I know I just posted about not getting to see this happen, so I’m more thrilled that I got to see it. For those that can’t get the picture, The Compass Key has done the following:
#81 in Sword & Sorcery Kindle eBooks
#91 in Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Books
This means all of the Legends of Windemere books have been on a Top 100 List. Now I’m going to get greedy. I want The Compass Key to do better than the others and surpass Family of the Tri-Rune, which reached #16 on a list. Hopefully it happens.
Thanks to everyone who has helped with the promoting, bought a copy, and supported me to get this far.
I have just enough time to go over a few blog posts and then it’s time to prepare for a big adventure. This is the first time I’m bringing the toddler to the Bronx Zoo, which is where I loved going as a kid. I haven’t been there in years, so this is going to be fun for me too. I’ll probably end up being exhausted by the end of the day, so you might not hear from me again until tomorrow morning.
Here are a few bits of info I’m leaving behind:
I STILL HAVE 5 SLOTS OPEN FOR THE COMPASS KEY BLOG TOUR! AUGUST 27-31 NEED VOLUNTEERS!
The Compass Key has just reached the following:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,589 Paid in Kindle Store.
Still no Top 100 List, but I’m about 35-50 ranks away from one of them. Unfortunately, I might not see it happen today or be able to post about it unless it holds until I get home this evening. It’ll be great if I can use a screen shot for a post or a Facebook promo, but it really depends on if I sell any copies throughout today. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll happen before we leave for the zoo.
That’s really it. Hope everyone has a great day. Also a fellow author is debuting a book tomorrow so go wish Elaine Jeremiah good luck. I’m off to see the red pandas.
First, I’m doing this using the new WordPress interface that . . . well it sucks. You can’t see which categories are attached to others, I can’t get any hyperlinks to attach without it rewriting whatever I highlighted, it doesn’t start off connecting to all other social media, and it feels like I have less room to work on. Apparently, the time isn’t using my time zone either. I put in 13:00 (1 PM) and checking it in ‘normal’ mode turned it into 17:00 (5 PM) I’m going to use the Dashboard version which is traditional from now on. At least until they force this travesty of complication upon us. The links do seem to work with pictures, but not picture titles.
Real Reason for Blog Post!
I said I wouldn’t do a blog tour for Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key, but I didn’t realize that I would be limited in my Internet time. I’ll be struggling to do daily marketing since I’ll be Mr. Mom starting next Monday. So, I’m running a simple blog tour that will run for the last 2 weeks of August. By simple I mean the following:
You volunteer in the comments or a private email.
I email you the HTML file as long as I have your email address. I will include a link to the original post on my blog in case the HTML doesn’t work. That way you can do a copy/paste and it will give you some tag ideas.
You will also be given the day to post and it’ll be chosen in order of request.
I trust you to schedule the post or post on that day. Feel free to choose any tags that you think will help. The more tags, the better for a post.
I will do a ‘Thank You for the Week’ post on each Sunday instead of a daily like the previous times. I won’t have much time to do this type of post every night, so I apologize for that.
Thank you to everyone who volunteers and helps spread the word about this Blog Tour! I really appreciate it.
By now some people have started reading Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key. Others might remember the sneak peek of Stephen from about two weeks ago. He is easily the most evil, irredeemable character I have written. He has no remorse and rather enjoys the pain that he inflicts. This makes him a difficult character to write, but I’ve come to realize he’s necessary for the heroes to grow. One can figure out how to handle a villain with some redeeming qualities, but it’s something else entirely to deal with someone who is pure evil.
Stephen is the son of Baron Kernaghan and acts as his top agent even though he operates on his own agenda. He makes it clear that he’d happily kill his father to rule the world, especially when being told why he’d be a terrible leader. Like the Baron, Stephen uses fear to control people. The big difference is that he doesn’t try to balance it with compassion toward those that could assist him. Everyone is disposable, which is why he is interested in making Nyx his property. The core of his powers are time-based and allow him to regenerate, teleport, and do many other tricks. Beyond this, Stephen is very strong and has had centuries of training in combat.
So ask him a question. Though I don’t make any promises that he’ll be kind, polite, or any less disturbing than he typically is.
This is a juicy interview opportunity. Baron Arthuru Kernaghan is the big villain of Legends of Windemere who has finally been revealed. Not much is known about him other than the gods fear him and he has been erased from history. If he was to ever return to the rest of Windemere then everyone would remember him and all the evil deeds that he has done.
Still he has shown some benevolence and care toward some of his agents. He can have a temper due to being cooped up for centuries. In fact, he might be downright annoyed that he’s been designated a spectator to the great events of the world. The problem of being a locked up immortal, I guess.
So, ask any questions that you can think of and enjoy getting to know this mysterious villain. A nastier one shows up tomorrow.
“After all, you would still be wandering Visindor Forest looking for an adventure if it wasn’t for me.” ~ Charles E. Yallowitz, Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key
Cover Host is pleased to put author Charles E. Yallowitz in the Limelight and reveal the cover of book five THE COMPASS KEY, the new fantasy release from his Legends of Windemereseries.
Click the cover for “Buy” link
Swords will clash and spells will fly in the newest adventure of young warrior Luke Callindor, Nyx the magic-flinging caster, and their friends.
With Sari captured by their enemies, the champions of Windemere are determined to get her back and destroy the Lich’s castle. Little do they realize, their battles in the Caster Swamp are only the beginning of this adventure. Trinity and her Chaos Elves have invaded the city of Gaia in search of a relic called the Compass Key. Rumored to…
First up for this week of interactive interviews is Delvin Cunningham who takes on a big role in the newest book Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key. Here is a little backstory.
Delvin is a former mercenary and a previous pet project of Selenia Hamilton. He is a skilled warrior with a sword and shield style, but his most dangerous aspect is his strategic mind. Unlike Luke who is spontaneous and risky, Delvin is precise and thinks as he fights. This makes him a useful ally because he factors in strengths and weaknesses to make the best strategy. Since he is always thinking, he has an air of calm that can be mistaken for loneliness.
He was born in the Yagervan Plains, which is a nomadic tribal culture. At age 8, he was abandoned on a chunk of ice by a group of bullies. He floated off and was found on the shore by some travelers who took him in for a while. After struggling to survive on the streets, Delvin was found by Selenia who trained him. The rest is less interesting to him because it was the life of a mercenary and he earned the title of Mercenary Prince before returning to Hamilton Military Academy.
Delvin is rather friendly and easy-going about most things. One thing that he has made obvious from the beginning is that he is smitten with Nyx. Unfortunately, she seems more likely to smite him when he compliments her too much.
I will admit that things felt weird this time for a few reasons. I got a lot marketing forms prepped prior to the book going live, which allowed me to get everything done quickly on Friday. This left me drained by 11 AM and I felt a little lost. I’m still out of it too, which is bad because this week is going to be the start of a whirlwind. At least it starts off well with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and a Chinese buffet today.
The chaos is going to stem from the toddler ending school on Monday. After that, he’s home all day and this is the last week before my wife starts the big job. This means I only have this week to finish the initial edits of Book 6. I’ll have 2-3 weeks of one-on-one toddler time after this next Sunday, which means marketing, blogging, editing, and a lot of stuff will be a challenge. I might have mornings and evenings, but things are going to be sketchy during the day. Can’t say I’m not a little nervous because The Compass Key is still fresh. So we’ll see what I can accomplish here. I still have 140 pages to go on Book 6 and I have no posts prepped for September. At least I have the topics chosen, including a query about characters getting covers. I’ll save that for a Saturday post.
A REMINDER! This week will be all ‘Ask-A-Character’ posts, which means readers can ask the characters whatever questions they want. We have Delvin Cunningham, Baron Arthuru Kernaghan, Stephen, Kira Grasdon, Yola Biggs, and General Vile. In other words, it’s mostly villains since the other heroes have had their turns. Kira has been in the hot seat twice, but she was gone for 2 books and people might want to know what she’s been up to. So I hope everyone has fun with this.
In non-writing and blogging news, I finished reading the Fullmetal Alchemist manga . . . I miss it already. Ever have that series that you’re terrified to finish because you know part of you will be left behind? This is one of mine.
Anyway, let’s get those goals listed:
See ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and eat Chinese food to celebrate 5th book release.
Finish editing ‘Legends of Windemere: Curse of the Dark Wind’. Doable, but it might take a few nights.
Prepare at least 2 weeks worth of posts for September. As usual feel free to mention any big topics that you might want to see.
Think more about the Bounty Hunter storyline.
Possibly start skim edits for earlier books.
TAKING TODDLER TO THE BIG ZOO FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS WEEK! This means there will be a day where you don’t hear from me until the evening.
Frozen yogurt at least once.
Continue promoting ‘The Compass Key’. Thank you for the third (or is it fourth?) time to everyone who is helping me here.
I am pretty proud of this. I used Adobe Voice on my iPad and created a kind of book trailer. I’m pleased with how it turned out for a zero budget/cost video. It was super easy to create – I actually was going to use this for a project at work but decided to try it out by doing the book trailer.
Pros – easy to create, you can use your own pictures or choose from hundreds of icons and pictures, music clips are easy to add (again, your own or theirs). Adobe Voice is a FREE app.
Cons – you can’t save it as a video file so I can’t upload it to my YouTube account. It resides in Adobe’s cloud so the only way to access it is with a link. Right now, Adobe Voice is only available for iPad.
Join us for an exciting week, celebrating the Release of YA Fantasy Fiction Novel “ELEMENTAL EARTH” by Author Harmony Kent.
Let’s hear about it in her own words…
Harmony Kent
I just published my third Novel, and what a whirlwind ride it’s been! A couple of years ago, I couldn’t have seen myself writing at all. Which just goes to show, none of us know what’s around the corner. How did I end up here?
My life began (again) at forty. What a scary time that was. Nevertheless, so worth it. I would like to take you on my journey with me, so you can see how I got to where I am today.
I’ve always wanted to write, but didn’t always have the confidence or know how. I remember the first ‘long’ story I wrote; I was eleven. School had run a writing competition and I filled a whole…
