Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Wow, hard to believe it’s time for another status report. Time sure does fly. Anyway, here’s what we’re up to with Infinitas Publishing. 🙂

The Shadow War: So… I’ve got a lot of plotting done for this (actually, I’m more-or-less working on the first set of edits), and a lot of plotting for the next two novellas after this (including a character that I am really looking forward to introducing), but not a lot of editing or writing. I’m hoping that I can make headway on this project in April. I’m tempted to try Camp NaNoWriMo to see if I can get the rough draft of the next book ready, but I know I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to complete first.

As a side note, I’m testing marketing Magic’s Stealing as an upper middle-grade, lower young adult novella. We’ll see how that goes, and if it makes a difference than marketing it strictly as YA.

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: We’re currently on episode 9 and moving forward. We’ll need to make polishing edits on more episodes soon so that our beta reader has a chance to look them over. We’re debating doing one season a year, rather than trying to do one season every six-eight months. That way we have a little more time to prepare the second season and have the Battle Decks equivalent ready at the same time.

Phalanx: Isaac’s hard at work getting ready for the release of our latest game, Phalanx. It’s a board game that combines ideas from Tetris, chess, and the luck of the draw of various card games. You move your pieces across the board with the intent of capturing your opponent’s city-state. There are three versions of the game: the board game, which we will sell on our shop page on The Game Crafter site; wooden boards, which are carved by Aaron at Snyder’s Garden, a local woodcrafter; and game bags that Isaac sewed together, both of which we’ll sell at local events.

Speaking of which…

Old Drum Days Festival!  We got our Missouri sales tax licence and our Paypal Here this week (so we can accept credit cards) and we’re going to be selling Phalanx and Magic’s Stealing while we’re there. As a bonus, any of the Phalanx games we sell there will come with a set of “Friendly Game” cards, a special promo card for Battle Decks that are exclusive to the Phalanx games.

Old Drum Days Festival is on April 9th, at the old court house in Warrensburg, Missouri.

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: We’re currently testing out possible card options for the deck building expansions, and having fun deciding which ones to include first.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Still working on book covers. Still working on formatting. Yep. It’s a never-ending cycle.

Beta-Reading: We’ve gotten the latest draft of the book I’m beta-reading from the author, and we need to get started making notes.

Distant Horizon: Isaac and I have found a proofreader, and once we get notes back, we’ll make our edits and move forward with preparing to release this novel soon (which means a cover is coming soon, too!).

Video Blogging: I recently uploaded Chapter 16 of my reading for Magic’s Stealing, and I’ve been showing a lot of sneak peeks of the upcoming Phalanx game in the previous couple blog posts.

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

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Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Sixteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter sixteen of Magic’s Stealing. Enjoy. 🙂

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

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Episode 9: Forbidden Realm

Episode 9 of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! 😀

SBibb's avatarThe Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Nine

“Forbidden Realm”

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The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - Alfons and Alia

* * *

Alia, Alfons, and the cinnamon-colored rat stared at the glowing, approaching eyes. The closer the eyes came, the more visible the automatons grew. Their metal limbs clanked and whirred. Though their bodies were painted in alternating splotches of greens and browns—difficult to see through the foliage of the woods—they most certainly looked to be five mechanical men.

Alia and Alfons exchanged glances. Neither of them had seen any such creature before. Sure, the Prussian army was fond of their tactics generators with basic computing spirits and gigantic metal hulls, but these…

These were another being entirely.

The automatons had slender, mechanical arms and legs. Their eyes faintly glowed with enchanted gold. They wore dark green, metal helmets like any soldier might, and they carried rifles in their spiny hands.

But their faces were blank, with a…

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Behind the Scenes – On A Midnight Clear

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, the author wanted something that showed a cabin in a snowy region and kept with the dark mood of the story. They had already found an image that they felt worked well, so I was able to find a similar one from the stock site we normally use in order to create the cover.

My first attempt at a proof for this cover included silhouettes of the characters, but it didn’t convey the right mood. So I went a more simple route, using the mysterious, dark purple color as the base of the cover, with a narrow focus on the cabin in question. I also changed my initial font to something a bit more bold.

This is the result:

Book Cover - On A Midnight Clear

Back of Book Cover - On A Midnight Clear

Stock image from Dollar Photo Club:

https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/70616736 – cabin

 

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Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Fifteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter fifteen of Magic’s Stealing. Also, we’re going to have a booth at the upcoming Old Drum Festival in Warrensburg, MO (April, 9th)! We’re going to be debuting our Phalanx game there, which we will be selling game bags (see the video for an example!) and the wooden board versions, along with copies of Magic’s Stealing.

Like our Facebook page if you want to hear all the latest updates. 🙂

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

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Episode 8: Friends, Acquaintances, and Nemeses

Episode 8 of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! 😀

SBibb's avatarThe Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Eight

“Friends, Acquaintances, and Nemeses”

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The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - Cart Ride

* * *

A horse-drawn cart—loaded down with supplies and a sleeping pterosaur—ambled over a series of potholes in a well-worn road. A warm breeze ruffled the fields of barley on either side, the lazy sun painting the land vivid gold. The cart bumbled along, its two sorrel mares uninterested in the stiffness of their cart’s occupants.

Trish craned her head to the pale blue sky. Above her, mere silhouettes against the noonday sun, a team of pterosaurs and riders flew toward their new home. They coasted on the warm currents, occasionally flapping their wings to maintain formation.

She let out a breath as the pterosaur brigade flew onward. She was part of this now, even though she was not up there with the rest of them. The old, musty book in her lap—the one she was supposed

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Behind the Scenes – In the Camp

This is a cover for Melange Books‘ young adult imprint. For this cover, the author wanted a symbol rather than a scene, and in their art form they mentioned that their story revolves around elves using nature to reclaim the modern human cities after a devastating war. Based on that, and since the author said that there was a phone that played a large role in the story, I tinkered with the idea of having an old, cracked phone on the cover.

Vines partially cover the phone (showing nature beginning to take over again), and I added the “reflection” in the phone’s screen to show more of the setting (a swampy area). To give the cover a dystopian feel, I used a couple grungy concrete textures in addition to the concrete background. For the text, I tried a bolder font to keep with the genre, and added a more “computery” text to the phone for the series title.

This is the result:

Book Cover - In the Camp

SBibb - ItCBackcoverBlog
Stock images from Dollar Photo Club:

https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/86638759 – concrete wall
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/87991955 – ivy
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/72301540 – cracked phone
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/95588080 – Night Sky
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/75505794 – abandoned warehouse
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/69503655 – swamp
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/84770412 – concrete grunge texture

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Episode 7: Perplexing Conundrums

Episode 7 of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! 😀

SBibb's avatarThe Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Seven

“Perplexing Conundrums”

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The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - Dungeon Door

* * *

Captain John Bess rolled his letter into a thin tube and shoved it into a small green canister. He screwed the canister shut, strapped it onto a pigeon, and checked that the harness was tight. Then he opened the cage and sent the pigeon on its way.

Your Majesty,

 

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that your daughter, Princess Cassandra, has been murdered.

 

At this time, we are uncertain as to the identity of the perpetrator. However, we are working closely with Prussian security in this investigation, and they are fully cooperating with our efforts. Current evidence suggests that the rogue agent who killed our princess may have been a Prussian defector. We are unsure of the perpetrator’s motives, but I will keep you informed of any updates.

 

 Regrets,

Captain…

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Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Normally I’d have posted this last week, but since I was doing a cover reveal on the designated post day, I decided to do the report today, instead. 🙂

The Shadow War: Not much progress in regards to actually writing this one, however, Isaac and I have discussed the idea of splitting The Shadow War into two books. Seeing as how it’s already at 45,000 words, (with the series meant to be a set of novellas) and it’s only going to get longer, I’m inclined to agree.

So I’ve been doing a lot of plotting for what’s going to be the new book three, and I like where it’s going. As such, there’s a good chance that there will be four books in The Wishing Blade series instead of three. The Shadow War looks to be around 35,000 to 40,000 words, and by splitting it where I think it would have a decent beginning/middle/end, I can effectively say that I’m actually working on the second draft, rather than the first draft (since I had to go back reread what I wrote to continue writing the story).

While I still have a little ways to go before I release this one (as I’m not finished polishing it for beta-readers yet), it’s a whole lot closer than I thought it was.

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: There are currently six episodes out so far (Read them here), and more on the way. Missed last week’s episode due to lack of time to properly edit said episode (and due to a character’s dialect being difficult that may or may not sound Scottish), but if all goes well, the seventh episode will be released this Friday.

The season as a whole is a work in progress, and it’s entirely possible that we’ll make small edits to the season once it’s complete and before we release the ebook and print editions. So let us know what you think as you read the episodes. 🙂

Phalanx: If you’ve been following our Facebook page, or if you watched my latest video blog post, you may have seen us talking about our upcoming Phalanx game. This is a project Isaac’s been working on (I’ve mostly just helped with touch-ups). We still need to proofread the rules and have someone do a blind test from the rules (rather than us showing them how to play), but we’ve got the beta version of the game on order. This should be available by early April, since we’re hoping to have it available for sale at a local event during that time. More info coming soon!

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: The starter game is available now, and Isaac has been working on creating rules and card ideas for a deck-building expansion. We’ve been meeting with our group of beta-testers to see how the new cards play and which ones we’re going to want to release in the first expansion. We’re still in the early stages of the deck-building part of the game, however.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Majority of the book covers I’ve been working on are now complete. In the meantime, I’m working through several formatting projects. Or, I will be as soon as I finish writing this post…

Beta-Reading: Put on hold temporarily so author could make changes. We should be getting the new chapters to beta-read shortly.

Distant Horizon:  Finally finished working on changes to a scene later in the story. I need to proofread and polish that scene, check it with Isaac to make sure he likes the finished version, and then I’m ready to hand this off to a proofreader. I’ve also got to do a few more things for the basic ebook formatting, but the majority of this is already complete.

Video Blogging: I just released the audio reading of Magic’s Stealing: Chapter Fourteen on Monday, and I plan to continue reading Magic’s Stealing, one chapter a week, until the story is complete.

In other news, we just finished our partnership tax forms! All we have to do is give them one more look-over and then mail them in. Woot! 😀

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

 

 

 

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Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Fourteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter fourteen of Magic’s Stealing and showing off the first wooden board for the our upcoming game, Phalanx (Check out our Facebook page to see a couple sneak peek pictures!) Enjoy! 😀

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

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