All posts tagged Star Minds universe

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I managed to write a short story (4K+) during my travels, so yay! One more done! Now I’m considering the novels that follow that story… some brainstorming with myself to do this week!

And it’s May, so new title! And it’s Wonder Man, a Star Minds Federation novel and the connection between Lone Wolves and Federation stories. If you read the series, you know who Wonder Man is! 😉

We’ll stay in the Star Minds Universe for the next few months… then we’ll see. Not sure what will be ready for public consumption after the summer! 😉

I got the manuscripts back from the editor, so I’ll have some work to do before publishing those titles. And I’m thinking of rebranding a series – or not. Still pondering and writing more books in it.

Now back to the routine… hoping to manage to raise the wordcount a bit, so I can reach 100k… in May… whatever is fine, though. I’m too tired to do more, but this too shall pass! Have a great week!

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by Barb on 08/05/2024  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, real world inspiration, world creation, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 08/05/2024

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2024/05/08/wednesday-weekly-roundup-239/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote a little over 6K . I finished the novella in the Star Minds Universe and started the last sci-fi story for now. I’ll wait for the last Down in the Details class to write the last sci-fi story, then I’ll take a break from writing new words.

It finally was translated into English somehow! Italy’s alleged UFO crash (a.k.a. The Fascist Files I found in Italian 20+ years ago) is how Kol-ian arrived on Earth! 😉 Check out this story either in Star Minds Starter or the Trilogy – the Technological Angel faked his death by crashing his Imperial Disk in Northern Italy back in 1933!

Of course the Star Minds Universe is now alternate history – an alternate future in which we joined the Star Nations back in 2022, but when I first wrote it in Italian, back in 2002, it was a shiny new idea, and I had considered using the Roswell UFO crash, but then my Jedi twin, Fulvio Gatti, suggested the Fascist Files instead. So thank you, Fulvio, that’s why I dedicated Technological Angel to you, LOL!

And there’s one week left in the Kickstarter! It probably will not fund, but do not rush to fund it if you haven’t yet (and thank you to whoever already did). It was an experiment and it shall be back, bigger and better, next year. I’m already thinking about some nifty things I could add as rewards, but I won’t have time to prepare them before the end of the year. So stay tuned for the next! 😉

It won’t be a great year for wordcount, but I hope to catch up next year. I’m also doing a lot of travels for research purpose, which means that at least three weeks were lost to that. And now to translating Magical Friends into Italian for next year’s comic cons.

When I’m done with the translation, I’ll get back to writing. This will give me time to brainstorm the few ideas I have, and I’m definitely going back to high fantasy. I may also be able to draw a few more strips during the rest of the year.

At least I’m reading! Follow me on Bookbub and check my recommendations! And that’s all for today! Have a great week!

by Barb on 18/10/2023  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 18/10/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/10/18/wednesday-weekly-roundup-210/

Sunday Surprise


I’m in another Storybundle! Check it out!

The Space Opera Sisterhood Bundle – curated by Robert Jeschonek

What is it about space opera that makes us love it so much? The action, the exotic settings, the colorful characters, the alien species? The promise of countless adventures in the face of the great unknown?

Or is it mostly just the incredible wow factor of all the ships…the technology…the planets…the ray guns and laser swords? In many ways, it’s the ultimate escapist genre, transporting us to places and situations that dwarf our everyday troubles. And yet, at its heart, space opera is all about us—what it means to be human, and how we can triumph over our human limitations.

Whatever your reason for loving the genre, this bundle has what you’re looking for in abundance. The eleven books I’ve selected—each written by a true heroine of the genre—are packed with space opera goodness that will propel you to the furthest reaches of the known and unknown universe.

In this set of books—including six StoryBundle exclusives—you will meet heroes and villains, all larger than life, roaming myriad worlds and stations and outposts on quests for survival or freedom or love or redemption. You will find yourself with enough thrilling adventures to banish every doldrum, and every one of them will take you far in every way possible.

If you love space opera, science fiction, action-adventure, or great writing regardless of genre, this bundle will light up your universe in all the best ways. Grab your copy during the limited three-week sales window, load your e-reading device or app, and launch yourself into orbit for a Big Bang of breathtaking, soul-stirring, and thought-provoking reading. â€“ Robert Jeschonek

* * *

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in .epub format—WORLDWIDE.

  • Dominion Chronicles – The Lyra Cycle: Episodes 1-2 by Rene Astle
  • Becalmed by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • Luna City Limited by Julia Huni
  • In Darkness Dwells by James Fox and A.K. DuBoff

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $20, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more (all StoryBundle exclusives) books for a total of 10!

  • Gray Lady – Books 1 & 2 Omnibus by Robert Jeschonek and Annie Reed (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  • Paradox by Louisa Swann (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  • Tales from the Sehnsucht Series – Books 0 and 0.5 by Keyla Damaer (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  • Lone Wolves Heroines – Vol. 1 by Barbara G. Tarn (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  • Victoria Eternal by Anthea Sharp (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  • Quinn of Cygnus – Lift Off by AM Scott (StoryBundle Exclusive)

This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get a DRM-free .epub for all books!

It’s also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards – which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.

Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.

  • Get quality reads: We’ve chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.
  • Pay what you want (minimum $5): You decide how much these fantastic books are worth. If you can only spare a little, that’s fine! You’ll still get access to a batch of exceptional titles.
  • Support authors who support DRM-free books: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog. Supporting authors who let you read their books on any device you want—restriction free—will show everyone there’s nothing wrong with ditching DRM.
  • Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to AbleGamers!
  • Receive extra books: If you beat the bonus price, you’ll get the bonus books!

StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Before starting StoryBundle, Founder Jason Chen covered technology and software as an editor for Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.

For more information, visit our website at storybundle.com, tweet us at@storybundleand like us onFacebook.

by Barb on 27/08/2023  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 27/08/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/08/27/sunday-surprise-287/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


And the last title being out, the series is now complete, and the series page updated with all the links! The paperbacks should be on their way to the backers who requested them. So I guess this Kickstarter is done! 🙂

Now I should be able to announce the second rebranding for the Star Minds Universe, and here you can see the new covers! There’s also new blurbs, if you’d like to check them out. The series page is updated too.

The titles are slightly changed, but the stories inside are the same – well, a couple of volumes have a new title, because “Interregnum” didn’t make sense anymore, so I changed it to “Confederation”. And you also get a sneak peek of the book coming in July! 🙂

The Smashwords/D2D merging means the books will vanish from Smashwords for a few months, they still have no idea when they’ll be able to send titles to the Smashwords store, but since my only Smashwords customer already has them, I don’t think they will be missed! 😉

Also, the slightly different title means I had to let go the Createspace paperbacks and make a new edition with a new ISBN on KDPprint. I didn’t change the art on the paperbacks, only the typography and the blurbs, but since the title is locked to the ISBN, I decided to create a new edition. Same interior, though! 😀

I wrote almost 13K on the new project last week. I hope to get that much done this week, but this rebranding will keep me busy as well. It’s not only the Star Minds Universe getting a face lift! I did mention I need to tackle Silvery Earth as well at some point, and I’m already starting experiments, but I probably won’t be able to do all the books until the summer.

Meanwhile I take care of the rest! 😀 And write the next book, of course! On TikTok I posted a couple of WiP videos, with things that won’t end up in the final book, like maps… but they’re useful when your characters wander a lot like mine! 🙂

The strip is over on Instagram, so from Sunday you can check the Happiness is… vignettes there. Yes, truly, I’m getting rid of Da Muses, how cruel can I be? 😉 I’m finding other ways to inspire myself, I did change the way I write my books through the decades, so I’ll be fine…

The next big news might be a Sunday Surprise! Have a great week! 😀

by Barb on 25/05/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, real world inspiration, the Human being
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Posted by Barb on 25/05/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/05/25/wednesday-weekly-roundup-137/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


And the big announcement this week is… another storybundle! Cattatude is now live and it includes Otherside, my novella of cats and women. Find more info here.

If you haven’t read Otherside yet, go grab it for less than 1$ along with those other awesome books! Because the next big announcement is… the Otherside Books! Yes, in March and April (with possibly a couple of weeks off to travel) I will publish three short novels and a collection of stories exploring the steampunk world beyond the portals!

Book 1 is ready, but Book 2 and 3 + half of the short stories still need to go to Mighty Editor who is busy until the end of the month. And the acquisition of Smashwords by Draft2Digital means that I postponed publishing Book 1 until I have all three, in the hope that meanwhile I’ll have only one dashboard for the two distributors! 😉

This month I’m going to put out a couple of old Italian titles (revised, and that I will not translate into English), since those go only on Amazon and Kobo. The first is the original story I based Soul Thieves on, which means I went through the English version, if only to remind myself how it had evolved.

And, horror of horrors, I found typos, missing words, but mostly, a typo in the blurb! Which meant that I had to redo the paperback cover. Originally made with Createspace, you’d think it would be easy to change the cover, right? I mean, it went smoothly with other titles…

Well, not this time. Soul Thieves has a white cover, and they kept telling me there was no bleed. So if you have a white cover for a paperback, remember to frame it with a black line. Still missing Createspace, sigh.

Also, the previous cover template calculator no longer works, as I discovered while I prepared the Italian book. Now you need to go here, and it’s actually better than the previous one, since both the PDF and the PNG are the right size (the previous version had the PDF already cut, so when you uploaded it to KDP print, it was too small)!

So, between dealing with KDPprint for myself and Kobo for a friend, I didn’t write a word until Saturday – I could have started on Friday, but I had to check a few things, which means I found a couple of typos in the first chapters of Thief and I really should find time to go through all my paperbacks catching typo fairies, but where is the time?

Anyhow, during the weekend I managed to write a full story, though, and my wordcount is a little over 7K (the yearly total so far is 64K, so at 6 weeks it’s perfectly fine – I need to write 10K/week for 50 weeks to get to 500K).

The Sunday event was canceled because Khabi Lame was in Dubai (his manager probably forgot to tell him he had a signing event in Rome, LOL!), but then I read this article about being an aunt, so… say hello to PANK Barb, and Dear Nephew still loves her even if he couldn’t have his comic book signed! 🙂

That’s all for today! Have a great week!

by Barb on 16/02/2022  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 16/02/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/02/16/wednesday-weekly-roundup-123/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Welcome to the last post of the year… where did time go? For a final final wordcount of 2021, I’ll give numbers next week. It currently stands at 460K. Last week I wrote under 7K because two days were eaten up by… series rebranding. But since it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I shouldn’t have counted them as writing days, right? (As if I weren’t known as someone who spends the Holidays writing when everybody else is busy celebrating, LOL!).

Anyhow, I had somehow announced it when the Visions of the Future Bundle came out, and now it’s official. Star Minds Universe eBook covers got a facelift! I even redid the series trailer! And I did the last two paperbacks, so everything is in print as well – the Star Minds Lone Wolves Novellas as well as Star Minds Lone Wolves Team! And I took down the five-missions ebooks of the Team, since I think it should be read as a single episodic novel anyway.

Star Minds Universe new eBook look

So, above you see all the new covers. Those are the titles currently available, as eBooks and in print (except the box sets. Those are eBook only, for obvious reasons). If you’re like Tori, you already read them all. If you got the Star Minds Starter somewhere, well, here’s everything you get if you keep going from there! 🙂

There are no other books planned at this time, although I might add a Themed Collection of Original Stories about this alternate future for our planet. Having also updated the series page, here’s the whole series blurb:

Star Minds Universe, a Space Opera Series

In this alternate future, Earth joins the Star Nations in 2012… discover this future where space travel is the norm, starting back in the 20th century and then diverging into a completely different future from our own!

Hey, look! I even updated the Smashwords Series page! 🙂

And I am honored to have some covers by Hugo Nominee Maurizio Manzieri in this series – the ones you see as “video cover” were custom made for me (Star Minds Next Generation and Star Minds Chasing Stardom), others I bought from him and wrote the story to match the illustration on the cover (Star Minds Next Generation Diaries and Star Minds Interregnum, the illo for Star Minds Third Generation Snippets matched my idea of Kaori in the galaxy police).

I don’t know when I’ll be able to give a new look to the Silvery Earth books, because there are many more and I have trouble finding images of characters from the southern kingdoms (India and Persia inspired), the Amazons Country or the Assassins Guild, so I think I’ll leave them as they are for now.

I know I’m supposed to touch up the backlist (it’s been ten years since I started with Silvery Earth, after all), but considering how long it took me with 20some books, I’ll have to take a week off writing to change 40some book covers!

Anyhow, in January I’ll do a last paperback for Vampires Through the Centuries and then it’s ten years of my Italian pen name, so I’ll be busy with that. I’m also taking out the Italian titles from KU, since they stopped getting read, and I do have some readers on Kobo, especially since it distributes to Mondadori and Feltrinelli.

So January will be busy with more housekeeping and more writing. Hope to wrap up the current project and then we’ll see. I have a few more Ghost Bus Riders stories to write and a couple of other ideas that I still need to figure out.

That’s all for this year! See you in 2022! Have a great week!

by Barb on 29/12/2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 29/12/2021

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2021/12/29/wednesday-weekly-roundup-116/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


A bundle so packed full of science fiction,
we had to assemble it in orbit.

Over twenty authors have joined the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers (IASFA) in a massive book bundle to warp the space-time of readers everywhere.

IASFA Book Bundles are a way for people to discover quality books written by popular authors. You know how it’s always hard to find something good to read? IASFA can help solve that with monthly free book promotions as well as through a massive Book Bundle like this.

https://20bookpacks.com/IASFA-Sci-Fi-Book-Bundle

The Science Fiction Book Bundle! From fantastic worlds to scowling spaceship commanders, from exploration to colonization to alien contact. There is something for everyone and probably your next favorite Science Fiction author can be found right here. We’ve compiled a bunch of hot titles and can offer them in a bundle for much less than a dollar each. Take a look and see what there is to see.

Books included:

Battlenaut Crucible By Robert Jeschonek
Cartwright’s Cavaliers By Mark Wandrey
Cygnus Rising By Craig Martelle
Day 115 on an Alien World By Jeannette Bedard
Emergence By Jacki Rawlinson
Forced Conversion By Donald J. Bingle
Forced Vengeance By Scot C. Morgan
Freedom By Fire By C.P. MacDonald
Ghost Probe By Craig A. Price
Hurt U Back By Tim Taylor
Janissaries By Chris Kennedy
Kaine’s Sanction By D.M. Pruden
On Station By J. Clifton Slater
Quinn of Cygnus: Lift Off By AM Scott
Salvage Title By Kevin Steverson
Standing the Final Watch By William Alan Webb
Star Compass By Anthea Sharp
Super-Sync By Kevin Ikenberry
The Chemical Mage By Felix Savage
The Chronicles of Jegra: Gladiatrix of the Galaxy By Tristan Vick
The Earth Concurrence By Julia Huni
Thief (Star Minds Lone Wolves) By Barbara G. Tarn
Tribari Freedom Chronicles By Rachel Ford
Uprising By Jerry Shepard
Warrior Wench By Marie Andreas

The International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA) is a professional organization focused on aligning readers with authors. We are building the organization that currently numbers over 600 authors published within the SFF genres and growing. Stay tuned as each month we’ll offer full book samplers for free along with less frequent paid book bundle promotions. Help yourself to find your next favorite author by joining the IASFA newsletter. https://iasfa.org/book-promotion-calendar/

The Science Fiction Book Bundle will be available from March 15th thru April 4th.

***

And now we’re back to your scheduled programming… I can’t tell you how excited and humbled I am of being in such company! 😀 I personally met two of those awesome authors (Robert Jeschoneck and Craig Martelle) and I know they’re all (the 19 of them) excellent storytellers! 🙂

Go check that bundle if you love sci-fi space opera! And if you’re not familiar with my Star Minds Universe, this is a very good way of grabbing a discounted book along with many more! 😉

Now, in my enthusiasm of having more or less tamed the WordPress Newsletter plug-in and wanting to inform my newly found subscribers of the above, I sent the welcome email with the free story and the IASFA bundle link two days in advance to the first eight awesome people who accepted the subscription (including Joleene Naylor)… sorry if that link wasn’t live yet on Friday night!

And then I realized (thanks to Tori) that the welcome emails were sent automatically – again with the link to the bundle before it went live. Apologies about that.

There are still glitches, apparently, so if you couldn’t download the PDF (again, thanks, Tori, for pointing it out), reply to the welcome email and I’ll send it over. Hopefully the problem is fixed and the new subscribers won’t have problems with the download.

If you haven’t subscribed yet, and want a free story that won’t be available for sale while you wait for the official newsletter #1 coming out for the 10th anniversary of Books of the Immortals – Air (April 1), you can still do it at the publisher’s page (couldn’t copy-paste the sign-up thingy anywhere else, sorry).

Last week I wrote almost 13K, finished book 1 and started on book 2 when I got the news that Rome and Latium will be in lockdown until Easter again. Sigh. One year later and we’re still at this point. What bothered me the most last year was the long lines at the supermarkets. Hopefully it won’t be so this year – and I’ll still go to work every day.

Anyhow, since I can’t move in the real world, I’m going to travel with my characters until Easter. They’re lucky to be able to move in the pandemic-ridden world, LOL! I planned my vacation time for the whole year, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to move around much anyway.

The Easter week I’ll have to work from home anyway, prepping that newsletter, some paperbacks and other publishing stuff, but I would have loved to be able to meet with my cover artist. We used to do creative weekends, then weekends became off-limit, so I hoped I could have lunch with her during the week, since I’m off DayJob, but no siree, we’re in lockdown, no moving around in Rome! 😦

Vaccines (not enough of them) are for the over-80, medical staff, teachers and immunosuppressed people like my colleague Marco who’s been working from home for a year, and despite the vaccine doesn’t know when he’ll be able to come back to the office. My father had his shot yesterday, my mother postponed to the end of April just in case he reacts badly.

Hope things are going better on your side of the world and we’ll soon be able to travel again. I mean, I don’t mind traveling through Google Maps and Wikipedia, but sometimes just going somewhere and actually meet people instead of reading Quora answers on places is better. And I’m an introvert! 🙂

That’s all for today… have a great week!

by Barb on 17/03/2021  •  Permalink
Posted in reading, real world inspiration, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 17/03/2021

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2021/03/17/wednesday-weekly-roundup-75/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote less than 7K, but again, I’m between projects. Haden’t figured out what to write next. I had a couple of ideas, but I wasn’t sure they’d work. Besides, most of Saturday was spent formatting the two box sets of the Star Minds Universe for D2D (and I even sent a “help!” request, then managed to fix the issue by tinkering again and again with the manuscript).

So now you have them! Star Minds is 530K and Star Minds Lone Wolves is 320K. All in one nice box set (each, of course)! Kol-ian and the Falstelo on the first cover, Kaori on the second. Check them out! 🙂

The latest writing is now with Mighty Editor. I feel blessed I found her, because she’s both a first reader and a copy editor. That’s what I’d offer if anyone is interested. And yes, I pay her, so I’d do it for money too. Because that’s all you need to make your prose shine, a reader and a copyeditor. And no, I’m not giving you her name because she’s already over-booked, but I can do her job for you if you want! 😉

Since I sent out my last submission for the year, I can make a summary. This year I submitted 28 stories to paying markets and made two sales to be paid and published next year. And I had two acceptances from last year published this year – The Phantom Games and Breathe (paperback and eBook). I was also in two collaboration anthologies (royalty share): Blaze Ward Presents #3 a Blaze Ward Presents #4 and one curated anthology, Nightly Bites Volume 3.

And now another touting horn. I met both of these writers in Edinburg last summer, and look what they came up with!

Just released! Leveled Up Love – a Gamelit Romantic Comedy of epic proportions (150k words!)!

Dating Evolution is the next generation of relationship gaming with a real world twist! Did you ever wish your online skills translated into the real world? Now they can! Follow our quests to level up your love life and earn real life rewards!
Life was good for Zack Moore until his trustee managed to con him into signing up for DaEvo. Now, the buggy app has taken over his life, forcing him to leave his condo, interact with people in the real world and eat healthy to gain any gaming time.

Problem is, Zack has the biggest tournament of his life coming up. The Star Fury tournament is Zack and his team’s chance of going pro and making a name for themselves.

Now, Zack’s swapping women around like the components of his starship; trying to find the balance between love and DaEvo. Good thing Zack’s a pro at gaming.

But somethings can’t be quantified.

Like love.

Leveled Up Love! is a Gamelit comedy romance written by Tao Wong, author of the bestselling System Apocalypse LitRPG and A Thousand Li series, and A.G. Marshall, author of the Fairy Tale Adventures series of books.

This is a fully co-authored book. Both wrote parts of this work, combining their humour. It is very much a romance. So, yes, there’s a happily ever after ending. Meanwhile you can check it out at https://readerlinks.com/l/1566449! I read the sample and it’s a blast! 🙂

Also check out the two authors separately (although I’m told the final results isn’t like any of the single styles):

TAO WONG

Facebook

Website

A.G. MARSHALL

Instagram

Facebook

And now, some hope from this K-Shaped times!

We writers write out of our subconscious, and what’s infecting us all the most right now is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear caused by the uncertainty of our future, fear of catching the virus, fear of losing our jobs or our family or what we consider to be our own personal world.

That fear translates into the writing—whether it shows up as fear of a project (I can’t do that. It’s too hard) or fear of self-publishing (No one is reading right now, so why should I publish?) or fear of putting out an expensive product or fear of offending readers or fear of…well, insert your own personal negative tape right here.

We can’t really control the outside world right now. We can control our own behavior in it. On the virus level, that’s masking up and staying inside and getting the vaccine (yay!) whenever it becomes available in your area.

We can control how we handle our writing.

So anything you do is fine at this time. Publish a lot? Good. Publish very little? That’s fine too. Write a lot? Great. Can’t write for whatever reason this traumatic times are throwing at you? Don’t worry.

Help where you can. Do what you need to for yourself. And ask for help if you need it.

We’re going to get through this.

I promise.

And if Krish Rusch says so, I believe she’s going to be totally right. We’ll be fine. Even if I don’t know what my next project will be or if I’ll ever manage that collaboration with someone, even if 2023 seems so far away and I grow impatient by the minute because I’m sick of adulting. But this too shall pass, and we can only keep moving forward in the new world coming up.

A world where there might be a new copyrigth law and blockchain for authors and publishers in an age of artificial intelligence, when I no longer will see my older books with the ugly covers pop up on pirate sites and might even be able to sell from my own site. Not next year, no, but it’s coming.

Another article on GPT-3, that has evolved since the previous article I posted (referred to in this article)… It has learned to code (and blog and argue). But I’m not afraid it’s going to steal my writer’s job – or even my translator’s job, if I ever start one! 😉

And that’s all for today. Have a great week! 🙂

 

by Barb on 09/12/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in real world inspiration, struggles to get through, the Human being
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Posted by Barb on 09/12/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/wednesday-weekly-roundup-61/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week was Editing Week, so I didn’t write much (for number lovers 3900words). Most of the writing was done on Sunday, when I was done going through the Future Earth Chronicles. And I stayed sorta/kinda in that area by writing from another point of view an episode that remains quite obscure in the books.

Like I told my Street Team (a public Facebook group attached to my Author Page, you can join it here), I know what I’m writing next. I’m going to write the apocalypse from the vampires’ point of view (so, a prequel to the Chronicles), starting from 2020! It will be multiple POVs with the various vampires spreading around in preparation for the Chronicles…

And then I decided the actual prequel is about mortals, some of which will live for centuries in spite of it all. The books from the vampires’ points of view will be in the Vampires Through the Centuries series, and I plan on publishing a collection of shorts that spans the 12th century to the 25th. Most are (or will be) already out there, but one will be new.

As I uploaded the latest title, I was reminded DriveThru also have a sale, called Christmas in July. So you have more discounted books there, as well as the still ongoing Smashwords sale. And the last Star Minds Universe titles are out! One is the giveaway I announced on Sunday (still going, in case you missed it) and then there’s Star Minds Interregnum Volume 2 (that includes She-wolves Team and a few more new stories along with reprints).

More stories set between the fall of the Galactic Empire and the birth of the Federation of Humanoid Planets.
The Chameleon (5204-5230)
A Wegan telepath loses his love and twenty years later discovers he has a son
Daughter of C’est’aran (5218)
A scientist’s daughter on SETH World challenges the woman who seems to want to take her late mother’s place
Mother (5225-5247)
A young woman meets a handsome young man who vanishes, leaving her pregnant
One Line of bad code (5240)
A battery-operated girlfriend malfunctions
Battery-operated Boyfriend (5242)
B.O.B Theft from the point of view of the B.O.B.
Codename Dark Lord (5245)
Assassin Cyrus Wildner finds his long lost mother
The Widower (5245)
Wealthy Terran widower loses a family heirloom but finds love
The Queen’s Niece
Arica of Sylvania’s daughter on her cousin’s starship
Smuggler
Azzadar owns the Vortu Sprinter and gets in trouble quite a lot…
She-wolves Team 5245
Arica’s daughter’s team of fixers is out in the galaxy
Wegan Woman (5250)
From Galaxy Police officer to independent fixer
Extraction (5260)
Retired albino assassin Elsa needs to extract her granddaughter from a Vilas Lok secret club

Since there are new people onboard and I got questions, I shall summarize here my indie publishing experience.  On January 2011 I uploaded my first title to Smashwords – it was the only place that allowed me to distribute in the US from Italy (or without a Mac in the case of Apple). But Mark Coker never managed to strike a deal with Jeff Bezos, so by April, when I uploaded the first novel, I signed up for KDP (Amazon Italia would arrive a few months later, if I remember correctly).

In 2012 I joined KWL, Kobo’s direct upload, and Draft2Digital, another distributor with no shop but better features than Smashwords. Some titles also go on DriveThruFiction or DriveThruComics, as you can see above. I did some attempts at KU/KDPSelect when it showed up, but so far it worked only for the Italian titles.

I’m still on Smashwords because of Tori (*waves*) and because every now and then I participate in their site-wide sales (like right now), or use their coupons to gift copies of my books, but I much prefer D2D and their free ebook templates. I distribute my box sets (except the first, Books of the Immortals) through them, and they send even to Amazon.

I send my books to libraries through them and even used Findaway Voices through them (they partnered with them before Smashwords) – now, I have no idea when I’ll do more audiobooks, but it might be the matter of a Kickstarter sometime in the future, LOL!

I usually format the collaboration anthos through D2D, since I don’t have Vellum, and then upload the files to BundleRabbit for distribution and splitting royalties – although I no longer put my books on BundleRabbit to be bundled (I’m still waiting to be invited to some StoryBundle, LOL!). Some are still there and some bundles are still live, but these days it’s mostly collaborations that go to the usual suspects (when KDPprint doesn’t throw a tantrum and doesn’t talk to KDP, that is).

So, since next year is my tenth anniversary, you can tell I’m not giving up. But then, Dean Wesley Smith is my guru and if he kept 3000rejections in 5 years and now is where he is, so can I! 😀 I still send out stories to magazines and anthologies, although I’ve lost count of the number of rejections, but if I find a topic that intrigues me, I’ll write it anyway.

That’s how I wrote a story for Nuns With Guns, for example. That’s why I’m going to write another couple of stories I won’t know where to put in my indie publishing, so eventually I’ll make a collection of those spurious stories, LOL!

My friend and cover artist Cristina Fabris needs to buy a new computer and graphics tablet, so she’ll be taking commissions and selling originals. She did the covers for my Books of the Immortals and the Southern Kingdoms  as well as a few more Silvery Earth titles, but she normally draws erotica. You can find her works here, and if you’re interested, contact me, and I’ll put you in touch with her (I’m her interpreter, since she speaks only Italian…)! 🙂

And I shall end with a video again… this is how I feel this week, with everything crumbling down around me… Have a great week!

by Barb on 22/07/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Barb on 22/07/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/07/22/wednesday-weekly-roundup-42/

Sunday Surprise


And it’s a… GIVEAWAY!  Yes, for you, wonderful follower of this very blog! All you need to get this free book is a Smashwords account! 🙂

Star Minds Sire Teens.

The code is: TG65B

The code expires on: 2020-8-31

What’s this all about? Well…

A few light-years away from Earth, closer to the center of the galaxy, is a planet called Marc’harid. Seen from space, it looks very much like Earth, albeit with different geography. It’s inhabited by Humanoids that look pretty much like us, except they’re all blessed with telepathy. They call themselves the Sire and pride themselves on having the best technology in the galaxy…

Three generations of Sire teens, before and after the fall of the Galactic Empire.

That rainbow-haired girl on the cover is the same who, a few years later, is on the cover of Adventurer. Yep, that’s Iso-bel Aya Shermac, a.k.a. Icy Aya, before she becomes the assassin and lone wolf you get to meet later. Of course her visit to Earth is not new, since you can find it also in Star Minds Third Generation Snippets…

So, what’s new? Well, the first story is the prose version of the ongoing Sunday Strip on Instagram, so if you want to avoid spoilers, you might want to wait until that ends. But if you’re familiar with the Star Minds Universe, you already know how it ends!

And Shan-leo’s accident was in Star Minds Next Generation Diaries, but again, if you’re unfamiliar with the Star Minds Universe, you might want to check this out… a taste of the mighty Sire who once upon a time governed the galaxy! 🙂 This book is slowly going live everywhere for 99c, but you can grab it for freen on Smashwords with the code above!

Happy reading and happy Sunday! 🙂

 

by Barb on 19/07/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
Tagged , ,

Posted by Barb on 19/07/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/07/19/sunday-surprise-254/

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