After going through The Elarra Solstice Book 1: Whispers and Shadows for a thorough revision and editing, I’ve finally updated the excerpts that are available for download. I’m really excited about the subtle and refining changes that strengthen both the manuscript and the story. Here are some quick administrative notes about the changes:

  • First of all, I changed the chapter structure slightly. The Prelude chapter was long and critical to the rest of the story. In reality, the prelude was chapters 1-3 to begin with. It sets everything in motion and nothing really has as much meaning afterward if the reader skips what I was calling a prologue. So: no more prologue.
  • You may be thinking, so how come you split the prelude into the first 3 chapters, and yet there is actually less to download and read now? Well, I really considered putting the revised chapters up there so that readers who downloaded the previous versions of the chapters could download just as much and get more of the story. I even thought about adding another chapter. Then I realized I was really putting about 25% of the story up for download (26000 words). That’s like watching a 30 minute trailer for a 2 hour movie. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. Besides, the excerpts really are to capture your interest and give you a sense of what is going on and excited to read the rest. I’m satisfied at this point that the existing excerpts do that. If you’re a fan who has read the previous samples and want more…email me and we’ll work something out.
  • In addition, I’m in the process of querying agents and publishers about publishing The Elarra Solstice Book 1: Whispers and Shadows. I want to be extra sure that I’m not doing anything that could possibly infringe on publishing rights and copyright. So, I needed to password protect the downloads. It’s quick and painless: just enter your email address and click the send button to have the password sent to you. Don’t worry: your email address isn’t stored anywhere on our servers. You’ll never get any automated emails besides the one that send you the password.

All in all, I’m really pleased with the revisions and looking forward to the next several weeks as I work on the other manuscripts while querying this one to agents and publishers.