First, a reminder that you can still sign up for The Compass Key cover reveal HERE!

Second, I’m still gathering questions about Windemere to answer in August blog posts.  Feel free to ask anything that you’ve been curious about in terms of the world that Luke, Nyx, and Fizzle call home.  So far, I’ve had questions about the Caster Swamp, dragon diets, Serab’s influence, diseases, vampires, and how magic works.  All good questions, but I’m greedy and want more.

Things have been busy with the visit and promptly getting a stomach bug soon after that visit.  I’ve been struggling to get editing down on the book, but I hope to have this run done by next week.  Then I unite with my editor to get it as polished as we can before the August 1st debut.  As long as everything is ready by then, but I can’t go into the details on that one yet.

A new target that has come up is doing merchandise for my books.  So I’m going to start looking for t-shirt makers and possibly check out opening a store on either Cafepress or Zazzle to use the cover art for merchandise.  I will have to figure out what to do about one character who hasn’t had a cover yet, but is necessary for this.  I’ve got something in the pipeline for it right now, but it’s also a secret.

The big question here is how do I work the merchandising.  I can open an on-line store and market it through my blog, but that’s only to allow people to buy stuff at their leisure and give me some variety.  Bulk buying from Cafepress and Zazzle are expensive too, which might be a wrinkle.  Still I need some stuff for the convention next April and maybe I’ll figure out how to run a contest.  For example, everyone who joins in the Book 6 Cover Reveal is entered into a t-shirt/book/whatever contest.  That’s only off the top of my head since I have no idea what I’m doing.  Anybody have any experience with this part of the book trade?

So here are the goals:

1. Finish editing Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key.
2. Do laundry tomorrow.
3. Take toddler to first swimming lesson.
4. Take toddler to tour of future kindergarten.
5. Possibly drive and pick wife up from train station.  This may including fielding a phone call from lost wife.
6. Do a little character building if I have time.
7. Get back on the bike dammit!
8. Finish writing down plans for toddler’s birthday part at end of month.
9. Stop panicking about debuts, sales, rankings (thanks, mystery messengers), and all other things that I can only do so much about.
10. Read more Fullmetal Alchemist.

That’s pretty much it.  Hopefully everything keeps moving forward and the chaos is behind me.