Do you like pictures? I hope you like pictures, because I got my author proof this week! That’s right, the first-ever physical copy of The Failed Technomancer! I’ll show it off below.

Proof copies are ordered before anything else simply to ensure that the printer is doing its job. I flipped through every page of the book to make sure no chapters were duplicated, pages turned upside down, and anything else I’ve been told could go wrong, and I’m pleased to say the book came out perfectly! Well, other than some battering from the thick proof copy being shoved in my tiny, tiny mailbox, but that’s not the printer’s fault.

Anyway, I was on cloud nine for pretty much the entirety of that day. This week I start ordering author proofs and sending them off to reviewers, and hopefully that gets the word out there! I have no idea which marketing efforts will be most successful for me.

This is going to be the second-to-last week I post links to purchase again. My goal is to, next week, figure out how to make a page on this website dedicated to this book, and once I do that I can store all the information in the world there. (That project takes a backseat to finishing developmental edits on Inner Demon, but more on that later.)

Ebooks General Universal Link: https://books2read.com/u/bONM9g

• The above can take you to Amazon Kindle, Apple Ebook, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Angus & Robertson, and Mondadori

Paperback Copies:

• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2S7MGZ1
• B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-failed-technomancer-boo-ludlow/1143263213?ean=9798987583029

Unfortunately, hardcover copies are looking increasingly unlikely to happen. I planned everything out for The Failed Technomancer to be a 5×8 book (in every format) because I thought it was the perfect general size, then discovered that nowhere prints 5×8 hardcover books. Draft2Digital Print and IngramSpark might end up saving me here, but I’m not holding my breath.

Audiobook Copies:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ibMsf3ROSNKS11tttfllu
• Chirp: https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/the-failed-technomancer-by-boo-ludlow
• Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/failed-technomancer-the
• Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/637850809/The-Failed-Technomancer-A-Science-Fantasy-Novel-with-Horror-Elements
• Libro.FM: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9798987583036
• Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Boo_Ludlow_The_Failed_Technomancer?id=AQAAAEAiN0l3eM
• BingeBooks: https://bingebooks.com/book/the-failed-technomancer
• NOOK Audiobooks: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-failed-technomancer-boo-ludlow/1143263213?ean=2940160056043
• Storytel: https://www.storytel.com/se/sv/books/4280581
• Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/failed-technomancer-a-science-fantasy-novel-with-horror-elements/680942

Pricing

The book is currently $0.99 everywhere (in ebook and audiobook form—about $15.99 for print). I plan on bumping that up to $2.99 or $3.99 about a week after I’ve finally gotten it available in all the forms and on all the platforms I’m planning to.

Anyway… whew, that was a lot. Let’s move on to stuff that’s more fun.

Inner Demon

BOOM! Finished my first go-over of developmental edits last week AND started my second, faster round. I’m about 12 chapters in and at this pace I should easily hit my goal of finishing smaller tweaks before the week is over.

Editing is difficult for me. My favorite part of writing is the inventing and discovering that happens while I’m writing (or worldbuilding)—which happens whether I’m fully discovering my story as I write, or as I write my way toward story goals using a loose outline. As a result, editing turns into the real work part of being an author, where I have to really make myself push through until the end. But it’s worth it. And whenever I review the emotional slam that is the conclusion of Inner Demon, I get reminded why this book is worth it. I’m really excited to have it out (fingers crossed) later this year. Of course, I also thought everything was going to be finished for The Failed Technomancer in February, so really I’m just hoping to have the ebook out later this year with everything else trailing after.

“Bloggyness”

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher, I do not plan on finishing. It started out a very funny, quirky romp, then by the middle of the book I was thoroughly bored.

This book has over 8,000 reviews on Amazon alone, 66% of which are 5-star, 26% 4-star, so I’m not saying this is a bad book—it clearly has an audience that really likes it. And the book has a lot of high points. The main character (Mona) is very opinionated in a way that’s usually amusing, and her voice comes out very, very clearly in every sentence. The world feels familiar-enough fantasy to make it easy to get into, but different-enough to feel fresh in a lot of ways. Almost everything that happens in the book is quirky or bizarre, and I had several laugh-out-loud moments in the first few chapters. I was a big fan of the little truly magical baking we get in the book, which includes the following:

• A sourdough starter named Bob that’s probably alive, terrifyingly voracious, and willing to eat anything.
• An animated gingerbread man who is alarmingly good at solitaire and other simple games.
• Magically hardened sourdough slices that float on water, fully capable of letting you “skate” over the surface of water in a pinch. (Strap slices to your feet for best results.)

Unfortunately, for me, the charm of the outrageous and unexpected wore out by the time my Kindle told me I was 60% of the way through the book (more-or-less). With how heavily the book focuses on Mona and her emotional state (particularly her embarrassments), she didn’t change enough, or have enough unexpected sides to her, for me to retain my interest over the course of the book. I also largely found myself uninvested in the plot (which otherwise could have saved the book for me), I think because I found it hard to believe that the main bad guy would care about Mona at all—or perhaps it was the disappointing lack of defensive magical baking in the first half of the book. (Maybe there’s a ton of defensive magical baking in the second half, but I’ll never know.)

Also, this did not factor into the above review, but the way the book used the word “wizard” was a pet peeve of mine. Wizards study and practice magic, making a formal skill or discipline out of it. Most of the characters in this book just naturally have magical tricks they can do whether they put effort into it or not, making most of them more accurately described as sorcerers or mages (or, as the book itself describes them sometimes, magickers). Does this matter? No, but I read enough fantasy that I have little preferences like this that get me annoyed sometimes.

Anyway, if you like weird humor, YA fantasy, and the eventual promise of a sourdough starter that develops sentience and starts eating people, you might enjoy A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking a lot more than I did—almost 8,000 people on Amazon fall in that camp.