Caszandra in audiobook!

And finally the audiobook for Caszandra! 

• Apple (search through Apple Books).
• Audible.
• Kobo.
• Scribd. 
• Amazon.

Also available through a host of other channels.  Check your favourite distributor to see if it's there.

In the meantime, I'm a little over halfway through Firsts (non-SFF side project).  It seems to have gotten distracted from gratuitous sex into 'friendship is magic', but is still highly entertaining for me.

COVID-19 has impacted me very little, other than my day job at least temporarily shifting to work from home, which I greatly appreciate for the extra sleeping in time.  It does mean I no longer get my excellent commute writing sessions, so I write a bit more in the evenings now.

I hope all of you are keeping safe in this very unusual year.

Cover Shuffle

One consistent piece of feedback I've received about Touchstone is that the covers of the individual books appear to be targetted to middle grade rather than young adult readers.  Since I really love those covers (which are tremendously appropriate to the content), I stuck with them for quite some time, but have started an experiment today to see whether the more 'floaty girl' type of cover will help sales.

These are the covers which will go up in the next day or so:

The "Caszandra" cover is a little dark in thumbnail , but I think the progression of the three covers is rather cool.

May make no difference at all, of course, but at least people will stop saying it looks middle grade.

[Will be keeping the paperbacks the way they are though.]

[Updated to change fonts.]

My l33t drawing skills

You've seen the cover of Caszandra - powerfully realistic, in a gorgeous burnt-Autumn world.

Now is revealed the incredible concept art I provided to the artist, Simon Dominic, to explain just what it was I wanted in the picture:

Amazing, no?

I am actually capable of a basic level of drawing, so long as it's on paper with a pencil, but I cannot for the life of me draw on the screen.  It is an entirely different skill set.

I draw a great deal less than I once did, and no longer draw character sketches of my characters.  Here's a sketch of my very first novel protagonist, from the never-again-to-see-the-light-of-day Talismans of Godshelm.

Hm, and one of the interesting people she knows...

Add caption

Me, procrastinating when I should be working on Gratuitous Epilogue?  Well, yeah. ;)

Caszandra Release

A while ago I mentioned in a post that I'd noticed search terms leading to this blog about the Caszandra release date.  Since then:

Very funny, mystery UK person!  You'll be happy to know the answer is TODAY!

Available now from Smashwords, Amazon US and Amazon UK.  Other vendor sites (and the TPB version) take longer to process through.

Congrats to the ebook competition winners (ChrisL, JulieH, Jyak, DianaW, smarywcerb2, Gonzalo & Carin): the book should be in your inbox.

Today I have:

- Decided to never, ever set a fixed release date again.
- Uploaded the WRONG version of the cover to Amazon (can't fix this till tomorrow).
- Cried all through editing the final entry.  Probably from relief at being at the end.
- Discovered a new typo every time I went to finalise the ebook.
- Stressed constantly about whether this bit or that bit or the other bit is boring.
- Read my favourite bits over and over with a big grin on my face.

It's been a big boost for me to have readers looking forward to one of my books, so I'd like to add a big THANKS for all your comments and reviews.  I hope you all have fun with it!

"Caszandra" Ebook Competition - Plus Important Note for Nook Readers

For this release, instead of a Smashwords coupon, I'll be running a competition to give away an ebook copy of Caszandra, plus your choice of any of my other books.  There'll be seven winners, and the ebooks will be emailed out before I even load the copies up on Smashwords and Amazon.

To enter, simply email giveaway@andreakhost.com.  [Competition closed now.]  Your email should include:

- Which Setari squad would you most like to join/hang out with and why?
- The email address you want me to send the ebook to.
- Your preferred ebook format (Kindle's mobi/Epub (Nook)/PDF).

Winners will be chosen by random number generator and the competition closes when the book is done! [The 24th, most likely.]

Feel free to include your squad selection in comments on this post as well.

Important Note to Nook (ie. non-Amazon) Readers

Stores such as Barnes & Noble do not allow non-US authors to upload books.  To place the book on B&N, I upload it to Smashwords and Smashwords vets it (can take days/weeks) and then distributes it (can take days/weeks).  Which means that Caszandra will show up on B&N _eventually_ but I have no way of knowing when.  You can still purchase the book at release from www.smashwords.com - Smashwords will have the book in both Nook and Kindle format.

If there's some reason you cannot use Smashwords, but you can't bear to wait for distribution vagaries, email me on release day and I'll see if I can work something out.

Touchstone Wordclouds

And on an only very mildly spoiler-ific note, here are the Wordclouds for each book of the Trilogy.

Stray

Lab Rat One

Caszandra

Wordclouds are an excellent way to spot your writing tics.  I use quite a few weasel words, such as 'like' and 'sort of' and I add 'really' to almost everything and then go back and edit most of them out.  'Just' is also very common.

Interesting to see the progression of importance of certain people through Cass' year away from home.

Touchstone Giveaway

Now that I've finally whipped up a blurb which isn't entirely cringe-worthy, I've posted a giveaway for the entire Touchstone trilogy in trade paperback at Goodreads. [It requires being a member of Goodreads to enter, but that's free and pretty good fun - I find I quite enjoy tracking which books I read, and that I read a lot more than I realised!]

 I'll also be running a giveaway of Caszandra (ebook format) on this blog in the last couple of weeks before release. Release is 25/26 November unless I manage to get through it quickly, in which case I will shift everything forward a bit. ;)

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Caszandra

by Andrea K. Höst

Giveaway ends November 25, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Status Report - September

At current rate, Caszandra should be out by mid to end November.

Cass gets to be a good deal less action-y in this last volume - much to her frustration.  On the flip side, she gets to pull off a very cool stunt which makes me chortle because it's so...gratuitous.  She has a very flexible power set: the problem is the price she pays when using it - and, more important, how people can use her.

On a spoiler-ific note, it will be interesting to see how people take to the way the relationship which developed in Book 2 plays out in Book 3.  It's rare that I'm in the mood for unnecessary relationship angst, so I'm not generally inclined to manufacture some bizarre reason to split people up.  It's far more interesting to me to see how the characters cope with staying together.  With making little compromises for each other.  Avoiding arguments.  Dealing with things the other suddenly wants to do.  The huge decisions and the little things, and how you become different people because you're committed to each other.  [A theme I'm also working through in The Sleeping Life.]

I'm now getting "search terms leading to this site" of "When will Andrea Host finish Caszandra" which is certainly motivation to get my rear in gear!

After Caszandra is out, I'll be on to Hunting, which is a "girl vigilante" book I wrote ages ago (in a hissy fit after a problematic Georgette Heyer novel).  It's one of my "the gods are real" books, and I'll be underlining that a little more clearly in the edit.

Pyramids keeps trying to steal my attention.  The main character has two rather overwhelming nieces, one of whom wants to be a Lady Adventurer, and the other who has decided to marry Heliotropus' princess.  I suspect I'm going to have to consider a sequel to cover all that.

Compilation Covers

Now that I'm moving on to working on Caszandra, one thing I'm turning my mind to is a compilation of the entire Touchstone trilogy - for those who want their rambly SF diaries in one gi-normous block.

Now the covers I have for each of the individual books are painted covers which really match the content of the books - to me.  But I'm well aware that for the market these books are theoretically aimed at (Young Adult) they don't fit the current cover fashions at all (most people think they're aimed at younger readers, because that's where painted covers are being used at the moment).  So (since I'm too cheap to commission another painted cover, and it's going to be ebook only) the compilation is a marketing opportunity to direct the books at the audience which theoretically will most enjoy them (though Stray and Lab Rat appear to work equally well for any gender or age).

Anyone who has gone near Young Adult books lately will no doubt know that the current trend in covers is striking photographs of improbably beautiful girls in gorgeous floaty dresses, looking pensive or anguished (or, well, blank). 

While gorgeous floaty dresses don't quite feel SF to me, Cass does at least frock up a couple of time during her adventures.  Could I combine current trends in Young Adult covers with the book content of Space!  Ninjas!  Bubble worlds!?  I set out on a quest for a photograph of a space ninja in a floaty dress, but they seem a bit thin on the ground.  So I focused on the bubble worlds concept.

Which version works best for you?

The girl in the photo (before I dropped the Blue Eagle nebula on top of her) does in fact appear to be wearing a floaty dress.  So all elements met!

[What do you mean 'no ninjas'?  There's more than enough shadow there for any half-competent ninja to take full advantage of.]

Edit: Fourth option:

Status Report

Finally through the near-last edit of Voice!  That means (unless some great logical inconsistency is uncovered) it's likely to be out mid-September.  I'm currently working on the (rather spoilery!) map, and will be including a glossary (and adding one into Silence), since the titles and countries can be a bit difficult to remember.

Voice is very short!  The shortest thing I'm ever likely to release (though still novel length, closer to the average length for a mystery than a fantasy novel).  I debated adding a whole series of extra adventures, but this is the correct length, I think, for this part of the story.  It's practically a reversal of the traditional fantasy novel (which often build up to a huge battle), and is remarkably emotional at several points (tearing up at my own writing, tch).  I suspect, when the readers get to the last couple of chapters, they will be screaming at me, and sharpening the knives, heh.

Then it's on to finalising Caszandra.  This volume is 150,000 words long, so it's hard to predict how long this will take me to fine-edit.  I'm aiming for early December.

I also plan to 'relax' with writing more of Pyramids in there, but I've forbidden myself from working on that until I've finished all the tasks for Voice.

Sales were fairly bad this month (yet still actual pocket money).  August is apparently the absolute worst month for selling books, so I'm blaming it on that at the moment.  I did a giveaway at LibraryThing, and the general response has been good.  Diary format is still the main thing people dislike about Touchstone, though it bothers fewer people than I expected.

There's a few readers who seem to have gone through every book I've written and liked them all and that means a great deal to me.  :)

Colours

Still turning over possible font/colour combinations for Caszandra.  There's so many possibilities...

    

Why hello there...

Just received the final art for Caszandra (Part 3 of Touchstone) and couldn't resist immediately playing with title placement (still have to do font selection and fool with colours, but the overall placement works for me).

I'm just awed by the beauty and realism of Simon Dominic's work, turning the planet in Touchstone into a tangible place, and making Cass into someone who I feel you could see walking down the street.  And blocking the way, sucking all the attention, the most unnatural, powerful wrongness of the Cruzatch.

I love particularly the echo set up by the position of their fingers.

[This image also keeps making me think of an old song: "Hey there Little Red Riding Hood, don't you know you're looking good..."  The Cruzatch are such gloating creatures...]

Paint me a picture

The cover of "Caszandra", the conclusion of the "Touchstone" trilogy, has reached sketch stage, and I'm really looking forward to the final version.  With the exception of Stained Glass Monsters, I've been fairly detailed in what I want on my covers, but the transition from word to image has each time been a thoroughly enjoyable blooming of concept to something far greater than what I was able to describe.

I have a strong liking for painted covers, and so commissioned work specifically created for the stories, rather than photographic or non-representational images, and I'm very glad I did.  It's been interesting to note how the cover art for Champion especially has been interpreted as aimed at middle-school or young adult.  Since the image itself is of a clearly adult woman in a not tremendously pleasant situation, it suggests that it's the particular style of art (painted, realistic but not photo-realistic) which has become associated in people's minds with middle-school books.

Since I love and adore the Champion cover, I wouldn't change it for the world, but it is something to always keep in mind, particularly when formulating the blurb.  The Touchstone covers  are a different artist, but also a painted style.  However, since they feature a 17-18 year-old on the cover, I suspect that they will be read clearly as YA.

"Stray" is very close to ready to go.  I'm most curious to see if the unusual rhythm and pacing created by the diary format will work for anyone.  Each of the three volumes represents a particular stage in Cass' year, and so the split into three parts was, I think, the correct decision structurally, but the absence of chapters and the filter established by what Cass chooses to record, and when she has an opportunity to do so, significantly changes how the story can be told, and also how it will be read.  The usual rising urgency I establish in my novels is, I think, not nearly so present, but I think Cass comes across quite intensely as a person.

What I need to do now is stop myself continually editing and re-editing until I've tweaked all her voice out.