Bad news and good news

Hey all.

As the topic says, there's bad news and good news today.

Bad news is that The Vanished Knight was taken out of all its selling sights as my publishing house gave me the rights back.

The good news is that I'll be publishing it again very soon, and the fact that I have free rein with the book now, means that this blog will be a lot more fun.

Watch this space!

I'm still alive and being pensive.

I've been quiet on this blog lately.

It's not really something I wanted to do. But I've been working very hard on the guest house I mentioned before and a variety of books I'm writing.

Which is actually an interesting dilemma for me. My publisher seems to expect me to devote a significant proportion of my time to marketing. So they want me on social media to drum up new sales.

Thing is... It doesn't really seem to work. I have a significant platform elsewhere, adding up to about ten thousand people in my entire network. But no amount of posting, tweeting etc. about my book actually added up to sales.

Sales have happened, yes. But on days I did nothing related to the series.

Which means, the way I see it, that actually spending time devising and posting tweets, g+ postings etc. adds up to nothing. What has sold, however, was me building relationships through blogging. That I know, because most of you on my to-read list, I recognize from my blogging activities.

Ideally, then, I want to create the same type of society here. But it's difficult to create a society around something when most people out there haven't read my book.

It's a chicken and egg situation, really.

Hopefully I can figure this one out, though. I just need to put some more thought into how exactly I'm going to do it...

Just checking in...

I took a bit longer than I expected to get back to this blog. It's to be expected, I think, since I already run two other blogs, while doing a wide variety of other stuff. 

At the moment, a huge chunk of my time is going towards getting the guest house ready for business in February. It's hard, physical work and that means two things to me: earlier bed times and earlier wake-ups. 

See, if I'm to exhausted to think at the end of the day, I can't really write all that well. So if I want to get anything done, I need to wake up at least an hour earlier to do it. 

I'm doing quite well, though. As soon as I have some confirmation as to what's going to make it into War of Six Crowns Book Two, I'll get cracking on doing the rewrite to book three. 

Can't wait, really. Don't get me wrong. I love writing in general. I adore my new worlds and characters. But the truth is, the world of War of Six Crowns is like home, and I can't wait to go. 

In the meantime, I'm busy editing and drafting at the same time. I'm also reading whenever I can steal time. I want to read 75 books this year, which means I have to read about a book and a half every week. One of the books I want to finish is Les Miserables. I started last year, and have been inching along slowly but surely. I also want to finish reading Jane Austen's book, as well as at least a few of Shakespeare's plays. 

Yeah, that's quite different from the type of stories I usually write, but then, I read very widely. In fact, I'd probably read anything someone would give me. 

I'm reading Kinetic by my blogging friend SK Anthony at the moment. 

What are you reading today? Which books/authors are on your to-read list for 2014?

Happy New Year!

Hey all!

Just wanted to drop by and wish you a happy 2014. I hope it's full of blessings and great books to read. 

I think my year will be busy, since I'll be working to get my guest house off the ground. Added to that, I've set the most ambitious year-goals to date, and to make those goals a reality, I'm going to be doing a ton of writing and editing. 

I'll be back in January to tell you more about the War of Six Crowns series, though. I figure most of you are taking a break from reading blogs anyway. See you around the 10th! 

More on The War of Six Crowns: The Title

I've been thinking that this blog should have a bit more of a purpose, or else there's not really much of a point for it to exist. 

Since this is the War of Six Crowns blog, linked to the War of Six Crowns website, I thought I should maybe keep things relevant. 

So yes, I'll still be talking about me writing the series (and maybe some other stories), but I'm not really one for talking about me all the time. I thought writing about the story itself might be interesting, as long as I don't put spoilers out there, right? 

Right. 

So today, I thought I'd handle first things first and explain where the title came from. Well basically, it started back when I was still thinking of writing the story. In fact, I still thought I'd write the whole thing in a single book. 

I'd wanted to do things differently from what I'd been reading and thought I'd do a story about more than one hero in more than one country. Each country would have different cultures, power structures etc. and they'd all have some sort of conflict with each other. 

One of the countries would, for some reason, threaten all the others and they'd either stand together and fight or the one country would win and destroy the rest. 

As I wrote, I realized that the aggressor country would be Icaimerith. It used to be one huge nation rivaled only by the elves, but after one wise king, a succession of foolish ones lost bits on bits of the country in a variety of ways. (More on that later.) The last three kings have been looking to expand the realm to more than its former glory, no matter what the cost. 

The countries being immediately threatened are: 

Alfen Cairn: Land of the elves. In fact, the oldest realm in Tardith. They were the first line of defense able to stop the original Merithian expansion. But after decades (heck, centuries) of complacency, Alfen Cairn is now at the greatest risk. 

Ladrien: The country most recently split off from Icaimerith. Ruled by three kings, whose families used to be Merithian nobility. They'd split off in a rebellion, being the only area able to hold Icaimerith back for long enough for its king to "give up" and have been existing on a dagger point ever since. 

Then, there's Nordaine. It's not really being threatened. In fact, none of the others know it even exists, let alone where it is. But it's powerful, efficient and a huge power player outside of Tardith. It's the only country that could counter balance Icaimerith's strength. Problem is that it won't. All of the other countries leave people to die in Nordaine's wastes, which means that the majority of the population would feed the other five kings to wolves before actually helping them. 

But as the title suggests, Nordaine will be dragged into the conflict (willingly or not). I won't tell you how that happens, though. To find out, you need to read the books. *evil laugh* 

Any questions on the book or the series? Feel free to ask in the comments. I might not answer if there's a spoiler directly involved, but if not, I'll definitely get around to answering. Also, feel free to ask anything else. If you keep it clean, I'll answer that too. 

 

Just checking in.

Well now, the move is made. I'm busy unpacking and settling into the new house.

But how are the revisions going?

So far, so good.

The changes I've made are amazing so far. I really love where the story's going, and hope you will too. :-)

Other than that, I'm still a bit rushed off my feet.

So really, this is just a quick stop to wish a belated Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers.

Will be back soon with something more substantial, I hope.

Coming Soon: The Heir's Choice

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm officially editing War of Six Crowns: The Heir's Choice. 

Hopefully these edits will be a lot faster and smoother, because I'm looking forward to seeing the whole Volume 1 of the series published. I have a lot to do, though, since I need to reread The Vanished Knight and The Heir's Choice as it is right now.

Last thing I want is to leave gaping plot holes and strings unattached. Couldn't possibly do that to you.

November will be a busy month for me though. Along with editing, I need to draft and move house in November, because I'm not sure as to how much I can do during the Christmas season. So I might be a bit absent around here.

Will do my best to post updates, though.

In the meantime, I thought I'd tell you a bit about what will be my new home. It's still in the Western Cape, South Africa, nestled in mountains that belong to us. The house itself is a rambling two hundred year old mansion with thick walls, wooden floors, a sitting room that'll fit a hundred people and a back yard the size of a football field.

Also awesome is the fact that it has a cellar that we're turning into a guest house, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a soon-to-be-existent jacuzzi and soon, horses. So it'll be one awesome place for you all to kick back or come get married. And to hang out with me, of course.  ;-)

I'm very excited about this move. It's a change of lifestyle for me. And who knows? I might even be able to write more now.