Scribbus Mac Doodle

Hello one and all! It's been a crazy, crazy autumn, and every time I feel as though I'm gathering myself together, something else falls apart (sometimes literally, as we had a washing machine die and a transmission go out on a car in just three weeks here). That being said, I'm inching my way through my fifth manuscript. Woo hoo! I'm sticking with my usual release schedule, so those of you who enjoy my books can look forward to the fifth book in The Gateway Chronicles, The Scroll in the fall of 2013. In other news, I attended the Austin Book Festival in Austin, Texas this past weekend and had a blast! I sold out of copies of book 1 by halfway through the first day and book 2 by halfway through the second day. It was great to get out and meet some new potential readers, as well as many of the people employed by my publishing house. My publisher is very positive about the future possibilities for my books, so we'll see how everything plays out! And finally, I have a new laptop now! It's a brand new Mac, and I have named him (yes, him) Scribbus Mac Doodle. Scribbus and I will go on many adventures together, first of which will be the completion of The Scroll. From there, the sky's the limit!

If you haven't purchased your copy of The Enchanted yet, you should do so now! Just click on the image at the left to be directed to my publisher's website, or contact me at kbhoyle@yahoo.com about getting a signed copy or signed bookplate to go in your copy.

I'm Official!

I know that I promised a character bio on Tellius, and I will make good on that, I've just gotten a bit swamped early this week with activities and so I am a little behind. I will do my best to get that done tomorrow night! I did HAVE to blog about what happened today, though! Today I signed a publishing contract with The Writer's Coffee Shop Publishing House (TWCS) for the first three books of The Gateway Chronicles and the remaining three in the series. So that means that I am now no longer an indie author, but an official, contracted author! Huzzah! Follow the link below to read about TWCS, and I'll keep the blog updated as I have news about the new releases of the books. (They are still available on Amazon and Kindle, but will go unavailable for a time as TWCS gets ready to re-release them).

http://www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/publishinghouse/

Print Edition Now Available!

After much blood, sweat, and tears, The Gateway Chronicles 3: The White Thread is now available in print format! Huzzah, huzzah! If you click on the link on the right, that will take you to my e-store with createspace where you can purchase my book immediately. If you prefer to use Amazon, it will take 5-7 days for the posting to upload to Amazon, and it will take 6-8 weeks for it to show up at all major booksellers. As soon as it shows up on Amazon, I will change the hyperlink on the right to direct you directly to Amazon instead of my e-store. I'm very excited to be finished at last! Kindle sales have continued strong and lots of people have already read it (some people already more than once!). There will be a book release party at my school sometime soon.

Kindle Edition, Now Available!

I'm happy to announce that the Kindle edition of The White Thread is now available for only $4.99. Just follow the link below to purchase it. Don't forget, this is book 3 of The Gateway Chronicles, so if you haven't read books 1 and 2 yet, you will want to do so! Book 1, The Six, and Book 2, The Oracle are available on Kindle for only $2.99 each.

http://www.amazon.com/White-Thread-Gateway-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B005UD7MR6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1318374413&sr=8-4

For those of you who are a little more traditional readers (such as myself), the print edition of The White Thread is forthcoming. I'll post as soon as it is available!

Spring Break Wrap Up

This is a couple of days late, but I got rather distracted with family visiting over the weekend, so I didn't really have time to sit down and do this until now. My spring break was, overall, productive. I did not start actually writing The White Thread, but I got about as much prewriting done as is possible at this stage of the game. I still have a good amount of research to do on a few topics before I write, but I feel very well set to churn out book three this summer.

On the marketing front, I have continued to sell copies of both books 1 and 2 at a slow but steady rate since I published The Oracle in November. This is encouraging because last year around this time sales had pretty much ground to a halt on The Six, only to pick up in early fall in anticipation of book 2. I'm happy to see that my books continue to sell, and I really think that my readership is expanding into new areas of the country (and the world! I know of at least a couple readers in other countries). I'm also still waiting to hear back from an agent who is reviewing my books right now, and I'm feeling encouraged over even having that possibility, regardless of how it turns out.

As I head into the next two months, I will be very busy with schoolwork (as a teacher, of course), and I'm sure that the time will fly. Before I know it, summer will be here and I will be hard at work being an author once again. Not quite as cool of a moonlighting job as being a superhero, but close. I'll keep you all posted!

Final Review

The Oracle is finished and submitted for its final review. This review process is typically very fast and I hope to be able to say that it will be approved in the morning, but we'll see. I'm a tiny bit concerned about some sizing on the cover, but if there is a problem with that, I should be able to get it ironed out within a day. Either way, I HOPE that it will be available for sale by the end of the weekend.

I just have to say that the completion of this project at the end here has been so totally exhausting. This week has been filled with many sleepless nights, and I've been struggling with migraines and an ulcer (heh, go figure) for the past two weeks. It's almost painful to be this close to the end and simply sitting and waiting for the review to go through, but waiting is part of the process as well. Next year when I am getting out book 3: The White Thread I'm going to try to manage my time more efficiently so that I don't feel this way around this same time a year from now. If somebody were to ask me if it is all worth it, however, I would of course say yes. I know that writing is in my blood, and it gives me a euphoric rush like nothing else on earth. To steal from Chariots of Fire, "When I [write], I feel God's pleasure!" I wish that I could come up with something more profound than that right now, but it is almost 3:30 in the morning and I have been working on finishing up the final revisions for 8 hours (following an 8 hour work day teaching, of course). I think that it is time to go to bed.