Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

Another month has passed (a little over a month, actually), and it’s time for another Infinitas Publishing Status Report! 😀

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Fractured Skies: (Book 2 of the Distant Horizon series). Print formatting complete. Paperback edition is now available on Amazon.

That being said, I’m still in the process of proofreading for any formatting errors. Haven’t noticed anything on a precursory glance, but based on Createspace merging to KDP Print and changes to how they do proof copies, I wanted to order the version that would most resemble what the average customer would receive–which requires that the book is live.

There will be another announcement once I have the print version fully proofed.

Everything should be good to go now, based on the digital previewer, but just in case, since it’s possible that there may be formatting issues I haven’t discovered yet, I have the paperback edition currently a couple dollars lower than what its full price will be. (Currently $17.99, will be $19.99).

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). Still need to finish going through the outline with Isaac to make sure everything lines up before I start the rough draft.

I also plan to revisit the outline after I proofread the paperback edition of Fractured Skies, in case there are any plot lines I missed in the first version of the outline.

Lily’s Story: (Distant Horizon series spin-off/prequel novel) On hold.

Lady Black’s Story: Still tossing ideas back and forth. May have narrowed the story down a bit more, and have a better idea of time frame and character motivations.

Sky Runner: (Multiverse novel). On hold, but we have a mostly-complete outline.

The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold. (Needs edits).

Little One: On back burner. Hoping to move forward with inputting Isaac’s notes into the manuscript soon.

Magebane: (Book Three of The Wishing Blade series) Published!

Finished the read-aloud and moved on to proofreading. Finally hit publish and got all the website links updated. Next step will be creating a paperback edition.

TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). Might have a title. I’m currently in progress of writing the basic outline for this story.

Stone and String 3: Hoping to outline this story while working on the outline for book four of The Wishing Blade.

The Secret in the Shadows: (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade) On hold. Needs rewritten. Might try to outline the revisions while working on the outline for The Wishing Blade #4 and Stone and String #3.

The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: We’re about one or two episodes away from finishing the current short story. Exciting times!

A Path of Swords and Feathers: (A prequel short story to The Wishing Blade series). Written, read-aloud, proofread, and published.

This went out as a freebie to TWB newsletter subscribers and members of the Legends of Cirena group. It is now available for purchase across most major online retailers.

“MOG”: On hold. Needs further revision.

Huntress: Need to format the paperback edition.

Huntress 2: Might have a title! Revisions have been made and it’s currently out to beta-readers. Once I make those revisions, I plan to move into the read-aloud stage, then proof and publish. Also, I’ve started on the book cover, but it still needs work.

Huntress 3: Beginning to plot and outline. Hoping to get a rough draft written soon.

Game Design: On hold.

Marketing: Plodding along… plodding along… Nothing really new here. Kind of let the Amazon Ads lapse in March due to a flurry of events, so I’ll need to revisit those soon and decide which ads to kill, which to keep, and what new ones to create.

Also, KDP Rocket (a program I use to help select keywords for ads) has now become Publisher Rocket, and I need to investigate the changes that were made to the program. Should be improvements, once everything is up and running again.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Finished the book formatting and design project I’ve been working on. Working on revising my book cover design process and revitalize the book cover business. Invested a bit in Daz 3D (for better or worse), and I’m planning on creating premade book covers.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold, though I am hosting a month-long Book Funnel giveaway in the genre if you’re interested in giving it a try. 🙂

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That’s all for now! 🙂

Magebane Launch Day

Magebane is here! 😀

(Today and Saturday only, grab it for 99 cents from any of the major online retailers! After that, it’ll go back to regular price.)

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | BN.com | iTunes | Kobo | Smashwords

Magebane is the continuation of The Wishing Blade series, picking up where The Shadow War left off. Only this time Siklana has a larger role to play, as does Shevanlagiy.

But don’t fret! Toranih and Daernan still have their own stories to tell as well.

Find out what happens next in…

“Magebane”

The Wishing Blade Series #3

YA Fantasy

Will magebane save the world?
Or destroy it?

In Shevanlagiy’s quest to save her childhood friend from death, she has destroyed numerous worlds. Sometimes on accident. Sometimes as revenge.

She’s close to achieving her goal. Daernan is still alive.

But for how long?

When a goddess grants her a vision of a deadly substance—magebane—being shipped across the kingdom, Shevanlagiy realizes her carefully laid plans to protect Daernan are falling apart faster than she can rework them.

Daernan has magic from the gods, magic that will not only kill him if it comes in contact with magebane, but will start a terrible chain reaction that could unravel the fabric of this world—

A world she’s not yet ready to destroy.

Delve into the danger of Magebane by reading this exciting continuation of The Wishing Blade series today!

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | BN.com | iTunes | Kobo | Smashwords

Not quite ready to buy?

Click here to download the first five sample chapters!

Enjoy! 😀

Meet Siklana – The Wishing Blade Series

I’ve been having a bit of fun learning Daz, a 3D modeling program. Long story short, the base program is free, but you can buy additional assets–clothes, hair, facial morphs, etc–that allow you to customize your characters.

It’s fun, because it’s been giving me freedom to create characters from my stories that I can pose and light without searching through endless stock photos. (There are other limitations compared to photomanipulation, and avoiding the uncanny valley is tricky, but each type of art has its trade-off).

A few weeks ago I grabbed a bundle on sale for face and body morphs, and it’s been giving me a lot of room to tweak characters how I picture them.

The first character I completed (face, anyway), is Siklana Covonilayno from The Wishing Blade series.

Siklana Covonilayno

Siklana is Toranih’s sister. While Siklana plays a fairly minor role in the first two books (Magic’s Stealing and The Shadow War), she has her own point of view and plays a major role in book three… Magebane.

Excerpt from Magebane:

After Shalant paid for a room at the nearest inn, Siklana and Daernan left their horses with the local stable girl and went upstairs to a small, square bedroom that offered little privacy. Mid-afternoon sunlight filtered through a window’s canvas covering. Shalant ordered them to unpack anything important from their saddlebags into the room so he could ward the area for protection.

“Perhaps we could ward the stable instead?” Siklana suggested. The cramped room hardly had enough space for all the books and scrolls stashed in her mare’s saddlebags.

Shalant glanced up from tucking a bag of dry goods into the corner beside his bed. “The stable hand wouldn’t be able to tend to the horses.” He pushed the bag aside, stood, and then dusted his knees of dirt. The smoke from Ashan had brought a thin layer of soot to everything in town.

Siklana shared a nervous glance with Daernan. The mage would find out about the books eventually. “I doubt we can fit all your word magic scrolls.”

Shalant turned around, puzzled. “Word magic scrolls? What are you…” His sentence trailed, and from the flicker of his eyes to the door, Siklana suspected he was using scrying ribbons to see what was in those bags. He gave her an incredulous glare. “You brought my library?”

She smiled sheepishly. “The books might help us find a way to bring Toranih back from the shadow realm. Besides, if Ashan has been overrun by Lord Menchtoteale, do you really want him finding your books? Imagine what Isahna could do with them.”

“You brought my library,” Shalant repeated, as if the notion couldn’t register in his brain.

She nodded. “Obviously I couldn’t take everything, but I tried to grab the ones that looked useful. There are still a few things left in your attic.”

 

This is a full-body render using only image-based lighting (IBL).

It’s the first test run of Siklana’s 3D model with her new outfit (trying to find something that reasonably fit her character, which I didn’t initially have). I need to find and fit shoes for her, too, but this is a start.

I’m still learning Daz, so more work needs to be done, but it should give an idea of her character. 🙂

Interested in seeing the development process? Let me know. I have some notes on the process, and I’d be happy to go more into it if anyone is curious.

In the meantime, keep an eye on this blog for more news about Magebane, which is coming soon.

Let me know if you’d like to see more characters rendered in the future! 😀

A Path of Swords and Feathers – A Wishing Blade Short Story

Ever wonder about the adventures of some of The Wishing Blade’s secondary characters?

“A Path of Swords and Feathers” is a short story (10,000 words) following the character of Nihestan / Shalant (Daernan’s father) during his youth, shortly after he took on his first mission for the goddess.

If you like some of my other short stories (such as “Stone and String” or “The Wind Mage of Maijev”) you might enjoy this. It’s a mostly stand-alone story, though having some knowledge of the world from the various other stories will help. 🙂

This story got its start with the Legends of Cirena Facebook group, after a failed attempt to Photoshop a gryphon sparked ideas about what kind of immortal this new creature might be…

And this story is the result. 😉

Before the Wishing Blade was forged, a young weapon mage embarks on a journey to protect those he loves…

“A Path of Swords and Feathers”

A Fantasy Short Story

Before the Wishing Blade was forged, a young weapon mage embarks on a journey to protect those he loves…

He serves the goddess of the dead.

Though Nihestan longs to see his family, his duty to his goddess leads him to the far reaches of the kingdom. But once he arrives, she refuses to answer his summons.
Not without an offering–

An offering he can’t afford. 
In need of money, he freelances as a bodyguard for a family heading deep into the northern mountains. Given how happy they are together, he wonders if he should have stayed home.
If he should be protecting those closest to his heart.

But his goddess may yet have her own plans for him… 
And the families he can save.

Explore the trials of Nihestan’s past…

Read “A Path of Swords and Feathers” today!

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | BN.com | iTunes | Kobo | Smashwords

In the meantime, keep an eye out for news about Magebane, the third book of The Wishing Blade series, coming soon!

And don’t forget, if you want to read more Cirenan short stories and help direct the actions of the characters, check out the Legends of Cirena collaborative adventure Facebook group!

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

It’s time for another Infinitas Publishing Status Report! 😀

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Fractured Skies: (Book 2 of the Distant Horizon series). Print formatting almost complete. Got sidetracked trying to complete other projects, but the majority of the formatting is now done, so I plan to order a copy to proof in March (probably once I have Huntress also formatted). At that time I’ll also start the process of checking the other print books to make sure they’re still printing correctly due to the switch from Createspace to KDP Print.

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). Rough outline/synopsis written, and it comes in at 13,500 words. Isaac and I have gone through almost a third of the outline thus far in the process of finalizing it. We’re trying to tighten up the outline before I start the writing/revision stage in order to spend less time rewriting it later.

Lily’s Story: (Distant Horizon series spin-off/prequel novel) On hold.

Lady Black’s Story: Isaac and I are tossing around ideas for a young Lady Black prequel to Distant Horizon. Haven’t yet outlined this yet, though.

Sky Runner: (Multiverse novel). On hold while working on major projects. But we do have a rough outline.

The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold. (Needs edits).

Little One: I’ve started inputting Isaac’s notes into the manuscript for editing, but had to put that on the back burner while focusing on Magebane edits.

Magebane: (Book Three of The Wishing Blade series) Revisions complete! (Finally… this took a lot longer than I expected and set a few other projects back, including having Fractured Skies formatted).

Isaac and I are currently in the process of the read-aloud, but it’s a bit slower going than usual since he also has schoolwork. Due to some of the major changes that happened during the most recent stage of revisions, there’s a pretty high chance that I’m going to send this back out for one more round of beta-reading to make sure there’s not something we’re missing.

But I’m a lot happier with the pacing and how everything ties together now. (Seems like it’s following in The Shadow War’s footsteps in terms of those big edits).

Next step will be outlining TWB book four in hopes of avoiding the need for those bigger revisions.

Stone and String 3: On hold until the outline for book four of The Wishing Blade series can be written.

The Secret in the Shadows: (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade) On hold. I’m kind of thinking about rewriting chunks of this now that Magebane has been tightened up, since I saw some changes there that I think may be useful to apply to this story.

The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: Just finished the third story, and we’ve now started an all new story this week! (Now’s a great time to join in if you want to influence the direction of the character and plot).

The Wind Mage of Maijev: (A Legends of Cirena Short Story) Polished, read-aloud, proofread, and published! Now available! Seems to be getting good reception, and it’s looking like I need to write the sequel soon. I’m tossing around a few ideas regarding how to approach that, since I want to give the Legends of Cirena group a chance to have a say in it’s progress, while also continuing to write the stories for new characters. Not quite sure how readers are going to react to having the Legends of Cirena be a short story series that I plan to have jumping from character to character between each individual story, rather than following the same plot throughout the course of the series.

Nihestan/Shalant’s Story: (A prequel short story to The Wishing Blade series). As a thank you to TWB newsletter subscribers for filling out the survey for their newsletter preferences, and influenced by feedback on a gryphon-gone-wrong design I showed to the Legends of Cirena group, I’ve got plans to write a short story following Shalant as a young man when he first left his family for the Immortal Realm. The ideas are there, as are bits and pieces of a rough draft. Hoping to have that drafted soon.

“MOG”: On hold. Needs further revision.

Huntress: For now, I’m leaving this in KU (Kindle Unlimited). It’s doing well there, and with a sequel in the works, I want to finish the series before pulling it out and going wide across multiple retailers.

Once I’ve finished formatting the print edition of Fractured Skies, I’ll move on to formatting the print edition of Huntress.

Now I’ve just got to decide if I want to release Huntress in a 5.25 x 8 format (like The Wishing Blade series) or 6 x 9 format (like the Distant Horizon series).

Huntress 2: Still not titled, but the rough draft has been polished and I’m currently waiting to hear back from beta-readers.

Plus, I have ideas in mind for the third book, as well as a spin-off, stand-alone novel if readers like a certain character who shows up in book two. 🙂

Game Design: On hold.

Marketing: Sent out surveys in The Wishing Blade and Distant Horizon newsletters for feedback, and based on that feedback I’ve decided to make The Wishing Blade newsletter monthly (like the Huntress newsletter… which I’m going to start sending out monthly as of tomorrow, since I forgot to make note of it on my schedule and thus didn’t remember to send it out last month), while the Distant Horizon newsletter will stay mostly the same. However, both of the main newsletters now have a “Writer’s Life” section added to them where I go on about what Isaac and I have been doing lately or favorite video games… things like that.

From the Distant Horizon newsletter survey, I also found that several of our reader’s prefer using Google Play to buy their books, so I’ve managed to get an account set up. It’ll be a little while before I get the books formatted and included through that retailer, but the process has been started. (However, it’s worth noting that Draft2Digital just announced today that they are now beta-testing distributing through Google Play, for those who don’t want the hassle of dealing with Google Play directly).

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Almost finished finalizing the polished formatting and cover design for a client.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold.

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There’s a lot in the works, but that’s all for now! 😀

The Wind Mage of Maijev – Now Available!

Good news! “The Wind Mage of Maijev,” the first of the Legends of Cirena short stories written for the collaborative adventure Facebook group, is now available as an ebook!

This is a stand-alone short story that takes place approximately 200 years before the events of The Wishing Blade series and the Stone and String series.

 

A wind mage in a city that hates magic…

“The Wind Mage of Maijev”

YA Fantasy Short Story

A wind mage in a city that hates magic…

Livena is a young woman living in Maijev’s southern quarters, staying ahead in life by working odd jobs. When her brother entrusts her with selling a pile of books in the undercity, it seems like another normal day.

Until she senses a dangerous storm brewing.

Most would hunker down until the storm passes. But Livena’s deplorable wind magic lacks control, and weathering out a storm inside only invites trouble.

The storm won’t stay outside where it belongs.

If Livena can’t make it home before the storm, and her magic gets exposed, it’s only a matter of time before a deadly mage hunter unravels her secret.

Explore the magic in this exciting short story…

Read “The Wind Mage of Maijev” today!

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | BN.com | iTunes | Kobo | Smashwords

Enjoy! 😀

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

December has come and gone, along with the busy holidays. We did a lot of traveling and got to spend time with family. Overall, it was a good trip. Not quite as much done with the company due to the holidays, but that was expected. Now it’s time for the Infinitas Publishing Status Report! 😀

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Fractured Skies: (Book 2 of the Distant Horizon series). Part of the print edition has been formatted (mostly as a test to get the rough page count), but I’m hoping to finish the formatting process and order a proof copy in February.

Also, since CreateSpace (the printer of our books) has merged with KDP Print, we’ll need to have a second look at our currently published print books to see if any adjustments need to be made.

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). I’ve read through the rough draft I wrote several years ago, making notes on each section for an overarching outline. Some of it is salvageable (with edits), and some isn’t, and about 20,000-30,000 words need to be reallocated to book 4. (The current draft clocked in at around 160,000, but needs to be divided as we realized there was not only enough planned for two different books, but also two major climaxes).

I finished reading the rough draft before the break, but the next step will be to look through those notes and divide the story, then create an outline from the remaining notes to figure out what still needs to be written, rewritten, and revised.

Lily’s Story: (Distant Horizon series spin-off novel) On hold.

Sky Runner: During the break, Isaac and I constructed a rough outline for this project. Still has some parts that need fleshed out, but overall the concept is now there (including a rough pitch). However, I don’t anticipate starting on this project until other major projects are complete.

However, there will be airship pirates. And dragon eggs. And a frazzled, slightly naive beastmaster trying to clear his name after being framed for theft.

The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold. (Needs edits).

Little One: On hold. (Needs revisions per Isaac’s notes). I’m hoping to start revisions sometime in the next couple of months, but we’ll see.

Magebane: (Book Three of The Wishing Blade series) I’ve started the process of writing in the new scenes and editing for consistency. Hoping to do a read-aloud with Isaac sometime in the next month. If all goes well, I’ll move on to proofreading. If he finds major issues, then this may need to go back out to beta-readers before release.

Stone and String 3: On hold until Magebane is complete and the outline for book four of The Wishing Blade series can be written.

The Secret in the Shadows: (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade series) Feedback received from beta-readers and a round of revisions complete. Handed to Isaac during the trip, however, he found several consistency issues. Plus, after reading the first half of The Art of Language Invention by David J. Peterson, I’m seeing the potential to do a lot more with the whole prophecy “lost in translation” issue that I original wanted to play with in this story.

As such, I’m putting this one on hold until I can do more development and better work out the plot. I’m suspecting this one might not actually release until after The Wishing Blade series is complete, since it heralds some of the events for the series we have planned afterwards.

The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: Second story complete, and third story in progress. See “The Wind Mage of Maijev” below for news on the first short story.

The Wind Mage of Maijev: (A Legends of Cirena Short Story) Basic revisions are complete and feedback gathered from my beta-reader. I’m now in the process of polishing the story, and then doing a read-aloud with Isaac and preparing it for publication.

I currently have a rough blurb created and a semi-polished cover. If all goes well, I’ll be releasing this at the end of January. 😀

“MOG”: On hold. Needs further revision.

Huntress: Huntress is now available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited (KU)!

I’m testing it in KU first to see how it goes. At this point, I have a sequel in the works, and I’ll probably launch that one in KU as well, waiting until the series is complete before releasing it wide across other retailers.

Next step will be to make the print edition for Huntress.

Huntress 2: Not yet titled, though I have a rough draft already written (from the November NaNoWriMo. Plans are for it to be a Cinderella retelling. Hoping to work on revisions next month so I can send it out to beta-readers soon.

Also, I already have ideas for book 3. 😉

Game Design: On hold… though we did take notes after playing one of our work-in-progress games with family during the trip!

Marketing: Occasionally dabbling in Facebook ads… but I need to do more research before putting a strong emphasis on those. Thus far I haven’t had much luck with them.

In the meantime I’m continuing to research and learn Amazon Ads. I also attempted a test of adding meta-data to certain pages on the Infinitas Publishing website. Waiting to see if that brings any additional traffic.

I also still need to update this blog with information on Huntress, as well as adjust the side bar.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Print book formatting started for a client; need to do polishing touches and wrap-around cover.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold due to wanting to develop story a bit more before release.

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That’s all for now! 😀