An Update & A Request!

It's time for another writing update, don't you think?

My anthology is almost ready for release into the wild! The formatting is done! I just want to go over it one last time to make sure it meets all the formatting requirements for ebook conversion, and I'll be doing that this weekend. It's so exciting to get something I've written ready for online publication. I can't wait for you all to see how snazzy it looks when it's not displayed on my blog!

There is, however, one major stumbling block for me in getting this anthology out the door, and it's a problem I've mentioned a couple of times before. I still have no cover image!



It's a sad thing to see an ebook with no cover image. It makes me feel like it isn't a real book, just something that was cobbled together and hastily slapped onto an ereader. I want to deliver a quality product to the people, hence all the time I've invested in making sure it's as ready as it can possibly be before I put it out there, and it's obvious to me now that I can't do this alone.

I turn to you, loyal followers, to help me find a cover image! If you've read the short stories of The Everyday Divinities Project, you already know that it focuses on inanimate objects and the secret lives they live under our very noses. They're tales that highlight the objects that surround us everyday that we take for granted so often. If you're not familiar with them, or you want to brush up on your Everyday Divinities lore, links to the project are on the right hand side.

So here's the deal: If you're a photographer, artist, photoshopper or other visual artist, send me a picture that you feel best places inanimate objects on the pedestal they so rightly deserve! The image must be your own creation - no stealing someone else's copyrighted or watermarked work. Please don't add your own watermark to the image, I'll give credit for the cover in the opening pages of the book. The picture must be in either JPEG or TIFF format, with dimensions of at least 500 by 800 pixels and a maximum of 2000 pixels on the longest side, and saved at 72 dots per inch (DPI) for optimal web viewing. Ideally, the image will have a height/width ratio of 1.6 and display beautifully in RGB color mode so your work will shine on an ereader.

The image that I feel best captures the essence of The Everyday Divinities Project will be used as the cover for my book, and its creator will get credit for the cover image in the book itself!

All entries must be sent in to robertlemoyne[at]gmail[dot]com by midnight on Friday, November 4th and the winner will be announced on this blog by Monday.

Good luck to all my artistically inclined followers! I can't wait to see what kind of images you all come up with!

Edit: Due to being under the weather and preparing for a convention this weekend, I'm extending the contest through the weekend to midnight on Monday, Nov. 7th. Enjoy the weekend!

Quick Take On My Comic Booked Widget

Take a second to check out the new feature on my blog! It's over there in the far right column, between my NetworkedBlogs and Goodreads widgets. Yes, it's my very own Comic Booked widget!

That's right, thanks to a code-savvy co-worker, you can now stay up to date on ALL of my Comic Booked writing, not just the event and movie reviews that I've posted here on my blog so far. You can scroll down to see the opening text of my last 15 articles and click directly on the article title to go straight to that entry, all without leaving my blog. How awesome is that?!

I'll post later in the week about my upcoming ebook release, so stay tuned here for that update. In the meantime, check my new widget to see what else I'm writing about these days!

Edit the first: And, of course, the day I decide to draw attention to it is the day it's not working properly. Check back later in the day, it should be fixed by then.

Edit the second: And it's working again! Yay! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yes indeed, another year older, another year wiser. Although some might debate that last part...

I look back at this previous year, and while I haven't come as far as I had the year before, I still made some excellent progress this year. I've grown as a writer, both in my creative writing and as a blogger, which landed me in the role of staff writer for Comic Booked. It's been an amazing experience working for them, and I look forward to growing with them as we hit the big time.

I moved out of my old place, which was a big step for me. I hate moving, but I recognized a bad situation when it was staring me in the face and took steps to change my situation. I also survived my first real car accident, and I couldn't have made it through both of those experiences without the foundation that the previous year had built. I also owe a lot of that to the love and support of the people closest to me.

Finally, I'm in the first great relationship I've had in years with a wonderful partner. Loki is a constant source of joy in my life. I wasn't even really looking for that special someone, but that's often when magic happens. It's so good to be with someone who shares some of the same interests I do without being a carbon copy of me. And even better, he's OK with me being a writer!

All of the above has had a profound impact on my year, and I've come through it stronger than I was before. Now I have a new year ahead of me, full of new trials and triumphs, with a great foundation to meet it head on. You hear that, birthday? I'm ready for you! BRING IT ON!

Quick Take on DC Comics/Barnes & Noble

For those who aren't up to date on recent comics news, Barnes & Noble is taking 100 graphic novels off their shelves nationwide because DC Comics has given the Amazon Kindle exclusive digital rights to those books for the next 4 months.

Personally, I don't think DC or B&N are thinking this through very well. Publishers should not be playing favorites when it comes to getting their content out, all it does is hurt their customers. Likewise, if you're a store in competition with another retail outlet, the last thing you want to do is give your customers a reason to go to your competitor to get the products they want. DC Comics has declared that they're sticking to their guns, and it looks like Barnes & Noble is doing the same with their response. Both sides look like spoiled children in all this who don't want to share their toys or play nice with the other kids.

As for me? Don't think that just because I'm formatting my short story anthology for Kindle self-publishing, I'm going to ignore all the other epub formats. Kindle is by far the trickiest part of formatting something for digital distribution, in my limited experience, so I want to leap that hurdle first. After that, formatting to the other digital book types will be a snap.

Rest easy, Nook and iPad fans! I've got your back!

Coming Soon to a Kindle Near You

...And this time, I mean it!

After a sizable delay, my Everyday Divinities anthology is finally getting formatted! It's a tedious process of going through the Kindle self-publishing checklist to make sure everything conforms to their standards for proper conversion, but it's going to be so worth it to see my writing on a Kindle. I even downloaded the Kindle app to my phone so I can make sure it displays properly on any device!

"Wait, what about those of us who don't have a Kindle?" Don't worry, the Kindle formatting is a stepping stone to converting it into any ebook format. My goal is to have my anthology available on this blog in all of the major format types so you can read Everyday Divinities on any device you own. Ebooks for all!

I'll give you more updates as I move through the process, including an announcement once it's available for purchase later this month. This is so exciting for me as a writer, I can't wait to share my first ebook with you!

The DC New 52 Wrap Party!

For those of you who haven't seen the commercials or read about it in the blogosphere, comic publisher DC Comics carried out a massive relaunch of their characters, both new and iconic, in an event they call The New 52. The goal? To bring new fans into the comic book fold and show them why these characters have endured for so many decades.

I confess, I haven't had the finances to buy a lot of these new books, but the ones I did read impressed me greatly. And as The New 52's first month came to a close, I figured I should cover the event's wrap party for Comic Booked to see what kind of crowd my FLCS (that's "friendly local comic shop" to the uninitiated) could pull in from this event.

It was HUGE. And I covered it all by my lonesome.



Jump over to Comic Booked and read all about The DC New 52 Wrap Party!