Sails Sag

Progress with the book has sagged a bit. The wife (a.k.a. Muse) fell ill for about a week. Then the prescription to cure her made her sick for another week until that nasty pill was changed. She has recovered and feeling better now.

Progress on the book was made. Chapter 14 to 18 are done and awaiting my muses remarks.

Then came Salt Lake City's first ComiCon this past weekend. I planned on going all three days, but when Saturday rolled around I was too pooped to haul myself downtown.

The crowds were huge. I arrived Thursday afternoon about 5 PM and stood in line an hour just to register. Then got into another line to get onto the convention floor. Both Thursday and Friday the convention center and meeting rooms were packed. The video below was taken at 4:45 PM Friday. The throng didn't let up until after 8 PM. Even then the convention floor was still doing a brisk business. Other than some grumbling about how the event was organized everyone was in good spirits and eager to be 'assimilated into the collective' (refer to a Star Trek fan for definition. To my knowledge the Borg Queen was a no-show, which is probably for the best).

There were several authors and publishers with booths. I focused on booths selling books in my genre (epic fantasy) and talked to two authors at some length. Holli Anderson and Jason King shared a booth purchased by their publisher Curiosity Quills Press. I purchased a book from each of these local authors. 

Curiosity Quills has a unique query system which I happen to like, mostly because it is based on the honor system in which you have to honestly ask yourself "Are you ready?". No formal query letter is submitted, but . . . you'd better have your duckies jack-booted and marching straight. The questions they ask you are blunt and to the point.

That said, both Holli and Jason have an excellent relationship with Curiosity Quill Press. Its a hybrid publisher which has placed both hard copy and ebooks in Barnes & Noble, Amazon & Goodreads. Jason said he has a book on the shelves of B&N. Holli just got her book published this past week, so she's still looking forward to that opportunity.

My initial impression of Curiosity Quill Press is good. The book covers are well done, the paper and printing seems top notch. I'll be doing more research on them as the day draws near for submitting "The Singing Stones of Rendor" to a publisher.

All I have to do is answer that scary question, "Am I ready?"