Author: davidjlovato

Free eBooks / Choose the Cover of Six and Seven

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Hey guys! A few weeks ago I posted a release notice for my latest novella, Six and Seven. Since then I’ve been working on a few things, included fixing some formatting errors that popped up in the e-book (which today I think I’ve finally resolved).

While repeatedly going over the book looking for errors, something caught my eye. It’s the little copyright notice at the beginning of the Smashwords edition of the book. It’s where I claim the copyright and ask people not to share the book or read it for free.

The text itself was copied from an example given by Smashwords, and I had never really thought much about it. Reading it the last few weeks got me thinking, though. The truth is, I don’t really care if you read my books for free, or if you share them with someone else. That’s not to say I like working for free; I certainly enjoy being paid for my writing, but if it came down to someone reading my books for free or not reading them at all, I’d choose the former.

I don’t think this should be the case. I think people have a right to be paid for the work they do. But I also understand the plight of the modern consumer: All of the free samples in the world don’t help if you get to the end of a book and just feel ripped off. This is especially true the weaker the economy is and the tighter someone’s budget is.

I’ve decided to try an experiment, a new business model. I’ve always released my books free of DRM when given the option, and I’ve never hunted anyone down to see if they were sharing it with a friend. I’m taking that concept to the next level. From now on – at least for a little while – if you want a copy of one of my* ebooks, just ask.

(*I’ll have to exclude After the Bite and any future co-authored books. This experiment is my decision and it wouldn’t be fair to implement that on a work that isn’t wholly mine.)

Send me an email at justonesp00lturn (at) gmail (dot) com, let me know the title of the book you want, and the format (I should be able to handle most, including pdf, epub, mobi, whatever calibre is capable of converting to). I’ll send you a copy for your reading pleasure.

What I will ask in return is that you consider rating my book on goodreads, amazon, smashwords, wherever. I’m not asking you to give me good reviews, and I don’t want you to feel compelled to. I’ll only ask you to give an honest review. And if you don’t feel like giving one at all, that’s cool, too.

Another request is that if you want to share the book with a friend, please use this same method. It wouldn’t be fair for me to encourage people to share works that were created and distributed by other bookstores and by Smashwords. They do work over there that I feel they deserve to be paid for, and if you disagree, that’s the beauty of having a choice of which, if any, you support monetarily.

I don’t know how long I’ll extend this offer. I am, after all, trying to make writing my career. But I believe the vast majority of people will pay for something they feel deserves that support, and I know it’s hard to to decide that based on a small sample of a whole work.

This brings me to the second part of this post.

I recently received some very helpful feedback regarding Six and Seven as it is currently being presented. That included some criticism I more or less agree with, that the cover is a little bland, and doesn’t really demand attention like a cover should.

Six and Seven is an illustrated work. I’m not a good artist by any means, but as I was writing it I was digitally painting scenes that popped into my head, and these are included in the book. I also made a “cover” version of each illustration, with the intention of making them available here on my blog for people to download their favorite and replace the book’s “official” cover with. I still intend to do that, but I thought of something that might help solve this little uncertainty I’m having at the same time.

I’m going to put the covers up on here and let anyone give their input on them. Whichever gets the most positive attention will likely become the “official” cover of Six and Seven. And hey, if you just want to comment and tell me they’re all terrible, go ahead (though it won’t do much good; I already know I can’t draw, that’s why I’m a writer and not a painter :P).

I’ll most likely be repeating this information on my other social networking sites. Feel free to share at will; if you have a friend in the market for some new books, I’d really appreciate you sending them my way (or sending my books their way).

Here are the covers. Click one to make it larger, and if you want, leave a comment letting me know your thoughts, your favorite, your least favorite, what have you. Thanks!

Artwork by David Lovato
One was closer.
Artwork by David Lovato
Here and There
Artwork by David Lovato
Dead Eyes, Water Mouth
Artwork by David Lovato
Somewhere, Somewhen, Somewhy
Artwork by David Lovato
below everything that ever existed

Six and Seven Release

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I’m excited to announce the release of my novella Six and Seven. I first posted about this project right here on my blog, and since then it’s been finished, edited, illustrated, and now published.

Cover art by David Lovato

Call it Hell, call it the Underworld, call it whatever you like, a lost soul known only as Six calls it “In” and he’s stuck here. The souls of In spend their time feeding or fanning flames, watched over by strange creatures called Bellows, and staring through the constant snow of ash at seven distant chimneys visible at all times but eternally unreachable.

Then another soul called Seven gives Six some interesting news: You can get Out by climbing up through one of the chimneys, and Seven figured out how to get to them. Six and Seven set off across the ashy plains toward a chimney, and they quickly learn the rules. The only way to reach the chimney is to progress toward it metaphysically, by finding objects from their lives before In. But each object is accompanied by a painful death, which is followed by a memory from Six’s life, and with each glimpse of what he left behind, Six begins to wonder if he truly wants Out at all.

Six and Seven is a novella and a short story that serves as a direct sequel to it. It features illustrations by me.

The e-book is already available at Smashwords for $2.99, and should be available for Kindle and at most other e-book retailers very soon.

Update 1/26

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Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Writing

I’m working on a fantasy novel I started last summer. It’s progressing very well, I’m over 20,000 words in.

I’ve also started working on a new project based on an old idea. I won’t say much about it yet because I’m not too certain of it, but if I finish this it will probably be very soon and I’ll probably release it for free.

Speaking of writing, I’ve been taking part in Word Wars on the Shut Up and Write subreddit. It’s a lot of fun. More info here: http://www.reddit.com/r/shutupandwrite/

Editing

I finished editing Six and Seven a while ago. I’m working on finding a home for it.

Reading

I’ve been reading Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’m not normally a fan of poetic prose, but in this book it works very well. It’s written gorgeously.

I’ve also been reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I’m very early in, and so far it seems like things I normally wouldn’t care about. I figure it’s been roughly seven pages (I’m reading an e-book so I’m not sure) of information I’m indifferent to involving one character, now and then sprinkled with very exciting and interesting things about another character. Somehow, all of it has me hooked, even the parts that I would normally find useless or even stop reading because of. Gaiman has a very strong voice, I think that’s holding it together and making even the boring parts worth reading.

For more info on my reading activities, feel free to follow me on Goodreads.

Editing Six and Seven

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I haven’t posted in a while but I haven’t stopped working, I promise. I was sick for a week or two, and now I’m feeling a lot better. Work was slow, but it never stops.

I started editing Six and Seven, that novella I posted about a while back. It’s going very smoothly, and I really like this story.

Editing!
Editing! (I’m better at doing that than drawing, if you couldn’t tell).

I’ve also been writing. I’m nearly 20,000 words into my latest project, and that’s going pretty smoothly as well.

I’m still working on finding an agent for one of my manuscripts, and things are looking all right on the self-publishing side of things, too.

I have a few ideas for more blog posts regarding advice, tips, what I’ve learned in general, that sort of thing.

You may have noticed I posted pretty much nothing regarding NaNoWriMo last month. Sorry. I participated up to a point, but I decided I’d rather focus on things that were already on my plate.

What are you up to?

The River

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Hey guys, I put a new page up on my blog. It’s a sub-page of the Published Works section, or you can click this link.

The page contains the entirety of my short story “The River” from the collection After the Bite. If you like what you see, there’s a longer preview featuring a few more stories on the book’s Smashwords page.

If zombies aren’t your thing, feel free to share the page with anyone you think might be interested. I’d be eternally grateful to you.

Thanks for everything, and take care!

After the Bite

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cover art by Laura Soret
After the Bite by David Lovato and Seth Thomas. Cover art by Laura Soret.

This is that big announcement I’ve been talking about. My friend Seth Thomas and I have written a collection of short stories about zombies, and we’re self-publishing it. It’s called After the Bite.

We’ve been working on this for a while. We actually wrote a book, and these are stories set in the same universe, but they stand on their own.

You can buy After the Bite on Smashwords for $4.99. It should be available through other retailers (like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Apple iBooks and more) in the coming weeks. We’re also looking at a print edition.

If you’re at all interested in zombie fiction, it’d mean a lot to us if you picked up a copy of our book. The first few stories are available as a free preview on Smashwords, and I’ve decided to write up a brief summary of each of the stories so you’re not going in blind. If zombies aren’t your thing (and even if they are), you’ll forever be awesome to me if you pass this link around to your friends and family.

Thanks again to everyone who has followed Seth and I, our blogs, our facebook pages, our lives in general. You mean the world to us.

If you decide to get a copy, it’d also mean a lot if you left us a review on Smashwords or Goodreads or wherever. Every little bit helps us out, and we appreciate it so much.

We love you guys.

Here are the summaries:

1. The River – Jack and Henry are brothers and best friends, but the world threatens to pull them apart. The zombies aren’t helping, either.
2. On the Road – Larry embarks on a survival road trip across a post-apocalyptic America.
3. Holy War – A Jewish man and his Muslim neighbor meet daily in a battle of words.
4. The Living Dead – A brief glimpse of what it means to one man to be alive.
5. On 68th and Woodland Drive – A short poem about the zombie apocalypse.
6. Tragedy in Belford – A successful writer pens the moments leading up to the zombie apocalypse.
7. Sanctuary – A man named Garrett is looking for safety, like a lot of people. Finding none, he decides to make it himself.
8. Death’s Robe – A portrait of the zombie apocalypse.
9. Grampa’s War Story – A group of soldiers on a secret mission in the Middle East must battle enemy combatants and zombies alike.
10. Concrete Nightmare – It’s just another day on the job, until people start eating each other.
11. Dead and Gone – A poem written on a blood-stained scrap of paper.
12. Acceptance – Sometimes it’s hard to share our secrets, even with those we love.
13. Alone Up There – The crew aboard the International Space Station find themselves adrift in a sea of stars.
14. Dog’s Story – The zombie apocalypse isn’t limited to human beings.
15. Thy Neighbor – Two men whose families have been at it for generations might be each other’s only hope.
16. Grim is the Truth – The diary of one survivor of the zombie apocalypse.
17. Two Worlds – When zombies run him out of his home, a young Mexican man heads across the border into America, looking for his brothers.
18. Did Your Mama Ever Tell You the Story of the Day You Were Born? – Everyone has a baby story. Caleb’s involves zombies.
19. BAZK – These guys just want to be rock stars, but zombies keep getting in their way.
20. Like Fish – Brent struggles to hold on to his humanity when the world takes everything away.
21. Ghost Story – When the world is long gone, what happens to those left over?

P.S. The cover art was done by Laura Soret, you can find more of her work here: http://suthnmeh.deviantart.com/

New Blog Address

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Hey! If you’re seeing this it means you’ve successfully arrived at my blog’s new location.

Please subscribe to continue receiving updates from my new address, and if you don’t want to see two of every post I make, feel free to un-subscribe from the old one.

Sorry about all of this. WordPress is apparently limited when it comes to url options and I didn’t realize it was not going to let me change my blog’s address to one I had already registered.

Thanks for everything, and stay tuned. I have a pretty big announcement coming up.

Update 10/9

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Someone’s been watching my blog like a hawk so I guess I’ll post a quick update.

I don’t have anything major to announce. Well, I think do. But not yet ;D

That said, I’m working. I’m still querying agents on one manuscript, and I’m working on editing another. I have a few new projects started, but those are coming along pretty slowly, to make more time for editing.

November is coming up, but I’m not sure I’ll participate in NaNoWriMo. I have an idea, but I still have a lot on my plate, it might be wiser to work on those before taking on a new project. We’ll see.

When I’m finished editing this manuscript (which will hopefully be in the next two or three weeks) I may work on editing Six and Seven, and when that’s done I’ll see if I can get it published in a magazine somewhere. I like it a lot, but we’ll see how I feel once I start to pick it apart.

So that’s what I’m up to. How about you?

New Page: Writer’s Resources

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I added a new page on my blog. It’s called Writer’s Resources, and you can find it at the top of my blog or by clicking here: http://crackedthesky.wordpress.com/writers-resources/

It’s a collection of, you guessed it, resources for writers. If you have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment.

Camp NaNoWrimo August Update

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It’s still August but I’m pretty sure I’ll once again not be a Camp NaNo winner.

That’s okay though! Because this time I finished my project. It’s a novella, not a novel, and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to force it to be anything else. So the first draft of “Six and Seven” is finished. I’m going to set it aside for a little while and then come back to it and edit with a fresh set of eyes, and then see if I can get it published somewhere. I’ve taken a brief glance at different publications looking for horror novellas, and there are a few that look great, so we’ll see how that goes once I’ve revised it.

I came up with ideas for two other novellas, both related to this one in some way, and for a time I thought about combining the three into one project for Camp. Considering that would give me a week to dream up these stories and write them down, I don’t think I’m going to try it. There’s no way it wouldn’t end up being very rushed. I need to kick these ideas around, see if I really love them and want to write them, and then let them come to life on their own. That won’t happen if I try to slap them onto paper in seven days.

To all other Camp participants, I hope your projects are going well! Remember to take it easy, don’t rush things, don’t force things, don’t stop having fun.