“Read an Ebook Week”

I am pleased to announce that SPIAR is featured in the smashwords.com “Read an Ebook Week” event. For this week only, you can download it at half price, a measly $2.50! Just be sure to enter the code REW50 at checkout to use the discount!

Are any of you fellow writers utilizing this event to your advantage? Check it out if you haven’t already done so!

It’s almost been a week since the release of SPIAR, and I’ve only had a couple handful of purchases. I am hoping to see some reviews soon, and for people to help spread the word. I haven’t been writing lately, as I am waiting to see how SPIAR does before I figure out what I want to write next.

Anyways, here is the link to SPIAR on the smashwords website!
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/412003

Easy days and blissful nights,
V. E. Bystry

My Debut Novel

Yesterday, my first published novel, SPIAR was released on the kindle store and smashwords.com. This morning, I noticed that my first book has been accepted into the smashwords premium catalog. With this news, I am thrilled that SPIAR will be available worldwide at all ebook retailers very soon, joining my free short story, One Last Delivery.

SPIAR has been in the works for technically five or six years. Back then it had a different title and similar, but different storyline. What was once a ten part serial I wrote for fanstory.com for free, receiving numerous yet relatively unknown accolades, it has evolved into an 82,000 word novel that I am very excited to have released.

I urge you to go check it out and would love to hear back from you on what you thought of it. I will be starting work on another project very soon. Whether it will be a SPIAR sequel or one of numerous ideas I have tumbling around in my mind is undetermined as of right this second.

Easy days and blissful nights,
V. E. Bystry

The End of the First Draft

A mere few minutes ago, I finished the first draft of my novel, SPIAR. Beating my 80,000 word goal by almost two thousand words was great, and I am so happy to finally have finished writing a book! (Well the first draft anyway)

The world in which my novel takes place is just getting started, leaving you on the seat of your pants wondering what is going to happen next. The last sentence is in quotations, something that I have rarely seen done.

I was going to begin editing it rather than writing this blog post, but alas, my printer ran out of ink a quarter of the way through printing it out! Which brings me to my reason for writing this post in the first place.

How many of you fellow writers out there edit your work by making marks on your printed manuscript? Do you use a red pen like your teachers used to do, striking out words that you thought are either extraneous or unnecessary? Or do you just plod back through it on your computer screen, changing things as you go along?

I plan on printing it out, changing a few things, and inserting the chapter breaks. Yes, I deflected that part on my first time through. To me, a novel has natural breaking points that scream “insert new chapter here” , so I figured that I would do that part after the fact.

Since I’m so jazzed up about finally finishing this project, I think that I am going to start looking through stock photos and mess around in photoshop to create an awesome cover for my modern day fantasy.

Easy days and blissful nights,

V. E. Bystry