Hello, reader,
You have stumbled on my old website. You may have been looking for my new one, which you can find here: http://www.timothylcerepaka.com/
I am no longer updating this website and will take it down in about a year’s time. If you need to contact me or want to learn more about me, I suggest clicking through to my new site.
Thank you.
Hello, my followers. Today I am going to migrate all of y’all from this website (www.timothylcerepaka.wordpress.com) to my new self-hosted WordPress.org site (http://www.timothylcerepaka.com/).
This is the FINAL WARNING for my WordPress.com followers. The next post y’all see will likely be on the NEW website. Trust me, you’ll see the difference right away.
Thank you for your time. I will do another post here when I am done migrating subscribers.
Hey, everyone! Just a quick heads up to all of my followers that I will be moving all of y’all to my new website over the weekend. Once I finish that, you will no longer see posts from this blog in your feed or email.
Instead, you will see posts from the NEW website, which will look quite a bit different from this website once I put the finishing touches on it and make it live.
Again, this is the first warning for my old readers about the change. I will do another post tomorrow just before I begin the migration process.
Thank you for your understanding.
Not Malicious. Just Unlucky
A fantasy short story
That’s right. I have FINALLY succeeded in indie publishing all four of the short stories originally published in Fantastic Depths. You can now find all four of them on ebook retailers everywhere.
Here’s the sales blurb for Not Malicious. Just Unlucky for those who don’t know what it’s about:
“For four years, Alica Onok has been trying to get rid of a mysterious enchanted staff that has caused her nothing but trouble since her grandmother gave it to her on her twentieth birthday. Yet it seems like no matter what Alica does, the staff always returns to her, whole and in one piece, as if it had never left her side at all.
Then Alica finds out that an unlucky spirit lives within the staff, a spirit who has been bounded to the staff for years and wants his freedom now. Without knowing any magic herself, however, Alica is powerless to free the spirit, forcing her to come up with an alternative means of doing so. Because if she fails, she will remain cursed with unluckiness forever.
Also contains an excerpt from Timothy L. Cerepaka’s next novel, “The Last Legend: Glitch Apocalypse,” set for release in January 2015 from Annulus Publishing.”
Buy Not Malicious. Just Unlucky from:
Amazon I Barnes & Noble I Kobo I Smashwords I Google Play I DriveThruFiction I Libiro I XinXii I Omnilit
In my opinion, the biggest selling point is that it has an excerpt from my upcoming science-fantasy novel, The Last Legend: Glitch Apocalypse, which is set for release later this month. So if you want to get a sneak peek of my next novel, I suggest downloading Not Malicious. Just Unlucky from your favorite ebook retailer and reading it right away.
Regarding my new website: It’s still not ready to go live. However, I think it will be ready to go live after January 5th, which is three days away. I will post more about my new website once I have a firm launch date in mind.
As I said in the previous post, today I will be writing about my plans and goals for 2015. This is a post I’ve been looking forward to write since the beginning of this month, as I have some really cool things planned and I just want to share them with everyone who reads this blog.
So here are my plans for next year:
#1: Write (and submit to traditional markets) one short story a week every week
That’s right. I am going to do what hundreds of other writers have done before me and take up the “one short story a week” challenge.
I have a few reasons for doing this: First, it will make me a little bit of extra cash, cash that could help fund my indie publishing efforts; second, it will act as advertising for my indie books; and third, it will give me more practice writing short fiction, which I feel is an area I am weak in.
I will still be indie publishing my novels, don’t worry, but my short fiction will likely not see an indie release immediately. I will only publish my short fiction if I fail to sell it or once the rights revert back to me from the market I sell it to.
I think this challenge will be GREAT fun. I will probably rack up an impressive list of rejections, just like most writers, but if I can sell even one short story, it will all be worth it.
#2: Create a new website
I’ve had this WordPress.com website for a year and a half now, I believe, but now I think it is time I moved onto a self-hosted WordPress.org website.
Don’t get me wrong. I like WordPress.com a lot, but it doesn’t offer as many options as a self-hosted WordPress site does. I feel limited in my choices and options here (for example, I can’t include a sign-up form on any of my pages for my newsletter, which is a BIG problem, in my opinion).
This new website will probably launch in January. I am still in the process of designing it and learning about everything I can do with it, but I am hoping to have it online by January 1st. I am also going to make sure that I move all of my followers on this blog to the new one.
Whenever I manage to get it up, I will be sure to post about it here. For now, here’s a link to the “Coming soon” page: http://www.timothylcerepaka.com/
#3: Books, books, BOOKS!!!
With a smooth workflow set up, I think 2015 will be the Year of Tons of Books for me. I have several series planned, not counting the 52 short stories I will be writing as part of the “one short story a week” challenge I will be undertaking.
Here’s a glimpse of what I have planned for next year:
-The Prince Malock World Omnibus
-My 2014 NaNoWrimo novel, The Last Legend: Glitch Apocalypse, plus the four short stories I wrote to go along with it, will be published in ebook and trade paperback in January
-A sequel series to the Prince Malock World, currently titled Mages of Martir, with the first book slated for release in early 2015
-A series of humorous science-fiction short stories
-A science-fiction trilogy
-A science-fantasy series
-A mystery novel about an ex-superhero detective
As you can no doubt tell, I have A LOT of product to start writing next year. Whether I will actually finish it all and get it published in 2015, I don’t know, but I will certainly try my best.
Also, the Prince Malock World novella series is canceled for now. I wrote a couple of them, but they didn’t feel right to me, so for now I am putting this subseries on the backburner. It will instead be replaced by the Mages of Martir series I mentioned above, which will be a series of four (possibly five) novels taking place thirty years after the end of the last Prince Malock book. Stay tuned for that.
I will be talking more about these books and other projects as the year progresses.
#4: Promotion
Promotion is a difficult topic among indie writers. Some will create huge elaborate social media campaigns for their book, while others will rely solely on word of mouth to get the sales going. There’s a lot of disagreement about how much promotion a writer should do, although no one disputes that you have to do some promotion in order to bring your books to the attention of potential readers.
Myself, I have not been doing much promotion (outside of this blog, Facebook, Twitter, and the newsletter) because I have been researching all of the various kinds of promotional techniques other indies use to bump up their sales numbers. I want to make sure I pick the right promotional techniques that give me the best return on investment without wasting precious time that could be better spent writing the next novel.
Next year, I will be doing more promotion than I did this year. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I have a few promotional ideas I’d like to try out next year, which I hope will work really well. Only time will tell, I suppose.
#5: Audiobooks
With the rapid growth in the audiobook market over the last few years, I’d be a fool to ignore this source of possible revenue.
Therefore, next year I will work on getting the Prince Malock novels into audio, followed by the rest of my novels shortly thereafter. I will probably use Audible to do it.
Besides, I already have electronic and paper covered. Audio is the next frontier for my indie publishing adventure, one I will conquer just as I have conquered the others.
So those are my plans for next year. I suppose you could think of them as New Year’s Resolutions, but honestly I don’t really like that term because a New Year’s Resolution, to me, is something you swear you will do in December of the last year and then forget about it by January of the next year. All of these will be ongoing challenges that I won’t be able to complete in a week or a month. I guess you could still call them Resolutions if you want, but I won’t, so there 😛 .
And I am very, very much excited for all of them. I think 2015 will be a great year if I achieve even half of what I hope to accomplish.
What are your plans for the New Year?
2014 is nearly over, with a mere three days left in the year before 2015 starts. I thought I’d take this time to look back on my year, with another post tomorrow talking about what I plan to do next year (which will be the special announcements post I mentioned a while ago).
That’s right. Just in time for Christmas, I have published the third of the four short stories from Fantastic Depths, called The Most Beautiful Island in the World, with a cover designed by jimmygibbs.
If you don’t know what this story’s about, here’s the blurb:
“After the destruction of his island’s once beautiful civilization and ecosystem, King Igici believes he may have finally discovered the solution to all of his people’s’ problems.
When his solution to these problems appears to fail, however, Igici begins to doubt his own ability to save his people. It does not help that his childhood friend, Gikil, expresses severe skepticism toward his plans to save his nation, thus eroding his already shaky confidence in himself.”
Buy The Most Beautiful Island in the World from:
Even if you are not much of a fantasy reader yourself, this short story would make a GREAT last minute Christmas present for any fantasy readers you know, whether friends or family members. At $2.99, it’s a steal!
Anyway, keep an eye out for the fourth and final short story from Fantastic Depths, titled Not Malicious. Just Unlucky, which will be available before the year’s out. Stay tuned.
As part of my mission to publish all four of my short stories from the Ambage anthology Fantastic Depths, before year’s end, I have published the second short story I contributed to that collection, a rather quick read (mere 11 pages in PDF) titled The Gift of Valgink.
Here is the sales blurb for those who don’t know what it’s about:
“Backed up against a cliff, with nowhere to run to, Desdar Bandas—a human slave who is only one year away from freedom—must figure out how to save his life and the life of his elvish mistress, Kencha, from a pack of violent, bloodthirsty smoke wolves.
Yet when it turns out that Kencha has stolen from the pack a sacred object of immense value to the smoke wolves, Desdar is forced to choose between his freedom and Kencha’s survival.”
Buy The Gift of Valgink from these ebook retailers:
Regarding the special announcement mentioned in this blog’s title, sometime after Christmas but before New Year’s I will write up a post detailing all of my writing and publishing plans for next year. I have a lot of awesome plans, but I don’t want to announce them just yet, as I want to keep the focus on this year’s last few releases before I bring attention to next year’s plans.
Anyway, keep an eye on this blog for the announcements of the releases of the next two Ambage short stories, The Most Beautiful Island in the World and Not Malicious. Just Unlucky, as well as the release of the Prince Malock World Omnibus, all of which I will get up before year’s end.
If you would like to be the first to know about the release of the last two short stories and the Omnibus, you can subscribe to my newsletter HERE.
Hi, everyone! Just wanted to let y’all know that my newest novel, The Coronation of Prince Malock, is available in trade paperback edition from Amazon and CreateSpace for $19.99.
So if you’ve been waiting to get the trade paperback edition, now’s the time to do it. Could make a GREAT Christmas present for the fantasy lover in your family or among your friends (just make sure to pick up the first three books as well, which are also available in trade paperback from Amazon and CreateSpace, if your friend or family member hasn’t read them yet).
Hi, everyone!
With the recent publication of The Coronation of Prince Malock (which you can read about here) and the Prince Malock World novella series not set for release until January or February of next year, you might think I have nothing to publish in December.
Not true! In fact, I have a few things set for release this month, starting off with one of my short stories from the Fantastic Depths anthology, titled The Creator’s Dilemma.
Here’s the awesome cover:
Pretty awesome cover, eh? It was designed by jimmygibbs. I picked out the cover art, but it was jimmy who made it awesome, so all credit goes to him.
Here’s the sales blurb:
“The being called Listener must help his master, the enigmatic deity known as the Creator, decide the fate of a woman’s life. When the Creator confesses his love for the woman, however, Listener realizes the situation is far more complicated than it first seemed.”
Buy it for $2.99 from:
Over the next three weeks, I plan to get the other three Fantastic Depths short stories–The Most Beautiful Island in the World, Not Malicious. Just Unlucky, and The Gift of Valgink–up on all ebook retailers as well. Stay tuned for that.
So if you’d like to be the first to know about the release of these short stories, you can subscribe to my newsletter here.
Timothy L. Cerepaka's Blog 