I have worked my little fingers to the bone lately. I am so tired, I only hope this will all make sense.
I have been getting up at least by 9 am, prepping classes, teaching classes, writing reports for the students, then working on my books until about 3 am, go to bed, get up and start all over. On days I don't teach, it's just work on my books all day. I so very much need sleep!
I have been working with my new editor, Greg Wood, to reedit books one and two in the Into the West Saga Serial. When they were first published, I could not afford to hire an editor. My mother, Sharon Stephens, and my friend, Sharon Durmaskin, tried to help me with editing but both women had full-time jobs and trying to edit my work for me (for free) in their spare time was a daunting task.
I had recently come to the conclusion that if I really want to make a go of my writing career, I was going to have to break down and invest in my own future. I took the money I had been saving up to buy a very nice touring bicycle and invested it in hiring a professional editor instead.
Greg Wood, has already proven to be worth the money (and worth having to continue to walk everywhere). He has reedited Into the West: The Orphan Train and Into the West: A New Home. The new edits, coupled with the new cover art Dianne Burckhardt designed, has almost made these brand new projects.
I just finished uploading the new edits, including some additional material, across all the sales platforms for Into the West: The Orphan Train. I am hoping the paperbacks will be available again for purchase as soon as this weekend, the ebooks are all ready available for download.
I plan to take a little break tomorrow and work on another project I was asked to join. Fifty-two western authors are working together to create a "reader" of sorts, with fifty-two 500-word short western stories. I was the 52nd western author to come on-board the project. It should be fun.
As soon as I get my contribution written tomorrow, I'm jumping back into my own work and finalizing all the new edits for Into the West: A New Home this weekend. My plan is to spend most of next week working on part three Into the West: Sharon Springs. Though I will have to take a good part of Tuesday off, it's P.R.'s birthday and I have plans!
Keep watching the blogs! As soon as I get into the meat of part three, I'm going to share a few blurbs here for those who like to have a sneak-peek. Don't worry, I will give spoiler alerts when I post things in the blog for those who don't like them.
We are also working on more publicity things too. Watch for the trailer for Into the West: A New Home which we hope to have ready this weekend as well. Dianne is doing such a great job for me on all of this. I don't know what I would do without her.
I will let everyone know when all of the new edits are live for part one and two so you can download a revised version of the ebooks or purchase a new paperback. However, for those of you who do not want to buy a new paperback but would like to read the new edits, just send a picture of you holding your paperback to Stephen.Burckhardt@gmail.com and I will send you an PDF or ePub version of the book.
I've said it before and I'm going to keep saying it, THANK YOU!
Thank you to all of you who are sticking with me as I work to become a good author. There is so much a person has to do when they are self-publishing. I spent about six hours today just working on getting the formatting correct for the paperback. If I had a publisher, this would all fall to them and I would only have to worry about writing. But having all of you reading my work makes all the this behind the scenes work worth while!
With deepest gratitude,
Stephen