Our neighborhood is having a multiple-house garage sale today, including Casa Harden. I admit I'm on an unpacking and cleaning binge now that A Cup of Conflict is out in the world.
(For those of you waiting on the paperback edition, I literally just received the cover wrap. I'll uploaded the files to the printer later tonight. Depending on how fast they review the book, retailer sites should start poplulately in a week.)
Anyway, I'm sitting in the shade of our Japanese maple and getting words done on Death Goddess Fighting in between customers.
I'm still planning on a Kickstarter for The Books of Apep series in October, which Death Goddess Fighting is Book 2. It's jamming along and I'm feeling pretty good about getting close to done over the next two weeks. The only change might be moving the Kickstarter to the middle or later part of October rather than the beginning. The monster doorstop that A Cup of Conflict became took longer than I'd planned.
Indian summer is upon us after the last three weeks of cooler temperatures, and the trees are changing their outfits before dropping their dresses entirely. Time to put up the Halloween decorations!
P.S. If you want to be notified when the Kickstarter goes live, sign up for my mailing list. (Your informationis never, sold, bartered, or traded!)
If you want to read the sample chapters of the first book of The Books of Apep, Death Goddess Walking, start with Chapter 1 on my website!
I don't know how many of you have been following the Bartz V. Anthropic case, but last week a tentative settlement had been reached.
Anthropic is an AI modeling firm. The problem is they've downloaded tons of pirated books to train their AI models. (The biggest irony in all this? Amazon is one of Anthropic's investors.)
William Alsup, the judge in the case recently declared that Anthropic's use of copyrighted works were a fair use, but he deemed their use of pirated copies to be illegal.
[DISCLOSURE: Five of my own pirated books were used by Anthropic.]
So what does this all mean?
First of all, find out if your books are listed in LibGen, one of the pirate sites used. The Atlantic put together a search engine to use. The other known pirate site is Pirate Library Mirror.
If any of your books are on the LibGen list, contact the law firm representing the plaintiffs here and fill out the contact form.
Your books MUST BE registered with the U.S. Copyright Office to be accepted in the planitiffs' class action suit!
And here's where most writers get confused. There's a HUGE difference in damages from a copyright infringement and a REGISTERED copyright infringement. If you don't understand the difference, I strongly recommend The Copyright Handbook by Stephen Fishman. Or talk to an IP attorney who specializes in copyright. Yes, the IP attorney will charge you for a consultation, but if you understand your rights and responsibilities as a creator, it will be totally worth the money!
Things a getting uglier as the billionaires steal our sweat. We little people need to look out for ourselves and each other.
On the other hand, I don't really pay enough attention to the calendar since I'm not counting days until a break in my schedule.
This is my long-winded way of saying, I forget yesterday was Labor Day until DH said something about sleeping in.
WHOOPS!
It also meant my support contractors had plans for the holiday.
DOUBLE WHOOPS!
So, I needed to to move the release date for the ebook back three days to September 8th.
*FACEPALM*
The paperback may be a couple of days later. I want to make sure my cover artist has fully covered from another round of COVID-19 before I harass her.
And yes, folks. No matter what the government is trying to pretend, COVID-19 is still an issue. Infection rates from two new variants, Stratus and Nimbus, are climbing.
Stay safe out there! And next Monday, you can curl up with a hot beverage, a furry pet on your lap, and plow through A Cup of Conflict.
Instead, it's been cool and rather rainy. I'd hoped to use the dog days of summer to dry out the last of the flooded paperwork so I could shred it. But alas, Mother Nature had other ideas.
Not that I'm complaining! We really needed a good soaking rain if the cracks in our yard's soil were any indication.
This morning was so chilly I broke down and made a cup of coffee for my morning caffeine fix instead of my usual summer ice tea or Pepsi Zero. But this cool respite won't last. It's supposed to be back up in the 80's next week.
In the meantime, I finished putting together all my files necessary for A Cup of Conflict Monday and sent them to my formatter. Tuesday and Wednesday, Google was acting a little wonky so I didn't trust it to post any updates. I focused on getting back into writing Death Goddess Fighting. Today's the first time I've been able to post to the blog without it doing weird stuff. However, I'll get back DGF this afternoon after some other administrative minutiae are dealt with. The writing is going smoothly for now, but then, this series has been simmering in my head for over fifteen years.
In the evenings, I've been putting together the pieces for the Kickstarter for The Books of Apep series. I think this will be a fun and entertaining campaign. At least, I'm having fun doing it! Plus, you'll get the series for a little bit of a discount.
But if you prefer to buy the new series via your favorite retailer, The Books of Apep will be released through to the general public starting in January.
Amazon, all countries
