Update - Erie ComiCon 2022 and writing progress (or lack thereof)

 Hello again, readers!

I'd almost forgotten to mention, in the flurry of preparations, that Empyrean Dreams will again be attending Erie, PA's ComiCon, on Friday, September 16th through Sunday, September 18th, of this year.  I'll have copies of all five currently published books available, PLUS the first copies of Guardian Fighters Era: The New Disciples, a fantasy martial arts light novel I assisted in writing.  

Sadly, the next Scape Grace book and the next Stchvk Casefiles will not be ready to print this year.  Between Guardian Fighters Era and my other business projects, other writing had to slow down.  Still, the outlines and early chapters are there, and I know exactly where each story is going.  Sooner or later, there will be more Empyrean Dreams.

-Nathan

Update: eBooks added and updated

 Hello readers,

  In the flurry of activity before this weekend's Erie ComiCon, I included one additional task: creating the ebook versions of the three most recent Empyrean Dreams novels.  At least, the Kindle ebooks are complete, as they're quick to convert and publish.  In a day or two, you can get ebooks of Stchvk Casefiles #1, Escape from Grace, and A Change in Plans through the Kindle store on Amazon.com.  

  Unfortunately, due to a technical bar, the previous ebook versions of The Wreck of the Untranslatable and Empyrean Dreams cannot be revised from their previous reflowable .epub format to the newer Kindle format.  While viewable on more devices, the old format isn't as attractive, didn't support the table of contents correctly, and created errors for some viewers.  I apologize if you encountered any of these issues.  Going forward, I will make sure the ebooks for Empyrean Dreams are better than these two.

-Nathan

Update: The Tales of the Scape Grace continue!

 Hello readers,

With the impetus of Erie ComiCon driving me, the paperback versions of two new Empyrean Dreams books are ready for purchase!  

Escape from Grace is the prequel to The Wreck of the Untranslatable and the true first Tale of the Scape Grace, the story of Evgeny Lerner's fall (or rise) to become a pirate captain. 

Buy it here on Amazon.com!

A Change in Plans is the sequel to Wreck, the next story in the Scape Grace's continuing exploits: after its tangle with a truly alien starship and its Ningyo allies, the Scape Grace is in poor shape, with barely enough funds to cover its repairs.  

Buy it here on Amazon.com! 

In time, I'll get the ebook versions assembled and ready for sale, not to mention the ebook of Stchvk Casefiles #1, but this work will have to wait until at least after the 'Con, in September.

Thank you for checking in... and I'll do my best to make sure there isn't such a long wait for the next book!

-Nathan

Update: Stchvk Casefiles #1 available now!

WE'RE BACK!

(Not that Empyrean Dreams ever went away, but we went quiet for much, much too long.)

Stchvk Casefiles #1 is complete and available for purchase!

Circumstances finally showed some kindness and we were able to get this first pair of stories ready for print.  Two tales of Saurian Noir, space-opera sci-fi mysteries, featuring Stchvk, P.I., the detective so hard-boiled, he hatched from an egg.  

Find it here on Amazon.com, or ask at your local bookstore, printable on demand from IngramSpark or Amazon CreateSpace.  Also available as an ebook here.

Getting to the next publication will be another challenge.  We have another book ready to go, the next two Tales of the Scape Grace, but won't have the same discounts as before.  Odds are good we'll try a different crowd-funding platform to request help.  

And that's not all.  One-and-a-half more Stchvk stories are complete, plus half a Scape Grace story, and a pile of ideas for new short stories.  We plan to keep writing and publishing, so keep the page bookmarked!

-Nathan

Update: Do You Wanna Buy a Novel?

Hello again! 

It hasn't been very long, has it?

Call that a credit to Amazon CreateSpace, which handled the setup and proofing of our novel with excellent speed.  It probably didn't hurt that everything was prepped and formatted from the first printer/distributor.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still hoping it was worth all that effort, in the long run.

In the short term, you can buy a copy of The Wreck of the Untranslatable right now, if you want to.

Seriously: Buy Now!

The link goes to a small CreateSpace page.  Soon, we'll be able to sell via Amazon.com, if you'd prefer that.  It's just limited, direct distribution, but if we can make a good start, wider distribution becomes a greater possibility.

And if space pirates aren't your thing, you're in luck.  I'm formatting the short story book, Empyrean Stories, right after this post.  If all goes as well or better than the first attempt, we should be able to offer that one in short order.

Thanks for reading this, thanks for reading Empyrean Dreams, and thanks in advance for any purchases.  If you really want to warm our hearts, share copies with anyone you know who might enjoy, as well.

Update: Moving Paper from Wallet to Printer

Hello, readers!

We're hoping to welcome many more readers not only to this site but the Empyrean Dreams universe.  A print version of our first novel-for-sale, The Wreck of the Untranslatable, is in process with two different Print-on-Demand distributors.  The one that you'll likely see first is CreateSpace through Amazon; we'll post a link here when the sale page goes live.  The other is via IngramSpark, for eventual retail distribution (possibly including an ebook format, though that's on hold due to technical mishaps).

What's next?  The second Empyrean Dreams book, Empyrean Stories, a collection of our various short stories, should be ready soon.  Note that this book will include a few new stories never before published, on this site or elsewhere. 

Now that I've got the formatting steps worked out, we should be able to turn out additional books even faster.  There's enough material, between the site and unpublished work, for at least two more books: another Tales of the Scape Grace, and a compilation of Stchvk detective stories (my "dino-noir").  

Beyond that?  I just started another Scape Grace story.  I might write a fourth Stchvk story and split that series into two books of two stories each.  And who knows, Laine and I might get busy with another round of short stories... or finally put together the Role-Playing setting like we originally intended.

Note that we're only self-publishing because commercial publishers don't like content previously posted online.  If these books get popular enough - if we sell enough copies - someone might overlook that prejudice and bring Empyrean Dreams into mainstream publication... not only for the reprints, but for new content.

We're debating whether to pull down the stories we publish, in whole or in part, to create more incentive for sales.  That's only partly to make Laine and I money; some retailers might not want to stock a book readers could get elsewhere for free.  We'll update once a decision has been made.  Particularly note, though, that the printed versions - even for stories we've posted here - are better edited, trimmed and sharpened, and updated for consistency with the rest of the Empyrean Dreams setting.  So even if we leave content here, the books are still better! 

Buy them!  Buy them all!  Please?

-Nathan

Update: A Gestating Literary Litter

Hello again, readers!

Work on the official Empyrean Dreams books proceeds steadily, if not as quickly as we first hoped.  I hear such things are normal for any project, much less a book.  Considering that we're compiling multiple books, a longer estimate might have been wise.

Still, we're crossing off tasks.  The third Stchvk detective story, "Binding Threads", is complete in its first full draft.  It will appear alongside "Bad Egg" and "Broken Record" in the largest of our four planned books.  The Scape Grace stories fit nicely still into two volumes, one containing the first story, "Wreck of the Untranslatable" and a second containing "Escape from Grace" and the new story, "A Change of Plans".

Book number four will contain short stories from both of us, all set in the same Universe but filling in various smaller corners.  This book will include the newer, unpublished stories "Labyrinthine" and "An Apostate's Dilemma". 

What's yet to do?  A lot of editing and formatting, mostly.  We also need to choose a printer and adjust our layouts to their preferences.  Art would be nice, but a basic starfield will do if necessary.  Our current target is to have at least one book ready for sale before the end of January, ideally with a few physical copies delivered to local bookstores on consignment.  After that?  Advertising!

Note that we will happily take suggestions for a print-on-demand service, if anyone knows one they particularly like.  We'll also take suggestions for an artist, although our demands for such a person could be steep and our budget, though non-zero, is also not high. 

Maybe we'll save the fancy art and style for a second edition, once the first edition has pulled in some profit... and maybe a publisher's attention?

We can always Dream.

-NL

Update: NaNoWriMo and the Publication Plan

Work on the Empyrean Dreams print books is proceeding steadily. 

Remember how I mentioned each volume would include at least one original story, not previously published on this site?  To that end, I challenged myself to write several stories as part of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month (http://nanowrimo.org).  I won the challenge with only two stories: a new tale of the Scape Grace (#3, "A Change in Plans") and an original short story, "An Apostate's Dilemma", which explores the Mauraug Apostasy from the inside. 

So those are ready.  However, I'll have to break one promise, a little.  The Scape Grace story is longer than expected.  Fitting all three stories in one volume (much less four, if I included the related tangent, "A Bureaucrat's Tale") is a bit much.  So, I'm planning to make "The Wreck of the *Untranslatable*" a stand-alone introductory volume, with "Escape from Grace" and "A Change in Plans" together in the second volume.

Book number three should have three stories about Stchvk, Private Investigator: "Bad Egg", "Broken Record", and an as-yet-unwritten third story.  There's my next task!

That makes book four the compiled, separate short stories of Empyrean Dreams, now additionally including "An Apostate's Dilemma", along with another unpublished story, "Labyrinthine", and all my prior short stories from this site.  We'll also include any and all short stories from Laine that she selects...

...which means I could be wrong again.  If the short stories pile up too high, we'll have to split them into two volumes!  In that case, I'll split the new tales across the two books.

So this three-book project is now four books and possibly five.  I can't say I'm sad about having more to offer.  It just means that finishing everything won't happen as fast as I originally hoped.  Apologies, but we probably won't have an Empyrean Dreams book available for your holiday gift shopping.

Early next year, though!  That's the plan!