ClustrMap

I just added ClustrMaps to this site, and it's interesting watching markers beginning to come in from around the world. I guess that these are just random hits from people trolling the web for something to do with climate, weather or the environment, but they are proof that the "long tail" really does work! Now if only it'll work as well when the book's actually released in spreading the word and building a reader base. Stranger things have happened!

IF you end up at this site, do leave a comment, even if it's to dis my layout or berate me for running a blog on a book by an unknown author that's not yet even released.

On that note, the MS text for Draft 6 is now done, with over a thousand edits hopefully moving it up a notch from badly flawed and unedited to finished to the extent that a novice writer can. If you're interested in speculative fiction, particularly with an environmental subtext, watch for Mai Shangri-La available for shipping on Amazon by mid-October.

It's REAL!!!

So far, so good, as they say. The Proof Copy of my first "baby" arrived the other day. It badly needs cover art and a quick flip through reveals that it definitely needs another line-by-line edit. How could I have missed so many close-quotation marks and periods? What's my reader supposed to make of unattributed quotations when I can no longer keep track of the speaker? Where did I pick up the annoying habit of almost always using an interesting adjective a second time within a paragraph or two of it's first appearance? And why didn't I notice THAT rather glaring editorial gaffe on the second draft?

In spite of its warts, though, it's an actual, 379 page paperback novel. It says so, right there on the cover!

Mai Shangri-La
A Novel
Robert J. Rubis

So far, CreateSpace has definitely lived up to their end of our "agreement". They've taken my uploaded file, laid it out in a 6X9 format, added a cover, and bound it in a finished product. The rest is just tweaking. I'll hope to complete the next round of editing within the month, and hopefully by the end of April, I'll have my first book available (Print-on-Demand) for sale. Exciting stuff!

Watch for "Mai Shangri-La" on your CreateSpace homepage (and hopefully on Amazon, too) sometime soon.