Year of Accountability: 3/8-3/14 Sickness & Soccer

It’s been a crazy week, but here’s a teaser of the new cover of The Last Gladiator to make your day!


Hi all,

It’s been a crazy week! Between starting soccer, and getting sick with a nasty bug that doesn’t want to let my voice go, it’s been a tricky time. Such is life! I’ve made only a little headway on projects due to convalescing. But I can announce that I’ll be ready to release the cover art for the Last Gladiator this upcoming week! So some progress!

I also realized that I never actually set a goal for this week! Eek!

So for this next wee, I want to get to the 35,000 word mark in the Last Gladiator. That’s my aimed end point, and I’d love to actually be able to get this thing done. Before that, here’s a teaser!

Screen Shot 2020-03-08 at 10.09.54 AM.png

 

Laurel Emperor Cover Reveal!

Check out the final book of the Steam Empire Chronicles!


It’s time! Time for you to see the most impressive cover of the Steam Empire Chronicles series. Without further ado, here it is!

LaurelEmperor_1600-Barnes-and-Noble

LaurelEmperor_3D-BookeCover-transparent_background

Let me know what you think! What are you most looking forward to?

Cover Art Revealed! – Day 18!

Cover Art Reveal Time!


Hi everyone… Welcome to the event you’ve all been waiting for…. The Cover Reveal for Steel Praetorian!

steel-praetorian-1600-barnes-and-noblesteel-praetorian-3d-bookcover-transparent_background

Let me know what you all think! I’m extremely excited to share this with you!

If this cover art gets your blood pumping, and you want to know the backstory, read my first three novels. Remember, Iron Tribune is on sale all November long! Get it now while it’s only $3.99! All my books are available on AmazonBarnes and Noble, or through Apple via Smashwords, and remember to like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for more frequent updates throughout NaNoWriMo2016!

Day 16 – We’re close to the end!

COVER ART IS COMING!


Steel Praetorian has a cover (or at least, a first draft) and an entirely formatted book! Which means it should be done soon! OH MY GOSH I’M SO EXCITED! Estimated Book release date is the 1st of December, which gives me time to do some more blog posts, put it on sale for pre-order, get some proof copies in, and send out review copies.

If you’re a blogger that’s interested in getting a pre-release copy of Steel Praetorian for review, let me know!

For tonight, that’s all!

Current Word Count – Laurel Emperor: 23,500 – Not much progress but it’s been a crazy week here – plus getting sick never helps!

Day 9 – A non-teaser update

A very brief update to continue my month of blogging.


Hi everyone!

Today’s just a quick update to tell you that we’ve reached the 15,000 word mark! Hurray! Also, the illustrations for Steel Praetorian are nearing completion, and I expect the formatting and cover art to be done shortly as well. I’m thinking the release date will be around the 1st of December, giving me a break between the Thanksgiving holidays (When no one is paying attention) and the Christmas holidays (when no one is paying attention).

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s not to try and compete with huge multinationals that can throw bazillions on advertising!

Anyways, enjoy the day!

Ciao!

Finally, something new to post about.

A mini-posting that will lead to a future, bigger posting!


Long time no see! (That’s what being in the real world will get ya!)

So in case you hadn’t figured it out, I’ve been slammed with school recently. Plus, I’ve been finding it very hard to get motivated. The last chapter of Antioch Burns is sitting there, staring at me, practically begging me to pick it up and dominate it into the ground. And yet…I struggle. Pah, the struggle of a young author…

But I digress.

I should have something new for you blog wise tomorrow. Maybe then you’ll figure out what else has been draining my time, so to speak.

Oh, and did I mention that Antioch Burns’ cover is in the works now (finally!). I’m super excited to see it, it should look really cool and mesh well with the story…. In the meantime, stay focused, my friends.

Ciao

Copper Centurion Cover Art Reveal

Cover Art for Copper Centurion is out! Check it out and learn more about the progress of my kickstarter campaign!


Happy Long Weekend everyone!

Hopefully people are out enjoying their long weekend, but if you are stuck at home (or, like me, poor, grading work, and stuck at home) then take a moment to check out the cover for Copper Centurion. I’m really excited to be bringing this to you. Those of you who look closely may spot some clues to some parts of the story! But I’m not giving any more clues!

Continue reading “Copper Centurion Cover Art Reveal”

10 Things to do Before Publishing Your Novel (Besides Editing)

10 things every aspiring author should do before their book comes back from editing!


Hello all!

So it’s been about 4 weeks now since I sent Brass Legionnaire off to the editor. I’ll admit freely, once it was out of my hands, I sort of… blanked. I was truly faced with a ‘now what’ type of situation. So for the last couple weeks I’ve been trying to tie up other loose ends that I figured I might as well get done now. So in my free time (My day job and graduate school keep me fairly busy, so that’s rare right now!) I put together a list of a few things that you can do while waiting for the book to come back.

1. Get some nice cover art (Mine was handled by the great people over at Streetlight Graphics, but you can also check out 99 designs or deviantart and post a job offer on either one.) Alternatively, if you’re a great artist or have a deft hand on photoshop, hunt down what you like and tweak it in the best ways. Great way to do it on the cheap if you need to.

2. Set up a personal author blog or website (Like this one) or perhaps even a website just for your book or series. However, don’t jump the gun too early. I have my entire website ready to go on Wix – a flash driven site that is really quick and simple to use – but I haven’t gone live yet because I feel a bit silly doing it without a product to show! Since I can’t do ‘preorders’ I’m simply holding off until the book goes live, then I’ll probably buy one of the smaller packages just so that I can get my domain name (and not have to worry about having other stuff in my URL), but I’ll save my money until then!

3. Set up a business/promotion plan – How will you promote your book? What will you do? Will you advertise? if so, where? Who is your specific target audience? What is best for them? Text ads, picture ads? You’re going to have to do some hard thinking on this one. Don’t limit yourself just to facebook or google. There are a variety of other sites out there that host ads, so find one that is more likely to be frequented by the people you are targeting!

4. Create a free audiobook sample of your first chapter. A lot of people offer a ‘free sample’ of their book to entice readers in. Even if you don’t plan on doing a full audiobook, a sample chapter (read by you, or someone you know whose voice is better!) can draw in a whole host of new people. Make it free on iTunes, put it up on YouTube. The more exposure, the more likely you are to rope someone in who is actually interested! Personally, I’d want to make it a full audiobook eventually, but in the meantime, it’s another cool way to build some hits.

5. In connection to that, create a book ‘trailer’ all you really need is some basic knowledge of iMovie or another video editing program and some effects and definitely your cover art. Alternatively, you can pay someone to make a (probably better) product, but it will cost you. For example, a basic book teaser at Circle of Seven productions will set you back a cool $800. But if you’ve got the money to spend…

6. Make some business cards/bookmarks. One of the most basic things to do is make a nice business card with your name, email address (not your phone number!) website, and title (you are a soon-to-be-Author!) along with a picture of your cover art. Don’t have cover art yet? Set it up except for that one part. Then it’s a simple copy and paste situation. You’ll probably want to use photoshop for this, but you can pay someone to do it. Personally, I like the control (And also screaming at my computer when photoshop goes wacky!) Then, it’s a quick upload to vistaprint or Zazzle. Be even fancier, add a QR code to the back and direct it to your website! Integration baby!

7. Set a reminder to copyright your book when it is done editing. No really, you need to remember to do this! Click here to find out more. You can also pre-register your book if it is in the process of editing to get a bit of a head start on the copyright process – Another chunk of money you need to shell out, but you don’t want people stealing your hard work now, do you? I’ll be honest though, I’m not sure if the pre-registration is a good deal. Readers?

8. Make sure you’ve got an account on Goodreads, Amazon, Smashwords, and anywhere else you plan on selling your book.

9. Make sure you’ve got a well-written synopsis for your various book pages and a good blurb or two for your front page or inside cover.

10. Write your bio, your acknowledgements, then sit back and wait!

Anything I forget? Please let me know! (Due credit where credit is due 🙂 )

Who does my Cover Art & new advertisements for Brass Legionnaire!


So in case you didn’t know, I’ve been using the company Streetlight Graphics for my book’s cover art. I decided to splurge on their Ultimate Pro Package, which includes the following (Those people new to self-publishing may find this really cool!)

Ultimate Pro-Package: (Taken directly from their website)

Print (Createspace only)

Book Cover Interior Print (Createspace only)

Formatting E-Book Cover

Formatting for Kindle

Formatting for Nook

Formatting for Smashwords

A written tutorial explaining how to upload your e-book

All this for only $265!* (Since increased to $285)

(It also used to include banner ads for wherever you wanted them, but they claimed that most people didn’t want them. I asked nicely and got them included 🙂 )

To me, this was an awesome deal. I mean, I know I could spend some of my own time formatting them for all the different sites, or just pay someone $50 to do it, but the fact that I get a print cover, an e-book cover, and someone to do my formatting all at the same time is really cool. Also, its the convenience factor. It’s only one person to talk to, handle, and work with, instead of several different ones. Although I’m pretty technologically savvy, I’ll take all the help I can get on this first go around.

How did I find them, you ask? Actually, it was courtesy of Lindsey Buroker, (Encrypted) someone who I admire and have been following for the last few months. She puts out great comments, tips, tricks, and really useful stuff for us self-publishing people out there. She used these guys earlier to update her cover art for her novels. I have to say my experience with them has been awesome. No complaints at all! They are very communicative, open and helpful. They are able to change the smallest things to fit your wishes.  They knew how to deliver what I hadn’t even known I had wanted (If that makes sense?).
Anyways, on to the actual point of this post. I asked for and got two different advertisements that I can use on my YouTube page (not much there now, much more planned in the future). In addition, I’ll see if I can somehow adapt it for my twitter (@dOttalini – Add me!) I figure that I can use these cool advertisements to point people watching my videos or tweets in the direction of my book once it is published. So here, I’ll post them below.

This one is a 728 x 90, which is a perfect size for a youtube video. They can be made on photoshop if you’ve got the time and desire (I’ve done it before, even though I’m a poor hand at it!)

The second one is simply 468 x 90. It’s a bit smaller and may be a pop-up ad in a video, rather than the header of a video or posting. Let me know what you think of them. Like I said earlier, It’s important to keep the theme simple, but also demonstrate the concept of your book.

I’ll take this last moment to plug my kickstarter project. PLEASE consider donating any amount of money, there are some pretty cool rewards  you can earn (For those of you with lots of disposable income, You can not only name a character, but decide if, and how, you want them to die!) Here’s the link again, talk to you all soon! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/187272667/brass-legionnaire

– Daniel

Just the book cover


Didn’t want to spam, but wanted just this part up for everyone.

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