Sunset of Furmankind is undergoing a recent final revision for changes based upon reader comments as well as other edits the author felt necessary to shine and polish the story a little more. In addition to internal updates to the story, the front cover of the book will also be updated with new art by Liz Jackson to reflect the internal struggle of the main character's dual nature. Not to worry, Ashley Leuthardt's fine portrait of Jon will still grace the cover of the book on the back with the story and author information. Once the revisions have been completed, the new story chapters will replace those on the website and a new version of the printed book and ebook files will also be made available. Stay tuned. Although I have received some very nice remarks concerning my projects over the years, I am no longer accepting personal email. I do appreciate your interest, however, and if you've enjoyed the tales you find on this site, feel free to tell others. Thank you. It took a few weeks longer than expected, but I just got my official rejection letter from Harper Voyager on my submission of “Hoenix”. I’d already figured it hadn't been accepted, but at least it’s official now. Thank you very much for providing us with the chance to read your novel. We are sorry to say that at this time we don’t feel it is right for the Harper Voyager list. Due to the volume of submissions we were fortunate enough to receive, we are unable to provide personal feedback, however, please be assured that your work received thorough and fair consideration. We wish you the best of luck with your writing career, and thank you again for thinking of us. In what may be another vain attempt, I have just submitted my novel Hoenix to Harper Voyager for publication. This will make the 5th or 6th publishing house I've sent it to over the years, and while there's no guarantee this one will turn out any better than the others, there's always that slim chance. Harper Voyager put out a call that they were accepting unagented works of fiction and science fiction during a two-week window and this includes works that have been self-published. I decided to give it a try. I put everything into the required format and submitted all the material necessary earlier today, so the clock is now ticking again. It was stated in the submission guidelines that if an author has not heard anything back within three months, then the story was not considered. This means that January 3, 2013 will be the cutoff date. If I've not gotten a response by then, the book will go back into the archives where it has been the past few years. This now makes two of my books that are currently in the hands of publishers for consideration. Wish me luck! When I was getting Sunset of Furmankind ready as a print-copy edition of the story, the page limit for a printed book was 700 pages. Due to this restriction, I was unable to make it fit within a standard trade paperback format and it had to be released as a full-sized book (that we've called the coffee-table edition). Not long ago, this page-limit was increased to 740 pages, so I decided to try an experiment to see if I could reduce the font by one point size to fit within the new page size and still stay within the limit. Once I had reformatted everything (including page numbers on the table of contents and both cover images), I uploaded a new 722-page file that fit the parameters to Lulu and then ordered a proof copy. I wasn't entirely sure about the readability of the new text size, even though it had only been reduced by one point, but the new edition arrived today and to my tired old eyes, it looks good. However, squeezing that big story into a 6"x9" paperback made the thing extremely thick and it's just about as heavy as the larger print edition. Also due to the page count and mechanics of the redesign, it also costs more than its big brother. It looks nice and is easier to handle, but I'm not really sure it's an improvement for commercially economical purposes. For the money, the Nook and Kindle e-books are the most affordable, but I know there are some (like myself) who prefer to hold a physical book in hand. The final chapters of Jeff Karamales' BORN OF HEROES saga have been posted to the Other Horizons section of the library. I want to say Thank You to Jeff for all the meticulous care he put into his story and for staying faithful to the canon of the BLUE HORIZON universe throughout his tale. He's done a great job, and if you haven't read it yet, I would encourage you to do so. After surviving a vicious pirate attack, one young fox is given the chance to stand against threat. His new weapons are other dedicated law enforcement officers and unwavering resolve. However, the cost of failure will be all they hold dear. Fred Patten, known far and wide in furry/anthropomorphic circles has written a review on Sunset of Furmankind on the Flayrah website that can be found HERE. Thanks, Fred! I'm happy that you enjoyed the tale. My tendinitis is still (hopefully) on the mend, so I've not been spending as much time as normal for me on the computer, but I have potential plans for two more stories in the Furmankind universe. You already know about Second Chance, but the other involves another cast of characters elsewhere than Bonestell. I've not yet decided which one to write first, however. We'll see what happens once my hand issues have calmed down. Stay tuned. The 20th Anniversary Edition of Treasure Hunt has been finished and is now online for reading. I realize that this does not fall within the sci-fi sub-genre of anthropomorphic fiction that I have been writing for the past 18 years, but it was myfirst novel-length story and has a special place in my memory. Despite the neverending edits and rewrites of the past two decades, it is now presented on my website for anyone who may happen to read it. I will likely make printed copy and ebook versions available later, though whether or not anyone buys them will not be an issue with me. It was my own private project and I'm pleased to finally call it "finished". Despite the constant thumb/wrist issues of late, I managed to accomplish something yesterday that's been twenty years in the making: I have finally finished Treasure Hunt, the first novel-length story I ever wrote. "A stranger comes to a strange land to escape his past only to find a more desperate landscape. Three travelers find their destinies intertwined in a journey across time and space and their voyage will take them from the comfort of the Midwest to the games of a fabled lost civilization on the other side of the galaxy." The story was originally written in 1992, just before I was introduced to anthropomorphic fiction. However, each time I would pick it up and read back through it, I would find typographical errors that I had missed before, plus I would find areas to change or add material. Although the story was technically finished, I couldn't seem to stop making corrections and edits, so after time it became affectionately known as the Neverending Edit. After a decade, I began to look at the opening setup chapters with a more critical eye and realized just how much I'd never really liked them. Over the next few years, I decided to completely scrap the opening chapters and rewrite them from the ground up. It would not be a retelling of the same events, but would show totally new events that would lead up to the primary plot of the story. Unfortunately, I was often focused on other writing projects, so the efforts on this one was often forgotten. Now twenty years later in 2012, I have finally finished all the rewrites I had planned and I'm now putting a last little bit of spit and polish on it before I format the manuscript for Lulu and Kindle releases. Since Treasure Hunt does not feature the anthro themes I'm now known for writing, there may not be anyone interested in a tale I'd written so long ago before my storytelling skills improved, but I still plan to make it available regardless. The Neverending Edit may finally be ending soon... |
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