Tag Archives: Trials of Blood and Steel

February 28, 2017 · 7:04 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Wheee! Time flies when you’re having fun… and frantically running around trying to get everything done by a deadline. Either way, February’s almost over, and it’s time for the Infinitas Publishing Status Report!

Book Signing at Reader’s World: On Februrary 25th, Isaac and I went to a book signing with other local authors affiliated with the Writers of Warrensburg. We sold 3 copies of Magic’s Stealing and 5 copies of Distant Horizon, so the signing went well for us. A lot of people stopped by the store to speak with the various authors. I think we all had an enjoyable time. In the meantime, I’d like to give a shout-out to G.A. Edwards for arranging the signing and Reader’s World of Warrensburg for hosting the event. 🙂

Isaac and Stephanie Flint at Reader's World Book Signing (Photo by G.A. Edwards)

Isaac and Stephanie Flint at Reader’s World Book Signing (Photo by G.A. Edwards)

The Shadow War: This is the second book of The Wishing Blade series, and the ebook will be released on March 16th. I’m currently finishing making edits per my proofreading before formatting the print edition.

 

Glitch: Once everything is done with The Shadow War and Isaac and I have finished making preparations for Stealth Con, this is my next big project. The manuscript has been written, but it’s now undergoing edits and revisions.

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: Isaac and I just placed an order for Battle Decks cards, so we’ll be able to offer the game for sale at conventions and event for the first time since releasing the game. Woot! (Now we just have to finish making the boxes for the games).

Not only that, but we also have expansion cards to start allowing for a deck building mechanic. There will be two expansions… one Prussian (Cogs of War) and one Britannian (Queen’s Pride), which primarily include extra cards from the original set to allow for a range of choices as to which cards to include in your deck, as well as a few all new expansion cards that weren’t in the original deck.

WIP Game: We’ve got the prototype of the game ordered! We’re not ready to release all the details about it yet, but I can say this… it’s a sort of mini RP/board game where you explore and reveal the map as you complete quests and collect treasure. The themes are based on the lore from the world of The Wishing Blade series and “Stone and String,” which is why the game is called: *Drumroll, please…* The Legends of Cirena!

Look for more information about The Legends of Cirena game once I finish formatting The Shadow War. 🙂

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I’m working on completing one formatting/cover design project and beginning another. Basically, the same routine as usual.

The Wishing Blade - Section Break - Magic Swirl

Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with our latest book releases and promotions, sign up for our Infinitas Publishing Newsletter!

The Wishing Blade - Section Break - Magic Swirl

I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

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July 8, 2016 · 3:56 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

A month has passed since our last status report, so here’s the update!

The Shadow War: Currently being read by beta-readers. There’s a few edits I need to make based on the rough draft for the third book of The Wishing Blade series, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m working on that book for Camp NaNoWriMo, and I hope to have a rough draft for both the third and fourth books before releasing the second one, that way I can make sure the plot is smooth. I’ve also been developing the Cantingen word magic language for the books, which has been both distracting and fun.

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: Currently on an unofficial hiatus. The first fifteen episodes are available, but Isaac and I are working through some plot issues, and the last half of the episodes still need editing. A few episodes need additional scenes written. We plan to come back to this project later, but since there seems to be a lack of interest from readers regarding Trials of Blood and Steel, we’re focusing our energy on other projects. That being said, if you read and enjoy it, please let us know.

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: Nothing new here, for the same reasons as above. Game development takes a lot of time, and since there doesn’t seem to be a sustained interest in the game, we’re focusing on other projects.

The Dapper Pigeon: I’m still posting to our steampunk curation twitter account, and every once in a while I’ll post about the Trials of Blood and Steel episodes and games. Check it out if you’re interested in steampunk stuff. 🙂

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Currently working on one formatting project and doing minor tweaks to another project. Continuing work on book covers.

Beta-Reading: Making progress! I’m aiming on reading at least a chapter a day.

Distant Horizon: Finished making notes about editing on the paper manuscript, and I’m now inputting those notes into the computer. Afterwards, I’m hoping to send it to a beta reader. I also did a few more edits on the prospective book cover.

Video Blogging: I still need to finish reading the last four chapters of Magic’s Stealing. I’m also considering reading/singing bits of the Cantingen language I’m creating, but I’m not sure about that. Anyone interested in hearing how the language sounds as it gets developed?

~ The Wishing Blade - Section Break - Magic Swirl ~

Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with our latest book releases and promotions, sign up for our Infinitas Publishing Newsletter! (Which might include an upcoming sneak peak at the current Distant Horizon cover before I reveal the cover here) 😉

~ The Wishing Blade - Section Break - Magic Swirl ~

SBibb - Magic's Stealing Cover

Also, Magic’s Stealing is currently half-price at Smashwords when you use the coupon code: SSW50 at checkout. The offer is only available at Smashwords, and should be valid through the month of July. If you haven’t picked it up yet, now’s the time to do so! 🙂

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June 23, 2016 · 10:52 pm

Thoughts On Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Annual Report

Now that a full year has passed since officially starting Infinitas Publishing, it’s time to compile the annual report. So, for those of you who want to see numbers, here you go. 🙂

Since starting the business, we’ve released 1 book, 2 games, and 15 episodes of a serialized novel. (Plus, we pulled in one short story and a collection of short stories that I had published previously)

We had 4 appearances. A book Signing at the Readers World in Sedalia (January 29th, 2016), Game Room at Stealth Con (February 13-14th), Vendor’s Booth at Old Drum Days (April 9th), and the Book Signing at Hastings in Warrensburg (June 4th).

 

Now for the sales stats:

 

Magic’s Stealing

Ebook (Released September 17th, 2015) ($2.99)

September:

  • Smashwords: 1 Sale (Kobo)
  • Kindle US: 3
  • Kindle US (Pre-order): 5
  • Kindle UK: 1

October:

  • Kindle (US): 1

November:

  • Kindle (UK): (1 Sold and Returned)

December:

  • Smashwords: 1 Sale (Kobo)
  • Kindle (US): 1 Sale

January:

  • Kindle (UK): 1 Sale

February:

  • No sales

March:

  • Kindle (US): (3 Sold, 1 Returned)

April:

  • Smashwords: 1 Sale (Barnes & Noble)
  • Kindle (US): 1 Sale

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Ebooks Sold: 18

 

Print Edition (Released December 1st, 2015) ($7.99)

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • Amazon (US): 2 Sales
  • Readers World (Sedalia) Book Signing: 5 Sales
  • Readers World Sedalia (1 Prior to Signing, 4 bought by store after signing): 5 Sales

February:

  • No Sales

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • No Sales

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • Hastings Book Signing: 6 Sales
  • Hastings (Later Date): 2 Sales

 

Total Paperbacks Sold: 20

Total Copies of Magic’s Stealing Sold: 38

 

Ashes ($0.99)

Online Only (Short Story – Released prior to creation of Infinitas Publishing)

June:

  • No Sales

July:

  • No Sales

August:

  • No Sales

September:

  • No Sales

October:

  • No Sales

November:

  • No Sales

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • No Sales

February:

  • Kindle (US): 1 Sale

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • No Sales

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Copies of Ashes Sold: 1

 

1000 Words – A Collection of Short Stories

(Released prior to creation of Infinitas Publishing)

(Note: All but one of these short stories are available for free online through Smashwords)

Ebook ($0.99)

June:

  • No Sales

July:

  • No Sales

August:

  • No Sales

September:

  • No Sales

October:

  • No Sales

November:

  • No Sales

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • No Sales

February:

  • No Sales

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • Amazon (AU): 1 Sale

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Ebooks Sold: 1

(Note: I did not track sales of the individual free stories. If you’re interested in those, let me know)

 

Print ($11.99 – full color paperback)

June:

  • No Sales

July:

  • No Sales

August:

  • No Sales

September:

  • No Sales

October:

  • No Sales

November:

  • No Sales

December:

  • No Sales

January:

  • Amazon (US): 1 Sale

February:

  • No Sales

March:

  • No Sales

April:

  • No Sales

May:

  • No Sales

June:

  • No Sales

 

Total Paperbacks Sold: 1

Total Copies of 1000 Words Sold: 2

 

 

The Multiverse Chronicles

(Prologue and 1st 3 episodes released February 5, 2016)

(Online Only – Free Blog Series)

6 Followers

 

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel

(Released February 12-13th, 2016)

Deluxe Edition: ($37.99 – Online Only) No sales

Basic Edition: ($24.99 – Online Only) No sales

Total: 0 sold

 

Phalanx

(Released April 9th, 2016)

Cloth Edition: ($25.00 – Local Only) 4 sales (3 sold in April, 1 sold in June)

Wooden Edition: ($75.00 – Local Only) 1 sale (April)

Board Game Edition: ($28.99 – Online Only) No sales

Total: 5 sold

 

 

I suspect that having the games be primarily online only is hurting chances of impulse buys, especially given that it is direct from The Game Crafter website, rather than a site people are familiar with (such as Amazon). For Ashes and 1000 Words, these are older works, so I rarely advertise them.

 

Marketing

Twitter – Every so often, I tweet for Magic’s Stealing on my writer’s account. Also, Isaac and I created a Steampunk-themed curator Twitter account, The Dapper Pigeon, from which we occasionally tweet about Battle Decks and The Multiverse Chronicles.

Facebook – We created the Infinitas Publishing Facebook page, and I tried running a short campaign ($10.00, from Feb 19th-20th, 2016) but didn’t see any sales.

Word-of-Mouth – We have poker card-shaped business cards and fliers with the first episode of Multiverse that we hand out at events.

Newsletter – We created the Infinitas Publishing Newsletter on June 3rd, 2016. At the moment, we have 0 followers.

Goodreads Giveaway – I gave away 1 copy of Magic’s Stealing in January, 2016. 893 people entered the giveaway, but there were no noticeable sales based on the giveaway (I can attribute the print sales that did happen to people I know personally).

Rafflecopter Giveaway – I offered up 1 ebook of Magic’s Stealing during the first giveaway and 2 ebook copies during the second giveaway. The first had 3-5 people entering, and the second had one.

 

Let me know if you have any questions. 🙂

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June 17, 2016 · 7:05 pm

Episode 15: The Siege of Hague – Part One

Finally got the next episode of The Multiverse Chronicles up! We hope you enjoy it! 😀

The Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

SEASON ONE: EPISODE FIFTEEN

“The Siege of Hague – Part One”

* * *

The Multiverse Chronicles - Buford War Map

* * *

General Buford laid a map of Prussia on the table before him. Several of his executive officers gathered around. They stared, eyes locked on the map, their bodies tense.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Buford started, his face expressionless. “We have our orders from the Dragon Queen herself to set up a landing point for a larger invasion fleet at the city of Hague. I’ve spoken with a representative for the Franks, and they have decided to stay neutral in this conflict. They would rather spend their resources expanding overseas than get in the middle of our bloody feud.” He paused. “Can’t say I blame them.”

“Where does that put us?” Sergeant Cornwell raised an eyebrow and tapped his scone on the edge of his plate. “They won’t be able to stay neutral and…

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May 16, 2016 · 9:07 pm

Episode 14: The Test – Part Two

The next episode of The Multiverse Chronicles is now online! 😀

Trish must successfully complete her flight examination or lose her pterosaur for good…

The Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

SEASON ONE: EPISODE Fourteen

“The Test – Part Two”

* * *

The Multiverse Chronicles - Pterosaur and a Steam Boat

* * *

After the young pterosaur’s capture, the mangy humans kept her chained to their floating hut. At first, she fought the chain. She snapped at it and flapped her wings, but the chain held fast and the boat was anchored. Though the humans at the hatchery had kept her enclosed in their dome, they never bound her with a dirty, ragged chain, which tore at her skin and mangled her scales.

She was not a happy pterosaur.

Later that evening, the weathered man with straw-colored hair and grit in his wrinkled skin approached her with a pile of hemp rope in his hands. She shrieked at him and flared her wings, but he just smiled, revealing a set of broken teeth. The pterosaur snapped at him—let him see that her teeth were not broken! He…

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May 4, 2016 · 9:21 pm

Episode 13: The Test – Part One

Episode Twelve of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up!

Trish goes about her week at camp, facing trials of textbooks and tack…

The Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

SEASON ONE: EPISODE THIRTEEN

“The Test – Part One”

* * *

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - Silent Morning

* * *

Trish chewed on a granola bar from the mess hall as she crossed the campground. The early morning sky was dark. Cool air whispered through her hair and across her cheeks, helping her wake. The stable tent stood as a dark silhouette on the distant hill, mostly silent except for the few wolves prowling nearby in search of a wild snack.

At 0430, Trish had plenty of time to make the journey up the hill, which was fine by her. The chilly air raised gooseflesh on her skin, but lately, the still mornings were the only downtime that could calm her nerves.

At least, the only downtime she’d found.

This was her seventh day at the camp in Francia. Thus far, her training had consisted of textbooks, tests, practicing basic commands with her pterosaur—which…

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April 29, 2016 · 10:17 pm

Thoughts on Writing – Writing A Serial Novel – MVChron Midpoint Evaluation

Now that Isaac and I have reached the midpoint of The Multiverse Chronicles (or what was originally going to be the midpoint), I thought it might be fun to look at what we had planned for this series, and what the current trajectory is.

For those of you who are new to my blog, The Multiverse Chronicles is a pseudo-steampunk fantasy blog series that my husband and I write. Isaac writes the rough draft for each episode, which I then edit. We send that draft to a beta-reader, who gives us feedback. We polish the episode, and then post it to our blog (approximately once a week between episodes).

The series started because we wanted a way to advertise our Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel card game. So we worked out more of the universe and wrote it into story format. (Fun Fact: The story came from the card game, but the card game from a story… which came from a role-play game Isaac game-mastered and created the world for. It’s just one big cycle.)

When we first planned the series, we thought they’d be short little episodes, each an individual story following the lives of various characters who we occasionally revisited (actually, we first pictured this as a comic strip). As the story progressed, certain themes would reoccur and a larger story arc would appear, but would only be important to those who read the whole series.

That didn’t happen.

The story evolved to have a full-blown plot. Even then, we determined that we would still keep the episodes short (around 500-1500 words), and we would keep some level of independent story from episode to episode, that way new readers could fall in at any time and be able to reasonably follow what was going on.

Ahem.

Let’s take a look at the actual word count of the first twelve episodes, shall we?

  • Prologue: 478
  • Episode 1: 2,318
  • Episode 2: 3,287
  • Episode 3: 2,771
  • Episode 4: 3,395
  • Episode 5: 3,829
  • Episode 6: 2,202
  • Episode 7: 3,082
  • Episode 8: 3,660
  • Episode 9: 2,760
  • Episode 10: 2,018
  • Episode 11: 3,918
  • Episode 12: 4,226

Ignoring the prologue, which we added at the last minute because we wanted to have at least some reference of why we call this “The Multiverse Chronicles,” the episodes are well above the intended length.

Granted, a lot of that is my fault. I like details. I want to see the world…

And I enjoy knowing what the bad guys are doing.

Isaac’s original drafts are closer to the intended length (for example, the original draft of the first episode is only 1,645 words long, and episode twelve was only 1,672 words long (note: this does not include the end scene, which was added later and raised the total count to 2,591 words).

Combined,the total word count for the first twelve episodes without the prologue is 37,466 words, with an average of 3,122 words per episode.

That’s double the original word count we had in mind.

Adding to the word count was the decision to add “Meanwhile“scenes at the end of each episode to show what other characters, especially the antagonists, were up to. The idea was to build suspense. Per feedback from our beta-reader, we later stopped calling them “Meanwhile” scenes and just made them a part of the regular episode, albeit with a section break.

What remained as planned, however, was to have an illustration with each story, hearkening back to the idea of penny dreadfuls and dime novels. Though the style and number of illustration varies a bit from episode to episode, we try to have at least something.

Originally we planned to have 24 episodes, though looking at our current structure, we now have 27 episodes planned, and I haven’t checked to see if any of the remaining episodes need to be split into two parts (as we did with one of the earlier episodes, and the two episodes we’ll be releasing next).

Once the first season has been released, I’m hoping to go back through the full story, make any final changes and polish the writing, and then publish a print and ebook edition. But that’s a post for another day.

Though we deviated from our original plans, I hope that readers will still enjoy The Multiverse Chronicles. And please, feel free to chime in with thoughts and comments as you read each episode. We would love to hear from you. 🙂

Previous posts about the serialization process:

Thoughts on Publishing – Serial Publishing Methods

Thoughts on Writing – What does a Serial Episode Need?

 

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April 20, 2016 · 9:22 pm

Episode 12: The Keeper of the Deep

Episode Twelve of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up!

The prince and his bodyguard meet the Keeper of the Deep–an eccentric witch in the middle of a mysterious forest.

The Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Twelve

“The Keeper of the Deep”

* * *

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel - The Witch's Cottage

* * *

Spots of sunlight danced between the trees as Alia and Alfons made their way through the thick undergrowth of the Deep. A cinnamon-colored rat scurried along the bramble, unhindered and well-ahead of the two humans.

Alfons rolled underneath his covers and tugged them to his chin. Some dream. Dreams were not usually so memorable. He could almost believe he had woken in a jail cell, escaped under the guidance of a rat who claimed his fiancé had been murdered, ran from mechanical soldiers into a magical forest, been duped by mischievous fairies, and finally been captured by a man-eating witch.

At least his dream had ended with his capture and not after being fired, baked, or broiled alive.

He sighed and stretched, but his feet smacked against a footboard.

Odd. Had his bed shrunk?

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April 1, 2016 · 11:55 pm

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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March 28, 2016 · 10:22 pm

Episode 9: Forbidden Realm

Episode 9 of The Multiverse Chronicles is now up! 😀

The Multiverse Chronicles

The Multiverse Chronicles

Season One: Episode Nine

“Forbidden Realm”

* * *

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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