First of all, I recently did an interview with Elizabeth Baxter on her blog, Small Blonde Hippy. In it, I discuss Star Wanderers, Stars of Blood and Glory, and a bit about my path to becoming an indie author. You can find it here–go check it out!
Second, in preparation for the new ebook versions of my novels which I plan to release soon, I’ve been going over some of the old blurbs and updating them. It’s harder than you might expect! I think the new ones are getting better, but I’d appreciate some feedback before I post them. What do you think?
For Genesis Earth:
A BOY AND A GIRL ON A VOYAGE TO AN ALIEN STAR.
Michael Anderson never thought he would set foot on a world like Earth. He only studied planetology to satisfy his parents, two of humanity’s most brilliant scientists. But when they open a wormhole to an alien planet—one emitting a signal that can only be a sign of intelligent life—he soon becomes caught up in the mission to explore it.
His sole mission partner, Terra, doesn’t care nearly as much about the science as he does, though. The child of a bitter divorce, she sees the mission as a chance to escape from the expectations of others.
Before they can work out their differences, a mysterious alien ship begins to hunt them down. Alone, twenty light-years from the nearest human being, they must learn to open up and trust each other—but how can they do that when they can’t even agree why they’re there?
As Michael struggles to keep the mission from falling apart, he is forced to reexamine his deepest, most unquestioned beliefs about the universe—and about what it means to be human.
For Bringing Stella Home:
HE’LL GO TO THE ENDS OF THE GALAXY TO SAVE HIS BROTHER AND SISTER.
The New Gaian Empire is crumbling. An undefeatable enemy from the outer reaches of space is sweeping across the frontier stars, slagging worlds and sowing chaos. No one dares to stand up to them—no one, that is, except James McCoy.
As the youngest son of a merchanter family, James never thought he would get caught up in the Imperial wars. But when his home world falls to the barbarian Hameji, his brother and sister, Ben and Stella, are taken away as prisoners and slaves. With the rest of the galaxy thrown into chaos, only James has the determination to rescue them—even if it means losing everything in the process.
For Sholpan:
SHE’D RATHER DIE THAN BE A SLAVE TO THE CONQUERORS OF HER HOME WORLD.
Stella McCoy never thought she’d fall prisoner to the barbarian Hameji. The oldest daughter of a working class family, all she wanted was to finish her apprenticeship and start a career an astrogator. But when the Hameji conquer her home world with their starfaring battle fleets, she is forced against her will to become a concubine to one of their highest ranking warlords.
Stella would rather die than spend the rest of her life as a concubine. Fortunately, as she looks for a chance to escape, she starts to make friends in high places. But in the dangerous world of harem politics, with new friends come new enemies—ones that have the power to destroy her.
One of the changes I plan to make is to insert the blurb immediately before the first chapter. I’ve heard that a lot of ebook readers are downloading so many free books and samples that it often takes months before they get around to reading them. This parallels my own experience, so I figure it’s a good idea to have something in the beginning to remind readers what the book is and why they picked it up.
Other than that, no big changes except fixing typos and formatting errors. I’m not the kind of writer who makes sweeping changes to a published story based on reviews, one-star or otherwise.
In other news, I’m almost finished with the second draft of Stars of Blood and Glory. This has been a surprisingly fast revision, but then again, that might be because I haven’t sent it out yet to my first readers. Based on their feedback, I’ll probably do another draft before putting it in the publishing queue.
Star Wanderers is going to be my main focus until the end of the year, though. I’ve gotten a lot of excellent feedback on Part II, and should start the revisions in the next couple of days. With luck, I’ll have it published by mid-July. Part III is going to take a little more time, but I’m pretty confident I’ll have it up by October at the latest.
For that to happen, though, I need to get back to writing. So long!
