Phone blog with pictures!

News for the week of 3.16.13: Three Dances in Print, PWYW, and Soulwoven Keeps on Rollin'

Hello Dear Friends and Readers!

It’s been another exciting week! Soulwoven has continued its resurgence on Wattpad. On Monday, it shattered its old most-reads-in-a-day record, and a lot of new readers have been voting for it as well! Thanks a million to those who’ve done so. The votes mean a lot to me, and to the success of the story.

And there’s GOING TO BE A PRINT VERSION OF THREE DANCES! I finally cracked some last, lingering problems in InDesign, and I’m reviewing a galley proof of the book this weekend. It’ll go out to CreateSpace on Monday, and if all proceeds according to plan, it should be ready for the book launch on 4/13!

Speaking of which, I’m throwing a party for that. I wish I could invite you all, but since I can’t, I’ll do my best to get some video of it up the next day.

Three Dances has really dominated my week. There’s going to be a pay-what-you-want option available on my website, as well as a bundle that includes both ebook versions (there’ll be one for black and white Kindles and one for every other kind of ereader), a .PDF, and a signed copy of the printed book for you superfans out there. Keep an eye out for more info on that as the launch date gets closer.

In the meantime, I’ve posted “Shoes,” the second story in the collection, on Wattpad. It’s about a girl with something of a wandering sexuality who wakes up hung over in the bed of a goddess.

I told you these stories would be a bit more adult than Soulwoven, right? ;-)

In the background, I’m hammering away at Soulwoven: Exile for you. I think it’s coming together nicely so far.

Best St. Patty’s Day wishes to you, my dear friends. Thanks so much for coming on this ride with me. It’s all been amazing so far, and I feel like the rocket’s still just launching.

Yours in words,

Jeff

Two Newsletters for the Price of One, Because I Am Forgetful

Weeeell, I forgot to put last week's newsletter up on the blog at all. Oops! News for the weeks of 1.24 and 1.30.13 to follow.

Please forgive. :-)

News for the Week of 1.24.13: Nadya, Three Dances, Webhouse, and Twitter

Greetings friends and readers!

So many exciting things to talk about I wonder if I can possibly keep this short. But here goes!

First off: Nadya is about to head off to my early readers! I’ve also got a hand-drawn cover mockup ready for Wattpad, so as soon as I get enough positive feedback to be reasonably certain I’m not going to change the first chapter drastically, it’ll be up for you to read. I’m all abuzz, because I think you’re going to love it.

Second: Three Dances is moving along splendidly! I’ve got all the artwork finished, and I’ve been working on page design for the e-book version. It’s. Going. To. Be. AWESOME! I can’t believe how well some of my experiments are turning out. It’s nothing like Soulwoven or Nadya---it’s a weirder, harder book for an older audience---but I’m incredibly proud of it, and I can’t wait for it to go out into the world. I’ve targeted March 1 for a release date (admittedly, it’s an aggressive target, and one I may miss), which means I may start putting stories from it up on Wattpad as soon as next week!

Thirdly: I’m having great fun as an editor these days. Last week I did a Twitter chat with some of the people I work with at Carina Press, and it was an absolute blast. We’re doing another one at the end of the month (1/31) from 2pm to 3pm EST using the hashtag #carinachat. If you’re on Twitter, come by and ask us questions! It’s a great way to get answers about publishing straight from the horses’ mouths.

Fourthly: My website is ready! After months of cobbling and tinkering with it in my spare time, I’m finally confident that it’s not going to spring a leak and sink into the Internet’s harbor, so it’s time to launch it. You can check it out at www.jeff-seymour.com.

And oh yeah! Soulwoven continues to roll along and pick up new reads, votes, and fans. We’re up to nearly 140,000 reads already. I promise the Aleani language primer soon. And when it hits 200,000, I’ll post one for the Sh’ma.

Thanks for reading, loving, and believing.

-Jeff

New for the Week of 1.30.13: Quiescence, Nadya is Scary, and More Twitter

Greetings Friends and Readers!

It’s been a fairly quiet week. Mostly I’ve been fielding feedback on Nadya as it comes in (so far it’s 4/4 on being reported unputdownable), tweaking things on it, and fiddling with some short stories. I’d like to put the first chapter up for you soon.

In fact, I think I’ll do it tonight, as soon as I’m done writing this newsletter. The only reason I haven’t quite yet is that, frankly, I’ve heard such good things about it so far that I’ve become afraid of it. And that’s not a good reason to do or not to do anything, really.

Soulwoven is still quietly doing its thing. Interestingly, it’s been picking up fewer reads this week but more votes and comments than usual. I’m not sure what to make of that. A few weeks back there was a giant one-day spike in reads that I’m more inclined to attribute to some sort of reckoning in Wattpad’s system than anything else. So I’m wondering if it Wattpad might be on the blink again somehow. Bonus content still on the way. Sequel still on my to-revise list.

I whiffed on my call with my copy editor and now have to try to get ahold of her again before I can move forward on Three Dances, so that’s on hold for the moment as well, to my great frustration.

All in all a quiet week, I suppose. I’m not sure how it’s gotten to be Wednesday night already.

One final thing: tomorrow I’ll be doing an editor chat with the Carina Press on Twitter again. The topic is submissions, and we’ll be taking questions on the hashtag #CarinaChat from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST. The last one we did was a lot of fun, so if you’re a Twitterer and you have any questions about the submitting to a publisher, come on over and ask away!

Thanks as always for all your support. I hope you enjoy Nadya, and I look forward very much to hearing what you think of her. :-)

-Jeff

Look! A domain name!

So if I've done this switch over properly, none of you will notice that the domain name of the blog has changed until I tell you, which I'm doing now. This is part of the run-up to the launch of my debut short story collection, Three Dances, which is looking like it will probably be ready in October(!).

Anyway, I make mention of this in case the blog suddenly begins to exhibit strange behavior. If it does, let me know, and I will do my best to fix it.

Update on The Grand Experiment coming soon! There has been much experimentation and data collection, and there continues to be more.