mcahogarth

Just About Done: Strand Bookmark

I decided to repeat the symbolism from the book in the bookmark, which was fun. The sea, the shore, and meeting in the middle. 

January Progress, and News

As usual, we’re back to round-up posts! Where I let you know that I'm not sitting on my tail all month. *grin* This one is project-related; I’ll do sales discussion in a separate post. For now, though, let’s have a look at what got done, fueled in part by your buying me coffee every month!

Writing Progress

As usual, my method is to pick one project and concentrate on it until it’s done, which gives me a book every three months or so. The first, in this case, is <...

Working on the Kickstarter Bookmark

...in advance of its launch next week because I have A FEELING that I will need my stretch goal stuff done. >.>

Conlang Book List

A handful of you asked after my books on constructing artificial languages, little realizing what monster you would release by asking! This is my excited face. 😬I used to get all these books as paper references; recently I’ve moved to e-book, which makes photographing the full stack hard. Here’s a list, then!

Language Overviews

These have been useful because they give you a sense of how other languages do things, and they teach you useful things about what languag...

Pelted Paper Doll, Digitigrade

I am messing with this formally now, if only to given the game designer something to use for their mock-ups! And because I'll never run into issues unless I'm trying to do it. (Like, for instance, the clipping challenge of ears going in front of or behind hair. I will probably have to have a separate 'behind ears' and 'in front of ears' layer). (Or, for obvious instance, my realization that I'm going to have to do a male figure if I want people to be able to dress up guys.)

On the bright side,...

Excerpt: Kherishdar's Exception

One of the things I'm doing right now is adding to this book. The plot is already outlined (just like it was with Black Blossom), but I want to leave lots of chunks open for serial commenters to inspire random tangents with their questions like you all did for the other books. 

So I'm writing the plot bits, and then putting in things like [INSERT STUFF HERE]. If you all, reading the serial, say something that gives me a topic to add, then that's where it goes! Otherwise, I can safely take...

What Jaguar's Been Learning This Week

...is digital art asset management. I've always loved paper doll web games like Flight Rising but I was puzzled how they worked. So I found a tutorial and started training myself how to organize files so that you can turn colors, patterns, and accessories on and off.

This has been an enormous light bulb moment for me. I could never figure out why people did digital painting, and I admit, that one's still beyond me. For the experience of creating something that's meant to exist as a flat piece ...

The Three Jaguars Return!

That's right... I finally compiled all the columns into an e-book for chapters upon chapters of useful business advice illustrated by cartoon jaguars! This book includes all the original Three Jaguars columns, plus an introduction and an extra chapter written just for this book. I also did extra art for it, and added checklists!

So what can you expect inside? Useful information for artists and crafts of any kind on how to productize your art, deciding on your best business strategy, wrangling ...

Incoming Kickstarter!

...beginning of next month. I have a lot of these planned this year, just quick one-week "wallet top-ups" as I start getting all those print and audio editions done you all have been requesting. <3

Achievement Unlocked: Coracle Art Style

This is it. Pen and ink and marker.

More Business Stuff: Marketing Fluff

A couple of you asked about marketing fluff? So here's a quick run-down on my thoughts on that:

 Primary Fluff

Primary Fluff tells prospective readers/fans/customers why they might want to engage with the work, and is the most important fluff to get right/spend time on. Most of my primary fluff is about books, because books are my primary product.

• Cover Art - #1 thing, do good here first
• Tagline – The tagline ...
  2018-01-22 14:44:41 +0000 UTC View Post

All the Nuance

One of my tasks today was generating pronoun tables for Ai-Naidari. Like Latin and Sanskrit, two of Ai-Naidari's major influences, the language has declensions, and allllllllllll the pronouns go through this process. And Ai-Naidari has a ton of pronouns.

Now, verbs conjugate rigorously, which means you don't often need the pronouns. Adding them is more a matter of social positioning/emphasis. And then you get sooooooooooo much lovely nuance.

So for instance, I can say "I love yo...

Ai-Naidari Aphorism: "Rest Your Eyes...

...on what is divine and good, for you become what you contemplate."

She qereqanelets han azjanihh the qafanijihh, pos doneqeqen soliv rushequles. 

This sentence generated (grammmatically!) with the help of the Discord server in the #studio channel. Special thanks to Rabbit, particularly. <3

To record this in what I felt like a natural prosody, I... repeated it a lot while really thinking about the meaning of the words. This is surprisingly hard to do if you're als...

The "Good Risk" Formula

One of your many excellent questions was how I decide what books are "good risks." While there are a lot of inputs that go into making that decision, it's a lot more straightforward than it might seem. Here are the questions I go through:

PRODUCT LINE

EXISTING SERIES? Does this new book fit into an existing series? Preferably one that's selling well, but even one that's not selling well is better than a standalone.

EXISTING SETTING? Related, does this book fit into...

The Perfect Companion Animal

...for the Knight/tank of the group. Wouldn't you agree?

(He thinks so, anyway!)

So Let's Talk About Patreon

A couple of you have asked me to talk about Patreon goals and how Patreon affects my workflow, so (dear Patrons!) let's have a chat! As our visual aid, I've attached a chart with 2017's revenue sources. And as you can see, after royalties on e-books, you all are the biggest slice of my delicious pie. 💖

When I set up this patreon, I set $3000 a month as my "stay at home" goal (and I made the dollar amounts private. More on that in a bit). While this is slightly more than I have projected is ...

That Moment When...

...you realize there is absolutely no way you will be able to remember all the words you've made up for your made-up language, so you give up trying and hope that you can find enough ways to sort it in a database to keep track of them. >.<

(This is in support of Kherishdar 4, which I am working on now!)

2017 Book Sales and Analysis

Wow, I'm really behind on these. On the bright side... now you can see all the numbers at once? >.>

Anyway. Up there you've got the numbers for what I can call a solid upper-midlist career. Those numbers represent (pre-taxes, but post-expenses) a salary that I needed 5 years to achieve in telecom. I have gone from being sheepish about my gross revenue to grimly satisfied to kind of astonished. My 'hit six figures' goal has gone from 'sometime in the next ten years' to 'possibly next year...

Freebie: Living the Moment (Tsipia-Alien)

By request from some Holt members, here's the only other finished Tsipia-alien story. Unlike the first story, which took place in their prehistoric era, this one happens in their modern history, after they've met humans, and it's about what happens when a human artist in the tradition of Mapplethorpe decides to photograph aliens...

It is, needless to say, not G-rated. It's also not erotica. It is neither fish nor fowl. This is probably why I could never sell it. >.>

Anyway, enjoy! ...

Almost Done!

Just waiting for the last few typo reports, and the preface. I am writing the marketing fluff now. Target is still end of January for release. <3

Business Book Needs Help!

So the Three Jaguars business e-book is almost ready for press! I'd like some people to go through it for me for typos/formatting errors, and to prepare some advance reviews for it once it hits retail.

To check this book, you need to have an e-book reader... sorry, y'all! It does not exist as any other format! Which is going to make doing the eventual print edition fun! *sweatdrops*

If you're interested, wave a hand and I'll send you a file. Target launch for this book is this month! So ...

Dreamstorm, Chapter 2, Final

Last sneak peek of this book for the nonce! You will have to read the rest in a few months, when it hits the stands. I hope you've enjoyed the preview! :)

***

“I admit,” Jahir said, “I never thought I would find you here, alet.”

Kindlesflame rose from his chair, laughing, and waved to the seat opposite his. “Sit, Jahir. It’s a pleasure to see you, and even more of one to surprise you.”

“I’m not sure why,” Jahir offered. “As when I first arrived, everythi...

Dreamstorm, Chapter 2, Part 2

A little bit more...

***

Armin Palland’s office hadn’t changed in the time Vasiht’h had been away. At all. It was still the lived-in office of an overworked but contented professor, with precarious stacks of books and papers, and more books in bookshelves, and a desk that had seen better days and floors that were scuffed by the footwear—or claws, nails, talons—of thousands of students. Palland himself looked nearly identical, too: still a graying Seersa with ...

Dreamstorm, Chapter 2, Part 1

You only get up to Chapter 2, then you'll have to wait for the rest! >.>

***

Vasiht’h couldn’t describe how weird it was to walk through campus in the middle of spring, watching the bustle of students, and not be part of it. He didn’t feel old enough or different enough to be looking down on them from some rarified height of experience, so it felt unnatural not to be joining the stream of people on their way to classes. But then… he’d spent almost ten years here, between ...

It Has a Title!

Shockingly, there isn't a title already like it on Amazon. o_O

Anyway, starting work on the cover by cloning the comic collection's and replacing elements.

Special First Readers Needed!

I'm about a day away from finishing up my edits of the Alysha novel Sword of the Alliance, and for this book I need a particular kind of first readers... because this is very distinctly an action/milsf book, focused primarily on the plot in a way most of my books aren't.

If you're a fan of that style of novel (think more David Weber than space opera), and are interested in telling me if this book works or not (and where it fails), lift up your hands!

Dreamstorm, End Chapter 1

The rest of it, secret and early, for yuuuuuuu patrons!

***

Five years was a long time, though. Vasiht’h reflected on it later as he shopped for Luci, jogging through the commons of Starbase Veta. The two of them had arrived to the starbase straight into a probationary period, during which they’d been forced to prove their worth to the community… or rather, Vasiht’h had, because the starbase’s administrators had been more than willing to extend their...

Tentative Plans, 2018

...and we all know what they say about plans surviving. But this is what it looks like now, for the first half of the year or so.

All Fan Chat Day!

We'll be ringing in the new year, and watching the box set sales charts as the Bookbub goes out today! Come join the Holt regulars for shenanigans, fun, and the magic samovar!

(Note: if you disconnect from the server after using it, your invite will not let you get back in a second time today! Just message me and I'll send you a new code.)

Three Jaguars Reboot

...because I am determined to get this thing out this year. ٩(╬ʘ益ʘ╬)۶