Tag Archives: createspace

News, Announcements, Blog

NEW BOOK – ‘The Worlds of Nathan Marchand’

The cover that CreateSpace kept refusing to approve.
The cover that CreateSpace kept refusing to approve.

You read that right—the title of my new book is the same as my website. (I guess I’m just that pretentious. :P)

The familiarity doesn’t end there, though. This book is a collection of “unpublished” short stories spanning my entire career. I put quotation marks on “unpublished” (I did it again!) because many of these stories have already been posted here on my website. I learned at a Gen-Con writing seminar that stories posted on an author’s website are considered published. I may have tom rethink how often I post stories on here, then.

Regardless, I wanted to have this book finished in time for Gen-Con last week, but CreateSpace, the website I use for my self-published stuff, kept being nitpicky about the cover. It took me too long to make it happy. (I still had great sales at Gen-Con, though).

What’s the theme of this collection? I’ll let the back cover copy explain:

From the mind that brought you
Pandora’s Box & Ninjas and Talking Trees
comes…a little bit of everything.

  • An amnesiac cybernetic vigilante confronting the man he once called “comrade”—after he was murdered by him.
  • A pro-wrestler accosted in the ring by a mysterious hooded figure the night before his brother takes him to court.
  • A living gargoyle who protects a young wayward woman from her persecutors—and a demon.
  • Santa Claus’ race with a flying saucer on Christmas Eve.
  • A young man flying a hang glider through a ruined city to save his stranded twin siblings from a giant monster believed to be an angry god.

You’ll find these and other fantastical things in this, the first short story collection from Nathan Marchand. This anthology spans the vast breadth of the universe and genre. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and then you’ll do both again. Herein you’ll find adventure, drama, tragedy, and…ninjas (because they make everything better).

Prepare to enter…

The Worlds of Nathan Marchand

That pretty much says it all.

Barring any more unforeseen hiccups, the book will be available on Amazon within the next few days. The eBook should follow soon afterward.

Sidenote: Speaking of eBooks, I’ve been making eBook versions of some of my other books lately. 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom is now available as such. The next will be Ninjas and Talking Trees.

Blog

I Can Do Everything! (or, “Man, I Need to Hire a Secretary!”)

Being an indie author sometimes makes me wish I was Shiva. 😛

As I’ve stated before, I’ve been negligent on blogging for the last month. It wasn’t just this blog that suffered, though. Most, if not all, of my other projects were put on hiatus so I could finish editing my two latest books, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom and Ninjas and Talking Trees, in time for Gen-Con 2015 next week. But it was only one of the many things I had to do.

One of the perils of being a self-published author (as I think I mentioned in an early episode of “But I Digress…”) is you have to do everything, or at least almost everything, yourself. Your work doesn’t stop with writing the book and making recommended changes. You have to become an entire publishing house. You write, you edit, you hire cover artists (assuming you don’t create the cover yourself), you do layout, you promote the book, etc., etc. Unless you’re an excellent project manager, this can be tiring, especially when you also work a day job and have a social life. In the last month, I’ve found myself thinking many times, I just want to write! I understand now why some authors forego self-publishing, despite its advantages, in favor of traditional publishing: they have much less to worry about. Their attention isn’t nearly as divided, so they can focus more on their craft.

Strange (or selfish) as it may sound, one of the reasons I want to get married is because I’d like to have a wife who could help me with some of this. Yes, I admit it: I’d like her to be my secretary. Here’s the thing: she wouldn’t be my subservient, but my partner. We’d work on things together as equals.

Regardless, I already practice this to some extent. I hired friends/professional editors to look over these books so it wasn’t just me. Fresh eyes can see things I don’t. The artist who created the cover for 42, Ruth Pike, also did the back cover and some promotional materials. My friend Nick Hayden then did the layout. Anthony Gangemi drew the artwork for Ninjas and Talking Trees, which required a bit of faith on my part because it was the most expensive cover I’ve commissioned. I was thinking back on a self-publishing seminar where the instructor insisted authors should invest money in our careers. But I had to add the text and do the layout myself because Nick was unavailable. Then I had to wait for CreateSpace to process everything. (Thankfully, their shipping department is awesome, and my orders arrived four or five days early).

Let this be a warning to you: if you want to be an indie author, expect to put in extra work.

It’s worth it, though. 😉

P.S. Please leave reviews for my books on Amazon and Goodreads!

News, Appearances, Announcements

Presenting…’Destroyer (Deluxe Edition)’!

Artwork by Tyler Sowles. Designed by Nathan Marchand.
Artwork by Tyler Sowles. Designed by Nathan Marchand.

After several years in print, Destroyer, a giant monster novella I co-authored with Natasha Hayden and Timothy Deal, is now available in a new special edition!

I’ve migrated the book from Lulu to Createspace. Lulu was a good home for it a few years ago, but I’ve realized Createspace is where the money is at. This new edition is a bit bigger than the previous one and looks more professional and, for lack of a better term, legit.

But the big draw for this new edition is the inclusion of a bonus story. “House of the Living,” as you may recall, was written by my friend and fellow author Nick Hayden a few years back. It makes its first appearance in print in Destroyer (Deluxe Edition).

In the distant future, a group of scientists and soldiers create a giant cyborg dragon to end a destructive war, but the creature goes berserk and strands them behind enemy lines in Moscow. Now the survivors must destroy the creature before distrust and madness tears them apart.

I’ll be unveiling the book officially at the ACPL Authors’ Fair this weekend with Nick Hayden!

Buy Destroyer (Deluxe Edition) here on Amazon!

Vlog

But I Digress, Episode 3: The Perils and Privileges of Self-Publishing

“But I Digress…”
Hosted by Nathan Marchand

Are you a struggling writer who keeps getting rejected by publishers? Been in the writing business for a while and sick of how it works? Then self-publishing is for you! It’s an exciting avenue to distribute stories, but it’s also a hard path to take. In this week’s episode, I discuss those perils and privileges as someone who has worked with a real publisher and ventured into self-publishing.

And I battle fine print in nerdy fashion. (Watch and see!)

Here’s a link to Mark Coker’s PowerPoint presentation on eBook self-publishing.

Please comment, share, and like!