Three days until the release of The Hall of the Prophetess, Book 3 of the series, The Day Magic Died. On Nov. 18, we’ll unveil the book … and a surprise!
Seems like a good time to recap.
What’s Book 1, The House in the Old Wood, about?
What’s Book 2, Karia’s Path, about?
What’s Book 3, The Hall of the Prophetess, about?
Do you have your copies of the first two books yet?
If you enjoy the books – and a number of you have said you do (again, thanks!) – would you help me get them in front of more readers?
You’re a much more effective voice than I am. Of course I want people to buy the books. But you wouldn’t be telling people about the books unless you really liked them. Or you owed me money. Which almost no one does. Unless you’re feeling guilty and think you might owe me money. In that case, feel free to ease your guilt by telling people about the books.
Here are some more specific ideas …
Put it out: If you have a print version of one or more of my books, put it on your desk at work or on your coffee table. Or drive through a bad part of town with the passenger window down and the book on the passenger seat. Wait, on second thought, don’t do that last one.
Loan the book: Let someone else read your print copy of the first book. That’s one of the best ways to get people to read it. And then they’ll be hooked and have to read the next book. But don’t let them borrow your copy of the other books. Send them to Amazon for Karia’s Path instead.
Give a book (or two or three or more) as a gift: Discounted to less than $10 each on Amazon for paperbacks and as little as $4.99 for the Kindle edition, they’re great gifts for friends who have birthdays coming up. And don’t forget, Christmas is just around the corner. (Hint hint hint) Oh, and if you don’t want to really irritate them, best start with The House in the Old Wood.
Post a review: Tell others what you think of the books on Amazon.com or at Goodreads.com — or on your blog or Facebook or anywhere else you think folks will see it. Pick out something you liked about the book. A reason you enjoyed the book. A book you would compare it to. Be honest. You won’t hurt my feelings. Well, maybe you will, but I’ll get even. I mean, I’ll get over it. Yeah, that’s what I meant. See what others have written about The House in the Old Wood
Tell your friends: Like a review, pick out something you liked about the book. A reason you enjoyed the book, or a book you would compare it to. One great way to do this is with a bookmark. I have plenty still, and I’d be glad to send some your way so you can spread the word. Message me on Facebook, or use the Contact form on my blog.
Here are some of ways other people have helped spread the word:
How have you spread the word? Have you used any of these? Or something else? How did it go?
Just like the second edition of The House in the Old Wood,
Probably the most significant one is the replacement of the word “Zounds.” That word, it turns out, means either God’s hounds or God’s wounds, and is considered by some a curse word. In addition, one of my critical readers pointed out, it just didn’t make sense. There is no “God” per se in these books.
But there is a remnant of worship of the First Ones, so I’ve replaced “Zounds” with words based on references to the First Ones. That continues through the rest of the books, so for those of you who bought the first edition, I’ll share a passage from the second edition that explains things a bit.
Spoiler alert: If you have not read The House in the Old Wood, you will not want to read the rest of this post!
This takes place in Chapter Thirteen, when Karia is hiding under the porch as the adults talk:
“She masters fire,” her mom said.
“Nym’chin!” Avar shouted.
“Avar, watch your language!” Nana scolded. Karia jumped. She had heard the term only once or twice before – it was short for “Nymph on a chain” and was a strong curse word. She never could figure out how that could be a curse word, but then again, there were expressions she used a lot – Nymph’s Wake, Meadowstars and Fires and Ashes – that didn’t make a lot of sense to her either.
She knew how to use them, of course. Meadowstars was a way of saying something was ridiculous; Nym’chin was a much cruder way of saying much the same thing. Nymph’s Wake was something you said when you found yourself in a bad spot. Fire and ashes? she thought. I guess it’s just something you say.
“And keep your voice down,” Nana continued, “or should we just invite Narek, Timbal and Karia to join us?”
The other changes were mostly fixing typos – in part because Word doesn’t like to spellcheck when you have 90,000 words in a document and dozens are in made-up languages and therefore look like misspellings – and adding words I dropped while writing. That’s bad habit I have. I mean, that’s a bad habit I have.
And those two things are why I, and my wife, Julie, and my critical readers, have all been paying a lot closer attention to these things for Karia’s Path and beyond. I’ve even added someone to my critical readers team who is very good at spotting typos.
Spoiler alert: If you have not read The House in the Old Wood, you will not want to read this post!
I’d better finish telling you what’s different in the second edition of the first book, The House in the Old Wood, before the second book, Karia’s Path, gets here!
In addition to including a map and the first chapter of Karia’s Path, the second edition of The House in the Old Wood has a minor change to the ending of Chapter 5 so you can actually see some Inamali writing. Here is how it reads in the first edition:
Bending down to pick up the quill, her shoulder brushed against the writing stand, nudging it. When she stood again, she saw that on the stand, under the dust, was a piece of paper with some writing on it.
She put the pen back in the inkwell, picked up the paper and blew the dust off.
The writing was Inamali. She recognized the slender, fine characters. And at the top, she saw the only word she could read in Inamali:
“Karia.”
In the second edition, it’s a bit longer and has … well, take a look:
Bending down to pick up the quill, her shoulder brushed against the writing stand, nudging it. When she stood again, she saw that on the stand, under the dust, was a piece of paper with some writing on it.
She put the pen back in the inkwell, picked up the paper and blew the dust off.
The writing was Inamali. She recognized the slender, fine characters. At the top, she saw a familiar word:
It was the only word she could read in Inamali:
“Karia.”
by Ian Fallis 
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