Iscah's Blog

I'm going to try to find appropriate places to put a tip jar... Need to build up some money in Amoeba Ink for new book covers and print runs.

I have pulled the Seventh Night hardback from general distribution.  Rising print costs have just made it too expensive, and the book is over due for a paperback edition.  For now, you can still order the hardback directly from Ingram (our printer/distributor) for $24.99: https://shop.lightningsource.com/b/085

QR code to purchase Seventh Night.

I'm on a mission to tidy up my web presence.  I fixed a lot of broken links on the budgeting blog and wrote some new posts that should appear over the next few weeks.  https://minimumwager.livejournal.com/  

I have been working on the last Before the Fairytale Story: Seven and Thirteen .  It's kind of a vignette style snapshot of Seven Night at Seven and Thirteen years old.   I think part of what has held up the release of The Hidden Prince is that I don't know if this last story will long enough to justify it's own print copy.  If it's very short, I'll probably stick it together with The Hidden Prince since the two stories are more closely related.  So far I'd guess it's between 15,000 and 18,000 words.  For comparison, The Girl With No Name is just shy of 36,000 and Horse Feathers over 85,000.  Not impossible it will hit a similar length.  The Hidden Prince is just over 31,000 words.

I do have some more chapters to go.  So it may turn out long enough.  I did pull it as a serial from Fictionpress.  The serialization may have gained me a few readers, but it wasn't bringing in the numbers I need to really impress and agent or traditional press.  I didn't care when I started out, because I didn't have the pressure of needing to sell a huge print run quickly.  But if I want to get the clout to do a project that I really want to, I need to show I can write books that will sell at traditional press numbers.  So got to find a fresh book release strategy.

QR Code to order The Girl With No Name

Or click this link: https://shop.lightningsource.com/b/085?params=ee23hTBxLWkYkSbCLMRP59iNF9SIzJYamfkfjDx5yJZ

And be able to order "Before the Fairytale: The Girl With No Name" directly from Ingram.

I spent the weekend updating broken links on this blog on old posts... It's weird how much has disappeared from the internet.  It used to seem like everything was documented or archived somewhere.  If anyone know how to switch back to the old post editing option, that would be great.  This new one is terrible, and I'm not sure why the font is enormous.

I'm testing the HTML code (test failed).  This link should work as well:  
https://shop.lightningsource.com/b/085?params=q2v59XSKqD711TOFG5ZUYk0hMop8C2EE9UPxzYAppZt

Ingram, our printer/distributor has a new program where readers can order directly from them, which helps cut out the middle man.  I'm slowing working on tidying up my online presence and preparing new books for publication.  I definitely need to up my promotion game but trying to get more tactical with it.

I'm in the process of discontinuing the Seventh Night hardback.  The printing has just gotten too expensive.  So if you were waiting to buy one, get it soon.  There are plans to get a paperback out, but for right ebook is going to be the main option.

Not going into details, but I got interviewed by a public school teacher about homeschooling and why we opted for homeschool over public school.  For us it was mainly pandemic and personal anxiety.  I am not anti-public school in any way.  But we did talk about some other factors on why we had not returned, and it was a good conversation.

For us, bussing is kind of the biggest thing.  We're in a zone with 10 elementary schools and 1 high school and cramming all those kids together causes a lot of issues.  But the nephew spending 2 hours per day on a bus where others kids are smoking/vaping is a big turn off.  I think the solution is that our zone needs at least one or two more high schools to meet the growing population density.  I'd kind of like to see a return to K-12 neighborhood schools.  I do see the value of getting out of the neighborhood and meeting other kids or offering more age specific options.  But environmentally and socially, I think it would help build better communities.

Trying to get back on the horse.  Sent a new project to a couple agents and cleaning up my online presence while I wait for responses.  I have made all the apartment project videos private.  I had planned to release those, unfortunately high inflation made all my shopping examples completely outdated, far more than they normally would be in the same amount of time *sigh*.  I also removed my longer works from fictionpress.

I know the website is long overdue for an update.  Nephew is finishing up his first year of high school, so hopefully I'll be able to focus a bit more on getting my to do list caught up.

I've watch this music video "Stil Feel" by Half Alive almost everyday for the last two months working on a new project.  I wrote a 100,000 novel in a month and feel pretty good about that (okay it was partially written but I finished it up).  Whether it will ever see the light of day is yet to be seen.

I apologize for not having more updates.  A lot of what I need to do is formatting, and I can't really say what my hold up is.  Except stress did kind of mess with my memory, so I feel like I need to relearn my programs.  *sigh*  I'm debating what my next steps are, but at least I am writing.

(Free Download of Horse Feathers March 18-22.  Please read and review.)

So, from August of 2018 to August of 2019, I did a massive video project.  My original plan had been to release videos as the year went along, but I was working a full time job and walking to work.  I had delays getting internet access the first month, and then I found myself increasingly behind due to time constraints.  And then, well, people started commenting on how they saw me walk to work everyday, and it made me feel less comfortable about posting the details of my financial life, because it would not take much detective work to find out where I lived alone.  So I made the decision to delay the videos by one year.

The project itself I finished successfully.  I hit all my goals for the year and had documentation to show everything.  Was able to extend my lease a month to shoot some extra footage, and then my camera/phone suddenly died.  I got a replacement a week later, but the timing was such that what should have been a leisurely move back home was extremely stressful with me vaccuuming carpet at midnight.

I moved home, tried to resettle into life at my parent's, back with my nephew, finally got unpacked, so I could focus on reviving my neglected business, went to watch cartoons with my brother, and got a call from my hysterical sister that our house, specifically my room was on fire.

My room with all my work in it, the videos files, the documentation, along with all the amoeba ink files etc. were a big pile of soggy ash.  My destop and laptops were gone, the new phone/camera was gone.

The happy part of this story is my dad has decent insurance, so we're temporaily in an apartment and are not hurting for necessities.

I spent 2 months going through the ash of my room like an archeological dig and recovered a fair amount of my paper business files, along with some sketchbook contents and future project notes.  And I do have some things backed up on the laptop I'd taken with me, including my other current writing projects.  But I'm worn out.

I'm also within spitting distance of where the tornadoes tore through Tennessee this past week.  While we thankfully managed to come through without damage, many of my neighbors and local businesses were not so lucky.

Anyway, I'm just kind of mentally worn out right now.  Trying to get back into a creative flow, but also need to finish things for the insurance claim which keep getting delayed for various reasons.  Thought I should update, so you know I'm breathing.

P.S. I don't do a lot of reviews here, but since I spent the next month digging through the burnt remains of my large Expanded Universe library, the new Star Wars film actively depressed me.  The symbolism was way too strong.

So I pretty much went into hermit mode for a year or so.  I haven't done any conventions.  I've honestly barely written.  I did start working full time (plus regular part time babysitting), which is part what pulled me from creative work, but I can't blame it for the full absence.  I was slowly prepping myself for a video project I've wanted to do for a long time in association with my budgeting book, but that's not the full excuse either.  I think it was more trying on normalcy and taking a break from being a workaholic...and playing a lot of Zelda.  (Also saving money, projects need money...)

What you may not know about me is that my degree is in video production, and Ameoba Ink was always intended to be a multimedia company.  It's just been extremely slow to grow in that direction.  My video making skills are rusty, but I am glad to dust them off.  I'm launching a year long project where I'll do budgeting videos in a sort of reality TV but with numbers YouTube vlog.

Here's the first teaser for the project.  Please subscribe to the channel...YouTube won't let you do a lot of customization until you have 100 subscribers (oy):

It's also my hope that in getting out of my parent's house I can finish up Seven and 13, and do the sort of online promotional work I've been avoiding.  Think I'm also hitting that age where I want to tick the big items off my bucket list.  So hoping after this project is a wrap, I can prep for the grand con hopping tour of the U.S. that I always wanted to do.

So finally sent what I hope is the last editing round of The Hidden Prince back to my editor.  Most of it was simple typos and punctuation errors, but I also had to try to add the right level of clues to the mystery at the end of the story.  Sometimes it’s harder to write a single sentence than a whole chapter.

Each Before the Fairytale story pays tribute to a different literary style that’s intended to reflect the main character’s personality.  Since Kaleb takes the lead in The Hidden Prince, the story is set up to reflect elements of a Gothic novel (only in a Medievalish fantasy setting).  However, I ended up with a murder mystery at the end of the story.  Since I was not aiming for a “true” mystery, more focused on Kaleb’s psychological reaction to the events, I didn’t put as much effort into setting up relevant clues.  But Megan, my editor, has been heavily involved in Killer Nashville, a local mystery writers group/convention, and she didn’t like letting a sloppy mystery pass even if it wasn’t the main focus of the book.

The actual writing of additional sentences did not take more than a couple days, but I was a little intimidated about how to bring in the necessary clues without making them glaringly out of place.  So I found a lot of other personal projects to distract myself with.  On the plus side my basement is a bit less cluttered now.

Other reason I may have been stalling is Ameoba Ink needed to build up a little cash to pay the cover artist before commissioning the cover artist, so there’ll still be a bit of a delay as the cover art and layout and so forth get done.  But hopefully my editor will sign off on my updates as acceptable, and The Hidden Prince will get a public release this year.

Also trying to work out getting Seventh Night and Horse Feathers into paperback form.