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The Copper Promise: Some Post Publication Thoughts
The Copper Promise started, in my mind at least, as My Small Self Publishing Experiment. The idea was to produce something longer than a short story that I could pop up on Amazon as an ebook – it would be written, edited, re-drafted, edited, edited some more, and then it would go out into the world and I would see how it would do. Originally this was going to be a horror novella, but that idea became The Snake House instead and was much too long in the end.
Well, in my usual tradition of making everything more complicated than it needs to be, My Small Self Publishing Experiment turned into a serial, and then a series of novellas, and then a series of fantasy novellas that will be, once they are all finished, as long as your average fantasy book. So the project wasn’t so Small anymore; in fact, it had become The Self Publishing Experiment That’s Going to Take Up About Six Months of my Life, Crikey, How Did That Happen?
And so, the first part has been out in the world for about a month, and part 2 is busy being poked into readiness for a release date hopefully at the end of February. And so far, it has been an almost entirely positive experience. Mostly the people who have read it seemed to have enjoyed Ghosts of the Citadel, and I’ve had some overwhelmingly lovely feedback, including blog posts and reviews that have made me very happy indeed. I’ve also received a tremendous amount of support from people (through buying it, spreading the word and general encouragement) which has been genuinely touching and confirms that the writing/reading community online is one of the best around.
One of my favourite parts of having a novella length work out there to read rather than a short story has been watching how people react to my characters – what sticks in their minds about them, which ones are popular with readers and why, and what they hope happens to Wydrin, Sebastian and Frith in the future. It’s exciting, and scary too, because beforehand these characters only really existed in my head and on tattered bits of paper, and now they exist in other people’s heads too, which is a strange and marvellous thing. And it is nice to know that I am no longer the only one who cares what happens to them.
Yeah, it’s been good. So thank you everyone. J And I’m looking forward to sending part two out into the world very soon.
The Copper Promise: Frivolous Anticipatory Post
It’s been a busy week or so, what with getting The Copper Promise ready for its Winter Solstice release date, and all the other December related nonsense that crops up at this time of year (bah, humbug) so I’ve been a bit light on the blog posts recently – many apologies.
Hopefully, it will be worth it. This whole project has subjected me to a pretty steep learning curve; writing a serial, writing a serial made up of novellas, self-publishing, marketing, how to spread the word without being annoying... And in a way it’s a weirdly personal project too – ultimately, I have to trust my own judgement and hope that my eventual readers are as ready to embrace old school serial fantasy in the same way that I have done. I am very aware that I have taken certain risks… Sword and sorcery done for fun might not be very, well, fashionable, at the moment, and I’ll admit I’m not sure how people feel about novellas these days, especially novellas that are designed to leave you wanting to read the next one... is that annoying? Will everyone hate me? Will I receive tiny decapitated goblins in the post, with cut and paste notes demanding “UPDATE OR THE UNSEELIE GETS IT!”? Will people leave steaming piles of dragon dung on my doorstep? Will burly knights give me dirty looks outside Morrisons? I do not know.
Oh well. The Copper Promise has been a lot of fun to write, regardless of supernatural vengeance, and either way it will be released out into the world kicking, screaming, and smelling faintly of mead on the 22nd of December (please address all dragon dung to my upstairs neighbour).
The Copper Promise Part 1: Release date!
I am pleased to announce that the ebook of The Copper Promise: Ghosts of the Citadel will be available to buy from Amazon on the 22nd of December.
The Citadel of Creos: silent, forbidden, haunted. No person in their right mind would attempt to explore it, but then, as Wydrin was fond of saying, adventurers are rarely in their right mind, especially when large amounts of coin are involved.
For the young Lord Frith, the secrets within are his key to a bloody revenge; for Sebastian, exiled from his order for crimes he’d rather not talk about, thank you very much, it is a distraction from his recent disgrace. And Wydrin? For Wydrin it means fortune and fame, or at least the seeds of a good story she can embellish later.
But something ancient and hungry lies restless in the hidden depths of the Citadel, and the long years of its imprisonment are nearly at an end. The three adventurers are about to find out that ghosts are the least of their problems.
The first in a four part novella series, The Copper Promise: Ghosts of the Citadel is a sword and sorcery adventure full of danger, discovery, and dubious ale.
Ghosts of the Citadel is the first of four novellas, but it will not end there. Next year I will be releasing a number of short stories set in the same world, featuring events taking place before and after The Copper Promise storyline.
If you have any questions, thoughts, suggestions or sexy fanart (please send me your sexy fanart) then you can contact me at copperpromise@sennydreadful.com Email me also if you would like to be included in the Copper Promise mailing list; this way I can tell you exciting things, like when the second part is coming out, and sometimes send you lovely things, like snippets of artwork, competitions and exclusive short stories only available to people on the mailing list. Eventually, I hope there will be badges.
