform it into something more like a sketch. So, you can kind of see how you can’t tell it’s 3d drawn. So, then we can see how his finishing techniques transform a person.
Right? Same woman. Drawn in 3d on the left and with different finishing techniques in the middle and on the right. So, what I’m envisioning with Steve’s help, is a scene with a lot of characters in it. So this is going to take care of two problems. First, each person, object, structure, character can be drawn as if it’s a focus, positioned in the environment, and then the snapshot can be taken from a point. In that snapshot, everything is rendered in perspective.
The second thing that it’ll help with is that the characters, being 3d models, can be repositioned and/or another snapshot can be taken from a different perspective. This lets us have a scene in progression. So, this really does have a lot of possibility in ways that I hadn’t considered. If I’m drawing it or most any other (2d) artist is drawing a scene, just moving a character and reposing them is a whole re-drawing of that character. A picture of the same scene from another point of view is a whole new drawing.
Here’s a same of one of the characters that Steve has been working on for this drawing.
This is Mersik, formerly of the Talz tribe of Goblins, later of the Domiar tribe. You’ll meet her in Book 2, Unseen Wrath.
So, again, a happy welcome to Steve Rookard to the team. That’s the first big thing.
The second big thing is that we’re heading to O-CON (Omaha Convention) this weekend, July 11th-13th. Despite being named for Omaha (I think), it’s in Council Bluffs, IA (across the Missouri River from Omaha). I’m told by event coordinators that there are typically 5000-9000 ticket holders. It’s a convention of comic artists, cosplayers, authors, (voice) actors, etc. This is my first convention as a seller of anything. I’d like to say I’m excited, but candidly, I’m more nervous.
Their website: https://www.theoconexpo.com/
Their instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ocomiccon/
To prepare, we had to get some bling.
Four posters and an eight-foot banner
Put the posters in a frame so they look nice and stand up. This’ll bring people to the table (hopefully).
Postcards. 2500 of them (the secret ingredient is money).
And bookmarks. 2000 of them between the three types. Two of these are actually quotes from book 1. ‘No more tea is had by me,’ is a line from Tyrnimar towards the end of book 1. Between the other two, can you guess which one is an actual line from book 1 and which one is just bait? Hm? Goblin lattes is just bait. You won’t encounter anything like that until book 2 (and, no, there are no lattes (and, yes, that is intentional innuendo)). ‘You shining jar of hot piss’ is a rage bait line from late in book 1.
QR codes on the back of the bookmarks and postcards go to my website or my instagram. Also got a bunch of business cards, but didn’t want to dig them up.
I will have a cost breakdown for you next month, with the price per bookmark and all of that, but the point of this endeavor, ostensibly, is to make money so I can do this full time. Let me assure you, the event by itself will be a loss, but that is not necessarily the case for the future. I am bringing just over 100 books. I will make back ~$9.65 per book sale (after print costs and shipping, etc.), but that goes against the cost of the table at the convention, afore-mentioned bling, the hotel, gas, etc. That said, I’ve asked a few other authors that I know and they tell me that they generally sell 20-60 books per event (and they have multiple books out). This will be a loss, but that’s not the point. If the convention has, say 6000 people turn out over three days and 30% of them visit my table and take a bookmark, postcard, or business card without buying a book, that’s 1800 people that might later go and buy a book. Let’s assume only 5% of those people do that, that’s still 90 new readers.
On the note of conventions, I applied to Planet Anime Kansas City (November 21-23) back in May. A couple weeks ago, I got word that we’re waitlisted for it with a possible change/update in early August. Keep your fingers crossed.
Alright. Like I said, first round of editing done. The reason that I differentiate is that I had been over it twice before for consistency (not having two characters in the same place at once, consistency in characters’ appearance, etc.). But, I am quite the noob author and am not blessed with grammatical precision. Nothing takes the place of a review from a seasoned editor. But nothing takes the place of the author’s review. Both have their place and both will catch things. Second round will be after O-Con. I had hoped to get book 2 out this past month, which turned into October/November (in time for Planet Anime), but there are a number of staffing and life challenges with no end in sight.
Related on that last point, I have started a course of instruction to prepare for a CompTIA A+ certification and plan to get a Security+ certification after that. As I mentioned back in August and September, almost a year ago, this is a time of great change and transformation.
Oh, last business thing for this month. I had been mildly frustrated with having a messy URL for my author page on Facebook. I quick search for ‘how to have a clean URL on Facebook’ revealed that I had to claim my page name. So, I had a username, but I had to go into settings and find a sub-sub-sub menu where you set the handle on your page. No one told me, but I’m telling you.
Song of the month, stumbled across this gem. Never finished the game, but great soundtracks from all the Westwood Studios Games: The Legend of Kyrandia II: The Hand of Fate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk7mbO1EBkc&list=RDqk7mbO1EBkc&start_radio=1&t=1317s
Stay classy, folks.
