ICE, WIND AND FIRE: the saga continues.

ICE, WIND AND FIRE: the saga continues.

No, I'm not writing a sequel ... I'm just tracking the process of trying to get a paperback proof here from CreateSpace. And it's becoming bizarre.

CreateSpace swears up and down that they shipped it to DreamCraft eons ago -- and (get this) it was returned to them as undeliverable. They quoted Jade and Dave at DC the delivery address, and it's 100% accurate. Which means that either US Mails or Australia Post chose to sling the parcel back at CreateSpace instead of delivering it.

Now, CreateSpace appear reluctant to ship another proof: Customer Service has kicked it up to the gurus in charge of their department for "investigation."

If this process gets any longer, DreamCraft will have a major problem: CreateSpace will not send a book to Amazon without a proof being delivered, checked and approved ... and if they won't ship a proof, because the post office(s) pulled the oldest trick in the book -- and took the postage before slinging the book back as undeliverable!! -- then DC won't be able to use CS to get MK to the Big A.

The solution is to revert to Lulu.com, obviously, and this is the next step, if CS continue to mess DC and MK around.

Well ... I'm trying to make light of this, but my patience wore thin about Christmas, when the fun began. What can I tell you? We might be switching right back to Lulu.com, in which case you might or might not be able to get ICE, WIND AND FIRE from Amazon, because it's rather expensive to get a book from Lulu to Amazon, and the old, old title hardly warrants the investment.

I can only keep you posted as to developments .. you WILL be getting the book on paper as soon as humanly possible, but it could be ex-Lulu. And to Rie, who sacrificed the copy which was literally destroyed to facilitate the OCR process ... my gods, I am *so* sorry about this. We'll put this situation right one way and another: trust me.


Do you want to cal it gay art? 3D Gay art? Gay 3D --?! Call it what you like, but scroll down and feast your eyes --

This one definitely begs the "Gay Art" label. Or Gay 3D, if you prefer

And again ... gay fantasy. What *is* gay art anyway? That's far from an simple question, and it's much too easy to say "porn," or "Yaoi." Gay art, surely, should be a vastly wider field, and ... between you and me, I reckon my esteemed cover artist, Jade from DreamCraft, has got the niche down. The site, Adventures in 3D, is one of the most gloriously beautiful sites I've ever seen, and if you're unaware of it, you're in for a tremendous treat. Go there now, and enjoy.

Cheers,
Mel

ICE, WIND & FIRE -- five stars at Rainbow Reviews!

Many thanks to Rainbow Reviews for reviewing the twentieth anniversary reissue of ICE, WIND AND FIRE, and it's my pleasure to report ... five stars!

Here's the complete review: http://www.rainbow-reviews.com/?p=4141

Brilliant ... I'm gratified -- delighted!

Now, if the proof copy of the paperback would just be delivered. And I know it's Christmas holding everything up, but it's 10 January already and patience is wearing thin.

While I'm on the subject of thanking people vastly for their input, feedback and assistance, I must thank Jade yet again, for the most amazing NARC visualizations! Have you seen these:

Capt. Kevin Jarrat

Capt. R.J. "Stoney" Stone

Sgt. J.C. "Gil" Cronin: and look at the unit badge!!

Sgt. J.C. "Gil" Cronin displays the descant squad's much vaunted physique!

I'm reliably informed that the next character to be tackled head-on is Harry, and I can't wait to see this. Makes my fingers itch to get back into these books. However, I just picked up the threads of HELLGATE, and am promising myself that I'll go right through both books without letting myself be diverted again. (This should have been the plan for 2009, but GLBT Bookshelf came along, and the rest is history.)

So ... massive thanks to Jade, whose blog/site has developed into one of the most gloriously beautiful sites on the web: http://3d-adventures.blogspot.com/ ... and to Rainbow Reviews for a wonderful review of ICE, WIND AND FIRE!

Cheers,

Mel

Jarrat and Stone on Christmas Eve...

It's Christmas Eve here, but I could swear it was Christmas morning. I just received one of the best presents I ever had, and better yet, it's something I can share with you. It's this:

They came through as attachments on an email about 90 minutes ago ... and I'm floored. I am seriously still on the deck, wondering what hit me. These characters just came to life -- they just walked out of my imagination and onto the screen, as surely as if a movie were being made! Jarrat and Stone have become real, live entities.

You can see the original blog post where they appeared here, and also the excerpt from EQUINOX which they were used to illustrate, here. (I've chosen an excerpt from each of the 27 titles on my backlist, and I'm putting up 2 or 3 a week. I have half a dozen up now -- Jade put up a couple of them for me, in particular those which are ... illustrated. Like this. Jade: "thank you" is too simple a thing to say, but if there's better words, I haven't learned them!

Oof.

Christmas Eve is warm, humid; the overcast is breaking up at last -- it actually rained last night! We were supposed to get a storm, but if it broke, I didn't see it. Christmas is upon us, so...

Merry Christmas to all! May the season be happy, safe, and one to remember!

Cheers,

Mel

ICE WIND AND FIRE: the paperback and the black hole

A swift update on the ICE, WIND AND FIRE situation:

We've passed the "delivery deadline" for the proof, and DreamCraft has officially categorized it as DBU -- Down Black Hole. It's been too long since it was shipped to hold out much, if any, optimism that it'll show up.

The proof has been reordered. Allow 14 days minimum for it to be delivered here, so it can be eyeballed and given the OK, and cleared for sale.

Alas, this puts us right in the middle of the holidays, so it looks like the paperback launch of IWF will have to be put back into January, 2010.

Rats. You can get it as an ebook, but ... what can I tell you? US Mails and/or Australia Post strike again.

In the meantime, here's some eye-candy, guy-candy, to put the smile back on your face:

...and it would be fair to say, in all sincerity, that I am so gobsmacked, my bog has never been so smacked. Want more: you need to be on Jade's Adventures in 3D. There's a new digital fantasy every day -- makes me feel like I'm stuck in reverse! I have GOT to get my creative act in gear in 2010. I'm supposed to be a writer, not a website administrator ... right?!

NARC ... Hellgate, The Swordsman, the Vampyre, all need to be finished. Okay: deep breath. The work starts (I said starts!) in January.

Bear with me...

Cheers,

Mel

Further updates from the Keegan Zone

At last! The post you thought would never actually appear here ...

GROUND ZERO has finally, and I mean finally, shown up in the Amazon engine, as a paperback. It's been month getting there. The proof was delivered and approved weeks ago, and ... well, it's probably that Amazon is fairly overwhelmed with the volume of prep work for Christmas that's going on behind the scenes. Because we've never seen them take so long to process a book through from proof to "buy it here."

Anyway --

...there is it, on PAPER. At last.

I'd intended to have a booklaunch for this one, but the fact is, the book has been out for so long now, and the ebook has been announced, advertised, tweeted, promoted, reviewed, massaged -- it's actually too late to have a booklaunch for GROUND ZERO, so ... we'll have a book punt. That is to say, the book is already out there, floating in mid-stream. It drifted off from its moorings almost unnoticed, and now is gently dragging its anchor in midwater. So let's give it a punt.

Consider it punted. If you've been waiting for the paperback, this is your chance to give yourself a Christmas gift!

So much is happening behind the scenes, one hardly knows where to begin. GLBT Bookshelf is still growing ... I just wish it would grow faster. Why? Because when it's twice the size there will be enough members to raise enough funding to hire a professional programmer and get the whole thing automated! Right now, we're in a kind of twilight zone, with about 500 members, *all* of whom would have to put up a ten-spot to get together the five grand to get the programming done. Not going to happen.

So, as the wiki sloooooowly grows, the amount of work involved in nurturing it, keeping it running smoothly, continues to increase, and increase, yet at the same time the growth curve (the rate of acceleration ... if you know anything about logarithmic curves?? No?? Don't worry about it) has flattened right out. We're riding a plateau right now, with about 10 new members per week. That's not bad at all, but it means another YEAR to get to the 1,000 member mark.

Now, what would make the wiki grow faster? Advertising! But that would also cost more funding than can be raised at this moment, so -- nose to the grindstone, Keegan! Stop being daft, get your head down and do some work. And in fact -- am doing. Am doing.

My apologies if I sound a little "out there" today. The weather is not cooperating. It's 141 degrees Fahrenheit in the courtyard at the side of the house, and if you step away from the a/c, you're swiftly reduced to a slurpy, blubbery mass of semi-congealed goo. This doesn't tend to contribute to sanity and clarity of thought.

Meanwhile, we've FINISHED the new design for the GLBT Bookshelf bookstore. It's part-way based on the Diesel Ebooks model, but with a greater depth of content, and a lot of "free listings," as well as numerous "sponsored ad" spots, with various rates of "oomph factor." They range from a big leaderboard ad which will grab anyone's attention, to "micro-ads" which give a cover and a slogan. Prices will range between $2/month (with a minimum "spend" of $4 ... now, there's a hardship...) and about $12/month for the leaderboard

Here's the plan: funds raised through the advertising on the bookstore are pumped into advertising FOR the bookstore. And we might even register a new domain for this, something like (!) gaybooksonline.com, or gay-books-galore.com, something that even Google, in its infinite density, couldn't fail to understand.

More about this in due course. Right now, we've hit a wrinkle with the OpenX code which handles the actual content placement for the page ... this is a plug-in from an external server and something got stuffed up when we set up the account. It could take a few days to sort it out, but then we'll be off and running.

Right now, I want to thank everyone who's been helping with the Bookshelf -- there's a couple of dozen people whom I'm calling "angels," and they've been amazing, indispensable. THANK YOU!

And I must give a plug to one of my favorite new blogs: Adventures In 3D. If you're missing this, you need to skedaddle over there and check it out. Here's enough to get you interested --!

...all of which brings you about halfway up to date with what's been going on in the Keegan Zone. We're getting there ... slowly but surely. My most fervent wish is for a sudden rush in memberships on the Bookshelf, and then a really, really successful fund-raising campaign, enabling us to hire a programmer, automate the whole shebang ... and I can get back to doing what I used to do. I, uh, used to be a novelist! Really.

I all seriousness, I would like to get back to writing, but I'm also completely committed to GLBT Bookshelf. This project WILL work, even if I have to get out and push.

Cheers.

Mel

ICE WIND AND FIRE ... the cover proof is here!

Having done several laps of the room without touching the floor, I am now back in contact with the ground, and have command of enough brain cells to blog.

About the ICE, WIND AND FIRE cover, for which I just got the proof. This is the cover I've been seeing all along ... this is what I'd imagined, when I mailed a stack of paper over to GMP, 20 years ago last March or April:

Good golly, will you look at that?! It was done using some new software ... those guys are digital. Totally. They were designed in the computer and are seeing light of day right now, as they're pasted to this blog page! Jade is romping it, with the software -- it's called DAZ Studio 3, and it has to be the most amazing app I've seen in eons.

In fact, Jade just launched a blog -- http://3d-adventures.blogspot.com/ -- which is well worth a look, if you like exotic artwork. The blog is very new, but it's already a thing of beauty. I, for one, will be watching this one unfold. Talk about eye candy?!

The OCR work for the book is 90% finished (in fact, as soon as I hit "publish" on this post, the next items on my agenda are a cup of tea, and a date with the scanner, to get it all done. With the cover designed, it'll be 4 pairs of eyeballs on the proofreading, and then the launch of the ebooks and paperback, in time for the novel's 20th Anniversary.

So, why don't I get to work, and get it done?!

Cheers,
Mel

Here ends the first book of the Fall of the Atlantean Empire

Good news from the Mel-o-Sphere: LEGENDS is complete, up to the "End of Book One" marker, which is where I'm going onto hiatus with it, in order to turn my attention to Hellgate.

Rather than string it out into next week, I put the last half dozen posts up at the same time:
65. The Winds of Chance (part one)
66. The Winds of Chance (part two)
67. The Winds of Chance (part three)
68. The Winds of Chance (part four)
69. The Winds of Chance (part five)
70. The Oracle Dreams
71. Afterword
72. The art gallery

Please do note the art gallery on the tag-end of that list! A couple of new pieces have been done recently, and one of them blows me away. Click on this piece to see it at full size -- the shrunk-to-fit version pasted in by Blogger doesn't do it justice ... this piece has the quality of classical art, and I'm still in the "wow" stage:

The feedback on the format in which this novel was published as been varied indeed:

• 25% of people were blissfully happy to swing by every day or few days, and get a free hit.


• 25% of readers said, "I can't read this in bits -- tell me when it's finished, I'll download it all together."


• 10% of readers said, "I can't read this much on screen. Tell me when a paperback comes out, I'd be happy to buy it."


• 10% said, "I don't have the time to deal with little bits of reading. I want a properly formatted ebook, even if you charge for it."


• 15% of readers said, "I like the concept of a free serial novel, but I don't care for fantasy. Tell me when you bring out an SF or thriller novel."


• 10% of readers said, "I like ebooks, but I can't stand serials (I hate cliffhangers). Tell me when the whole thing's finished.


• 5% of readers said, "I like fantasy, and serials are okay. but I like my gay fantasy red-hot sexy. Can I get an uncut version of Legends? Would be happy to pay for an ebook.

This seems to cover everything, and leaves everyone happy.

It's great to have some firm data. So we're doing a newsletter this afternoon, informing people that (drum roll)... the first book of the trilogy is finished (download it all of a piece, if this is what you needed); and a properly structured ebook is being prepared; there can also be a Legends Uncut version, for those who wanted this; and a stunning cover is being put around this novel; it'll be available as a paperback in a few weeks.

I might vanish for a couple of days now ... I have the priceless opportunity to take a couple off, and I think I'm going to grab the opportunity. Might pack the HELLGATE books, start reading them while I kick back and unwind.

Reading the whole thing properly is the first thing I must do ... these characters have to "talk" to me in their own unique voices. Mick Vidal doesn't sound like Harry Shapiro, who doesn't sound like Neil Travers, who doesn't sound like Barb Jazinsky. And so on. These characters are never far from "in my head," but I need to really, seriously get back into their world. Then, two BIG books by Christmas, and the series is finished. Woah.

Hence -- a couple of days off while I have the chance!

Ciao for now,
MK

Flotsam, Jetsam and Dangerous Moonlight

The challenge was to put a new cover on Dangerous Moonlight, which would give readers some clue as to the fact it's a gay book ... and all of us were blank. After about two hours of pushing digital elements around, eventually we can up with this:

(You can click on the pic for a larger view -- I uploaded it to 900 pixels wide.)

If you've been with us long enough to remember the bookmark which went out as a gift with the DreamCraft edition printed in Australia, you'll recognize the figure! It's been reworked, remilled, turned around, recolored. Thank gods for digitals. This cover works quite well, and is a lot more subtle than the original version. I'm actually quite pleased.

Something came along yesterday which might be of interest to writers and DIY publishers ... but be just a little cautious. This, from the weekend edition of the WSJ online: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Smashwords-Introduces-Coupon-Generator-Self/story.aspx?guid=%7B1C63A952-7FA1-4ED0-9577-C0E6BA9244E5%7D

Smashwords is a new ebook hosting service. At least, I would hope it's new, because they only have something like 180 - 200 titles in their entire list at this point, including every category. I assume they've just launched, and it'll take time to get up a full head of steam.

This is something I'll be watching for a few months before I get involved. As yet the list is very short ... and there's some rather odd titles among it. If Smashwords is going to turn into something great, it'll do it in the next half year ... depends how many reputable writers and publishers use the service, and how many screw-loose oddball self-publishers jump aboard. I'll hold off a little while and watch. Here's their url, which has a duh factor off the scale: http://www.smashwords.com/

And here also is something interesting which might be useful to many, including writers and publishers: http://www.box.net/info/file-sharing ... I was impressed enough to get an account right off the bat. Box-dot-net ... the url tells all. Cool.

In other words, flotsam and jetsam. Otherwise ... it's work as usual, which seems anticlimactic between Christmas and New Year!

Cheers,
MK

Gay books: packaging them for Amazon

With Christmas right around the corner and about half a dozen more books to "go up" to Amazon before the CreateSpace special offer closes in about 10 days' time -- it's going to be busy.

The special offer is this: they waive the US$40 per book upgrade fee, which you pay in order to bump your book from the "regular" account to the "pro" or "gold" account. When a book is upgraded, you get to keep an extra wedge of the sale price, and US$40 / A$65 is a good deal -- if you're only doing one book. Try it again, when you're potentially doing 20!

So CreateSpace (probably in the interests of drumming up some trade) has had this special deal running for the last few months: upgrade your book(s) by December 21st, and they waive the fee. We're in the process of doing #7 at this point (The Deceivers). The next titles "going up" are Dangerous Moonlight, The Lords of Harbendane, and the NARC series. That's 14 out of the range of 21 novels on my backlist at this time (the short fiction doesn't appear on the list). Two thirds. Good enough.

The process is easy enough, though time consuming -- a tad bit expensive, too; because before you can give your book a "nudge" in the direction of Amazon, you have to buy and approve a proof. Which costs A$45. But this is okay too -- it's well worth the investment. (It would be geting pretty darned expensive to pay the $65 upgrade + the $45 proof for each of 21 books. Over two grand to set up this list. Hmmm.)

The challenge is in repackaging some of the titles, to make it a little bit more obvious that these are gay books, featuring a m/m relationship ... and it's not so easy as it sounds. What the hell is a gay book anyway?! They're hard to categorize. Do gay characters make a book gay? Or does it have to be gay people doing day things? And what's a gay book cover?

It's simple to put a cover on a work of erotica ... they speak for themselves. But with gay book covers you're walking a tightrope. You don't want to put an erotic book cover on a book that's far from erotica. At the same time, you do want to indicate that it's a m/m gay book.

Which leads to a lot of head scratching. Yesterday's post showed the new cover we just slapped on Storm Tide: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/12/storm-tide-on-road-to-amazon.html; and here was the new Aquamarine cover: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/08/book-launch-aquamarine.html ...

And here's the new cover on The Deceivers -- previewed online for the first time:

The graphical theory is this: the fact that it's two male faces juxtaposed ought to be enough to tip off modern readers to the fact this will be the relationship driving the book; the cover features faces, not nekkid or semi-nekkid bodies, so people are given a clue as to the fact it ain't "only" erotica; and the background subject matter puts the m/m relationship in context.

It looks like it works. I like this cut of the cover a great deal. The characters were colorized (actually, it's sepia -- which suits the treatment perfectly, since sepia was state of the art in photography in the second half of the nineteenth century), and we have a different "take" on the original cover of the book, which was this one, at our left, and/or just above, glued to this paragraph with code. I always chafed at the fact we were not able to have a schooner on the original cover (technical reasons made the square rigger unavoidable in the original design). This was fixed by changing to a whole new cover for the Lulu edition ... which put the faces on the back, in blue -- which was fine, because we were retailing the book off my webpages, so readers knew exactly what they getting.

But Amazon is a little different. They only show the front cover, and they give VERY little background info on the book the reader has pulled up almost accidentally as a sidebar on some search. Without some visual clue, however trifling, to the fact this is a gay book, a reader could be of the understanding that they're buying an, er, sraight historical sea story. Baaaaad idea.

So -- all this gives us the opportunity to take another crack at the cover, and combine all the elements again: the sea, the sky, the ship (and it's a schooner this time, too), and the faces.

To my eyeballs, it's a resounding success. Next challenge: what the hell is going on the cover of Dangerous Moonlight?! The NARC books are well known enough for them to 'fly" as they are, but DM needs some kind of a visual cue for readers. And inspiration has to start biting in the next five days, max. Ouch.

Stay tuned!

Cheers,
MK

Storm Tide on the road to Amazon

News on the Amazon front: STORM TIDE has started on the road from CreateSpace to the Big A. The proof arrived a short while ago, and they've done an excellent job with it. The book has a new cover, which gives it extra pep:

I like this cover a lot.

Next job: THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE is "going up" before Christmas, in company with THE DECEIVERS (in preparation right now), DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT, and the NARC series. And behind the scenes, I'm fiddling with blog templates, ready to start the digital novels, and I've made the ultimate decision about which order the fiction will be done in.

We're starting with the "tales of elder Atlantis" piece (about 250,000 words). Then we'll go on with "vampires, werewolves and witches, the world at war ... in 1475 (350,000 words), and then Crystal Genesis (mankind surviving by a slender thread, a century from now, when only the emergence of a new breed of human will make a difference -- mutoids to the rescue. (About 400,000 words). And yes, they're all gay novels, fantasy and SF, and much too capacious to be published anywhere, anyhow, by any conventional or POD publisher. So -- digital. Yes.

Cheers,
MK

Judging books by their covers ... Storm Tide heads for Amazon

The next title heading for Amazon.com is STORM TIDE ... and it's having a cover tweak. Since absolute strangers will be viewing these books at Amazon, it's a good thing if at least some element in the cover reflects the book's orientation.

Most readers do tend to judge a book by its cover, at least at the store (online or off) ... which is why you can buy a book (esp. of the SF and fantasy variety) with an absolutely amazing cover, and find that the book behind the cover rates barely a C+ in terms of writing, and it was the cover that sold this dubious effort to you!

So, here's the tweak (click for a larger view; I uploaded it at 900 pixels wide):

The cover concept is identical, but the addition of the torso turns the digital painting of the storm sea scape into something very arty-tarty, very powerful. I'm liking it.

The process of getting a book to Amazon is -- as I've said several times! -- long, slow and laborious. STORM TIDE will be there in January.

And that's a hell of a nice cover. As always, kudos to Jade ... who, I might add, has volunteered to illustrate various digital novels which will be happening in the new year. This is going to be interesting. Stay tuned!

Cheers,
MK

Saturday morning subjectivity

More good news this morning, this time from POD printshop CreateSpace.com ... they're looking at the problem which began here: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/hiccups-in-create-space-process.html and continued here: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/road-to-amazoncom-pavement-is-up-be.html ...!

(We've been on the brink of giving up on the "get Keegan to Amazon" project. In fact, we were actually within 24 hours of going to Merchant Card Services and reversing the credit card transaction for the proof copy that was ordered waaaay back on 11/19, to see if that would get the attention of someone at CreateSpace! And then --)

Yes! We got an email this morning: a human being (as opposed to a java'bot) is looking at the problem, and the proof copy of FORTUNES OF WAR has been printed and shipped, as of 11/29. This a great news -- half the problem is now fixed.

So, if CreateSpace can just get a real, live software technician to un-gridlock the shopping cart, we can get our oars back in the water! (And yes, we do indeed appreciate that specialists don't work weekends and double-don't work Thanksgiving weekend: patience is a virtue.)

In other news -- don't miss the sample chapters from LORDS OF HARBENDANE, which went online yesterday: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/lords-of-harbendane-sample-readings.html, and also ...

The actual preview page for the 2009 Calendar went up on the main website yesterday: http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/calendar.htm. The page looks a treat, and there is one specific montage image which is so stunning, I'm going to paste it in here:

This gives you a really good look at the color-saturated beauty of the thing. Lovely.

Right now, we're working on webpage updates for the main site ... I'm giving some serious thought to hiving off, here, and having a special "writing blog," or maybe a "writing and publishing" blog, which would leave The World According to Yours Truly to wander through a wide variety of subjects, as suits me on the day. I've always been very much aware that the "subject" of this blog is, well, Keegan, and my posts ought to have SOMETHING to do with my books, characters, universes, or at least the writing and publishing side of it. In recent months, though, I've wandered off into politics, religion, photography --

And the "experts" do tell me that this is the kiss of death for a blog! You're supposed to pick a subject and stick to it. Now they tell me.

Well ... rats. Or even oops. (But I did stick to a subject: the subject was Keegan! Thin argument there, Mel. Anorexic.)

It's been suggested to me that I need to edit the hell out of this blog, probably split it up into several different blogs! This would be ... a lot of work, to put it mildly. It would be a job for the new year, if it happens. It's almost easier to start another one! Almost. Not quite.

Another thing that interests me strangely is the world of the "digital novel." Have you even heard if this? Millions of people have ... about ten times more blog surfies have not -- yet -- cottoned onto this. I stumbled over this two days ago, and it's one of those ideas that bubbles and simmers in the back of your mind.

A digital novel is, essentially, a novel uploaded to a blog in ~2,000 word chunks. It would take something like 100 posts to put up a loooong novel; people can then save the post (which is in html format, obviously) and read it on their various devices. They can save the segments. They come back every day for a new one. A very long series might run for a year.

What would Keegan get out of this? Well, there'd be a $1 donation button in the margin, and about 1% of visitors would (statistically) give it a click. If you're getting 100,000 visitors a month (the top-of-the-range digital novels get a LOT more than that, incidentally), you can make enough in donations to get interesting. (I might have been skeptical about this, but it's happening out there. People have broken trail ahead of us all, and proved it out. It works. Nobody pays more than a tiny sum, everybody gets tons of essentially free fiction, and the author, over the space of a year or more, gets to earn some quite reasonably royalties. It, uh, works.)

Now, it happens that I do have several novels which are so long, it's ridiculous. One of them would be 1,200pp if printed as a paperback; another would be 900pp. Big, steamy, lush, luscious, "unputdownable," extremely gay novels, serialized, free ... and just give me a $1 click on the donation button now and then, thanks, people. Food for thought, isn't it?!

So I'm thinking about it. Seriously. There is a real possibility that I might just be able to put up a sign soon,

"FREE MEL KEEGAN NOVELS, GET YOUR FREE GAY NOVELS HERE!"

I'll, uh, keep you posted!

Now, I have to get some work done before I head out for Christmas shopping after lunch.

Cheers,
MK

Art, Thanksgiving, and who'll design the future?

Just trivia this morning. Blogging in a vacuum is an interesting experience: nothing is happening here worth writing about ...

Update: we're still waiting for any response from Create Space, and as we go into the time frame of the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, we don't expect to have the situation resolved at CS till about next Tuesday our time, which will be December 2! In other words, a javascript hiccup in the shopping cart routine at CS will have taken two WEEKS to resolve, and the whole publication process stopped dead for the duration. *sigh*
[http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/hiccups-in-create-space-process.html]

Anyway: it's all par for the course in the labyrinth of getting a long backlist to Amazon, so ... you live and learn. Tough it our, right?!
[http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/road-to-amazoncom-pavement-is-up-be.html]

Meanwhile -- Happy Thanksgiving to American readers! I actually spent Thanksgiving in the States on one or two occasions, and it's a whole lot of fun, what with the huge meal and the falling asleep in front of the football game. Also a lovely time of the year: late fall, with winter right around the corner, and Christmas in the back of your mind.

And for a dose of Americana, you can't go past the new JC Leyendecker art book. Joe Leyendecker was the conceptual artist who virtually designed what America looked like between about 1910 and 1950, and much of what we still know, today, as the quintessential handsome American male was designed by Joe.

Here's the interesting part (at least for gay readers). For most of his adult life, JC lived with the male model whose face and bod were probably the most famous in the nation ... the young dude who modelled for the "Arrow Shirts" campaigns. The model, Charles Beach, attained superstar status -- he was quite literally the Brad Pitt of his day. And was thoroughly shacked up with the artist. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. See the image right below...

In fact, Brendan Fraser's character of Rick O'Connell is probably based on Charles Beach in the shirt ads. In fact, it's a pretty safe bet that when the productions designers for THE MUMMY movies were trying to nail down the "look and feel" of the era, they made a bee-line for Joe Leyendecker's work. Check this out:

Reminds you of someone you know, right? For a lot more (and a lot of scans!) from the new book, go here: http://jcleyendecker.blogspot.com/2007/08/leyendecker-scans.html

Leyendecker designed the mid-20th century, the way Syd Mead can be said to have designed the age we're living into (or hoping to survive into!) right now now. If you're not familiar with Mead's work, give yourself a serious treat: http://www.sydmead.com/v/01/splash/

It does take a while to load because if the Flash splash, but it's well worth it. I have the old SENTINEL artbook, which was produced by US Steel about, oh, 30 years ago, and I still use it as a source of inspiration for the visual component of SF writings. It's amazing the way a couple of pivotal conceptual artists have literally designed our world. Makes you wonder who the next artist will be, and what 2050 will look like.

Anyway -- this is very much on my mind as I go into the early pre-production work on the new HELLGATE books. I'll be writing both the remaining novels back-to-back, and this will be my pet project for 2009. I might, mind you might, do the HELLGATE novels before I get into the haunted house story. Sorry about this, guys: I know I've been promising you the haunted house book for six months, but -- seriously! -- since I'm not on any contract, I go where the muse takes me. And he, she or it is taking me in the direction of, uh, the worlds of Hellgate.

More on that later.

Many thanks indeed to the folks who have given us feedback on the new calendar. Yes, I am thrilled with the results, and it's kudos to both Jade for the artwork, and Lulu.com for the printing, both of which are absolutely superb:
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/mel-keegan-2009-calendar-out-now.html

To answer the most-oft-asked questions: the software used to produce the calendar itself was Serif page Plus 10; and the artwork was produced in Micrographx Picture Publisher 7, and Irfanview. If you want to know more, by all means ask, and I'll bump questions on to Jade. I keep saying, the artist ought to have a blog too, but so far, my words are falling on deaf ears. We can hope, right?




(Yep, that's an affiliate link. Serif is the driving force behind the production work of so much that we do -- when people ask how it's done, and with what, we recommend Serif. So we might as well sell it, right? Forgive the commercial ... in fact, it answers rafts of questions by itself.)

For the moment, Happy Thanksgiving to American readers!

Cheers,
MK

Mel Keegan 2009 Calendar ... out now!

Good news at last: the Mel Keegan 2009 Calendar is out as of ... now!

A dozen color-saturated images ... month-per-day dating ... US, UK and Aussie dates.

Here's a sneak preview -- and the order button is right below. Ordered now, it'll be delivered in time for Christmas to clients anywhere in North America or Europe.

Preview the whole thing here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/5058046

Click on these pics for a larger view:

Retails for $17.49 plus shipping.

This one is an absolute beauty ... kudos to Jade for absolutely fantastic work throughout!

Cheers.
MK

And on the subject of gay vampires --!

On the subject of gay vampires, NOCTURNE has just gone online at Amazon.com...

... and TWILIGHT won't be too far behind. The good news is that Amazon.com will combine shipping, so if you're getting two or three books, you get into substantial savings. THE SWORDSMAN went online a couple of weeks ago, and the next one coming along, after TWILIGHT, will be FORTUNES OF WAR. (That's in the pipeline right now; meanwhile, we're working on AQUAMARINE and TIGER, TIGER.

Gay vampires do seem to be an astonishingly popular genre -- though I also notice that quite a lot of this fiction does tend to be more focused on erotica than plot. You know Keegan: in my fiction you tend to get both (plotica?), and the beauty of a book as big as NOCTURNE is, there's space for both. It's over 200,000 words -- which is about four times as long as some of the gay vampire fiction you can pick up, which is so focused-in on the erotic aspect of the denouement, the stories can tend to, uh, shoot their bolt quickly.

We're slap-bang on schedule to have THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE on release by Thanksgiving. Those readers who will be wanting the ebook can order via the blog here, or through the ebook kiosk on the website:
(http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/ebooks.htm
... and the paperback will be a few days behind. Remember, Aussies and Kiwis, if you want the books fast, order via Lulu.com; if you don't care about an extra couple of weeks on the delivery time, the quality via CreateSpace is actually a tad bit better. If you absolutely, positively must order from Amazon.com itself, fo good reasons best known to yourself, the book will online there a few weeks behind the Payloadz.com ebook release.

(With Amazon.com and CreateSpace, it's a question of patience, as I blogged here: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/10/pod-publishing-and-amazon-patience-is.html.)

Still on the subject of vampires ... or at least on the subject of BLOOD ... has anyone else noticed that as soon as you get to 50, they start wanting to stick needles in you? My birthday was back on the 4th (http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/ndy-day-2008.html), and at their very first opportunity, there I was with a needle stuck in a vein in my arm. Now, I'll grant you, this particular vampire is a dab-band with a piece of sharp steel. I don't think I'm even going to get a bruise. And I have no vaguest notion if this specific vampire has any gay leanings -- but still. You get to fifty, and the buggers spontaneously get needle-happy. All I wanted was a refill on a prescription, and what do I get? Screened for a half dozen things that any normal person doesn't want to know about. Sheesh.


Before anyone asks, no, I haven't seen so much as a trailer for THE LAIR, though I've heard a little about it. Is it from the same studio that produced DANTE'S COVE? If it is ... one can only hope THE LAIR is a little better than DANTE'S, which was thin at the best of times, and went downhill from there. THE LAIR has potential, but then again, so did DANTE'S --

And speaking of Dante, and vampires, check this out:


... click for a larger version of this. I kid you not, it was painted in 1850! Don't believe me?

Go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Dante_and_Virgil_in_Hell
The painting dates back 158 years, and yet today, when we're supposed to be so much more sophisticated, film censorship is slapping a PG rating on movies because a guy takes his shirt off and a woman wears something with a plunging neckline. Like a ballgown -- which the Queen of England, who is also the head of the Church of England, is famous for wearing! Interesting, no?

And yes, I'm blogging in a complete vacuum today! Gay vampires are simply on my mind, because we were chasing up NOCTURNE -- wondering if it had put in an appearance on the Amazon engine, and it turns out ... it has!

Otherwise, the Mel-o-Sphere is an Event Free Zone. So --

Ciao for now,
MK

The Lords of Harbendane cover proof...!

Yet again, a second post (I seem to be making a habit of this lately), because there's something very exciting to share. The cover proof for THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE was just finished, and I have to say, I'm thrilled. Check this out:

I think this is probably our best cover yet ... and I know I say that every couple of books. Kudos to the artist, Jade. This one has a "wow factor" off the scale.

Apparently the foreground is someplace in Scandinavia; the mountain range and lake is in Denali National park, Alaska; the sky was repainted from a shot captured in the backyard. The character (Rogan Dahl, the Zhenander) is a composite of three faces, so if he reminds you of someone -- it could be three someones. I'm not telling who, but you'll almost certainly going to be guessing [snicker, snort, grin].

Stay tuned for the first chapter online, on the blog here!

Launching the hardcover of WHITE ROSE OF NIGHT

As promised, the hardcover edition of WHITE ROSE is out now, and look very beautiful in its dustjacket, at 310pp...

And in response to numerous requests for a wallpaper based on the back cover art ... the green-skinned courtesan, Kabir ...!



The artwork (Jade's credit) was sized to 800x600. On the garden variety square screen, you can stretch to fit and it looks great. Widescreens are a different question ... I *think* you can get an "old" wallpaper to fit ... must look into this.

In case anyone has no idea what WHITE ROSE is about, here are the cover notes:

Painting on a wide, spectacular canvas
Mel Keegan returns to the past with
a massive tale of the Crusades,
the Lionheart ... barbarism, splendor,
and a young man´s coming of age ...

The Saxon is almost a slave in his own country, and the Holy Land is sundered by unholy war out of which there can be no real victors. For young men like Paul Delgado and Edward of Aethelstan, no place is safe. Their own home is as filled with danger as the battlefields of Palestine. They are men who love men, in an age when such love is forbidden.

To repair the patchwork fortunes of the House of Aethelstan, Edward commits himself to the Crusade. For love of the young Saxon knight, Paul sails with him in the company of Normans, Templars, soldiers, squires. Before he returns, he will be a man grown, with an epic story to tell of bloodshed, sorcery, sublime sensuality, and a timeless love.

Dust-veiled battlefields and the lamplit bedchambers of Saracen captains are
his memories. Silk and steel, delight, despair, and the magic of an age
almost forgotten.

Darkly sensual, vast in its scope, White Rose is a haunting romance
within a thrilling adventure, spiced with a twist of macabre high fantasy, from
the acclaimed author of FORTUNES OF WAR and the award-winning historical, THE DECEIVERS.
...

And let me save you a trip to the webpage:

Order the Paperback:




Order the Hardcover:



Ebook for PC and Mac, Desktop/Laptop:


Add to Cart

Ebook or Pocket PC, iLiad, Sony Reader, Palm:


Add to Cart

Cheers,
MK

Gremlins, source code and frilly knickers

If you've been hopelessly confused when trying to order the screenreader version of APHELION ... well, you're far from alone. So was I. What, Keegan was confused?! You clicked on the button, and Payloadz asked you to confirm your purchase of (!) a guitar strumming chords manual. Oh, sure -- no question about it: big gay SF novel, guitar chords manual? Totally interchangable, you couldn't tell them apart with a flashlight and a magnifying glass. Not.

At some stage, the gremlins got into the numbers, and latched their fangs into this item. Now, the APHELION screnreader ebook is one of about 80 items in stock, so ... the little dears managed to get a-hold of less than one percent of our inventory before we caught them. Hmm.

The next 30 minutes or so was interesting. Having caught them red handed, we were honor bound to go through every piece of code and check the lot -- which is how I can tell you, the fuzz-butts only got into one of the APHELION versions before the sword of Damocles fell on them. Gone. They are now an extinct species 'round at Keegan OnLine, and with luck they won't be back for a while.

Technology is grand, isn't it? It's the only system anyone knows, short of magic, which can shapeshift a huge gay science fiction romp into a guitar chord book, by changing a single digit. Marvelous, when you think about it. Or appalling, depending on your point of view --

Which reminds me of what I thought was a hilarious story, but other people seemed to find utterly shocking -- this is a real-life tale which took place on the user forums (and in the code ... gremlins again; the way they get around, they must have bikes) at Lulu.com. This story is a beauty -- stay with me.

Now, Lulu.com is the monstrous clearing house for scores of digital printshops across the world. As a publisher, you (or I, or Uncle Jim, whoever) go to Lulu.com and open an account, start a project and begin throwing materials into it. If it's a novel, you toss text and cover pictures at the system, and when you're done, you literally hit "print." The copy is manufactured by printing robots on the other side of the world.

On the other hand, if you're doing a picture book, you chuck dozens or hundreds of images into the project before you start shuffling them. It usually works like clockwork. Usually...

Then came the day when this Christian Books publisher checked his (her?) project just before hitting the button to print 25 and send them to a Christian Books store that was waiting for them. Apparently the project was one of those inspirational books full of smiling faces and sunsets, and puppy dogs and closeups of flowers, and dusty sunbeams and old folks turning their adoring, craggy faces to the sky, or heaven (or whatever floats their personal boat).

At least, that's what the pictures were supposed to be, and I'm sure 80% of them were. The problem was, the gremlins had tied a knot in the logon codes between this Christian Books dude, and a big, hairy trannie with a full-on biker beard and its corresponding beer gut, who liked to pose in ladies' undies. I gather he looked a lot like a tarantula tied up in pink ribbons as he reclined on a plush king-sized bed in his high heels and ... you get the picture.

The photos were intended for HIS project, either for a GLBTIQ book store or as a private project for a bunch of friends. But the gremlins had gotten the logon code so far twisted up, our biker in high heels pal had his pictures dumped right into the middle of the Christian Books project, with predictably traumatic results.

The Christian Book publisher was petrified (I mean, PETRIFIED) that this had been going on for some time without his notice ... because he'd been shipping books direct to his client stores, sight-unseen.

Imagine this: little old lady of the Christian persuasion, in her very favorite Bible store, wanting to buy a lovely inspirational picture book for her pal or hubbie or whatever ... opens up this book --!

You can imaging the scream. Now, some folks might fall down laughing at the pics ... or else flip right to the back of the book to see if this cutie-bear had thought to list his number or email there, and a quick note as per his preference between smoked salmon canapes and baked beans on toast. The world is full of surprises. And we like it that way.

But, hey, have a little compassion here, guys. There's people out there who get uptight if they don't put knickers on piano legs. Seriously.

Natutually, Lulu fell over themselves to set the situation right, and probably some actual breathing, palpitating human went through the trembling guy's files and made sure they were no hairy bikers in frilly pink undies, or folks of whatever gender bonking (or pretending to). I imagine there was hell to pay.

Me? I laughed for a week. Then again, I didn't have the gremins give me any heart attacks while I was doing any kind of picturebook. However, I'll just bet there was one question left utterly unresolved at the end of all this, because no one was about to ask it.

If our hairy biker in the frilly undies and high heels found his way (courtesy of the gremlins) into the hallowed pages of the Christian Inspiration book, did any Christian Inspirational pictures wind up in the hairy pages of the other book...? And if so, did out hairsuite friend in the frills and spikes also scream, or laugh, or write in and complain? In the interests of fair play (as well as humn compassion) did anyone even bother to ask?! And I'll just bet they didn't.

Cheers,
MK

If it's all Greek to you ... read on!

A bunch of symbols is about to appear in the right margin:




...and numerous people will be wondering what the hell it's all about. It looks a little like something borrowed from an obelisk ... and you're starting to see these squiggles appearing all over the web.

It's all about something called the "creative commons license," and rather than blather at length about it, I'll give you the link to go right there, if you have the slightest interest, and check it out for yourself:

Creative Commons

The symbols basically tell visitors what they can, and can't do with the materials posted to this blog, although that's a terse, argumentative way of putting it. I'd be more likely to say, "If you want to use stuff posted here, please give me a citation when you re-post it somewhere -- a link would be nice, to bring visitors to this page; and you're welcome to repost the stuff, so long as you don't make a buck out of us, and we get the credit ... and, most importantly, you don't muck about with the materials before reposting. Meaning, please don't change what I said here, or rewrite the poetry!

Alack and alas, it's actually become necessary on today's web to put these legal symbols on a page, because the content of one's page is quite likely to get (and I use the proper term here ... though it sounds like a nasty medical procedure) scraped.

Scraped. Isn't that a horrible term? It basically means, unscrupulous people tour the web, thieving whole pages here and there as they go; they then plunk the pages down on their own sites and, voila, park their Google ads on them, and they're in business without writing a single word, taking a photo, doing some artwork, of their own.

It's illegal, of course; it's also very hard to stop. There's a new service which has just come along, called Copyscape, and to one degree and another, it should help protect people's websites and blogs. The Copyscape service scans and compares pages so, theoretically, if the content were identical, it would pop up the comparison and kick the case back to the legal publisher (on the understanding that the thief ain't the one using Copyscape, obviously).

Okay. It's nice in theory. But there's something else out there called "remixing," which is where multiple websites are "scraped" and content pasted together to make something new. And I seriously doubt there's anying much Copyscape will be able to do about that.

Anyway, the symbols are appearing on this page for obvious reasons. I'm uploading a lot of original stuff, such as Jade's artwork, Keegan's poetry and photos. And it turns out, you have to make some kind of a statement, sooner or later, to protect yourself against scrapers.

I don't like the sound of being scraped. It sounds like they tie you down to a surgical table and do something horrific to the most vulnerable portions of the human anatomy.

So, here we go with the icons. Now, what the hell do they mean?

Content covered by the Creative Commons License. Duh.

Gimme a citation, or accreditation, if you use the work: a back-link would be nice!

Don't "remix" the work ... meaning, don't rewrite me, changing what I said.


Don't use the work for profit. I don't make a buck out of it, why should you?!

Uh ... this one speaks for itself, right?

(The rights being reserved are set out by the symbols ... always supposing you can interpret the symbols. Hence, this half-baked Rosetta Stone.)

It's interesting that the whole problem of "scraping" has become so prevelent, but one could hardly call it surprising. A couple of posts ago, I mentioned there are now more webpages than there are people in the world -- and at the same time, anything you can park Google ads on (except gay-friendly sites: we went through that already!) will apparently earn "nice money." Add in one more factor (the sheer inability, or unwilingness, of unscrupulous people to create their own site content), and you have the scenario in a nutshell. A lot of webpages exist to carry the damned ads, and if you can "scrape" the content for the pages, you don't have to do any work. Great.

Makes legit writers, artists, photographers, poets and webmasters cringe ... and DreamCraft has just decided to at the very least start plunking the icons on some pages, to (mildly) deter the scrapers. We do use Copyscape, too. But it's the "remix" people who are almost certainly going to slither through that net, because I'm 99.999% sure that Copyscape doesn't read PARTS of a page; it compares whole pages. Hmmmm.

If you're interested, or have online intellectual properties to protect, it's Copyscape.com, and it's worth a look.