Raeden Zen's Blog
September 28, 2015
The Phantom of the Earth Series Update
Hello All—
A lot has happened since my last update in August.
The Phantom of the Earth eBooks have all been formatted and proofread and are listed for pre-order on Amazon. I don’t know how many times I edited and rewrote parts or all of the series over the last 3-plus years. But after 5 rounds of professional editing and 4 beta reader rounds, I’m comfortable enough with the books to publish them and let the massive SFF reading audience decide if I made the right choice. I have no qualms with fixing minor issues prior to the release of the two mini omnibuses, discussed in more detail below, so feel free to send any suggestions to raedenzen@gmail.com as you make your way through the series.
I pulled forward the go-live date for The Song of the Jubilee and The Gambit with Perfection to October 2nd from October 10th. These are books 1 and 2. The remaining books, including the omnibus, which combines the 5 books, 5 character indexes, and 6 appendixes, will go live on October 10th on Amazon. Here are the links:
Book 1: The Song of the Jubilee — amazon.com/dp/B0140FWBDE
Book 2: The Gambit with Perfection — amazon.com/dp/B0140GF0AO
Book 3: The Synthesis and the Animus — amazon.com/dp/B0140HQ6M4
Book 4: The Descent into the Maelstrom — amazon.com/dp/B0140NPN1S
Book 5: The Restoration of Flaws — amazon.com/dp/B0140IYS1E
Omnibus Edition: The Phantom of the Earth — amazon.com/dp/B0140NPMZU
Jubilee and Gambit are presently available for free download on Lulu and the iBookstore. Very soon I hope they’ll be available for free everywhere, including Amazon. Here are the links:
iBooks – Jubilee – https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-...
iBooks – Gambit – https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-...
Lulu – Jubilee – http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.l...
Lulu – Gambit – http://www.lulu.com/shop/raeden-zen/t...
I uploaded the books and descriptions to Goodreads. Please mark the books as “to-read” and/or post ratings and/or reviews if you can as it’ll help drive interest in the series. Here’s the series link:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/162793-the-phantom-of-the-earth
I launched two campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo to fund creation of the print omnibuses. As many of you know, I was very flexible with my budget for this project, investing in professional editing, concept artwork, and formatting, as well as expert and beta reader feedback. The result, I hope, is an intriguing experience for SFF readers around the world. The problem, however, is that I wrote too much! CreateSpace has a page limit for print books and at nearly 420,000 words of material I’m way over their limit. To resolve this, I’d like to create 2 “mini” omnibuses, which would exclude the character indexes (aka Marstone’s Database) and would be about 700-800 pages each. My goal would be to have them ready by early 2016. To fund the new cover art and formatting, I initiated campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo with the target on each for $2,500. I actually need $2,500 combined so any funds raised in excess of that figure will go toward either (1) creating the audio book on Audible or (2) additional concept artwork. I figured I’d ask subscribers to my newsletter what they’d prefer should that scenario arise. As of right now, at $80 combined, I’m well below the $2,500 threshold. I’m offering free copies of the omnibus edition (eBook format), as well as signed copies of the print omnibuses and of the posters. The posters are of Beimeni City from the Fountain of Youth and Livelle city-state during its downfall. They’re actually painted on canvas and are available with contributions of $100 or more.
[image error]
I’m presently offering these two posters with “perks” but have recently obtained the high-res images for the other renders on my website, and so can offer those as well. I’m going to set up separate “perks” for those.
KICKSTARTER
INDIEGOGO
I secured a few blog listings to promote the books during the first few weeks. More importantly, The Phantom of the Earth goes live in its entirety in about 2 weeks, which after 3-plus years is very exciting!
Best wishes,
Raeden Zen
August 17, 2015
The Phantom of the Earth Series Update
Hello All-
I submitted the Phantom Series materials to Tammy (copyeditor) last Monday and today I added the pre-release pages to Amazon. They’re on the website with an October 10th release date, which after 3-plus years is very exciting!
The series (so far) is about 1,650 pages. The final word counts for the books include about 190 pages of “Marstone’s Databases,” which are detailed character indexes individualized for each book with 100-plus characters included. Excluding the databases, the series through the first 5 books is about 1,385 pages, far more than I’d planned on writing when I started conducting research in late 2011 and early 2012 into synthetic biology and quantum physics!
Words
Pages*
The Song of the Jubilee
48,032
192
The Gambit with Perfection
73,276
293
The Synthesis and the Animus
74,389
298
The Descent into the Maelstrom
98,258
393
The Restoration of Flaws
99,754
399
The Phantom of the Earth
393,709
1,575
Marstone’s Database (combined)
47,500
190
The Phantom of the Earth (ex-Marstone)
346,209
1,385
Appendix 1: Thirty Precepts
677
3
Appendix 2: Terraforming the Underground
6,890
28
Appendix 3: Interstellar and Time Travel
1,288
5
Appendix 4: Dictations and Songs
971
4
Appendix 5: Transhuman Theology
1,973
8
Appendix 6: Transhuman Terminology
6,954
28
Appendix subtotal
18,753
75
Total
412,462
1,650
*Assumes 250 words per page.
For now, the individual books are all priced at $0.99 with the OMNIBUS EDITION priced at $4.95. So from a cost perspective it wouldn’t matter if you picked up the individual books separately or the OMNIBUS. (At some point I expect to offer Books 1-2 for free with Books 3-5 priced somewhere between $0.99 and $2.99.) The OMNIBUS is long enough that when the sample becomes available, THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE can be read in its entirety. If you want to avoid spoilers I suggest ignoring the product pages for all the books except THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE and the OMNIBUS EDITION.
While I set the go-live date for October 10th, I expect (hope) to have the final formatted versions ready by mid-September for the NetGalley listing. I’ll post more about it on my Tumblr and on my website as that deadline approaches, but if you’d like a copy of the OMNIBUS prior to the official go-live date, either go to NetGalley beginning September 29th or email me at raedenzen@gmail.com and I will send you a free copy as soon as it’s ready. Of course, you can purchase it for $4.95 on Amazon if you’d prefer to receive it on the go-live date. Either way, though I can’t guarantee you’ll have fun with the series, you should expect to receive a well-edited (5 rounds, including 1 developmental edit, 1 line edit, 1 partial line edit, 1 copyedit, and 1 partial copyedit), thoroughly beta read (20-plus readers), highly researched (15-plus sources including nonfiction books and articles, and expert feedback), and professionally formatted product.
The product pages are still building, and I’ll be adding more information to them when I receive the edited materials, but you can view them here. Again, to avoid spoilers, ignore the synopsis blurbs for Books 2-5. Stick to THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE and the OMNIBUS EDITION.
More information, including the unbelievable concept art, is available on my website: http://www.raedenzen.com.
Best wishes,
Raeden Zen
(p.s. Please excuse any typos! No matter how many times I reread my posts, I miss my own mistakes!)
Phantom Saga Update
Hello All-
I submitted the Phantom Saga materials to Tammy (copyeditor) last Monday and today I added the pre-release pages to Amazon. They’re on the website with an October 10th release date, which after 3-plus years is very exciting!
The saga (so far) is about 1,650 pages. The final word counts for the books include about 190 pages of “Marstone’s Databases,” which are detailed character indexes individualized for each book with 100-plus characters included. Excluding the databases, the saga through the first 5 books is about 1,385 pages, far more than I’d planned on writing when I started conducting research in late 2011 and early 2012 into synthetic biology and quantum physics!
For now, the individual books are all priced at $0.99 with the OMNIBUS EDITION priced at $4.95. So from a cost perspective it wouldn’t matter if you picked up the individual books separately or the OMNIBUS. (At some point I expect to offer Books 1-2 for free with Books 3-5 priced somewhere between $0.99 and $2.99.) The OMNIBUS is long enough that when the sample becomes available, THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE can be read in its entirety. If you want to avoid spoilers I suggest ignoring the product pages for all the books except THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE and the OMNIBUS EDITION.
While I set the go-live date for October 10th, I expect (hope) to have the final formatted versions ready by mid-September for the NetGalley listing. I’ll post more about it on my Tumblr and on my website blog as that deadline approaches, but if you’d like a copy of the OMNIBUS prior to the official go-live date, either go to NetGalley beginning September 29th or email me at raedenzen@gmail.com and I will send you a free copy as soon as it’s ready. Of course, you can purchase it for $4.95 on Amazon if you’d prefer to receive it on the go-live date. Either way, though I can’t guarantee you’ll have fun with the saga, you should expect to receive a well-edited (5 rounds, including 1 substantive, 1 line edit, 1 partial line edit, 1 copyedit, and 1 partial copyedit), thoroughly beta read (20-plus readers), highly researched (15-plus sources including nonfiction books and articles, and expert feedback), and professionally formatted product.
The product pages are still building, and I’ll be adding more information to them when I receive the edited materials, but you can view them here. Again, to avoid spoilers, ignore the synopsis blurbs for Books 2-5. Stick to THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE and the OMNIBUS EDITION.
More information, including the unbelievable concept art, is available on my website: http://www.raedenzen.com.
Best wishes,
Raeden Zen
(p.s. Please excuse any typos! No matter how many times I reread my posts, I miss my own mistakes!)
July 9, 2015
The Phantom of the Earth
I haven’t been online as often for the last few months, primarily because I’ve been working on the drafts for the The Phantom of the Earth, which consists of five books, six appendixes, and one character index - more than 370,000 words of post-apocalyptic, dystopian, time travel, space travel, and subterranean living conflict. The website is http://www.raedenzen.com.
As many of you know, I’ve received help from more than 30 people, a very talented group of readers, writers, editors, artists, and scientists, to improve The Phantom of the Earth. Everyone who helped me is listed on the “team” tab on the website. I can’t thank all you guys enough!
And the project’s finally (finally) coming to an end.
Here’s where it stands:
1. The heavy substantive, line editing is complete.
2. The third full beta reader round and fourth selected beta reader round are complete; through both rounds combined I received about 50,000 words of feedback from readers. Lot’s of great ideas in there!
3. Juan Carlos Barquet (The Origin Mystery) is working simultaneously on the renders for Books 4 and 5. He should be done with them this month. The first three are posted on my website under the “settings” tab.
4. Dan Kvasznicza (300, Arkham Origins) completed the render for Beimeni City; it is now the front page of the website and included under the “settings” tab. He’s presently constructing a render for Livelle city-state and laboratory, an important setting in the historical canon of this universe.
5. Mike Corley has finished the maps; they are included on my website under the “maps” tab.
6. My next deadline is for a second selected copyedit round that will commence on August 10th.
7. Professional formatting by Polgarus Studio should begin on or near September 1.
8. The pre-release pages should be up on Amazon by late August or early September with the release date set at October 10th. I’ll be offering Books 1 and 2 for free (eventually), Book 3 for $0.99, Book 4 for $1.99, Book 5 for $2.99, and the omnibus edition for $3.99.
I’ll be more active on my Tumblr blog (and eventually, my website blog) to keep everyone up to date.
Have a wonderful summer.
Best,
Raeden Zen
July 6, 2015
grayxvx:
You’re putting way too much faith on me. If you slip...
You’re putting way too much faith on me. If you slip we’re both screwed and that’s not how I wanna die.
anthonydelatercera:
leuc:
Leonardo da Vinci
In Leonardo’s...
leuc:
In Leonardo’s words
The soul seems to reside in the judgement, and the judgement would seem to be seated in that part where all the senses meet, called the sensus communis (common sense), and is not all-pervading throughout the body, as many have thought. Rather it is entirely in one part.
