As for the rest of you...what are you waiting for? GO. GO. GO.
In other news, my head imploded from formatting chapter headings earlier today (Nook Press is awesome, but chapters come through rather garbled) and elected to take a short break from formatting to finally finish some self-publishing related research/educational stuff. Namely, why exactly Author Solutions is a terrible, terrible company for any writer to ever go with.
Part one is here
Part two is here
I posted these because lately the self publishing tumblr tag has been swimming in "Author Solutions Hat A is AWESOME" posts and that's the kind of thing that makes me see red. If you do not understand why I'm calling something an Author Solutions Hat or why this topic makes me so unbelievably fucking angry please go read those posts. A fast summery is that AS and its hats will charge you almost a thousand dollars to have Lightning Source print your book, when you can go directly to Lightning Source for approximately 250 (and also AS's editing and marketing packages are all Grade A Bullshit, and if you're going to pay an editor a thousand dollars go find a really good freelancer) and get more choices AND more control over your project.
AS is a predator feeding off the naive who genuinely don't know that there's a difference between iUniverse and Little, Brown and Co, let alone that they can get EVERYTHING that AS offers cheaper or better on their own. PLEASE, author-readers, do your research and for the LOVE OF GOD do not give Author Solutions any more money.
Book time? Book time.
We spend a few pages trying to develop Eliar's character past "Dumb teenage hick with sword". It doesn't work. Althalus buys him a horse, and Eliar asks if Althalus didn't just magic up the gold the way he did the food.
The clue light kicks on for Althalus.
Can I do that? he sent his startled question at Emmy, who was dozing in the hood of his cloak.
Probably, yes.
Then why did you make me dig it up?
Honest work’s good for you, pet. Besides, it doesn’t exactly work that way. Food’s one thing, but minerals are quite a bit different.
Why?
They just are, Althalus. There’s a certain balance involved that we shouldn’t tamper with.
Would you like to explain that?
No, I don’t think so.
Well, fuck you too Emmy. Also this should read as: The editor noticed a continuity error and Team Eddings just didn't want to fix it.
Althalus entertains Eliar by telling him stories and feeding him every time his mind wanders. They reach a city and Emmy takes over Althalus's body for a minute so that she can talk to Eliar directly. She tells him that they're going to be showing the knife to a bunch of people within the city. Most will ignore it, one will be the guy they came to pick up, and a couple might scream bloody murder at the very sight of it and Eliar's job is to kill those people.
Oh, and the entire population of the city are priests. Have fun.
The Priests of Dewios many religions are all strong followers of astrology. They debate about it endlessly. It gets old, fast. Emmy, however, says something that is deeply fucking creepy.
It doesn’t quite work that way, Althalus. The stars are a lot farther away than people realize, and it takes a long time for their light to reach us. Probably about half of what you see when you look up at night isn’t really there anymore. To put it another way, the priests are trying to predict the future by looking at the ghosts of dead stars.I will never look at a newspaper horoscope the same way.
Althalus and Eliar commence with the showing of the knife. It gets to the point where they start taking bets: is this the kind of preist that will ignore the knife, or is it the kind that will translate for a fee? Well, only one way to find out.
The sudden scream was shockingly loud, echoing from the ruined walls of nearby buildings. The ragged priest stumbled back, covering his eyes with his hands and screaming as if he’d just been dipped in boiling pitch.
“I hope you won’t take this personally, your Worship,” Eliar said, driving the Knife directly into the shrieking priest’s chest.Eliar is the world's first serial killer boyscout, I swear to fucking God. Well, at least nobody saw--
Then a black-robed priest came striding up the rubble-littered street toward them. He was a fairly young man, and his hair was a rich auburn color. His dark eyes were flashing indignantly. “I saw what you just did!” he said. “You men are murderers!”Oops. But hey, wait a second...fairly young, positive physical description, white by implication...hey, Eliar, you got your knife handy?
The youthful priest went paler still, as if every drop of blood had drained from his face. “Illuminate,” he replied so reverently that it seemed almost a prayer.
The dagger in Eliar’s fist broke into joyful song.Yep. You can kind of smell an Eddings protagonist character.
This is Bheid, and while I've gotten the majority of the characters worked out I cannot for the life of me figure out which Copy-Paste character he is. It is entirely possible that Bheid is something new...but it's more likely that Bheid is a weird conglomeration of Silk, Garion and Zakath.
Althalus spends a little time shaking Bheid's theology down to its foundations. He does, however, leave Emmy out of the equation.
End of chapter. I'd do more but it is late and time for bed.
I wanted to thank you for continually posting advice on how to self publish. I'm not at that stage quite yet, but your posts reduce a lot of the anxiety I have over it. It's nice to have someone looking out for other writers!
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