FREE E-BOOK: THE SEA DRAGON

Hello all,

I've decided to make one of my fantasy novels, The Sea Dragon, free for the whole summer!

That's right - if you visit my author site at Smashwords, you can download it for free until 6 September 2013.

Just head over to the website and enter this coupon code:

PA48P

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

- Don

Now selling at Barnes & Noble!

Woo-hoo! Courtesy the folks at Smashwords, my books have begun selling at Barnes & Noble for the Nook tablet!

Tales of the Wyrm and Kaunovalta: The Complete Trilogy are already available, and the rest should be heading to the site over the coming weeks.

Huzzah!  Next stop - Kobo and Chapters, Sony, Apply, Diesel...

Published books - fixed!

A sincere apology to any of my readers who have purchased my books from Amazon.com.  I found out earlier this week that there was a problem with the image settings in the files offered for on-line purchase; a reader complained about the maps in The Sea Dragon not displaying properly, and Amazon contacted me to fix the problem. I got it sorted out and republished the book in minutes, but then decided to check the rest - and sure enough, the same problem affected ALL of my books.

So they've all now been fixed. I even took the opportunity to republish my non-fiction book on NATO and Kosovo as well.

By way of apology, here's a special offer to anyone who bought a copy of one of my books from Amazon, and ended up with a product that did not display properly or that was poorly formatted: send me an email via the contact page at my author website, specifying the book(s) you purchased and a return email address, and I will email you the most recent .mobi file for each book, along with a complimentary copy of the companion volume, Tales of the Wyrm.

All I'd ask in return is that you consider visiting the appropriate page for each book at the Amazon Kindle store (or the Smashwords site) and leaving a "like" (assuming of course that you liked the book); or better yet, if you have the time, a review.

Thanks - and once again, my sincere apologies!

Kaunovalta / Bjornssaga sales report!

A shout-out of thanks to everyone who's bought my books over the past two months! So far they've sold in Canada, the US, the UK, France, Germany, and an indeterminate number of other European countries!

Folks, I couldn't be happier. I've been writing my whole life, and it's nice to see my work appreciated.

Anyone interested in looking my stuff over, you can find my author pages at Amazon, and Smashwords.

So far only The Sea Dragon and Tales of the Wyrm are available at Smashwords; the full Kaunovalta trilogy (The Running Girl, Dweorgaheim, and Daughter of Dragons) will be available on Smashwords early in August).

Thanks again, everybody! You're the best!

The Sea Dragon - special coupon!

Hi all,

I've created a special coupon for anyone who purchases, The Sea Dragon (Bjornssaga, Book I) which has just been published on Smashwords.  Anyone who purchases the book from Smashwords can enter a coupon code to save $4.00 off the $6.99 cover price (for a sale price of $2.99).  The coupon is valid until 30 June 2012.

The coupon code is: SN37E

Feel free to pass it along to anyone you like.  I hope you take advantage of it!

And thanks for reading.

The Sea Dragon - First copy sold!

A big shout-out and thankyou to whomever purchased the first copy of The Sea Dragon within 6 hours of it going on-line.  Cheers!

The Sea Dragon - now on Smashwords!

Hey all,

My new book, The Sea Dragon, is available for purchase via Smashwords!  This allows you to download any of the following formats: epub, Sony reader (LRF), Kindle, PDF, RTF, Palm Doc and Plain Text.

To buy the book from Smashwords, you can go here!

And here it is from Amazon!

New book - "The Sea Dragon"

Hello all!

As you can see from the title bar, my new book, The Sea Dragon (Book I of the Bjornssaga), is now available for purchase at Amazon.com.

Here's the precis:

Bjorn Guthbrandr – a one-time reiver turned priest of Esu; a humble Hand of the Great General, the Allfather of Men – has been caught up in a quest that began in the distant past. Travelling to his homeland in the mountains of far-off Jarla to consult with his superiors and seek out the trail of an artifact of ancient evil, he finds himself burdened with a most unusual companion: Salimankerias, a dragon of the sea. Together they must leave the south behind and make their way to the frozen northlands in the depths of winter, searching for the holy city of Kofalls, where they hope to find Bjorn’s superiors in faith, and the answers that they seek. They find much more than that; not only answers, but danger, disaster and death – and proof that an ancient evil has awoken, more potent and dreadful than any they had expected to find. The ancient city, Bjorn's homeland, and even the world itself are at stake as the two unlikely comrades strive to overcome the differences that divide them, and work together to defeat the fell and ancient powers that hope to enslave Bjorn’s people, and bury the northlands in a shroud of eternal ice and darkness.

The Sea-Dragon is the first book of the Bjornssaga – three tales that concern the deeds of Bjorn Guthbrandr, Fist of the Allfather, in the months after his departure from the company of his fellow Brothers of the Wyrm. Those earlier tales will be told in a forthcoming series entitled The Brotherhood of the Wyrm. While the Bjornssaga thus begins in medias res, each of its books, including this one, stands on its own, recounting a single, self-contained episode in the overall saga.

If you like my previous books, I hope you'll feel this one is worth a look-see.  And if you have any feedback, please put it in a review!

I'll be taking a short break from Anuru to work on another project for the next few months, but hope to be back before Christmas with the first installment of the next trilogy I plan to tackle - The Brotherhood of Wyrms. 

Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

What's next?

As I'm finishing the final edits on book #4, "The Sea Dragon" (Book I of Bjornssaga), I've been pondering what to write next.  I think it's going to have to be the three books of the next trilogy, the Brotherhood of Wyrms.  This trilogy begins around about the same time as Ally is interrupting a group of thieves in the royal gardens at Astrapratum (see The Running Girl), and wraps up roughly while she is going toe-to-toe with her uncle Luperio in Elder Delvin (see Dweorgaheim).  This is one of those cases where the stories are already written in my head; it's just a matter of getting them down in prose that's agreeable to the reader.

In the meantime, I've been playing with the cover art a little more.  Here's what I've got at the moment:

It's a start.  I should have my author website up before too long, too; and I'll be passing appropriate credit to the lovely lady who's been helping me with that.

Cheerio!

Cover ideas

Trying some art ideas...

I kind of like these.  Let's see what develops as I write them.

Tales to Come

I've had to put my head to the problem, and have finally come up with the structure and titles of the fifteen books that will comprise the totality of the Chronicles of Anuru.  Five trilogies, all told.  Four of those books are already written (three published, and one forthcoming in a few weeks), and 12 of them are completely plotted out. 

To keep my brain on the straight and narrow, I've devised an "infographic" approach to show how they all fit together.  Here it is:

The order of writing should be pretty straightforward.  Once I've got Book I of the Bjornssaga, The Sea Dragon, up for sale, I'll begin writing second trilogy, The Road Into Ruin.  That ought to take 3-4 months per book, given that I already have the stories plotted out and a lot of the material already written.  After that's done, I'll write the three books of The Filigree Throne (the title of the first book, Centang Lewat, is the term in the Feyspeech for 'The Last Warden'); and then the last two books of the Bjornssaga - although I might write The Azure Wind before I wrap up The Queen of Summer.  Once those twelve have all been published, I'll move on to the final three books that together comprise Veroldbrast (the term in the tongue of the ancient Yonar-ri that means 'The Breaking of the World').  The three titles in that trilogy translate, respectively, as 'Dragonhome'; 'Ebon Night'; and 'The End in Fire'.

Ambitious, yes.  But I've put so much into these stories so far that I don't think I have any choice but to continue.

Wish me luck.

Editing...

Apologies for the silence.  I've finished the final draft of my next book in the Chronicles of Anuru series - The Sea Dragon, the first book of the Bjornssaga trilogy (probably).  I'm in the final stage of editing, and then I have to enter the edits and finalize the formatting. 

I'm now thinking it'll be available by the end of June, running at about 450 pages or so.  I'm also thinking of a slightly different cover:

Just a thought.  It might change before the publication date.

Well...back to work...