Jeremie Guy's Blog

Hey Everyone,

Get excited! The sequel to the Third of Seven will be released on July 20 (7 days)!  I’ll be posting updates with purchase links after release, and of course you can buy a copy from me in person if you are nearby/if you want it signed.  The going price is the same as the last book ($20, sigh).  I’m running a promotion, so if you want to buy the first installment and the sequel it’ll be $30.  If you bought the last book and are looking for a discount, I’ll extend the same price to you (so $15 for just the sequel if you already purchased the first copy).

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In other news, I’ll be attending at least one Sci-Fi convention this year.  The first one on the roster is WillCon, which takes place in Williamson, WV (lonnnnggg drive in the early morning for me, but it should be great!).  Here’s a link to the event if you’d like to go, and here’s a link to the FB page if you want to check them out there.

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I’ll also be returning to the Beaver County Book Festival (here’s a link to their website as well as the link to the FB page).

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I’m hoping to go to at least one more, but it’s up in the air right now.  Stay tuned and reach out with any questions!  Thanks for reading guys

Hello everyone,

A quick timeline update:  the official book release is in July, but review copies are available now (see below).

So the publisher finalized the cover a little while back.  Here’s a picture.  Any thoughts?  The process went a lot rougher than last time, and overall I’m not happy with the way it looks. I don’t feel the idea I had was conveyed properly, and the publisher essentially prevented me from bringing in an outside artists to do the work so I’m stuck with this (long story, but message me if you want to hear the whole ordeal).

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But, at the end of the day I’ll have to work with selling it whether or not I like the cover.  Now, on to the review copies.

The publisher was kind enough to tell me about a website called LibraryThing.  They allow authors to give away copies of their book in exchange for honest reviews, and I figured I’d pass this opportunity on to you guys.  If you want to check it out, click here (but note that you’ll have to scroll down until you see my book, as there are multiple books at the link).  You will likely have to create an account to request a free copy of the book.

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In addition to LibraryThing, I also purchased a bunch of books that I’ll be mailing out to reviewers. The publisher also said they wouldn’t be sending out review copies for me this time around, but they were kind enough to give me their list so I could send them out myself.  If you want to purchase a physical copy before the official release, you can but you’ll have to leave a review when it is officially released (it’s not on Amazon yet).  I’m selling these early release copies for $15 instead of the $20 sticker price, so let me know if you want to take advantage of that.  Note:  if you need the book mailed to you, I’ll have to charge shipping as well (it’ll go first class so message me if you want it mailed, and I’ll weigh it to let you know how much it’ll cost).

So keep me in your prayers regarding reviews and the official launch of the book.  I’m hoping to get at least 3 or 4 professional reviews (positive of course).  Last time around I only got 2 (professional) but they were both good enough to quote for publicity material.

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Good news everyone!  The publisher accepted the sequel to the Third of Seven so the ball has finally started rolling.  If you haven’t already guessed, the sequel will be called The Second of Seven. My apologies for making everyone wait so long. Unfortunately, it’ll still be a bit of a wait before everything is finalized.  **insert frustrated sigh here** Below is a timetable so you have  an idea of how long things will take, but feel free to reach out to me with any questions.  I think I’ll be able to start selling physical copies of the book slightly before the timetable says they’ll be ready, but I’m not 100% sure yet.  I’ll keep you guys posted with what’s happening!  From our preliminary talks, it looks like this will also be a hardcover this time around (hopefully not exclusively), so I’ll keep you updated with pricing and the like.

February – manuscript was sent to the publisher’s editor. Estimated review time will be one month.

March – manuscript is scheduled to return to me for review. Estimated review time will be one month. This will also likely be the time when preliminary cover art will be sent to me, so I may post some of the early artwork and see what you guys think.

April-June – finalizing everything on both ends.  Copies of the book will be sent to reviewers. Any positive reviews will likely get inserted in the front of the book (reviews from the Third will likely get inserted in the sequel as well). Distribution to other outlets like librarians for their reviews, etc.

July-August – book should be available for purchase and reading!

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The above is just an estimate, as things may change on either end, but I’ll keep you all posted.  If you haven’t already, follow the blog and be the first to hear about things.

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If you’re yet to check out the first book, you can get your copy from me if you’re local (to Wheeling, WV or Glen Dale, MD), or you can pick up a copy from Amazon (Kindle or paperback).  Click here to go to the page.

That’s it for this post. Sorry about all the delays! Just a little longer :).  Reach out with any questions or feel free to post them in the comments section.

The West Virginia Book Festival has come and gone, and it left a good bit to be desired.  We  (authors and vendors) were allowed to set up the day before (Thursday) and I waltzed in there with bright eyes and high expectations.  I set everything up with smiles and a pep in my step that soon disappeared as the weekend progressed.

I didn’t think about it until Friday’s festivities were halfway completed, but trying to have an event during the day when most people work is a terrible idea.  Why the book festival decided to hold the event on a Friday and Saturday instead of a Saturday and Sunday is beyond my understanding, but hopefully they at least had a good reason.  I made a total of 2 sales on Friday (about the average for the authors there as far as I heard).  Foot traffic was pretty low.

Every author I spoke to was excited for Saturday, hoping there would be increased foot traffic and sales.  Foot traffic was indeed increased, but a hidden variable kept our sales down:  the Used Book Sale.  As a relatively independent author (small press that published my book offers little in the way of support…aside from moral support), events like this are main ways to introduce the book to a different audience.  Since I have to buy copies of my book in order to then sell them, I can’t sell them for super cheap or I’ll be paying people to purchase my book.  As such, I (and the other authors like me) had no way to compete with the Used Book sale (where books were going for $1-$2).  The result:  low sales and mediocre exposure.  I sold about 9 books altogether.  For an event this big and publicized, selling 9 books is an extraordinarily low number (though a number that was about average for all of the authors there).  One of the coordinators reported that 6,000 people came through the event last year, but we were not informed that most of that traffic was for the Used Book sale and not the authors.

So, overall I sold about the same as I did at the Beaver County Book Fest (forgot to blog about that), but I paid half/a third for the table there. I heard about a sci-fi convention that was happening around the same time as this festival, but in Columbus, so I’ll look into that next year.  Ya live, ya learn.

It took a while, but I finally secured a couple of professional reviews!  They were through sister companies, but done by two separate people. One was pretty good (4 stars) but the other was just average (3 stars).

The websites were sure to point out that the reviews are the opinion of ONE reviewer, but as a bit of a perfectionist, receiving less than 5 stars was a little hard (even though 3 stars means the reviewer enjoyed the book, and 4 stars means the reviewer enjoyed and would recommend).  In my defense, some of the 3 star reviewers comments were actually wrong (they mentioned I dubbed the Fleigh immortal, yet the Fleigh could be hurt, so that means their immortality was not true.  Reading a simple definition of immortality, one can understand that immortality is not the same as invincibility, as the reviewer made it seem. Sadly, they still have the final word. There were a few other things that were a bit off, but overall I was still happy to see their favorable words.  Will definitely be using it on my advertisement. Here are some highlights.

…This, in short, is a tale of brilliance…

~The Manhattan Book Review

…a story absolutely dripping with creativity…

~ The San Francisco Book Review

If you want to see the full reviews on the websites, here are the links.

The Manhattan Book Review

The San Francisco Book Review

Also got another 5 star review on Amazon from Myrna! Thanks for reviewing Myrna!  I’ll add that post to the “Reviews” tab on the website.  Thanks for reading everyone, and thanks for the support! If you want to leave a review of your own, click on one of the links below.  I’m doing a raffle as a thank you to people that are leaving reviews, so click here to check out the Facebook page for Rules and Notes.  Thanks again!

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

 

I’ve been published for a little under six months now, and today I was honored to be the feature author at a local book club!  The club met (for the first time actually) at the Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling. They were all previous co-workers from Williams Lea and it was awesome to see them again and catch up.

Of course, since it was a book club, we talked about The Third of Seven, and everyone said a few things they liked and disliked about the story, characters, and general world. It was awesome to be able to hear what people thought. I love hearing feedback, whether good or bad, so it was a true blessing.

Here’s the group in all their glory!

Oh, and Adam pointed out that the library tag makes me the “scifi guy”…how awesome is that!

I pray to have the opportunity to be the feature author in other book clubs, and I’m always open to showing up or speaking with people about the book. If you have a book club (or something similar) and you’d like me to come out and speak to your group about the book, please do not hesitate to shoot me an email at jeremie.guy.author@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Don’t forget to like the Facebook page by clicking here, and follow on Twitter (@TheThirdof7).

If you still haven’t left a review for the book, here’s the link to amazon and goodreads.  Have a blessed rest of your day!

My full-time job put me on to a good event with the Junior League of Wheeling.  There was a dilapidated playground down by the harbor and the Junior League organized an effort to rebuild it. The event was a great success, though I was only able to go for one day. Just so happened to rain all day, and I got super filthy, but it was all for a good cause and I had a good time! Learned a bit more about building stuff, though I’ll probably never stop saying I’m an unskilled volunteer. Here are some pictures from the event.

It was a rainy, soggy day, and the wife and I decided to go out to see the new Avengers movie and have dinner at Red Lobster. The movie lived up to the hype and I was happy we picked it.  Fingers crossed we’ll go see the new X-Men too.  The Crimson Crustacean is one of our favorite date locations, and I just so happened to have a 50 dollar gift card so we went to town. I had one of my favorites, but we splurged on a lobster and seafood artichoke dip…

…and we both got desert. She got the cheesecake. I’m a sucker for giant cookies and a lover of brownies, so I went with the lava brownie-cookie….

Delicious as always and only had to pay 7 bucks for the actual bill  (tipped the waiter and what not).

Did some good work, saw a good movie and had some good food. Good day overall. Didn’t sell  any books but did manage to give out a business card. Woot.

Things were pretty slow at work, so I decided to try to draw some potential cover art for the sequel or prequel.  Below are the finished products. Don’t know how I was able to draw this, so it’s nothing other than God’s grace.  Not saying it’s perfect, but it’s far greater than what I’m able to do without his help.  What do you guys think?  Would this be a good book cover?  Drop a line or two and tell me what you think in the comments section.

Don’t forget to like the Facebook Page!

This is after some photo editing touchups (mainly just darkened the outside and blurred a little.

Original sketch, no color
Sketch with the color added but with no shadows or shading
final product with the shading and shadows without the final touchup.
No effects added but the shadows and shading added in

 

Had a couple of drawings done.  What do you guys think?  Does it look like Koñél?

Just the head shot

Ready for a fight

 

If you got some art you’d like to show off I’d love to see it! Email any pictures or drawings related to the book to jeremie.guy.author@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to like the page and submit any reviews if you’ve finished reading!  Click here to like the page and click here to submit Amazon reviews.

God is good. Received another 5 star review on Amazon and 5 star rating on GoodReads! Read the full review on Amazon by clicking here!