Since Princess of Amathar is very much an homage to A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, it’s no surprise that the warrior alien is very much inspired by Tars Tarkas. Norar Remontar is a proud knight of the city of Amathar and befriends Alexander rather grudgingly. But once befriended, he is true till the end. I created the Amatharian names with an idea that they would be very difficult to say aloud– I’m not really sure why.
The funny thing about Senta is that I never intended to write a book about her, let alone make her the main character in a series. I originally wrote a description from her viewpoint that was supposed to showcase the setting of Brech City. When I eventually plotted out the trilogy that would become books 1, 3, and 5 of the Senta and the Steel Dragon Series, she took on more and more importance. When I added books 0, 2, and 4 to the mix, the entire story really became her story.
I’m looking forward to completing the series this summer and am already thinking about another six book series that features Senta later in life. I won’t get started on that until at least next year, but I’m already feeling the bug to write it.
Senta is precocious and self-confident. As she grows up she learns more and more magic and discovers that she is a powerful sorceress. One of the most fun things about writing this series is that the characters are so inter-connected. Senta has relationships of one sort or another with more than a hundred major and minor characters. Hopefully this diversity makes her as much fun to read about as she is to write about.
I thought I would spend some time talking about my characters over the coming weeks. My first character was Alexander Ashton. It’s been so long ago, I don’t remember where his first name actually came from, but I think it was probably from Alexander the Great. His last name was from a young lady I used to work with, who was one of my first beta readers.
Alexander is a hero in the vein of John Carter and other Edgar Rice Burroughs heroes. He is strong and rediculously formidable in battle, and also very intelligent, but make the occassional rediculous mistake or assumption that leads to him into danger. He is very fun to write, and Princess of Amathar is from his first person viewpoint. Although he frequently expresses doubt about himself, one gets the impression that he seldom really doubts.
When I eventually get the sequel done (the working title is Knights of Amathar) Alexander Ashton will once again tell the story.
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INSIDE THE SMASHWORDS STYLE GUIDE
GETTING STARTED
Welcome to Smashwords!
Do-it-yourself, or hire help?
Good formatting examples
What Smashwords publishes, what we don’t publish
Five common formatting mistakes to avoid
How Smashwords publishes books
How Smashwords distributes books
How ebook formatting is different from print formatting
How we convert your book into multiple ebook formats
The three secrets to ebook formatting
How to avoid (and fix) AutoVetter errors
Introduction to Meatgrinder conversion system
Your required source file
Understanding the different ebook formats
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
FORMATTING
Pre-Prep
Making Word Behave
Step 1: Make a back up
Step 2: Activate Word’s Show/Hide
Step 3: Turn off Word’s “AutoCorrect” and “AutoFormat” features
Step 4: Eliminate text boxes
Step 5: The Nuclear Method
Formatting
Step 6: Unify Manuscript around Normal paragraph style
Step 7: Managing and modifying paragraph styles, fonts
Step 7a. How to choose the best paragraph separation method (first line indent or block?)
Step 7b: How to implement your chosen paragraph separation method
Step 7b-a: How to define a proper first line indent
Step 7b-b: How to define trailing “after” space for block paragraphs
Step 7b-c: Special tips for poetry, cookbooks and learning materials
Step 7b-d: How to define proper line spacing
Step 8: Check your normalized text
Step 9: Why you should never use tabs or the space bar for indents
Step 10: Managing paragraph returns
Step 11: Managing hyperlinks
Step 12: Designating chapter breaks, page breaks, section breaks
Step 13: Working with images
Step 14: Text justification
Step 14a: Centering text
Step 15: Managing font sizes
Step 16: Style formatting, symbols and glyphs
Step 17: Headers and footers
Step 18: Margins, page sizes and indents
Step 19: Add the Heading style to your Chapter headers (optional)
Step 20: Building navigation into the manuscript
Step 20a: Creating the NCX
Step 20b: Creating the linked Table of Contents
Front Matter
Step 21: Front matter
Step 21a: Blurbs (optional)
Step 21b: Title and copyright page (required!)
Step 21c: Add a Smashwords license statement below copyright page
The End of Your Book
Step 22: The end of your book
POST-FORMATTING
Step 23: Preparing your cover image
Step 24: Review requirements for Premium Catalog distribution
Uploading Your Book to Smashwords
Step 25: How to upload your book
Step 26: How AutoVetter works
Step 27: After you publish – check your work
Step 27a: Check for EPUBCHECK compliance (important!)
How to Market Your Book
Step 28: Read the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide
Helpful Resources
Send Feedback
About the Author
APPENDIX
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Review by: Saurabh Patil on May. 08, 2011 :
Excellent sequel to His Robot Girlfriend. The flow was very harmonious and I was lost in futuristic life of Mike Smith as if I was part of the family. The book is short but sweet.
I am looking forward for an another sequel to it. (Maybe Her Robot grandma?)
Review by: Andreas Friedle on May. 11, 2011 :
I really enjoyed this book (But I think “My Robot Girlfriend” was a little bit better). It was short, but a very good read. For 1 dollar… excellent!
When there’s part 3 or something similar coming: I’ll read it.
Today is Friday the 13th, which means that for the first time in more than 2 1/2 years, I didn’t post to this blog! It’s not my fault. Blogger was down with some kind of read only crash yesterday, preventing me from making my regular post. Ugh!
This is what I’ve been working on for the past month and I’ll continue on at least until the end of the school year. Depending on how close I am to finishing, I’ll either finish it immedately over the summer, or set it aside to work on The Young Sorceress.
Blood Trade is a vampire story set in Las Vegas. It is not a paranormal romance. There’s not much romance in it, but there is a lot of paranormal… and sex, and violence. The main character is a goth girl, former army ranger, private detective. One of the ideas I’m playing with is that society is starting to break down as the corruption, violence, and evil of vampires and other monster seep into the everyday lives of regular people. I’ll fill you in a bit more about the story in the coming weeks. Right now I’m just finishing up chapter 4 (of 20).
These are two science fiction stories which I have started. Although both take place in the same universe, they are quite different.
Nova Dancer is the story of a space merchant captain on a four man ship and his (mostly) unrequited love for one of his crewmembers. It’s plotted out as a novella.
Cosmos is a larger, multi-character story that takes place mostly on a space station. I think it will be a multi-part series with each chapter focusing more on one particular character. So far, my favorite character is my villain, who is very un-villain-like really.
City of Amathar 