Thursday, November 20, 2014

Exciting news!

During NaNoWriMo this year I was very fortunate to make the acquaintance of my very own NaNoWriMo nemeses! Jeff became my nemeses based solely on his ability to stay around 10k words ahead of me on word count no matter how hard I tried to keep up or pass him. Suddenly, I had an idea! So I presented this idea for a project of mine conceived way back for NaNoWriMo 2010 and asked if he would be interested! Lo and behold he was and the plotting and planning began!

Jeffery Cook is the author of two Steampunk novels with a third due to be released in the near future. The two he has out are:



Both of which are available on Jeff's Amazon Page. 
 
 
The project we are embarking on is not Steampunk, nor is it romance but it might end up having a little romance in it. We plan to begin writing in mid April and have no set release date. I'm just super excited to be embarking on my first collaborative effort and wanted to share!
 
Not to worry my loyal Sacred Hearts MC fans, this effort will in no way impede the writing of or release of any of the upcoming Sacred Hearts Novels!
 
 
In the meantime, if you are needing a bit of escape from the romance genre and are looking for something new, or if you happen to be a Steampunk enthusiast and missed out on these gems, I recommend you give them a try! The reviews are good and from what I have gotten to read myself, I have every intention of picking up copies of my own.
 
 
At any rate, I need to get back to work over here. Happy reading and I'll talk at you later!

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Independent Everything and a Very Special Thanks!

One of the best things about being an independent author is that you have the ability to network with other independent artists and freelance technical folk for so many different things, all to make your work into a reality. For example, once my book was finished I needed to find a cover artist, that accomplished, I was then able to give my book a face to present to the world. Yay!

My covers are almost all exclusively done by Clarissa Yeo over at Yocla Designs. (www.yocladesigns.com) Her prices are reasonable and her art is fantastic and she makes the process extremely easy.

After publishing exclusively on Kindle for a bit, I decided to move in to traditional paperbacks but I had absolutely no clue on how to format the interior of my book. Rather than pay money to a big corporation, I instead went to Lia Rees over at Free Your Words! (www.freeyourwords.com) Again, she is independent, her prices are reasonable and she does fantastic work with a fine attention to detail. I couldn't be happier with the product I am getting from Lia, however, as part of the process of putting my book into print, she suggested I publish under my own mark rather than just my name to give the whole book a more polished look, and so Second Circle Press was born:

But wait, I needed a logo! I write books and can't draw to save my life and so I turned to a very dear friend and graphic artist of mine, Giovanny Anglin and yet another independent artist! This is what he came up with for me:

 
I am both extremely lucky and blessed in equal measure to know such fine independent artists and I definitely encourage you to check any of these three fine individuals out for your publishing needs! As independent artists we need to pay it forward and keep each other working.
 
 
Because Gio has been such a very good friend of mine for such a very long time I told him I would do my best to help him out and asked him to send me his contact information and a list of his rates for me: Being the graphic artist/genius he is he sent this along:
 
 
 
 
Giovanny is multi-talented, so if you are looking for more than just a logo, I suggest you contact him. He is indeed capable of doing cover art in addition to business logos, I just prefer the artistic styling of Clarissa Yeo's cover designs for my romance books as opposed to Gio's style and you know what? He gets that and is good with that because he, like Lia and Clarissa, is a professional.
 
 
TL;DR version: If you are an aspiring author ready to take the next step, or an independent business owner who happens to need a logo/business card/flyer designed or whatever, give these guys a try! They are all three most excellent at what they do.