The Voyage of the Minotaur is now $1.99

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I am dropping the price of Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur to $1.99.  I have been struggling to decide a price point on this book and this series.  I want people to read it and I hope this will make it more attractive.

The book has been out almost exactly two years now, and as I write this, it has sold 259 copies.  I think that definitely warrents a price reduction.  By going below 2.99 at Amazon, I drop from a 70% royalty rate to a 30% royalty rate, and I don’t really expect the additional sales to make up for it.  But hopefully there will be an increase in the sales of the sequels, and that will make up the difference.

If you have read my other books, but haven’t yet gotten to Senta and the Steel Dragon, give them a try.  They are my favorite books of all those that I’ve written.

Happy Read an Ebook Week

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Today marks the beginning of Read an Ebook Week.  In celebration of the week, I am changing the price of Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 0: Brechalon from 99 cents to $0.  This is not a limited time thing, but is a permanent change. 

I will have to remove Book 0 from Amazon, as they will not allow me to distribute free books, but I am uploading it to Feedbooks.com.  This along with the other stores which distribute it, should give everyone a chance to find it.

Book 0 was actually intended as Bonus material anyway, so this puts it right where it should have been all the time.  I’m going to provide links to the download in the other books of the series.  If you purchased Book 0, and paid 99 cents for it, send me an email or leave a post here, and when book 4 comes out (very soon) I will send you a coupon code for it.

The Drache Girl: Graham Dokkins

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Graham Dokkins is one of the major characters in the Senta and the Steel Dragon series.  Graham sort of came into his own in Book 2, but he remains extremely important in book 3.  Several plot lines revolve around him and his relationship with Senta.  Graham really compliments Senta and they work well together as a couple, even though they are kids.

One of the things that I’ve been struggling with is how much Graham appears in Book 4, which isn’t much.  In the rewrite, I think I’ll add a bit more of him.

The Drache Girl: Bessemer

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It was the size of a small pony, covered in scales the color of polished steel.  Every step it took was a study in grace, and from the tip of its whiskered snout, past its folded wings, to the tip of its barbed tail, it seemed to just flow along.
“They look as though they’ve never seen a dragon before,” said the dragon.

Bessemer the dragon appears more in The Drache Girl than any other book in the series.  He is right there on the first page, and what’s more, he’s grown up enough to talk.  He’s a regular character in his own right.  Part of the story of the series is his growth of course, but I found him particularly fun to write in this book.

The Drache Girl: Senta Bly

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Senta Bly is the title character for the Senta and the Steel Dragon series of fantasy books.  In The Drache Girl, book 3 of the series, she is twelve years old and has finally come into her own a bit.  In this book more than any of the others, we see Senta as a kid, with friends who adventure with her around the town of Port Dechantagne.

Spoiler Alert:

Though Senta is really quite a powerful sorceress at this point, people aren’t too afraid of her yet.  This is a major theme of books 4 and 5.  People know her and know not to cross her.  At least the people of Port Dechantagne do, and some visitors learn this during the course of the story.

Senta at age twelve was inspired by a string of skinny blond girls who came and went in my class.  One in particular came to school one day with her face all skinned up, and that inspired one of the chapters in this book.

The Drache Girl

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Well, it’s time to discuss the characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 3: The Drache Girl.  In a lot of ways, this is my favorite book of the series, which I suppose makes it my favorite among all the books I’ve written.  The thing about this book is that I like all the characters best at this point in their lives.  Senta is really fun at age 12, running around with her friends.  I had a great deal of inspiration for this, as I was (and still am) surrounded by 12 year olds all day.  Bessemer, the Steel Dragon, appears more in this book than any of the others. Yuah is at the high point in her story arc, sort of.  I also like Saba Colbshallow the most in this book.  It really is his story as much as anyone’s.

So, over the next few weeks I’m going to go through the characters roughly in the order they appear and hopefully give you some insights about them and how they came to be.  If you have any questions, let me hear them.

His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

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Here it is– the title and cover for the next Robot Wife novella.  His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue.
I get a great many emails requesting another Patience book, and considering His Robot Wife has sold more copies than all of my other books put together, it just seems stupid not to get another one done as soon as possible.

I sat down and tried to think of a new approach that would give me more story opportunities and still be true to the characters.  When it came to me, I immediately had ideas for about five more books.  So you can expect Mike & Patience to make frequent appearances over the next few years.  I definitely plan to have this book done sometime in 2012.  Watch this space for more information.

Update: Blood Moon

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Blood Moon is the sequel to Blood Trade.  We may see a title change before I’m done, because there are already a half dozen books out their called Blood Moon, but it does fit, because it’s mostly about werewolves.  I had an idea for the intro and started writing, finishing just shy of two chapters before I ran out of steam, but I have the basic plot planned out.  I doubt I’ll get back to this before I finish The Young Sorceress or Astrid Maxxim 2, but I might have this one done by the end of the year.

Update: The Young Sorceress

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The Young Sorceress is dragging along.  I have to set it aside and work on Astrid Maxxim for a while because, quite frankly, this book is a hard one.  The real problem is that working a day job while I write, I can only manage a page or two a day, and it is hard to keep a complicated plot in my head from day to day.  Astrid is easy.  It’s all pretty straight forward.  The Young Sorceress follows seven major characters through their own stories and when I rewrite it, that number may increase.  Ideally I would really like to have this done before summer, but there is a possibility that I may not be able to get it done before then.  I’ll keep you informed here.

In the meantime, this is the latest version of the cover.  Same picture, but with a border to make it look more like the rest of the books in the series.

Update: Astrid Maxxim and her Undersea Dome

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I know I’m all over the place lately.  I’ve been writing here and there on four different projects and have others that I’ve been thinking about.  But, I’m at the halfway point in the draft for Astrid Maxxim 2, and I still think I should finish it some time in March– maybe even before.

Astrid hasn’t taken off too much sales-wise, but I put 4 paperback copies of book 1 in the school library where I teach and they have all been checked out constantly for a couple of weeks now.  The kids seem to really like it.