Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Behold my Super-Awesome Backers!

A Few of My Backers
I am a very fortunate man. During my recent (and hopefully not too annoying) fundraising effort on Kickstarter, these folks stepped up to the plate and made a contribution to Leonard's cause. Because of them, the book went from "Gonna publish it someday." to "Gonna publish it this summer." Some are family, some are friends, and some are complete strangers -- all are SUPER-AWESOME!!!

Here they are in all their alphabetically-ordered, super-awesome glory...

Jim Allen
Ed Brown
Anne Chivetta
Chris Chivetta
Chris Cusack
Peggy Etra
Patricia Eschbacher
Roger Eschbacher, Sr.
Rick Fiedler
Coleen Forward
James Giannini
Toni Gilbert
Paul Gross
Cyndi Ruprecht Hunt
James Judd
Chris Landes
Traci Newman
Brian Palermo
Adam Pava
Keith Robinson
Japke Rosink
Lisa Tucker-Ruprecht
Stephen J. Ruprecht
Andrew Thomas
Jeff Zimmer

Look upon their names and feel awe because they are true giants and giantesses of SUPER-AWESOMENESS!!!

Monday, May 23, 2011

To the Editor!

Just a quick update to let you know I sent the manuscript for Leonard off to the editing service, yesterday. Hooray! I opted for their full-service treatment which not only includes a proofread (punctuation, grammar, etc.), but also a more detailed edit and overview. A professional edit is the main reason I launched the Kickstarter project so it's truly a thrill to finally get the ball rolling in that department.

My editor told me I could expect to get it back in around three weeks, possibly sooner. Once that happens, I'll make the suggested changes, then start cranking on getting Leonard the Great: Dragonfriend listed on Amazon, both in Kindle form and as a physical book.

In other news, steady progress is being made toward completion of the first draft of the sequel to this book. On Friday, Leonard was swallowed by a monster. Hope he survives. ;c)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Ten and Counting

Almost there! Only ten days away from the completion of this project and I'm getting more excited by the moment! I've been slowly lining up what needs to be done and what needs to be ordered (software, postcards, etc.). The plan is to go through the manuscript one last time before shipping it off for editing and proofing.

In the meantime, I'm pushing forward to complete the first draft of the book's sequel,  Leonard the Great: Giant Killer. At this point, I'm at just under 50k words (around two hundred MS Word pages). My goal is to average between 500 and 1000 words a day until completion -- hopefully by the end of May. My word count "sweet spot" for the sequel will be around 60k.

I'll be keeping track of my first draft progress with a word count widget I ran across (over on the right of this page). I know it sounds kind of silly, but little things like that are a great motivator for me and the ability to update my word count provides a feeling of accomplishment. Hey, I guess we authors all have our little mind tricks, eh?


This is so cool. Thanks again, everyone!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Funded!

The Half-Castle?
As of last night, and to my utter amazement, the Leonard the Great: Dragon Friend project on Kickstarter became fully funded! To say that I am blown away would be epic understatement. I am so very grateful that you cared enough about my project to want to help. Thanks to you, a dream many years in the making will actually come true! Thank you! I am thrilled beyond measure.

What's next, you ask?

Well, the project can continue to receive donations (any additional funds will be applied to the next book), as Kickstarter rules require that I keep it open for the amount of time originally designated. In other words, there is no option to end the project early. I'll have to wait to get busy with the fun stuff (pro editing, etc.) until May 1st at 11:59p,  at which point they'll release the funds to my account.

However, I can use the remaining time to plan the fun stuff (which can be fun in and of itself) and I'll be doing just that. I'll keep you all posted on any interesting developments and, of course, when the rewards are ready to be shipped.

Again, thank you so very much for your support. I feel truly blessed!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

ABNA Update

Well, it's a good thing I was "realistic about the odds" because Leonard didn't make it into the quarter finals. Naturally, it would've been nice if it had, but that's okay. There's always next year and if my Kickstarter project is successful, the manuscript will be in even better shape than it is now (and published!).

A nice thing about getting as far as I did is that I'll be receiving feedback from the two Vine reviewers who read my manuscript. Last year's Vine reviews (one snarky, the other gushing) were very helpful and I took them to heart during a subsequent rewrite.

Congrats to all who moved on to the next round -- a very impressive accomplishment.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Leonard on Kickstarter



I just launched Leonard on Kickstarter, a site dedicated to helping authors and other artists get patrons (they call them backers) for their projects. I'm obsessed with having my literary baby properly edited before publishing it on Amazon and this seemed like the perfect way to make that happen. Go on over and check out the PROJECT PAGE and, if so inclined, please consider giving a donation.

BTW, that's the progress widget for the project on the right and my "pitch video" up above. I don't look too dorky, do I? (please say no)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Go Leonard!

I'm happy to report that my novel, "Leonard the Great: Dragon Friend," made it through to the second round of the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The next tier of winners will be announced on 3/22.

For the first level, roughly 10000 authors (5000 general fiction, 5000 YA fiction) were judged on the quality of their novel's 300 word "pitch" -- a short summation authors might use to generate interest in their manuscript from agents or publishers. Out of those, 1000 per category were chosen to move on to the second round.

For the next round, our 3k-5k word excerpts will be judged by a mysterious group known as Vine Reviewers. After that, the full manuscripts are critiqued by assorted experts all the way through to the finals. The Grand Prize includes cash and a publishing contract with Penguin. (cue drooling)

Is it a long shot? Ohhhhh yes! But I'm realistic about the odds and, all in all, it's a very cool thing to get this far. I'm thrilled my pitch was judged worthy of advancement and hope my little novel continues on to the upper levels of the contest.

Positive thoughts, prayers, and finger-crossing will be cheerfully accepted.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

How to Get a Writing Agent for TV/Film/Animation

In this recent post, television comedy great Ken Levine responds to the most common question he's asked, "How do you get an agent?" Some of the tips are just for fun (date Anne Hathaway) but there's some good practical stuff, too. Such as:

"Of course, connecting with an agent means nothing if you don’t have the goods. Most agencies want three writing samples – two current show specs and original material like a pilot, play, or screenplay. If you are lucky enough to have an agent consider your scripts, make sure they’re the very best work you’ve ever written. Sometimes you only get one chance."
Go over and check out the full post for some professional-grade insight into what can be one of the more challenging aspects to having a career as a working writer.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Still Working It

I feel obligated to report that I've not been posting due to overall busy-ness. As in...

  • Finished another big edit on LTG: Dragonfriend. Cut out close to 6k words, caught more punctuation/grammatical/typographical errors. Lots of fat was tossed. Glow of overall positiveness now envelops me with regard to this manuscript. SIDE NOTE: Recommend using MS Word's "read text aloud" feature. It helped me catch many errors such as repeated/dropped words and clunky (poorly constructed) sentences.
  • Prepping above manuscript and support materials for 2011 ABNA.
  • Finished the first draft of a live-action spec pilot for kids, ala Wizards of Waverly Place. My reader's taking a look at it and I hope to be able to send it to my agents soon. I think it's a unique premise and is funny. We'll see.
  • Added some animation and kid's book FAQ's at the top of this page. Stuff I've been asked over the years which I hope you'll find of interest.
  • Minor revamp of this and my other blog.
Still chugging along toward the eventual publishing of Leonard on Amazon (via Createspace) but, as mentioned in a previous post, I'm going to shut up about my progress in that arena until  I'm close to pulling the trigger.

That is all.

UPDATE: I knew there was something else. Wrote an episode of a popular animated half-hour and just got another assignment for the same show. The pickup hasn't been announced yet so I can't reveal the name at this time. Yay, work!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Are You a Thief?

Author Saundra Mitchell lays out a compelling argument for why "free books aren't free" and how "fans" with an overblown sense of entitlement might actually be killing the careers of (mid-list) authors whose work they claim to love. Here's a quote from her post. The parenthetical addition is mine:

"I’ve been very open about the money I’ve made and not made, to help give the writing community some perspective. So I’m going to be very open about money today. I’ve told you before that I made a $15,000 advance on SHADOWED SUMMER. In two years, I’ve managed to earn back $12,000 of that.

It’s going out of print in hardcover because demand for it has dwindled to 10 or so copies a month. This means I will never get a royalty check for this book. By all appearances, nobody wants it anymore.

But those appearances are deceiving. According to one download site’s stats, people are (
illegally) downloading SHADOWED SUMMER at a rate of 800 copies a week. When the book first came out, it topped out at 3000+ downloads a week.

If even HALF of those people who downloaded my book that week had bought it, I would have hit the New York Times Bestseller list."

 I'm going to go all Lars from Metallica on this one. If you illegally download "free" copies of books, music, films -- whatever, from a torrent site or anywhere else, you are a thief. No matter what your reasoning may be -- lack of funds, not available in your region, laziness -- you are literally taking food out of the mouths of creative types who depend on royalties/residuals to earn a living.  Stop doing that and start buying the product! It's the right thing to do (a thousand blessings on those who support their favorite artists) and the career you help to save will thank you by continuing to churn out the books you love to read.

Eater of the Dead: A Dragon Friend Excerpt

Just in time for Halloween! Check out a featured Dragon Friend excerpt on the BestSelling Reads blog: "The spooky season is upon us! H...