When I started writing my first fantasy novel, I did so mostly for fun. I never expected to get a publishing deal and I never expected to be right where I started nearly a dozen years later. When I first wrote The Light of Epertase, I didn’t have a publisher, an editor, a cover artist, or really anyway to put the book out into the world. So, I decided to have a little fun with it. I took my book and used a print on demand company, I believe it was called Lulu, to make a hard cover of my story. I used my super limited photoshop knowledge to create this cover. Take a look.
Shortly after creating my hard cover, I was offered a 3-book publishing deal with Rhemalda Publishing. I was so excited when I received the first copy of my first ever published book. Here is that cover.
However, even with the hard work of my aunt (who is an editor), Rhemalda, and their editor, I was still quite new at writing and Epertase wasn’t everything I knew it could be. That’s not to say it wasn’t the best work I could do, I was just pretty green.
Rhemalda closed their doors in 2014, I stopped writing, and yadda, yadda, yadda, here we are.
As COVID took us all by storm earlier this year and locked us in solitude, I refocused on my writing career. My forthcoming novel, Death of the Grinderfish, will be released in May of 2021 and I’m super excited about it. But before I release my Grinderfish story, I wanted to accomplish one other goal. And it has been quite an undertaking, to say the least. You see, I wanted to revisit my Epertase trilogy with my current eyes and current writing chops. Over the last 6 months, I have methodically and completely revised my trilogy. Included with this revision is a brand new edit from a very talented editor. She’s quite good and quite brutal. For example, here was her first comment from her first pass through. “I hate this opening sentence. In fact, most of the first chapter needs rewritten. And here’s why …” You can see how I had to leave my ego at the door. It’s important when you have a good editor to start with the philosophy of “the editor is always right” and work backward from that. A good editor’s job is to make your work better. That’s it. They’re not trying to inject their own voice or make you feel all warm and fuzzy. If something sucks, they should say, “This sucks and here’s why.” Now that Legends Reborn is finished, I can say confidently that she was always right. She currently has my Grinderfish book and I’m almost terrified to get it back after her first hatchet job. It’s very hard to hear someone tell you your son is ugly. It’s even harder when you later realize they were right.
And the final evolution of my Epertase trilogy begins today. My announcement is that as of September 4, 2020 the new, final, and best ever edition of Legends Reborn is available for purchase. If you’ve already read my trilogy, you won’t see many changes in the actual story and probably wouldn’t need to revisit it. But if you’ve never read it, or you want to see how it’s improved, now’s the time. Books 2 and 3 are getting the same treatment and will be released as soon as they’re shredded by my editor later this year. I’ve already revised them. If you’ve ever wanted to try my work, now would be a good time to pick up Legends Reborn either in paperback or ebook. Because I’m such a swell guy, I’ve even provided a link.
Here’s the current cover.
And wait until you read Death of the Grinderfish.
