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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

GIVE-AWAY HAS ENDED. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS!

We consider our 5-day give-away a resounding success, as 475 hopeful people entered. Five lucky people will be receiving signed copies of Part 1 of The Last Giant: Transgression, each of which has a full page (6" x 9") original pencil drawing by co-author & cover illustrator Johanna laid in.

Congratulations to the winners: Jeremy Adkins, Susan Gannon, Nancy Jones, Jennifer Scull and Kathy Purpura. We hope you will enjoy your book and drawing. The drawings included a portrait of Nirna (the Princess Royal and Menannon's true love), a drakta and a spiral-horn. 

-- Richard
    for J. R. Hardesty

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

THE NEW YEAR BEGINS! and a giveaway is announced.

A new year, a new blog. Happy New Year to all and may this year be a prosperous one for you.

I had intended to get a blog out in December, but just did not have the time, as we were in a crunch to get Part One of The Last Giant: Transgression out before Christmas. Between getting a final MS ready, getting the typography done, proofing, getting final cover art ready, etc., it was a tight go, but we managed. The downside was that many typos got through into the printed product. We are currently engaged in tracking those down & correcting them so subsequent printings will not be so burdened.

And I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it was getting the Kindle version done. I had never done that before and it took a while to wrap my head around the Kindle concept, which is basically an electronic scroll. And with my limited ability in Word/HTML, the fancy typography had to be jettisoned in favor of a simple but readable text. Getting the maps to work was also a major pain in the, ahhh, neck. At least I now know what to do with Part 2 and won’t have the same ration of problems to deal with.

However, it is done! The book is out there awaiting our marketing Genius to get off his backside and do his job. We’ve sold some, but since we haven’t really begun to market the book, we don’t expect much ... yet. We plan to make a big effort once Part 2 of Transgression is published, as then the entire book will be available.

Part 2 should be out late Jan or February, assuming the imps of perdition don’t decide to descend upon us and wreak havoc. Dealing with the Typo Tyrant is bad enough, I can tell you!  Per ardua ad astra!

Now, about that give-away. We will be giving away 5 copies of Part 1 on Goodreads beginning 15 January and ending 21 January. Each copy will have an original signed pencil drawing by Johanna tipped in. Be sure to sign up! You may be one of the lucky winners!

With the new year comes the new Tax Season! Erggh. I am just glad we are no longer doing tax prep work. That was a 20 year wild ride!  We quit a few years back and will never go back. I get chills down my spine just thinking about it.

I’m afraid the well is dry for now, but I should be back in a couple of weeks with a progress report and Lord know what else. You may take that as either a promise or a threat. 

– Richard
   for J. R. Hardesty