Plans for 2017

It can be a bit slow here on the Princelings website, simply because we’re waiting for things to happen.

Our lovely editor is about halfway through editing Willoughby the Narrator, and we hope it’s not too painful for her since it’s the anniversary of Willoughby the guinea pig’s sudden death, which came as a shock to us all.  But her last comment was that she likes it, and my version of him in the story.

Willoughby the NarratorYou can pre-order the ebook on iTunes, B&N and Kobo, but it’s not available on Smashwords until it comes out.  It’s not listed on Amazon yet, either.  We’re currently targeting mid-March, and I’ll post when I get revisions done enough to give you a firm date.

The pre-order price is only $1.99, which won’t last more than a month after launch (and maybe less), after which it will be $3.99.  Only you know this 🙂

Meanwhile, we’re hoping Dawn will still have time to edit book 8 when she’s through with book 7.  Our wonderful cover illustrator Dani English has come up with some wonderful designs for The Princelings of the North‘s cover, and is now working on the final version.  It looks very dramatic!   And of course, you can see the chapter illustrations on our Pinterest page.

There are a few offers around on the ebook Box Set – at present you can get it for 99c if you’re a Goodreads Great Middle Grade Reads member – the first ten or till 31st January, which comes first.

I’ll be doing some more character interviews later in the year, and some places in the Princelings world may turn up in my A to Z challenge during April (see Jemima’s blog then).  Till then, enjoy your January, keep some of your resolutions, and enjoy reading!

All the chapter illustrations done!

derisaig-castle-summer

As you know, I set myself the challenge of doing Inktober, one sketch a day throughout October.  Since I had, in the end, 32 new chapter illustrations to do, split evenly between Willoughby the Narrator and The Princelings of the North, it worked out well. I’ve put the last one as my header and published it today.

One thing I noticed was the style of my illustrations settled down, and possibly improved as time went on.  My trees, always a bit iffy, seemed to stop being lollipops on sticks and turn into something more like a tree.  The shading got more consistent.  I stopped worrying about any tendency to be scribbly and just went with the flow.  And I occasionally used something else for reference – Rebecca’s picture from the top of a mountain gave me just the right setting for Vexstein from the rear; the Dragon Hall, home to Writers’ Centre Norwich, has just the sort of beams I wanted for Vexstein’s Hearing hall.

I’m trying to decide whether to post all of them here, which is something I did for the early books.  But until the books are edited and ready to publish, I don’t know whether they are really going to appear or not.  Maybe I’ll just post some of my favourites from Willoughby, and some from book 8 (Dylan & Dougall) later in the month.

One thing I wonder, is how much of the story you can guess from the pictures and the very short descriptions I posted of them, on Facebook and Twitter, if you can’t get the Pinterest board.  Hopefully it’ll add to the intrigue.

And apart from the illustrations, I’m pleased to welcome the person who bought Bravo Victor last month – you’ll be all ready for Willoughby when he comes out in the new year.  I’ll be revealing the final cover when I get the launch date.  Watch this space!

Willoughby’s #Inktober sketches

I’m hoping this will work: Pinterest allows you to make ‘follow’ widgets showing what’s on your boards.  It should update with the new one each day, and you can scroll through them using the scrollbar on the right of the box.

I have worked out I’m only going to have half the number of illustrations needed to complete Willoughby the Narrator for Inktober.  The up side of this is: when I’ve finished Willoughby’s, I’ll be doing the ones for book 8, The Princelings of the North!

Inktober is coming – and so are Willoughby’s chapter illustrations

Inktober is one of those challenges that people take up or not with no pressure from anyone – but you may find lovely sketches floating around your favourite social media with the hashtag #inktober all through the month of October.

I’ve been enjoying the sketches my cover illustrator, Danielle English, who shows off her talent every year, put on her twitterfeed each Inktober.  This year she’s also showing them on her new Facebook page Kanizo Art.  So please support her and comment on them.

And as Dani showed some more of her work the other day, I realised that Inktober was the perfect prompt for me to do the illustrations for Willoughby the Narrator.  Inktober should be one sketch a day, making 31, and Willoughby needs no more than 19, so I could either aim for the half marathon and post every other day, or go for broke and do the remaining ones from chapters for The Princelings of the North.

I’ll be posting them first onto my Pinterest page, where they will link to the Princelings of the East Facebook page and my Twitterfeed.  Search for #inktober if you’re interested!