This is a middle book, sitting between the first and last part of a trilogy. After working on this for about 10 months, I can say, middle books are bloody hard. They have to be interesting in their own right, but connect nicely with the first and third. I think I like the way Tolkien did it a lot more, write one long volume and cut it into three pieces. In the future I think that's what I'll end up doing if I ever do another trilogy again.
Anyway, back to the good news. The story is laid out, characters have challenges that they overcome or don't, a villain makes an appearance, and the whole crew goes through various trauma. Now that sounds like a Spinward Fringe book to me, and I know I'm going to really enjoy this last bit of writing.
When that writing is all finished, I'll be editing the book myself twice - once on screen, then on paper - making my changes and then handing it over to my editor. She'll work her magic and tell me if I actually have a good book, and where there might be problems. The necessary tuning will take place and normally I'd send it off to the distributors. Not this time, however.
No, this time I have a secret weapon! Three fantastic, qualified proof readers have accepted my request to work on this book after the normal steps have been taken. They live in three different countries, don't know each other, and have no idea who the other person is. It's a blind beta read so I can get three different opinions from three very different people. Their primary job will be to help with the polish of the book, but since they're all long time readers, their opinions about the story and character movement will have a great deal of weight too. No one will know who these Beta Readers are until they appear in the acknowledgments at the front of Broadcast 6. Even then, they may decide to use code names, prolonging the mystery.
Once they've finished and I've used their notes to improve the grammar and remove typos it'll go to the distributors. This one will appear on Smashwords first and it'll be the first Smashwords Spinward Fringe release with a full table of contents.
How long will all this take, you ask? Well, if I haven't written a great big turd, it shouldn't take longer than 4 weeks. I like what I have here though, even though the style is quite different from what you may expect, so I don't foresee a pile of problems.
I expect this book to weigh in at about 100,000 words, and it'll be priced at about a third of a new release eBook.
RL
[Thoughts? Rants? Manifestos? Go ahead and post them below!]
7 comments:
I just finished reading "Fracture" this morning, and I already feel like I'm going through withdrawal. I'm anxiously awaiting "Fragments"!
Yay! Been waiting for Fragments, good to see that it's almost here. Thanks for the update, and thanks for all the great reading that led me to this wait!
I see that "Fragments" is available on Smashwords.com now! Yay! When will it be on the iBook store? Ahhh! I'm also having withdrawals!
The bad news is that the next shipment to the iBookstore from Smashwords isn't scheduled yet. The good news is that the ePub version of Fragments has been tested by a couple of readers and myself, so it's ready for the iPad / iPhone. The version available at Smashwords right now is exactly the same as the one you'll be seeing in the iBookstore whenever it makes an appearance, the only difference is that you have to drag and drop the file into iTunes then sync it with your device. (At least that's what I do whenever I test books on my iPhone).
Thank you very much for reading by the way, I'm glad you're enjoying the ride and hope you have a great time with Fragments!
"Fragments" is available on Kindle, now. Just downloaded mine and looking sooooo forward to continuing the story! I'm really glad you decided to start writing, Randolph. This story has just been tremendous! Thank you very much!
Any update on when this will be available on the iBookstore?
Love the books!
Hello Scott, thanks for stopping in!
I don't know when Fragments will be available in the iBookstore, to be honest, but you can get the ePub version that is supposed to appear there by visiting this link:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19286
So you don't have to wait. It's been tested with iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch and it looks good. I'll be having an eBook doctor take a look at it in the next few months (when I can afford them), so I can find out what the issue is.
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