December 6, 2015

Test for Author Central blog feed


Hello, Courtney Bowen here. Reposting a former notice so that it might show up on Author Central.
Well, I'm back again, mostly to post a link to a new Kindle Scout campaign for 'The Tiger Enchantment: The Legends of Arria: Volume 5'!

The Tiger Enchantment: The Legends of Arria, Volume 5 on Kindle Scout

Yay! After all this time, I finally finished the book. It's around 311 pages long, depending. I had to move some of the material around to a later volume, which probably won't see the light of day for a while. Here's a preview of the cover (I took my name off here, just because):



I have also decided that, for a limited time, most of my books will be Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited, which means that currently, ebook editions of my books will only be available on Amazon. I'm just doing a trial run. I might eventually return to other ebook retailers, but it will be different. I apologize for that.

So Kindle Scout campaign is ongoing until January 2nd 2016 and here's a plot synopsis:

What comes after the final battle?
After the final battle against Doomba, Basha, his friends, and family try to rally their forces to face Goga, who has taken their country’s capital. Yet when a setback devastates them, can they recover their former strength? Especially when two powerful sorceresses pit themselves against them?

And if you want to check out the first 15 pages of my new, upcoming novel in The Legends of Arria series, click the Kindle Scout link! And maybe nominate it for publication by Kindle Press if you enjoyed it? I thank you very much.

Sincerely, Courtney Bowen

December 2, 2015

New Kindle Scout campaign and Cover

Well, I'm back again, mostly to post a link to a new Kindle Scout campaign for 'The Tiger Enchantment: The Legends of Arria: Volume 5'!

The Tiger Enchantment: The Legends of Arria, Volume 5 on Kindle Scout

Yay! After all this time, I finally finished the book. It's around 311 pages long, depending. I had to move some of the material around to a later volume, which probably won't see the light of day for a while. Here's a preview of the cover (I took my name off here, just because):


Looks pretty cool, huh? I found the cover image on Fotolia, paid the extended license to get it. I must admit in the past I've had a difficult time designing covers or at least picking out a commercial-style cover. In recent years, book covers, even fantasy, have changed to a more realistic style with models more often than not. I wasn't as aware of the change or at least I was resistant to it, I must admit.

I didn't know where I could go to find the right stock images to design a cover. I certainly can't draw or use a computer illustrator/photo manipulation software to any great degree. I was also resistant to relying on a cover designer, not certain about what the result might be. So I was leaning more towards public domain free artwork that was sort of aesthetically pleasing and might match my material at least a little bit.

However, in the past month or two, I started to realize the value of a good cover photo that matches the current commercial style, even if I have been resistant to it, so...I did a search, discovered Fotolia, and here we are! Yay! I am quite satisfied with this cover photo and the other one I chose for The Smiling Stallion Inn: The Legends of Arria, Volume One. I plan on gradually changing all of my Kindle covers to the new style and, once I figure out the space requirements, I will change my print books as well.

I have also decided that, for a limited time, most of my books will be Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited, which means that currently, ebook editions of my books will only be available on Amazon. I'm just doing a trial run. I was hoping the Marketing Services might pay off, and you can only use that for Kindle Select books. I will eventually return to Smashwords and other ebook retailers, but it will be different. I apologize for that.

So Kindle Scout campaign runs from today, December 3rd, until January 2nd 2016 and here's a plot synopsis:

What comes after the final battle?
After the final battle against Doomba, Basha, his friends, and family try to rally their forces to face Goga, who has taken their country’s capital. Yet when a setback devastates them, can they recover their former strength? Especially when two powerful sorceresses pit themselves against them?

And if you want to check out the first 15 pages of my new, upcoming novel in The Legends of Arria series, click the Kindle Scout link! And maybe nominate it for publication by Kindle Press if you enjoyed it? I thank you very much.

The Tiger Enchantment: The Legends of Arria: Volume 5 on Kindle Scout

September 12, 2015

Kirna's Apprentice Part 1 on Kindle Scout

Well, I've fixed things up enough with the Kirna's Apprentice that I'm able to release Part One: The Lost Family, but I've decided to introduce it first on Kindle Scout in the hope of drawing attention to it. If you are interested in reading the first 15 pages or so as an excerpt, here is the link:

Kirna's Apprentice Part 1 on Kindle Scout

The nomination campaign will run until October 9th. At this time, I'm still working on Part 2 of this story to release later and also working on the fifth volume in the Legends of Arria series, which I may also split in a similar manner to introduce on Kindle Scout. Hopefully sooner rather than later, once this campaign has run its course. That's all for now, please check out my excerpt and nominate if you enjoyed it.

July 19, 2015

Tell me, tell me...(as The Contours sang)

It has been awhile since I posted on here, I know, and maybe I should reconsider being more proactive in blogging and perhaps sharing some of my thoughts and feelings on writing and other matters. I haven't really given this blog a fair try and perhaps I have ignored it when it might be what I need to support my work, for lack of a better term. Admittedly there are secondary motivations sometimes to writing a blog, but perhaps such secondary motivations aren't the core of the matter here.

I have tried in the past to find ways of encouraging and supporting my writing, or to put it a bit more bluntly, present my writing to readers, and after some forays and attempts in these areas, I usually abandon such efforts. It might not be sincere or earnest in those regards and so it is with the blog at times, but perhaps I could be more earnest and sincere with the blog than via other means and methods.

I don't know how to present myself at times and I don't know how other readers might find out about my writing, but other readers have found my work, mostly through Smashwords, and I wonder if these are accidental discoveries, if they stumbled upon my work while searching through Smashwords archives, or if they might read the blog or come to via other means. I can't tell sometimes, and I am curious to find out the truth of the matter here.

I probably shouldn't poke or ask questions about how I got my readers. I am glad to have some readers. But I just want to know if there is anyone who has stumbled across this blog, who read my work, and if the blog helped them to learn about it.

Please comment on this post or in any of the other posts and tell me if this blog has been successful in a certain regard. Or write a review of my work on Smashwords and other sites if you've had a chance to look at it. I am very interested in such comments and reviews, positive, negative, or neutral, and I thank you in any case for writing such a comment or review.

Now progress report, because I haven't been keeping up this blog in over half a year: I've edited 120 pages on the Kirna's Apprentice 2002 with over 200 pages left to go. I hired a editor to look over the sequel, whose title I'm not ready to reveal yet, and while they did a fairly thorough edit, I'm going back in to change some stuff and I've gone about 120 pages to editing/rewriting some of that material as well.

In the end, I might drop the 2002 from the titles, because of all the editing and rewriting I've done with both of these books that have changed the style and tone from my more youthful writing in 2002. But both of these books will still remain in the Legends of Arria 2002 series because, at this point, it's going to be difficult to insert them into the main Legends of Arria series. I cannot do that because I'm not certain how some of the older characters will play out, change, or if they might even exist in that other continuity. And I do have some crazy ideas for parallel universes and crossovers between the two series with the different standards and characteristics between them, but that's another story.

As to the 5th volume in the Legends of Arria series, still not quite keen on what title to use, I've written approximately 260 pages, up about 120 pages in the last 6 months or so. I have a fairly good framework for what the story might be, I just have to set it up some more and stitch it together, literally in some cases.

I've kind of veered off and considered an interest in other mediums of writing, but I will try to get back on track with novel writing and dive deeper into that. Thanks again for your consideration.

January 4, 2015

New Year's Resolution Post

So at long, long last I am writing on my blog. 2014 has been an interesting year for me. I have published the first four books of my Legends of Arria series, which are the new, updated versions of The Knights of Arria 2002.

I attempted to use Kindle Scout, Amazon's new crowd-sourcing publishing program, to get some attention for The Lion and the Kirna 2002. I didn't get selected there, but it was an interesting experiment and I do intend to try that Kindle Scout program again sometime soon, depending on how quickly/soon I complete either The Kirna's Apprentice 2002 or the 5th volume in the Legends of Arria series.

I had an idea for the 5th Volume's title, but now I'm starting to worry if it might be too similar to another writer's title. I may work on that later. I currently have about 140 pages worth of material there, although who knows for certain. I have less of a framework for this book as I did for previous volumes, especially as I am going 'off-grid' in regards to what happened in the 2002 scheme of things. I have plenty of notes and ideas for what I want to do or where the story might go, but materializing that within the novel could be a different story.

I had intended with the 2002 version of the series to stick with what I had written, for the most part, in the past, although I have admittedly veered off from that. The Knights of Arria 2002 is pretty much straight-forwardly what I had written then with some polish. But when it came to The Lion and the Kirna, I deleted some 10 pages of material near the beginning because it was redundant, added nothing to the story, and might have been embarrassing. I polished other bits here and there, streamlined some description, but I deleted some dialogue with the falcons because it went on a bit too much.

One thing that was really interesting was at some point when I was originally writing The Lion and the Kirna, I had forgotten that a character named Witta was a griffin. So somewhere between Shama's arrival in Coe Kiki and what happened in the park, I forgot Witta was a griffin and wrote him as human near the end of the book. So I had to change some scenes and write out Witta.

Plus I changed some of what happened on the bank of the Tau River near the end. Now when it comes to The Kirna's Apprentice 2002, I am doing a drastic change close to the beginning, in regards to a character showing off their magical powers much sooner and more dramatically than they had done before. All because I felt...well, I might explain that later, sometime.

Now here is a toast to 2015, huzzah, huzzah, may it bring us all new challenges and opportunities to fulfill. Salute.