Hi All,

As the title says I’m organising  a little blog tour to try to drum up some interest in the Land of Myth Book. I’m going to start it on 4th June and run it on Mondays through Fridays for the month. Five Six people have already agreed to host me so I’m looking for at least another fifteen fourteen blogs to host me. So this post is an appeal to my readers – if you are willing to host me please comment on this post and we’ll sort something out. If I get more than I need I’m happy to extend into July.

Below is a list of confirmed dates – I’ll fill in the list as new dates are added.

04/06/12 – http://feralintensity.com/
05/06/12 – http://zoewhitten.com/
06/06/12 – http://www.ankewehner.de/
07/06/12 – http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/
08/06/12 – http://tonysmiscellanea.blogspot.com/
11/06/12 – http://cheapassfiction.com/
12/06/12
13/06/12
14/06/12
15/06/12
18/06/12
19/06/12
20/06/12
21/06/12
22/06/12
25/06/12
26/06/12
27/06/12
28/06/12
29/06/12

Of course, if you can’t host me and want to help spread the word about the book there’s plenty of other things you can do.

At the bottom of the Books page is a social sharing bar – please consider sharing the page on your favoured sites.

Reviews are important as well. Here is a post by MCA Hogarth about how important reviews are. So please consider posting a review on one or more of the Amazons, on Lulu or on the book’s Goodreads page.

Thanks all!

Becka

Hi all,

Today is my birthday and I’ve been doing birthday things all day, so today’s Haventon installment will go up tomorrow morning and the Dragon Wars side story installment on Thursday. Sorry for the slight slip.

Becka

Yes, that’s right. The Presale is live. Go to IndieGoGo via the widget in order to participate. 😀

And yes that’s me in the video.

Firstly, here’s the cover for The Dragon Wars Saga Arc One – Land of Myth. I’m really pleased with the way it turned out and I hope that you all like it as well!

If you haven’t been following my posts on Dreamwidth you may not be aware how imminent the book release is – but I’m currently looking at a late April/early May release. There will be both ebook and paper versions. The ebook version will be available via Smashwords, Amazon and various other places including the site and the paper version on Lulu and the site – it may possibly be available elsewhere (see below).

As well as the cover I’ve already had the text of Arc One edited for any errors and for continuity and it should be a lot smoother than the version currently on the site. There’s no plot changes but I’d made a few timeline wallbangers. I will be getting the new version up once the ebook goes live.

However I want to give you peeps the best book I can on my shoestring budget, so I’m having a presale in March – probably starting Thursday evening next week UK time.  The money from the presale will go to pay for the ebook and paper book to be properly formatted (instead of me trying to do it). Any extra after that will go to pay the $75 for Lulu’s globalReach (the only cost with them other than printing and postage) to get the paper book on Amazon etc and to pay for test prints and, of course, the British Library’s copy. I’d really like to get the globalReach package because it will allow people who don’t have cards to order the book in bricks and mortar stores.

To save me running the back end I’m going to be running the presale as an IndieGoGo campaign with a target of $500 which means the presale packages will be in the form of perks. (And don’t worry I still get the money even if we don’t hit target).

• BASIC: $3 – A personal thank you email, your name in the credits at the back and on the credits section of the website, and of course a copy of the ebook in the format of your choice. (Considered making this $5 but since I intend a price tag of $2.99 that seemed harsh).
• TIN: $10 – As above plus you will be emailed a code to get every future Dragon Wars Saga ebooks for 99c as soon as each one is released.
• BRONZE: $25 – As above except that the codes will get you the future Dragon Wars Saga ebooks for free rather than for 99c.
• SILVER: $40 – As above plus a signed copy of the paper book. (This may seem harsh but I have international postage to consider and you do get all the other stuff as well).
• GOLD: $100 – As above plus a signed copy of paper book 2 (planning a September release for that) and I will write a side-story (of not less than 1000 words) about any character in the story for you and send it to you in the electronic format of your choice. Content of said story to be decided by me. (There will only be three of these packages available because I am not made of time).

I could really do with some feedback on these, peeps. Are the good? Is there anything (within reason) that I can do to make them more attractive to you? Comments please.

Thanks,

Becka

Well, I think it’s exciting anyway.

But before I get to that a quick word about the side stories. Yes, they will be coming back this month as promised. But not until December 14th as I’ve been busy working on the below. I could dash an installment out and toss it to my beta reader but I don’t think it would be as good as it should, so I’m delaying by another week to get it right.

And now the announcement! *drum roll*

January 4th 2012 will be the second anniversary of the first installment of  The Dragon Wars going live. So I’ve been wondering how to celebrate this milestone. Eventually I had an idea…

I will be starting to upload a podcast version of the serial. The first installment will go live on Mon 2nd January and depending how much buffer I have recorded by then I will either post them Monday-Friday or Monday-Wednesday-Friday. I have a number of reasons for doing this:

• For those readers who’ve been meaning to reread now’s your chance to start following the story all over again.
• Some new readers who are intimidated by the sheer size of the archive. Now they can start from scratch without being overwhelmed.
• For people who don’t like reading on the screen there will now be an alternative format to follow the story.
• Those who don’t have time to read can listen on their mp3 play etc while driving etc.

And, of course, text installments of “Dragon Wars Arc Three” and “Haventon Born” will continue to go up as usual.

So, will you be listening to the podcast release?

Since I started posting The Dragon Wars Saga in January 2010 there’s been mention of The Haventon Chronicles in the top bar and on the front page. Coming Soon it says but after 20 months you’d be forgiven for wondering when soon actually is.

Wonder no more.

The launch date for the first story of the Haventon Chronicles is Tuesday 4th October 2011.

The story will run a donate to accelerate schedule. For the first week I will post an installment on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday to give you something to chew upon. Thereafter there will be a post every Tuesday regardless of donations and every time the story receives £10 of cumulative donations there will be an extra installment on the next Thursday or Saturday (whichever is closer).

You may be wondering ‘but what if the donations total passes £20 in a week?’

Well firstly I’d dance around the lounge for a while. Then I’d make a note on the spreadsheet I’m going to make for the purpose of how many updates have been accelerated and what the carry forward total towards the next acceleration is.

I’m not sure how clear that explanation is, so ask if you need it clarifying.

And don’t worry Dragon Wars will continue to post on Mondays and Fridays with side stories on Wednesday. 🙂

Hi guys,

Nothing major but you may notice a few changes on The Dragon Wars Saga index page in the next couple of weeks. The reason is that I’ve come to the realisation that I should have ended Arc One at the end of Chapter Nine. There was a very natural break there and the story took a major turn soon after that.

Therefore as soon as I come up with a title for Arc Two I’ll make amendments to the index. Current titles I’m considering are “The Storm Child” because of the focus on Salia or “Secrets and Revelations” for obvious reasons. I think I’m leaning towards the first

On the upside this means that I’ll be able to get the Arc One book done quicker. It will still be around 81k words – so a decent novel length.

I’m open to feedback on this idea so tell me what you think.

Thanks,

Becka

Dear Readers,

I would once again like to thank you all for you continued support.

And now you’re thinking ‘what does she want this time?’ She only thanks us when she’s after something. You know what, you’re right. Mea Culpa – I’ll try to be more proactive with my thanks.

But yep, I have a request.

I’m on another reader recruitment drive, but this time I’m trying something very specific.

Do you have a website, blog, facebook, twitter, tumblr, livejournal or similar? Do you frequent any messageboards etc which allow users to post about and link stuff they like? If so would you please consider putting your head above the parapet and giving me a link, please.

Links are the glue of the Internet. A link is as valuable as a great review, if not moreso. Not only do they enable your friends to find stuff you like directly, but they improve your google ranking and thus make it easier for other people to find me as well.

After all if you like a book or movie you share it with your friends, don’t you? This is much the same thing.

You don’t have to say much, people will understand a link as a recomendation. Just stick it in your blogroll, on your links page, in you status etc. I wouldn’t object to saying more, of course, but I’m trying to make the request as painless as possible.

Now if you do have a blog or website you probably already know how to make a link, but for those people who don’t here’s the html syntax.

<a href=”http://firebird-fiction.com/the-dragon-wars”>Dragon Wars: A Young Adult Fantasy Serial</a>

And please respond to this poll so I can see if this sort of help request has any traction with you guys.

Thanks,
Becka
ps if you want to comment, please do it here and not on the poll… I’d like to keep thngs in one place. 😀
 

Hello Readers!

You’ve probably noticed the little green and orange Flattr button at the top of the support list. It’s in the sidebar and on the support page.

You’re probably wondering what it is. Flattr is a “social micropayments site” – which tells you nothing. Here’s their “About Page” and here’s an introductory video, both of which should help explain.

But the basic idea is something like the demon love-child of a paypal donate button and digg. When you join Flattr you set a monthly amount which can be as low as 2 euros (approx $2.84 or £1.77 according to Google – so pocket change) and at the end of each month this amount is split up between the Things you’ve flattr’d that month. If you don’t flattr anything in a month your money for that month is given to charity. More importantly Flattr is a way to find new stuff. You can search currently extent Things on Flattr for what interests you and see the number of people who’ve already Flattr’d it, giving you an idea how popular it is. There’s not much weblit on there (yet) but I’ve found a couple of things to Flattr myself in the last couple of months.

But, you think, she’s glossing over the evil fact that she wants our money. Well, yes, but I don’t think that’s evil. I’m not going to hold a gun to your head or threaten to take my stuff down. If you want to give me your money I’ll be happy to take it. Webhosting costs money. So does advertising. I’m using my small amount of disposable income to bring you this site. My dream is make a living at this writing game, but I’d be content if I could just break even. 😀

And if my writing was bringing me some money back I could make the site even better.

Other people are thinking “just put up a donation button, girl.” And I will (with much less fanfare) once I’ve sorted a few things out.

And remember there are plenty of non-monetary ways to support the site if you’re skint, as so many are nowadays, but want to help. Check the list in the sidebar,  and most especially please vote on TopWebFiction, thanks!

In other news The Dragon Wars Saga chapter one part one has been overhauled and reposted. I’d like feedback on if it is an improvement on the original version. I’ll be reposting the new version of a part each Sunday. Why? Because I feel my writing has improved a lot since I started posting back in January 2010 and I want the whole thing to reflect that.

And finally don’t forget that the side stories start posting this Wednesday!

Thanks and hugs to all my readers! You’re fantastic!

Becka

And by soon I mean on Wednesday 6th April.

That’s right.  I will be posting an installment of a side story once a week from next Wednesday. These stories will mostly be set before the main story and on Earth. I hope you like them.

The main story will continue to update Monday and Friday.