Tag: free books

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Magic Arrives Progress Update And More

I just made progress on Magic Arrives! Read how I’m writing it and get a free book below.

How to Get a Free Book From Me

Life After Life Chronicles March Fourth Fun Videos
Enjoy all four novels in audiobook, paperback, or Kindle format!

One way is to simply give me ideas for my fantasy book, Magic Arrives. Should I have dragons? Elves? Trolls? Dwarves? (Or dwarrows, for those in the know.) Click here to give me a piece of your mind. If I use your idea, I’ll give you your choice of my books.

Another way to get free books from me is to click here. I give away eight free books of mine with every newsletter. But you’ve got to join first. Plus, I tell you about events, I give you free short stories, and more. The newsletter comes out twice a month, but you can reduce that to monthly or even bimonthly.

The Snowflake Method

I rediscovered the Book Progress app in Word Press and I decided to use it to report on the progress of my first fantasy book, with the working title, Magic Arrives. The app asked me about my writing method and I decided the Snowflake method is the closest to my process. I work on multiple parts at a time. Here’s the overall structure:

  • Story Structure
  • Characters
  • Scene List
  • First Draft
  • Editing
  • Proofing

Magic Arrives Progress – Story Structure

So far I’m 72% complete on the Story Structure phase. 8 Months remain until the deadline. I’ve captured the broad brush strokes of my plot for this book, and the next.


Magic Arrives
Phase:Story Structure
Due:12 months ago
72%

Magic Arrives Progress – Characters

I just made progress on Magic Arrives! So far I’m 54% complete on the Characters phase. I’ve got about fourteen characters so far. I’ll have about twenty-five to thirty when I’m done.

Magic Arrives
Phase:Characters
54%

Magic Arrives Progress – Scene List

I just made progress on Magic Arrives! So far I’m 6% complete on the Scene List phase. That’s 6 out of 100 scenes.

Magic Arrives
Phase:Scene List
6%

Progress – First Draft Words

I just made progress on Magic Arrives! So far I’m 4.9% complete on the First Draft phase. That’s roughly 4,900 words out of my goal of 100,000.
Shortcode

Magic Arrives
Phase:First Draft
4.9%

What remains to be done

After I finish the first draft, I’ll still have to self-edit. Then I send it to my editor, Dori Harrell. She’ll do both line editing and final proofing. I’ll also have to create a front cover, back cover and spine with my illustrator, Sean “Fuzzy” Flanagan. Fuzzy will also do my chapter icons for me.

Then there’s the small matter of uploading it to Amazon and publishing it there. Finally, I order paperback copies so you can get your copy here, directly from me, as less than Amazon.

The Feedback Loop Review

Since I’m writing a fantasy book, let me give you a review of one I’ve read this year. All my reviews are here on Goodreads. Clickity-click!

My Review

Magic Arrives Progress

January 11, 2023

Harmon Cooper writes an interesting RPG fantasy with the premise the main character is trapped in an endless loop in an RPG game. Sort of like Groundhog Day, only people are killing you every day.

The main character is unbelievably violent, killing first and asking questions later. This is due to years of being trapped. As he kills his opponents, he keeps adding their weapons to his inventory list, even items that don’t see like weapons.

I didn’t like the main character, probably because he’d gone crazy and was no longer rational. But persist in the series–he gets better.

Andy Zach
Author 10 books 85 followers

Get Your Free Books By Clicking Here!

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Fun Videos From November

Fun Videos

Fun Videos From November – I love these videos! Which is your favorite? Tell me, and I’ll give you a book! Click here.

Or, you can join my newsletter and get my free newsletter, with the best videos I find each month and free audiobooks! Just click now. Here are some of my audiobooks:

Fun Videos Life After Life Chronicles March Fourth
Enjoy all four novels in audiobook, paperback, or Kindle format!

And here’s your first fun video:

Robot Chicken and Emperor Palpatine Parody

No doubt I’m the last to discover Robot Chicken and its hilarious parody of ‘Star Wars’, but I laughed as hard as anyone. Did you know about this? Did you like it? As always, personal comments and emails get a free book. Click here.

Fun Videos – Your Second Video

Here you have another type of fun: fun history. You don’t believe there is such a thing? Take a look at these color photos from a hundred years ago and be amazed.

All the people in the photos are dead, yet they still seem alive and like people you can meet on the street.

What Is Your Third Fun Video?

Imagine life as a video game. Now imagine you’re playing it as any animal you wish. Which would you choose? If we narrow it down to playing a fish, which would you pick? This video looks at fish as characters in a video game. Who do you think is best? Give me an answer and I’ll give you a book, if you click here.

Fish as video game characters

Are You Not Entertained?

It’s hard to listen to this and not be enertained.

I love jazz! Did you know that?

I like jazz so much, I’ll give you another jazz video in a completely different style.

Fun Videos – Final Comments

Fun Videos
Preview of a tiny portion of my next book Secret Supers in Space

My book Secret Supers in Space is coming out December 9th! Join my newsletter and find out the final cover today! Click now to get the cover and much more! The newsletter also has videos just like these, plus free book offers from me and other authors.

You can also pre-order the book from Amazon. Click right here.

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My Second Draft – What I Never Imagined

Villain's Vacation cover What is it like?

My Second Draft – What I Never Imagined – Here is my second installment of this series in real-time. I just finished my second draft and sent it to my editor. I’ll have the third installment in the future. Be sure to read the first post on my first draft here. Click here.

As always, you can get free books from me by clicking here.

Also, if you ever want to contact me, to comment or ask me something, click here.

So, what shocked my socks off about this second draft?

By the way, this book is the third in my Secret Supers series. It covers the adventures of four disabled middle schoolers who become superheroes. Here’s the first book:

Interesting Links My Second Draft
Secret Supers – click for free audiobook.

My Second Draft – My First Surprise

I finished my first draft last week and contacted my editor. She informed me that she has a six-week lead time. I didn’t know that. Oops!

Why is this a problem? I wanted the book completed by November 14th and the Christmas shopping season. I ASSumed she had a four-week lead time. My error.

My second error is that I promised it to her by Columbus Day October 10th and didn’t get it to her until today. That’s a double oops. So my publishing timeline is probably shot.

You see, when you’re a self-published author like me, you’re responsible to keep yourself on schedule and meet deadlines–or your sales suffer.

But why was I late? I have multiple excuses, but basically, it’s poor planning.

Villain's Vacation cover What is it like? My Second Draft
My second novel in the series, Villain’s Vacation. Click for a free copy

My Second Surprise in My Second Draft

Remember I mentioned being self-published? That means I contact and contract with an illustrator for each of my books. Fortunately, I’ve found a great illustrator, Sean “Fuzzy” Flanagan. I contacted him the same day as my editor about doing a cover illustration. He had the time to do it in October. Hurray!

We met yesterday via Zoom and Facebook conference and brainstormed a good cover we both loved. We also brainstormed the chapter icons. I love them! All my books have them. Here’s a sample:

What Do Readers Think My Second Draft
Chapter 1 icon of Villain’s Vacation. Click to get a copy

So what’s the problem? The cover we both wanted depicted a scene I hadn’t written. It was in the back of my mind for the whole book. So I spent yesterday afternoon writing it. But that was one reason I didn’t get my book to my editor yesterday.

The Other Reason I was Late

Just adding a new scene isn’t enough. With every second draft, after I clear off all the Grammarly errors and made all my points of view correct, I read the whole book aloud.

It’s amazing what you discover when you do that with a book you’ve just written. I find inconsistencies in point of view. I find awkward sentences. And I discover plot inconsistencies.

I read really fast and I don’t read every word–unless I read it aloud.

One last pitch: find out when my new book comes out through my newsletter. Subscribe here.