Magus Gambit out for Ebook, Instagramming

Magus Gambit has been released – books get pushed back all the time. I learned years ago there’s nothing I can do about certain things, so focus on what I can do. If you’re waiting for print, Champagne tends to wait six months to a year, as said before it’s something I don’t control and, even when I have ordered print, orders can sometimes be delayed.

I’m hoping that if Cooks Creek has a medieval festival, 1) They’ll let me sell 2) I’ll have copies of it and Fable in addition to the others, but no promises.

I’ll circle back to the long publication process on another post, but if you’ve been following me along on my Instagram, X, or FB you’ve no doubt noticed I went from posting once in a while the pretty instagram shots of just Magus Gambit to… all my titles besides Tower of Obsidian and Garnet and Silver. That’ll be remedied, I was learning.

The short is I asked the same artist who designed a cover to do some instagram shots, and she obliged and I thought they were pretty. But, nitpicky me noticed something was off, and my reaction was, “I can fix that”. As I was doing that, I realized I can make my own instagram shots with 3D mock-ups.

Some not-so-useful advice I got when I first started writing was not to do my own cover, my own art, etc., but to hire a professional. I see the point in that, as I have seen them very amateurish looking projects, but before I graduated high school, I was really into drawing, and was teaching myself how to use paintshop pro. Not photoshop; my dad was downloading tutorials and I found it waaaaay too hard to get into (plus as I got older I was getting progressively less free time), plus comic style line art was more my forte. Paintshop remains one of my favourite programs, and I’m not saying I’m an expert or even “good” with it; so much as I can fart around and have people who will be honest with any aesthetic choices.

I think you *can* do your own cover, use your own art, etc; it depends on where you’re coming from and what you’re trying to do. My niece has asked me to redo The Mermaid and the Unicorn and Fable covers in my own art style; not quite like Marissa Meyer’s illustrated version of her Lunar Chronicles, and I said I needed to have a series before I can redo the covers for said series – plus I am not polished enough to pull it off juuuust yet. Getting there.

So feel free to make fun of these bad ones below, expect more of better quality but not to be so spammy; IE I will only post something like every 3 or 4 days for a little while, unless there’s something funny or timely.

In other news: Titan’s Ascent edits are back where they belong, and I have one more tour then I am on vacation. I have a ton of work to do, but seriously, Polar Vortex right now. There’s a reason I’m productive in January.

I liked this one but my sister said the colors and font are all over the place. I didn’t mind the book shadow at first, now I hate ’em.
Also, needs a banner. I can make that, right?

On second thought, let’s go with Champagne’s for the titles under that house.

I actually do like this one, but it reminds me of green kool-aid.
Oh, let’s do one for Fable while I’m goofing:

Not terrible, not not great either. I’ll get there.