Three Months Until Launch!

From the Kickstarter fundraising campaign for Trajelon: The Way of the Falling Star Book 2, Monday, August 24th, 2020:

Hello, friends! 

As of today, we’re just three months out from the official launch day of Trajelon and I seem to be regaining some cognitive function on my latest med dose. Good thing too, because it’s almost past time to really get into the work of reaching out to book bloggers and securing advance reviews. It’s also time to seriously rethink the launch party.

When I was first contemplating launch party options, back in January and February, the world was a very different place. A place where, as you know, things happened and we sometimes went to them. My town has a nice little library that is very enthusiastic about supporting local authors; I imagined I’d approach them about hosting my shindig. It would have been a bit of a hike for the friends I have in Pittsburgh, but I was going to ask some of my local author friends to attend. Ideally, one of them would have given me a nice introduction, and I would have read from Trajelon before doing snacks and a signing. It wasn’t much, but I’m an introvert and a writer, not a publicist. It would have done the job. 

Now of course we’re in fully uncharted waters and there be monsters here.

Like a lot of us, I clung to hope well past its printed expiration date that we might be able to resume our normal activities by mid/late fall. It took me a while to admit that no, that’s just obviously not going to happen at this point. The drawing board awaits. Lucky for me, with my book launch happening later in the year, I have the example of many other writers who have worked out the concept of virtual launch parties to follow and take inspiration from. And one plus side? Any of you can attend if you want, no matter where in the world you are!

I can’t say yet what precise form the virtual launch will take, as I’m still brainstorming and working out details. When I do work it out, you’ll be the first to know. And I look forward to having you there with me as I debut Trajelon to the world!

For the moment, let me debut something else to your waiting eyes.

Hm. A box from Rebubble. Whatever could it be?

Better get in there and see.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo.

It’s gorgeous!!!!!

You can order your own TRAJELON release poster on Redbubble today!

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As an additional WordPress note, if I have any readers who are interested in doing an advance review of Trajelon on your blogging platform, Goodreads, The StoryGraph, and/or Amazon, contact me at dogwoodhousebooks@gmail.com.

This is an important post with a surprise inside!

From the Kickstarter fundraising campaign for Trajelon: The Way of the Falling Star Book 2, Friday, May 8th, 2020:

Holy moly, we’re already a week into May!

As I’m sure you’ve all observed, time has been doing some awfully weird things lately. According to this nifty countdown timer I made last night, it looks like we’re 28 weeks and 3 days out from the release date of Trajelon. That feels like both forever and not long enough, as there’s still so much to do!

Among other things, I’ve been made aware that in my pre-surgery haste, I forgot to send out the Mornnovin eBook download codes to the entire Fantasy Fan reward tier. I’ll get on that immediately, so if you backed at that level, expect an email from me shortly with a digital code for an eBook download. Many people who already own a digital copy of Mornnovin have been gifting this download to friends and family, trying to hook more people in, and I think that’s fantastic. Gift away and spread the fantasy love!

Now as we enter the doldrums of the pre-launch period (still slowly doing the work and waiting on so many things,) I want to give you something nice. This is probably a little premature, as we’re still just a hair over six months out from the launch date, but would you like to see our wonderful cover? I’ve been dying to show it to you all this time and I feel like we could all use some beauty in our day.

I present to you – behind a cut for added drama – the absolutely gorgeous cover of Trajelon: The Way of the Falling Star Book 2, art by Scott Baucan.

Click here to see loveliness.

Take a moment to gasp, because I know I did the first time I saw it.

This is the art that will be featured on the bookmarks. I’ve had one of them sitting on my desk next to my computer for several weeks now, and I have to say it really pretties up the terrain.

So there we are. Enjoy looking at that stunning cover and have a happy Friday! I’ll talk to you again soon.

Meet the Cover Artist

From the Kickstarter fundraising campaign for Trajelon: The Way of the Falling Star Book 2, Tuesday February 18th 2020:

As we get into this campaign, I want to be sure to talk about my cover artist, because he has given us some truly gorgeous covers. (Yes, that is a hint that I’ve already seen what he’s working on for Trajelon. I hope you’ll love it because I know I do.)

I first met Scott Baucan while kayaking with some friends at Cheat Lake in West Virginia. (I’m sorry we laughed at you when your boat capsized, Scott. If it’s any consolation to you, I practically broke my tailbone about fifteen minutes later, climbing down the slick rocks of that waterfall.) My husband had met him a while back in the Pittsburgh indie film scene and they moved in the same group of filmmaker and indie creator friends.

Scott and I eventually “friended” each other on social media, as one does, and I had my first glimpse of his very cool art style. Browsing through the work he’d shared online, I was blown away by his talent and eye.

Artist Scott Baucan with a truly impressive stockpile of his art, preparing for a show in 2015.

I came to feel strongly that he would bring something strange and beautiful and dark and fantastical to the cover scene I’d already visualized for Book 1. And I was right.

It’s just perfect.

Scott, of course, has more going on than just my stuff. There is the delightful Ghoulie: a Zombie Fairy Tale, for one. In December 2019, he published a hauntingly lovely graphic novel called Fragile.

Two of Scott Baucan’s creepy creations.

Most recently, he has been working on animation and it has been a delight to follow his progress. He is also very active at local cons, selling his graphic novels and a series of fun macabre music boxes that he makes himself.

I’ll take like ten of these, tbh.

At this point, the look of my series is inextricably tied to Scott’s weird and wonderful style and I couldn’t be happier about that.

So I’m glad I got to tell you a little bit about this great artist and I hope you’ll give his stuff a look. We’ve had a fairly productive first couple of days here on the fundraiser — as of this post, we’re at $445. I was hoping to hit $500 before the end of the day and I think we can still do it. Please share this campaign with anyone and everyone who might be interested in helping to support an indie fantasy series that’s ready to take its next big step!

I’m pending!

Having shared this first with my backers on my Kickstarter page, and then having taken a moment to finish screaming, I’d like to announce that my debut novel, Mornnovin, has a (tentative) release date of April 2nd, 2019.

cover art © Scott Baucan 2019

This is obviously tremendously exciting. There’s still a lot to be done and shockingly little time left in which to do it, but let’s just all scream together for a moment, yeah?

HOLY SHIT, I’M PUBLISHING A NOVEL! LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL, REAL COVER!

So, yeah. Stay tuned for more about this VERY EXCITING thing that is happening. Like, I’d actually like to do a post about the backer rewards I’ve made, because I’m pretty proud of them and I want to share, but for right now it’s all about the fact that at this very moment, somewhere in the world, a physical copy of my novel actually exists and is in the mail on its way to me for my final approval, and how that’s so surreal and wonderful that I can hardly breathe.