The Princelings Notebook – an ideal gift

princelings notebook cover

My paperback publisher, Blurb, has been offering the concept of notebooks for some time.  What better way of putting out some of my illustrations for people that might not see the books otherwise?

So I’ve taken the plunge.

I sorted through all the books and noted which illustrations I really wanted to feature.  Then I read all the books (something I wanted to do before continuing with writing books 9 & 10). I wouldn’t say they are ready for a ‘Zen of the Princelings’ offshoot yet, but there were plenty of phrases or paragraphs that could give inspiration—or just a giggle!

And after setting it all up and dropping everything after Willoughby’s book, because I just can’t put it all in and keep a reasonably priced notebook with space for your notes… I published it.  Here’s a preview (click the arrows top right to enlarge), with a link to the shopfront on Blurb.

I hope you enjoy it.

It would really make a great gift for the person who has everything else!

Look what I’ve got!

 

Jemima with new paperbacks

I don’t think it’s the most flattering picture of me I’ve ever seen, but it was fun trying to juggle all six Princelings paperbacks!

I’m just trying to work out pricing for them.  Lost City is the most expensive to produce (it’s the longest), and the best retail price I can put on it would be £6.36.  That should come out at around $9.50, which I think is okay, and would work for the later books, too.  The first and second books will be slightly cheaper, £5.25 for The Princelings of the East (around $8).  The Princelings and the Pirates would then come in at £5.46, or $8.20.  I could put Traveler at just under £6 or $9, or slightly less,which might be worthwhile as it’s another point for entering the series.  Decisions, decisions.

New paperbacks – dates

As promised, the new paperbacks are on their way.  Subject to some tweaking of the covers and Dani’s schedule, I’m aiming for May 15th.

I have already set up the new version of Book 1 – still needs the cover finalising, since I did a full circle last week of ‘oh no, the cover doesn’t come out in the colours I thought it would’ which I found so disappointing when I produced the Trilogy in a single volume.

I decided after I looked at the publishing software version of the colours that, no they weren’t the same… but they were great!  So Books 1, 2 and 3 have new covers, which you’ve already seen here in various stages of completion.  We’re still working on the new design for book 4 Traveler; books 5 and 6 will have the same covers with some minor tweaks.

Since the Trilogy and Traveler were already out in paperback two years ago, when I sold all the copies I took with me to a conference, I decided I’d better start with getting Talent Seekers and Bravo Victor out in paperback for the first time.  So, with Book 1 ready, I’ve switched onto editing those two latest books.  And with what I learnt about setting up these books with Book 1, like replacing all the smart (curly) quote marks before saving the file to rtf for the publishing software, I reckon it should go more quickly.  I am going through them all doing a minor edit as well.  Would you believe that after all this time I still found a missing ‘had’ in a past tense construction in the first book?!

So fingers crossed for 15th May – and if it looks like it’s going okay, I’ll do a giveaway of some new paperbacks during Children’s Book Week, (2-10 May).

Progress on the new editions

It seems like I’ve been working on new paperback editions of the Princelings books for ages, but I put them aside for a while to work on other projects.  In January I asked Dani, my illustrator, to have another look at the covers for the first and fourth books.

POTE_NewDraft03We’ve pretty much got the idea right for Princelings of the East, I think; now to get the colour scheme right.  This is the greyscale draft.  We are going for a similar colour scheme overall, but Dani’s given me six backgrounds for the castle, which I’ve only managed to narrow down to three so far – a dark blue (very moody), sky blue (striking) and cream much like the current cover.  It’s the lightning that makes the difference – I’m trying to indicate an electrostatic discharge that the tunnel draws from the Princelings world to create the energy drain.

TravellerRoughdraft01For Traveler in Black and White, I’ve decided try a cover without a guinea pig on the front.  It really hurts to lose Mariusz in his Bogart fedora, but the mixed feedback over whether to abandon the explicit guinea pig characters and just leave them as they are tends to suggest a more neutral cover.  We’re working on a noir approach to the more gothic castle that he comes across in his travels.

These are works in progress, so any suggestions are welcome, as always.

The new editions will come out in paperback from Blurb, once I’ve finished my other hardback project with the company.  The aim is to make them available in physical bookshops and non-Amazon online stores.  I’ll also be doing some minor editing on them, bearing in mind my younger reader Becca’s comment “I like the long words, just not in such long sentences.”  As I’ve found with my flash fiction: I can always tighten the prose!