Wyrmflight, a Hoard of Dragon Lore

How’s about a little mid-month marketing! This time I’m featuring my blog collection, Wyrmflight: A Hoard of Dragon Lore, self-published in 2018. Some of you may have been around long enough to remember when I started this blog, back in the tail end of 2012. For the first 6 or 7 years, it was totally focused on dragons. After 2018, I needed a fresh direction, but I still had researched enough fascinating dragon lore to put together this collection.

Just like one of my novels, it’s packed with great stories, amazing characters, battles, drama, laughter, and many, many dragons. Unless you’ve been following me the entire time since 2012, I know you’ll find something new and surprising.

The book is available in all e-book formats for $4.99 and trade paperback for $17.99 U. S. dollars. Please check out the book’s hub on Books2Read, where you can purchase from your favorite e-bookstore. That is, any except Amazon, which wants to be special and have its own book hub.

Now, my one request. Reviews are more precious than any dragon’s gold. If you buy the book and like it, please do leave a review. And tell all your friends!

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Behind the Curtain, Part 2

So, that hosting change I mentioned… It went relatively smoothly, except… The URL no longer points to my web page… It points here…

That means… Somebody looked behind the curtain…

IT WAS YOU, WASN’T IT???

I know I’ll get it figured out. Tech support has been really helpful. What it probably means is that I’ll have to completely replace my previous web page with something that’s in a WordPress-friendly format.

This isn’t completely bad. I actually enjoy making web pages. It’s just a complication.

Anyway, that’s going to take up all my spare brain cells for the next few days at least. Here, enjoy a funny meme based on something that happened at my school yesterday.

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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RadCon 2023, Part 2

So! How did it go? I meant to write this post last Wednesday, but then my husband told me The Tale of the Drakanox made him weep and my train of thought jumped the tracks. Anyway, here are my impressions.

I did have too many panels. Most of my time was spent either in panel rooms or mentally preparing for my next panel. This left less time than usual for talking with friends, cruising dealers and art show, etc. That said, I did enjoy the panels I was on and felt I had valuable things to say. There’s always that one person who wants to talk about themself or wants to grind on something negative. I made it my mission to tactfully redirect and make sure other panelists got to talk.

The coolest thing at RadCon was the number of people going about in costumes. One of my good friends who’s a veteran costumer says there are so many more resources for costuming now. You can get specialty patterns instead of having to adapt one, or you can just buy a complete outfit. Honestly, this is something I see at school, too. Kids will show up with part of a Naruto outfit and just wear it around. It’s pretty great.

The second coolest thing was our friends had a balcony overlooking a courtyard. They let us come up and watch some fire dancers performing. It definitely gave me an idea or two for The Tale of the Drakanox.

There were some condition issues with our hotel room, but over all, it was a successful weekend. I sold a couple of books and checked off a step for one of my resolutions. If you ever have the chance to attend a science fiction convention, especially if you can speak on panels, it’s time well spent. (It does cost money, though. Fair warning.)

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Aunt Ursula’s Atlas

This weekend I’m away at RadCon, supporting my re-release of Masters of Air & Fire, by Lucy D. Ford. This seems like a good time to mention Lucy’s other book, Aunt Ursula’s Atlas. This is a fantasy short story collection for all ages.

Unlike Air & Fire, Aunt Ursula was self-published, so it’s always been available as an e-book through Amazon or Books2Read. Paperbacks are also available directly from me. I can take PayPal or Venmo. Feel free to reach out in the comments if you’re interested in that option.

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Fairy Tales Told by Lucy D. Ford

On a high shelf, in a hidden library,
There is a book of unknown wonders.

Open its pages. Explore mysterious lands.
See for yourself what lies within
Aunt Ursula’s Atlas.

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Masters of Air & Fire

I did it! I got the font to a size that Amazon’s AI will accept, and the paperback is officially ready for pre-orders. The official release is on February 1st, 2023. I therefore can present…

Drum roll please…

My latest masterpiece! Which actually is a re-issue from 2015. Masters of Air & Fire is a middle grade fantasy, aimed at readers from third to sixth grades. It’s a family drama where the family happen to be dragons, or wyrms. Three young wyrmlings are orphaned by the eruption of their volcanic home and must struggle to find their place in the world. Not only do they strive against each other, determining which of them is in charge, they also run afoul of some small, hairless, alien creatures called humans.

Some of the humans seem friendly. But do they have dark intentions toward the wyrmlings? Other humans are hostile, until the wyrmlings see them as captives with a shared purpose. Deciding which humans to trust is a major challenge of the book. The question of humans domesticating dragons is a sore point for me, and I enjoyed exploring that.

For more on this, there’s a whole post here about the early development of the project.

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Orlik, Romik and Yazka are wyrmlings, living peacefully on the slopes of Hot Mountain. Until the volcano erupts, and they are separated from their mother. Alone in the world, these three wyrmlings struggle to find a new home among creatures alien to them: humans!

The book is available as an e-book through Amazon and Books2Read. The paperback is from Amazon only.

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Laying It All Out

The reprint of Masters of Air & Fire (in ebook and paperback) has been complete for a while… Or so I thought! Almost a week after I approved the layout, I started getting notes from Amazon’s AI that the font is too large on one exact part of the book. I’ve been patiently reducing the font size by 1 point and re-submitting. Eventually I’m sure I’ll get it right.

Meantime, I had ordered author copies as soon as I thought I was done with it. They aren’t scheduled to arrive until early February. I’m honestly curious whether my author copies will arrive with the font still in the size the AI doesn’t like, or if the shipment will be pushed back. I do hope it gets settled soon. There’s an appearance coming up in late February that I want to have these books ready for.

Work also continues on the follow-up to “Mistress Henbane,” my as-yet-unsold fantasy short story. Maybe it’s just as well the story hasn’t sold yet, because I keep discovering new bits of background info that have to be reconciled. And now, I’ll get back to that!

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Reprints Ahoy

My first solid project of the year is to re-issue Masters of Air & Fire. To that end, I have selected cover art that can be cropped for an e-book cover and also work as a paperback cover, although with some fiddling. There’s been a lot of buzz about using AI programs to create cover art, but I’m choosing to go through Shutterstock, where I’m pretty sure an actual human is being paid for their work.

My next step will be to create a splashy title to go on the cover. Then I’ll use Canva to lay it out. Once I have something to show around, I’ll begin reformatting the text for the e-book. Another step I have to do is assigning a new ISBN. However, the Bowker system is undergoing maintenance, so that that will have to wait a day or three.

These will be the easy parts. I’m hoping to handle most of it this weekend, because the trade paper process takes longer. Someone (or another AI, who knows) has to approve it and then I wait for printed copies. Hm… Maybe I should do that first?

Anyhow! It’s time to get started on that title. Cheers, all!

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Dragons Don’t Do Gratitude

Thanksgiving Day is coming here in the USA. Here’s a repeat of a funny post from 2015. Seriously, I’m grateful for all of you who follow and support me. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Hommana hommana, I peer into my crystal ball
And learn the most mysterious thing of all:
What are dragons grateful for?

Ikartya of the Emerald Scales — Gratitude, what’s that?

Ysislaw, Emperor of Sillets — My hoard.

Fruq the Furious — My flames, which destroy my enemies.

Tetheus of Shoredance Island — Delicious sheep.

Gnawrath, Most Malign — That my family is far, far away.

Cazarluun the Wraith — That I killed Sir Whatsizname before he killed me.

Carnisha of Mount Cragmaw — That humans are so easily deceived.

P.S. — Ysislaw, Cazarluun, Tetheus and Carnisha are all characters from my stories! Ysislaw is from my second novel, Too Many Princes. Carnisha is in my story that appeared in The Dragon’s Hoard anthology last spring. Tetheus and Cazarluun are in short stories that are thus far unpublished. However, their statements here don’t necessarily represent their roles in the stories.

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Call For Posts

The podcast edition of Fall Folk Fest’s live radio broadcast is now live! Listen here if you are so inclined. I am in the middle of this segment, around the 34-minute mark, and it’s under my children’s pen name, Lucy D. Ford. All the performers were wonderful, and it’s worth listening all the way through.

Now to my call for posts. Not that I’m obsessed with Twitter or anything, but the changes there will truly be significant for independent authors like me. Change, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Instead of woeful crying, maybe we should consider this an opportunity for new kinds of outreach.

With that in mind, I’m open to guest posts. I’d love to hear about what new avenues you’re exploring. Why did you choose a certain platform? How is your experience in trying to migrate? If you’re interested, you can e-mail me, cat09tales -at- hotmail -dot- com.

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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Fall Folk Festival

It’s today! I will be doing my on-air segment with KPBX-FM that showcases many of the Folk Festival performers. My time will be around 11:30 am PST and I will be announced as Lucy D. Ford, my pen name for children’s work. If you want to hear me read one of my short stories, you click here to go to the radio station web site, and then click on their live stream.

You also can go the Folk Festival’s web site and click on a link there. At this time, I do not know whether there will be any archived forms of the broadcast.

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Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

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