tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755Tue, 24 Sep 2024 22:56:10 +0000http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)Blogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-8325289585867030699Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:18:00 +00002012-01-28T18:20:56.823-08:00 The Galactic Mage - by John Daulton The book is out. I'm very excited. And, so I don't forget, or in case you aren't going to read all the way down (which will be sad, because there's an awesome video down below), I'm moving this blog over to my website now since it's all up and running nicely now. Here's the link: DaultonBooks.com So, if you'd like to continue following along on the journey http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/book-is-out.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-3898325382603977127Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:53:00 +00002012-01-09T10:53:13.949-08:00To put it short and sweet, it's done. January 15th is the magic day. On Monday, I'll push the last button and—according to what article, FAQ, or email response I choose to believe—it will be live within 3 to 7 days. So, there you have it. I can't wait. I really want to put up the video that Mike at MGnexus.com made for me—it's a book trailer that I am freaking so stoked about—but I am going to http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-291-coming-january-15-finally.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-6978171543231242256Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:01:00 +00002011-11-07T09:22:33.316-08:00 Me being devoured by Melville's monster. (This will make sense by the end.) So I know that somewhere in the back of your mind over these last few weeks you have been plagued by a constant and nagging need to know what is up with The Galactic Mage release. Being fully aware that the release of my book is the central part of your universe to the exclusion of all other thoughts and perhaps even tohttp://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/11/day-230-fantasy-writer-attacked-by-moby.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-5426978863180902091Sat, 24 Sep 2011 18:54:00 +00002011-09-24T12:16:16.546-07:00Well, the cover is really close to done (maybe even today!). I have spaceships now, and they are so flippin’ cool. It took a while to hammer out the right look, but Cris Ortega is a master and a professional, and she put up with my picky B.S. and kept at it till she captured just the right look to match my descriptions.  Talk about having to create images from nothing. Cris Ortega has such http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/day-186-spaceship-has-arrived-but.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-8254187222178036246Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:54:00 +00002011-09-11T14:40:10.807-07:00 Well, finally after a long run of nothing, we’re making progress again. In what seems an eternity since last I had something to talk about, we’ve matured Altin’s face on the cover, AND we’ve added stars, stone and selected a font for the title. Now, those of you who are of discerning dispositions might think, “That seems a lot to suddenly do, John. Are you sure none of that happened over the http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/day-173-graphic-updates-and-new-dilemma.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-5793038001807044770Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:17:00 +00002011-08-10T18:24:49.999-07:00Not to worry, I have not switched teams, and my wife’s place as the object of my desire is secure. But, I do have my man, now. My man for the cover of my book I mean. So, after a bit of a delay, we are making progress again as Cris Ortega has finished up the face and hair of my protagonist, Altin Meade. We had to do some chatting back and forth regarding the details of his robes, which is http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-141-oh-that-dreamy-man-of-mine.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-3032234905092831997Sat, 30 Jul 2011 22:23:00 +00002011-07-30T15:23:45.835-07:00 Once upon a time there was a man who hated waiting. In fact, his aversion to waiting was so tremendous that he would often go hungry as opposed to having to wait for toast to toast or top ramen to boil in a microwave. Well, one day, this man decided to write a book. Because he was impatient to have it done, he worked on it every day for a long time until it was finally done. Then it was done.http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-130-waiting-nightmare.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-4666865977901354358Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:33:00 +00002011-07-26T12:31:40.050-07:00 Original "Here there be dragons" type map. No self-respecting fantasy story doesn’t have a dragon in it, right? Well, because my story respects the crap out of itself, of course there is a dragon. And, since fantasy readers love their dragons as much as they love their sorcerers and their hot chicks, guess what my book cover has on it? Wow, you are good at this game. That’s right, a dragon. So,http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-124-yarrr-here-there-be-dragons.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-8180269362867344703Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:38:00 +00002011-07-16T09:45:44.982-07:00 Typical web developer I learned something very valuable about website building over the last two days working on my website. It’s something that I have heard from “web developers” over the years but never paid much attention to because, well, we all know those kinds of guys. You know, I.T. guys, a.k.a., nerds, geeks and D&D players. Why would I pay attention to them? But, now I AM them. Yeshttp://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-117-how-to-build-your-website.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-7769357683042200394Fri, 08 Jul 2011 01:47:00 +00002011-07-07T19:01:15.304-07:00Alright, so I know I teased this particular entry from way back in last week, but, well, I got busy and other stuff happened, so I didn’t get to it until now. So, to make up for it, I won’t spend a lot of time blabbing and I’ll just get to the image after a tiny bit of set up. So as you all know, or most of you anyway, my point with the cover was to have a really hot chick on the cover that http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-108-omg-cris-ortega-is-most-amazing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-6374760941597717685Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:51:00 +00002011-07-03T13:37:26.978-07:00 I have just spent another TWO HOURS battling that goddamn book blurb. I swear to F--- that is the hardest freaking thing you can possibly imagine. I'd rather just write another damn book. It’s been thirty-some-odd days since I started this mini-monster, and just, wow. I even have a whole bunch of really awesome advice from people, some stuff people wrote and sent to me, which I have http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-104-book-blurb-has-finally-been.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-9099224702836990818Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:38:00 +00002011-06-27T07:52:33.090-07:00Alright, so here’s a question for you folks, and what makes it really interesting is the variety of people reading this. Some of you are family, some are “real world” friends of varying degrees of familiarity and connection, some are online writing/forum friends, some are friends of friends, and some just found this blog randomly. What makes that interesting is that I hope it will translate to http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-98-my-pricing-dilemma-how-much.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-3269501003255248535Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:29:00 +00002011-06-20T18:29:11.797-07:00 Evidence of God's mercy. Well, it's six thousand degrees here today and the A/C in my house doesn't really make it as far as this room because the contracting outfit that built our neighborhood were a bunch of cheap bastards (gee, I wonder why they went bankrupt even before the housing bust), so I’m sweating like a crack addict detoxing in a Death Valley sauna at high noon. It's so hot thathttp://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-92-map-illustrations-survive.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-7893518003479097926Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:46:00 +00002011-06-11T14:54:14.584-07:00 Eating an elephant can be intimidating. Someone asked me the other day how I “do it.” They were looking over my blog, and thinking about the book project and were kind of intimidated by the amount of work going in. And I get that. There is a lot of work. Writing a novel takes a long time. Revising it actually takes longer. But that wasn’t even the thing they were asking about. They were http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-84-how-to-do-big-things-aka-eating.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-2879574581154655399Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:29:00 +00002011-06-01T17:19:23.263-07:00First, thanks to everyone who commented on the last post for all the input you gave. I had people sending me rewrites via email plus all the wonderful and ultra-useful input I got in the comments section. So, before I do anything else, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. You know, it's funny how we (I) writers can think we have something so spot-on, you know? I mean, you http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-74-alright-rate-this-version-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-5794989490324416272Sat, 28 May 2011 18:17:00 +00002011-05-28T11:48:46.002-07:00 Black Hole So my manuscript is finally cleaned up and in the hands of the graphic artist who can convert it to the file format I need to upload to Createspace. Going through that sucker was hard core, as you may have gathered from my post last week. But, I set a schedule and stuck to it, and got it done, so now it’s ready. Which means, while he is working on that, I need to get the last pieces http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/day-70-rate-this-short-book-blurb.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-6941905242366651362Wed, 18 May 2011 23:08:00 +00002011-05-20T10:05:24.201-07:00 Oh, the carnage! Well, they say you should be careful what you wish for, but did I listen? Hell no. I don’t like those they guys anyway. They are always saying stuff. They say don’t go swimming after you eat. Don’t run with scissors. Don’t have sex with strange women who have conspicuous facial sores. They just keep talking, so I ignore them. Which is why I wished for a good editor to go http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/day-60-holy-crap-and-tale-of-giant-red.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-4938357826711345493Sun, 15 May 2011 19:45:00 +00002011-05-15T13:14:42.358-07:00 Cover image template Well, this has been an exciting week for my book. Things are underway with relative speed now, which means I won’t have to write more rat poetry today. In fact, there’s so much to write about, I am going to just cover one thing with this post so as not to make it 9,000 words: Book Cover Art. So Cris Ortega is now officially working on my project, meaning we’re not just http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/day-57-book-cover-art-begins-in-earnest.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-8920779401627611511Sat, 07 May 2011 22:00:00 +00002011-05-07T15:27:03.075-07:00Ok, so this entry is mostly going to be about watching the rats run across the top rail of my back fence (along with the other critters, like possums, skunks and the occasional raccoon). I know this blog is supposed to be about my novel progress, and I was going to write about that, but there's nothing really interesting enough to blog about at this moment so you get rat poetry instead. Thathttp://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/day-49-rat-watchin.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-1065004833847752695Sun, 01 May 2011 00:34:00 +00002011-04-30T23:05:38.204-07:00 This is the winner. Ok, so I was going to buy my website template (getting item number 1 from my last blog entry), but apparently that’s not going to happen today. Here’s why: THEY MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO BUY FROM THEM. As a sales veteran of almost a quarter century now, I am going to give you a little tip that I got from one of the richest men I ever met, a guy who made his fortune in clothing http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-42-secret-to-getting-paid.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-6789945162696318723Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:37:00 +00002011-05-01T09:16:04.702-07:00Alright, so it's getting close to crunch time (or should be). In fact, the Createspace folks called me yesterday wanting to know where my manuscript was. I had to tell them, "Not quite ready yet." But it's going. I'm going to lean on my editor today, but only a little because I really don't want her to rush. I'll take quality over speed, but I'm soooo impatient to get this thing rolling. Speakinghttp://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-33-help-me-choose-look-for-site.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-5402049813125524893Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:57:00 +00002011-04-19T12:40:23.219-07:00So I’m still in edits phase of this manuscript process. Well, technically my editor is in it, but I’m in that mood set and working on a different novel doing revisions (and trying not to be impatient—sigh). So I’m spending a lot of time thinking about editing, and about language and why each choice matters. The other day, I was poking around some writers' forums and came across a conversation http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-28-diction-its-not-just-fun-to-say.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-3420866552420851382Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:34:00 +00002011-04-11T18:17:38.087-07:00 I said in an earlier entry that I would write about my first rejection. I think rejection is an important conversation to be had, and anyone who writes with any kind of seriousness has to deal with it. Even big shot writers get rejected. Granted, they can usually get picked up somewhere else, but they still have to deal with it. The trick to dealing with rejection is, well, dealing with it. http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-21-rejection-finding-inspiration.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-6631726337500568256Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:13:00 +00002011-04-03T13:38:46.292-07:00In my first entry, I said I had a really amazing artist who has agreed to do the cover for my book. I didn’t want to say who it was until I had a couple of things worked out. One of these was getting my website up, which I have. Now, by up I mean, barely up, but it is up, and it is up totally by my own hand, my singular willingness to learn how, and to fight the Romulans in their own space with http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-16-secret-artist-revealed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2008472307299210755.post-4240215170874893501Sat, 02 Apr 2011 02:57:00 +00002011-04-02T13:55:22.071-07:00While this blog might be about my first self-publishing adventure, this isn’t my maiden voyage when it comes to social media and just general online activity. And so it is that, as I make my way into the online networks that are important for anyone wanting to market a product or service (like a self-published book), I see people doing some just plain horrible marketing. When I started this http://daultonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-14-commentary-on-networking-or-dont.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Daulton)8