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Category: Rag & Muffin
Rags and Muffin Go Hard
As I’ve previously mentioned, Amazon has recently added a hardcover option to Amazon KDP. This isn’t really a possibility (or, probably, a desireability) for Jake and the Dynamo, but I decided I wanted to make it an option for Rags and Muffin.
To that end, I updated my order with MiblArt and got a cover for a hardback edition. The image you see above is from Amazon’s previewer, which has okayed the cover art. Everything else in the sample seems to be good as well, so we’ll offer this alongside the eBook and paperback on the release date, which is still December 10th.
I’ve seen some other authors show off their Amazon hardcovers; they look good and have the cover art printed directly onto the hard surface, with no dust jacket.
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Get a Sneak Peek at ‘Rags and Muffin’
The upcoming, action-packed novel Rags and Muffin will release on December 10th, just in time for you to cozy up with it over Christmas break. Taking place in a sweltering city somewhere in the tropics and featuring a lot of fiery explosions, Rags and Muffin will help you think warm thoughts during the cold winter.
You can preview it right now. Chapters one through four are available as a PDF file:
Rags and Muffin Sample Chapters (PDF)
Final Cover Art for ‘Rags and Muffin’
And in this image, you can see the final art for the cover of Rags and Muffin. I’m quite pleased with it, even if it’s not what I envisioned. This comes from Miblart, which makes a lot of book covers for a competitive price, but I’m afraid I don’t know the specific artist.
Although I’m impressed, my wife dislikes it. She says it looks like the cover of a horror novel. Interestingly, although the book is not out yet, it already affects different readers differently: My editor viewed it as a horror novel and said she found some of the content disturbing, even difficult to read. My wife, however, views it as a fun adventure novel.
Myself, I think the cover beautifully captures some of the book’s ideas and tone but not others. Rags and Muffin are supposed to be threatening characters, dangerous and forbidding. But what the cover does not capture is that they are also attractive, drawing people into their circle and rendering them unable to escape. In appearance and personality, Rags is similar to Fancy Nancy except with Kung fu, handguns, and questionable morality—but had we attempted to go that route with the cover art, the result would be deceptive and probably ineffective.
What I’m most happy with is that it turned out well despite the absence of guns. My original vision had Rags pointing a gun in your face, ready to pull the trigger—because you, in a way, are the villain of Rags and Muffin. Perhaps, even without the guns, the cover captures that anyway: This may be how Rags and Muffin look to a criminal, someone they are about to attack. Rags is looking right at you and means to kill you.
So the cover captures my original idea even without the guns.
‘Rags and Muffin’ Is Almost Complete
The manuscript for Rags and Muffin is done, with just a few finishing touches needed. I had commissioned Eduardo Moura Barbosa for a chapter-heading image, but I was so pleased with the results I asked for some more so I can switch them up from one chapter to the next. The header image for this post is an example: Each chapter header contains objects associated with one of the main characters.
I also crossed my fingers, took a deep breath, and commissioned a cover. I decided a cartoon cover was inappropriate for Rags and Muffin, so I commissioned a cover from a reasonably priced company that appears to do good work. I haven’t seen anything for my project yet, but they claim their turn-around time is good, their portfolio looks solid, and they’ve asked me a lot of probing questions to ensure that they’re actually producing what I want. I’ll name the company after I have the final product and can discuss the overall experience. But if they’re as fast as they claim, I might just make my hoped-for October 1st release date.
The downside is that the cover will cost a pretty penny—at least by my standards. I’m not a guy who can drop $1200 on a book cover, at least not yet. This isn’t costing me that much, but it’s definitely a bite out of the wallet.
Anyway, remember that, if you pick up Dead 2 Rites, kindly leave a review.
‘Rags and Muffin’ Is Finished
I know I’ve been radio silent again for a while, but that’s because I was again in one of those stages where I have a project I want to complete but it seems to be taking too long. But, today, I have it done—the final edits and formatting for Rags and Muffin, the novel I am planning to release after Dead 2 Rites, which will release after Jake and the Dynamo.
This took longer than expected for several reasons, both related and unrelated to the project itself. One thing that took a while was inserting all the internal links: This novel has a glossary in the back, mostly because, when I was a kid, I thought novels with glossaries, such as Dune or Watership Down, were extra special. But in the world of eBooks, a functional glossary requires hyperlinks in the text. Vellum, my formatting software, has a limited ability to add internal links (though it has fewer options than I would like), and today, I got the links done.
The cover art for this project hasn’t been made yet. However, I uploaded the PDF of the paperback and mocked up a fake cover on Amazon KDP so I could use the previewer to make sure the internal margins are correct.
The chapter headers and section breaks are from Barbusco comics. At the moment, I only have the one chapter-header image, the gun next to a teacup. I’m thinking about commissioning a few more so there isn’t just one image at the head of every chapter, but if I do that, I can get them in the same dimensions so they won’t affect the page count. The complete PDF of the paperback clocks in at 490 pages, including the front matter.
Real Life
The only remaining delay has to do with real-life stuff: The magical girls and I are buying a house. We had been shopping for a while, but a house that met our wants came available suddenly and unexpectedly. We’re supposed to be moving in at the end of next week if all the paperwork is complete on time, and for that reason, after this post, I’m going to go radio silent again for a bit because I’ll be focused on packing, closing, and moving.
Release Dates
Because we suddenly had to drop money on the house to avoid losing it, there isn’t a lot in the kitty for my publication and advertising costs. After we’ve made the down payment, I’ll be better situated to assess our budget and figure out what I can do, but I think we should have enough for some modest promotion.
For that reason, tentative release dates for the books are:
- Jake and the Dynamo:
- Dead 2 Rites:
-
Rags and Muffin:
I am also (cross fingers) hoping to have the fourth volume of Jake and the Dynamo out by the end of the year.
Those are tenative, and I might tweak them by a day or three as I learn the business and, for example, figure out which days of the week are best for a release. Some unforeseen disaster or delay may also happen, but since two of the books are ready to go except for minor tweaks, I don’t think there should be any serious problem.
This has, of course, taken longer than I originally, optimistically anticipated. I can’t say I’m surprised because I haven’t self-published before; I’m just glad I didn’t have a Kickstarter because delaying release on a pre-funded project is bad form. I may, however, consider Kickstarters in the future when I’ve got the hang of this.
‘Rag & Muffin’ Excerpt
This is an excerpt from my novel Rag & Muffin. It is currently on an editor’s desk, but since I am getting ignored rather than rejections, I may move to self-publication in the near future. Anyway, this has to include a language warning since it’s more explicit than what I normally post on the blog.
In the dark, on her grass mat, Miss Alice sat in the Padmasana—Lotus Posture—one of the basic positions of Yoga. She had heard that if she practiced Yoga, she could make her Sammohana stronger.
She wanted to make it stronger.
It was the only thing she had.
She tried to focus on her breathing, but it was hard: She kept thinking about the men, about the chair, about the buzzing whine of the drill and the horrible pain it made when it went into her head. The back of her neck hurt. Her brain throbbed with a monotonous ache that made it difficult to think, and she still felt vestiges of the sickness and chills she got the last time they dug into her skull.
She didn’t understand why they were doing this to her. She didn’t even hate them. But she felt stark terror every time the door opened because it meant more agony, more screaming, more sickness. It meant their greasy hands and bad smells. It meant being hit and slapped and tied down. It meant searing pain.
She heard steps outside. She heard a hand rattling the knob. She heard the knob turn with a groan and a click.
The metal door opened with the ear-splitting creak of rusty hinges. Once again, she used her only weapon.
As he came through the door, she looked into his eyes. With a stab of pain, she felt her ravaged Heaven Seed gland squeeze down, and a pleasant ripple ran across her body. She began to speak, to order him to release her—but he simply walked over and slapped her on the mouth.
“Don’t you ever try that on me, you little cunt. And stop wasting your juice.”
It was the man they called Harman. The really bad one, meaner than the others.
Sammohana never worked on him.
‘Rag & Muffin’ Is Finished (for Real this Time)
Rag & Muffin is finished. It’s done. It’s out of my hands and off to the publisher. It’s been through the editor, through the proofreader, and then back through me. That’s it.
I edited this one to death and then continued editing after it was dead. By the end there, I might have been doing more harm than good, so that meant it was time to get rid of it.
I have no word on a release date, but at least the book is now on someone else’s desk instead of mine. Now that that’s gone, I can work in earnest on Son of Hel. I’m still in the research phase of that one.
Rag & Muffin
The Kill List
My final stage of editing is to go through what I call my “kill list,” a collection of my worst writing habits and the quirks that I try to edit out of the final draft.
A few people have previously asked to see my kill list, and I demurred because it is a collection of personal mistakes. However, I’ve reconsidered; for what it’s worth, I present the list here at it presently stands.
These are the most common errors in my own writing, at least that I’m aware of. Removing these from Rag & Muffin will be my final act upon the manuscript before it leaves my possession for good.
- Overuse of LEAPT
- Overuse of JUMPED
- Comma before BUT eliminated in independent clauses except in cases of extreme constrast
- BECAUSE and CUZ: No comma before except for clarity
- THAT vs WHICH: Former restrictive, latter not
- SINCE: Comma after main clause if it introduces reason rather than temporal information (non-restrictive)
- AS: Usually no comma after main clause unless explaining a situation
- Excess instances of AND and BUT at beginning of sentences
- Excessive use of APPARENTLY
- LAY, LAYING, and LAID (make sure used correctly)
- No comma before AS IF
- EACH OTHER vs. ONE ANOTHER (two characters vs. more than two)
- VERY, A LITTLE, A BIT (overuse)
- Double check that LY words before adjectives are adverbs
- SUCH AS: comma on nonrestrictive, no comma on restrictive
- Comma before TOO only when a pause is wanted or there is an abrupt shift
- Eliminate EVEN THOUGH
- Use ALTHOUGH at beginning of sentences and THOUGH otherwise
A Review of Grammarly Software
The process of editing my next novel, Rag & Muffin, is—mercifully—nearing its completion. To facilitate this process, I decided to shell out for a subscription to Grammarly Premium. I have just finished running the novel through it.
You’ve likely heard of Grammarly; due to heavy advertising, it’s a product that’s made itself widely known, deservedly or not, as a top choice among automated grammar checkers. Its reputation for accuracy may be undeserved and appears to have been artificially boosted by fake review blogs. Its most basic functions are free and can be added to popular browsers as a plug-in. However, a premium account, which runs at an outrageous price ($29.95 per month or $139.95 per year), is necessary to unlock is allegedly more advanced features.
Since Rag & Muffin is precious to me, I decided to shell out the money for a single month, download the Microsoft Word plugin, and see what I think of it.