Announcing Notice!

The self-published, second edition. The eBook is available on Amazon now, and the print version will be available there in three to five days.

Important links:

eBook on Amazon HERE

Watch the book trailer HERE

I’m so thrilled to have this book back out there for people to read. The original was published in 2011 by Torquere Press, when Josh and Varian were first introduced to the world. Notice formed the basis for six other stories, some novella length and some shorts. But then things happened in the publishing world, and the stories all became unavailable. Despite that, the Notice universe stayed strong in my head, and I knew I wanted to write more about my dragons. (Okay, Josh really wanted to get back out there. And who can resist Josh?) So I knew I’d have to figure out the self-publishing thing to make it happen. Along about last March, I started work on it.

First, Notice had to be revised. Seven years seems like a short time, but a lot has changed in the world, and I wanted my book to reflect that. Certain things needed to be addressed, from gender to technology. I wanted to make the characters more sensitive to some issues, so that’s where I focused. I opted to pretty much leave the technology in the stories alone and not update everyone’s phone to a smartphone in the early stories. It would messed with the plots, to have people be able to get on the internet instantly. Besides, I kind of liked the images of people studying paper maps and printed schedules. (Just an aside—Varian always has the kind of phone I had at the time of writing. So when he flips or slides or touches a screen, that’s what I was doing.) The bottom line is that technology advances aren’t really important to the plots, anyway.

I tried to fix up the writing a bit (I was much less polished seven years ago. Ha!) without changing the feel of the books overmuch. I owe a lot of thanks to my long-suffering editor Kate De Groot, whom I met back in Torquere days and discovered lives less than an hour from me. This means she has to put up with my puppy when we work together now. (Disclaimer– any errors in the book were created by me after she was finished with it.)

I needed a new cover for the second edition, so I approached the artist Brooke Albrecht, who had designed my Dreamspinner covers. She agreed to do it. Then I had the crazy task of finding Varian and Josh on the stock photo websites. I spent some very interesting hours gazing at photos of men. I enlisted my grown daughters, who got into it, too. Fortunately, they both accepted that I was slightly unusual a long time ago. (Sure, let’s look at photos of hot guys with Mom.) We settled on a Varian and a Josh pretty quickly, but then there were so many awesome poses of the models… It was heaps of fun, though. You’ll have to wait for the next cover to see Josh. Working on that now.

Then I braced myself and took on dreaded formatting process (Jutoh to the rescue) and bumbled my way through it, thanks to YouTube videos. The process wasn’t hard; it was the figuring out how to do it first that was hard. At last, I got the book uploaded to Kindle Direct Publishing for the eBook. Then I moved onto CreateSpace for the print. I had to undo some of the changes I’d made to the document for the eBook format (note to self: make a copy first next time). I had to download a template and paste the book chapter by chapter into it, along with fussing with the front and back matter, which needs to look different in print format. I eventually got it uploaded. Then it failed the review process twice—something about the cover I still don’t understand, and then a few days to figure out how to make the title of the book and my name appear at the top of opposite pages inside the entire book. Believe me, all that stuff doesn’t just happen. Neither do ISBN numbers or copyright stuff, or… Finally, the print version passed the review process the third time around. I ordered a copy, but I hated the way the font I’d chosen looked when I got it, and there was a weird blank page in the middle for some reason… So I made changes, went through review a second time, order a second proof, which got lost in the mail, tweaked a few more things after I finally got it, went through the review a third time, and finally declared I was done. I think it was Faulkner who said that a book is never finished, it is finally abandoned.

But I remind myself now and then that I learned to type on a manual typewriter in the 1970s, and if anyone would have told me I’d be publishing my own books in 2018, I would have laughed.

During the process, I was also editing Winter for Less Than Three Press, editing Flights of Dragons for my next self-publishing experience, writing Wings over Water, making book trailers for three books, doing research on all the publishing possibilities, and reading books that made it sound way easier than it was. And we also had a two-month-old puppy join the household, who chewed and piddled her way through everything I was trying to focus on and is devouring the nice new bed we just bought her as I type this. My first print proof of Notice has teeth marks now. I kid you not.

Anyway, Notice is done and out there for new readers to discover and old readers to re-enjoy in print if they wish. Soon you’ll be able to order your own print copy, without teeth marks. Now that I know the ropes, Flights of Dragons should follow shortly, and soon after that, Wings over Water. It’s been an adventure, but one I’m very proud to have accomplished. Thanks so much to everyone who has been so encouraging.