The physical book version of Darmenzi is now available for purchase on Lulu.com! It’s even better than my first book Slubes, and I’m excited to finally have a second book in physical form. Now I can show people TWO things and they’ll go “whaaaa, you’re dedicated to this??” It’s $12 on Lulu and it’s amazing and formatted and just take a look at what the critics may or may not have said!
“I laughed! I cried! I ate a banana!”
“If you only read one book this year, you should read more. What’s this about a Darmenzi story?”
“The title character is truly the greatest villain of our time. Even if Duth is a charlatan who skews how I–I mean, he looks.”
To go along with this announcement there’s been some changes to my Patreon, although some of it is just cleaning up. The most immediate change is to the $2 and $3 reward tiers, which no longer has the “give for a million months and get a name in book”. I really don’t like having rewards that require someone to sustain giving over a period of time, because not everyone can do that.
Instead, those are now a part of my Ko-fi page! I’ll still be on Patreon but they will generally focus on different things–Patreon in the prog chapters I post for free each month (you can see them early or see excerpts from what I’m working on at the time, for example), and Ko-fi on the final products:
$3 gets you an ebook copy of one of my books, $18 gets you not only a signed physical copy in the mail but also an exclusive bookmark, and $30 gets your name in the next figgin book, wow!
Think of Patreon as helping fund my creative process, and Ko-fi as being closer to me. Somehow. I also plan to add goals to Ko-fi that I feel are things I don’t necessarily need to make a monthly income as the prerequisite for doing, although I can’t guarantee that none of them are going to be jokes.
That’s about it for now! New Ko-fi, continuing Patreon, physical Darmenzi book. See you in about a week for the next profile (and don’t forget that $3+ patreons get to read the next chapter early).
Here’s chapter ten of Wandering Fortunes! This brings us to the end of the first quarter of this story and about halfway through the first part. This chapter introduces a lot of new friends! With a place to stay found in New Zhopolis, Alden, Top, and Ropak meet their new housemates. Some ignore them, some are enthusiastic, and some are mysterious. Also, one of them says memes. You’ve been warned.
As it turns out, three of the characters introduced in this chapter are inspired by characters of my friends Paperlanty, Devon, and Darvo “Cthulhuigi” Prower. (Sheesh.) Try to guess which ones! Or don’t. I can’t tell you what to do.
Also something new with this chapter is a new design for the chats between Duth and Wally. Instead of having their name followed by a colon and then what they say, their text is on a separate paragraph. Not sure how good it looks online, but it looks a lot better in regular text.
Final work on completing Darmenzi has begun. It’ll still be a little while before I’m done, but I’m hoping to be able to release this book in December. You know, so people can buy it for Clichemas. Obviously. As a reminder, not only do patrons of my Patreon get the serialized chapters half a month early, but when Darmenzi releases you’ll get a copy of the ebook. Not only that, but if you give $3 or more you’ll receive a copy of the ebook a whole month in advance! Then you can see how amazingly it has improved from what I posted online last year.
Along with the new chapter of Wandering Fortunes, there is now a new page for words from my Patreon patrons. Every month $2+ patrons get to choose a word–any word–to go up on this page, yaaay.
Chapter 9: No Hobo features the first kind clerpson our friends encounter in New Zhopolis. At least, let’s hope he turns out to be friendly–it’s hard to trust anyone in a big city like this. At the bottom of the city, though, depressed and alone, it seems he may be their way to make it in the city. Or at least live in it. Also features the sudden appearance of another character, a strange-looking one whose appearance raises even more questions than Top’s look does. Well, those questions will keep coming next chapter, so whatever.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but I got some information from my editor and soon it will finally be time to charge full steam ahead on finishing Darmenzi! Yes, that’s still a thing that’s going to happen! Kind of crazy to think it’s been nine months since its last chapter was posted on here, but it’s been edited to be way better and I hope I can get this out before the year’s end! (If not, I may very well shoot for two years to the day after the second edition of Slubes released.) I’ve never been strong on the advertising front, but I hope to change that. oh no
And remember, I have a Patreon where you can read these new chapters half a month early. Chapter 10 will come in mid-September. Plus, you can get a free ebook copy of Darmenzi a month before the final release!
oh and you can make a word mandatory to appear on my website, more on that later
My Patreon has been updated, changed, revamped, and rearranged. Most of the About/Description/What Have You is the same as before–the main chances are the Patreon video, of which there is a new (longer, ramblier, wizard hattier) one, and the rewards and milestones have been changed or moved. You can watch a video on it that quite frankly is too long and rambly but that’s what happens when I get in front of a camera.
I mentioned around the middle of June that I was planning some big changes, and here they are!
If you’re like me and prefer to read than watch someone yap about it, here it all is in text form:
Slubes Availability, Editing
The first change is my first novel, Slubes, will no longer be available through Createspace and Amazon.com. I’m sure you’ve heard about Amazon using jerk tactics to get better deals from companies that inevitably hurt writers. So I’ve been looking around for somewhere better. I’m considering Lulu.com, though I haven’t totally decided yet. However, in the meantime, Slubes is getting a makeover. I’m getting a professional editor to help me make Slubes, well, better. Wait, no. Amazing! I currently have no estimate for completion of that.
During this time, Slubes will still be available as an e-book on Smashwords, though, of course, it’s the old edition. However, over the next while or so I’ll be uploading it online to this website in a serial format–each month (my plan is) I will upload the next part of the novel for free online. As of now the first Day of Slubes (split into two parts) is available. I plan to do this with each novel–what I upload will be a sort of pre-final draft before getting it professionally edited. Along with this, I have another announcement…
Patreon
I have decided to get a Patreon account to go along with my writing and to help me out. Patreon is a website where fans of creators–authors, cartoonists, musicians, whatever–can become patrons and pledge money per month or per work. The idea is a little give and take: the creators make something and put it on the internet, the fans give them money, and then the creators make more stuff–patrons can get rewards for pledging, and milestone goals give them something to work towards.
In my case, it’s per chapter (or short story)–every time I post a part from a story, I’ll receive the money from my patrons. Since I’m trying to aim for a per-month basis, this would basically be per month, but as it’s per chapter it’s not set in stone.
Patrons can also receive rewards depending on amount given: $1 per chapter lets you see my Patreon activity stream (which I’ll use to post updates and secret information) and also gets you a coupon for the e-book of my latest novel (you’ll be put on a waiting list if you pledge before the second edition of Slubes is out); $5 gives you access to a live video stream I’ll do each month where I read from my novels and short stories–including the possibility of some I haven’t released yet–and take questions from people watching; $9 gets you a free signed physical copy of my latest novel (like the e-book one, you’ll be put on a list before Slubes is out); finally, there’s a $100 reward that I don’t expect anyone to go for. But hey, it’s there if you really like my writing and have extra money.
The milestone goals I have begin when I’m getting $50 per chapter, at which point I’ll give this site a bit of an overhaul with a WordPress premium account, letting me add custom fonts and colors and get a proper web address and remove ads; at $100 per chapter I’ll try to post a bonus chapter/short story each month without applying it to patrons’ pledges (so that you don’t suddenly give twice as much per month as before); after $250 per chapter I’ll begin writing a (planned monthly) comic where characters in the Cloudy Cuckoo Cosmos answer e-mails sent by real people on Earth, drawn by a talented artist (i.e. not me); finally (for now), at $500 per chapter I will consider everyone awesome, have to think of more milestone goals, and begin work planning an online Cloudy Cuckoo Cosmos text tabletop-type role-playing game, the details of which are long and complex, but more information will come up if we begin to near this goal.
The Future
As I said, I don’t have a projection for when Slubes Edition 2: Professional Editor Ahoy will be done, but at the beginning of each month I’ll be posting online (for free!!) here the next part of Slubes. The entirety of Day 1 (which was previously up as a free preview) is up now in two parts (as is the short story Tough as Blades), and at my projected schedule, Slubes will be all posted on here as of March 2015, so Darmenzi will begin being posted April 2015. It would be nice to have Slubes finished (for reals this time) by then, so I’ll go with by next March as my goal-date.
I think that’s everything that’s happening coming up. I’ll keep everyone posted on what’s going on. Seriously. Everyone. I will break into the homes of the entire world populace and leave letters on what I’m doing. I will then eat your milk and drink your cookies and fly off on a reindeer-powered chimney. HO-DE-DO, VERY IFFMAST!
Duth Olec's Cuckoo Cosmos 