Volume 1

And We’re Off!

/ Eli Kale / Leave a comment

Friends,

Welcome to a new week! My hope is that it will be a week filled with productivity and accomplished goals, for me as well as for you. Let’s get to this week’s content…

The Faces of the War Collection

Since last week’s post, there have been a few developments regarding my WWII collection. First, the details for Book Four’s cover have been sent, and I’m essentially awaiting my designer’s confirmation that he received it, as well as a quote for the design service. Hopefully within a week or so, work will begin on the next cover. Second, I spent some time this weekend (as well as time today after I write this) chipping away at the Prologue of Book Four. I’m just over 250 words into it, and I’m hoping for another 1,000 by the end of the week. I was a little anxious that I wouldn’t be able to start off this story strong, but so far things are proving otherwise!

If you’re new to my work and are interested in my WWII historical fiction, you can check out my books Resistant, Unguarded, and Imminent on Amazon in print and on the Kindle.

The Short Story Collection

Minor progress is being made on this project, but progress nonetheless. I think we’re getting into that part of the writing on this project where I will only update every so often about it, considering that its progress won’t be as quick to come as with Faces. Fear not, for I will keep you informed of this project’s details, especially when release draws near!

If you’re new to my work and are interested in my short stories, you can check out Volume 1 and Volume 2 on the Kindle.

Writing Tip: If you encounter a rut in the road of writing, be open to considering courses of action your character(s) can take that surprise you – if it surprises you, maybe it’ll surprise your readers.

That’s all I have for this week. If you’re new, welcome to my post and my website. Please feel free to browse around and see what I’m up to, and don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list (click the Contact tab) so you don’t miss the inside scoop on my work. Thank you for reading this post and for supporting me in my passion. It means a great deal!

Until next time,

-Eli

Details All Around

/ Eli Kale / Leave a comment

Friends,

I’d like to start off today’s post by remembering the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on this day in 1941. It’s the event that acted as our catalyst for war, resulting in our involvement in both the Pacific and European theaters of the war. Without our entry, things may have turned out very differently. So please, take a moment and think about how this day 74 years ago changed the course of history, and be grateful for the victorious outcome our country achieved in its aftermath.

~ * ~

I’d like to thank you for reading this post, and to welcome you to my blog. If this is your first time reading, you’ll find information in my blog posts related to my writing projects, as well as to other things going on in my life such as teaching and traveling. If you’re not new, then you already know! Let’s get into this week’s content…

The Faces of the War Collection

In my WWII historical fiction collection, I’ve made some good progress on my third book, titled “Imminent.” At the moment, I have about 13K words remaining in the manuscript that still need edited and placed into the final draft file, so things are progressively coming to a close. I got a good chunk of work done yesterday, and I’ll continue to chip away at it over the coming weeks. A reminder from last week’s blog post: the new release date (more than tentative but not 100%) is January 8. If not then, it will be around that time (like the following Monday the 11th, for example). I am wrapping up communication with my cover designer this week, so you can expect to see a reveal next week. There will be other book/story details given at that time as well, so keep your eyes open!

If you haven’t yet checked out my first two books, you can find them on Amazon in both Kindle and print formats: Resistant and Unguarded.

Writing Tip: A piece of advice I was once given stated that when writing, don’t be too liberal with the exclamation point. The person said, “If the character isn’t on fire, don’t use it.” If used too much, it can take away some of the urgency or emotion in the dialogue, which can negatively affect the story.

The Short Story Collection

I’ve said recently that I plan on developing the next volume of short stories simultaneously with the fourth book (writing begins in January), and that I hope for a summer release. I currently have the three story ideas in place; I just need to plan them out in detail. From there, the writing could take anywhere from 2-6 months. My focus, however, will be on my WWII projects, so the short stories will be tended to here and there.

If you haven’t yet checked out my first two volumes, you can find them available for the Kindle on Amazon: Volume 1 and Volume 2.

Writing Tip: When writing story text (dialogue or otherwise), don’t include too many commas in any one sentence. In most cases, those lengthy sentences can be broken down. Having too many commas can lend to reader confusion. 

YouTube

I’d like to thank those who have subscribed to my YouTube channel and who’ve watched my videos. I make these videos to document my life – writing, teaching, traveling, and personal – because I want to share my experiences with those who will listen. We all grow in our own way, but having a part of that growth be in the form of connecting through an amazing platform as YouTube is pretty awesome, and I want you to join me on the journey!

You can subscribe to my channel here, where you’ll find weekly videos posted about my writing projects, my teaching life, my travels, and certain aspects of my personal life. And if you’d like a more detailed look into my work, as well as to connect with me and fellow readers, I encourage you to join my mailing list. You can email me at elikale.author@gmail.com with a quick “hello” letting me know you’d like to be added to the list. I welcome anyone and everyone!

That will do it for this week’s blog post. Be sure to check out next week’s post where I’ll reveal the book cover for Imminent and detail book/story details.

Until next time,

-Eli

New Short Stories Released!

/ Eli Kale / Leave a comment

Friends,

I know I’ve said this before, but the autumn season is wonderful! So many beautiful scenes to be seen and smells to be smelled, all before the backdrop of everyday life! Time flies by, whether we realize it or not, and soon it will be a new year. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s get into this week’s post…

The Short Story Collection

After much time of fiddling with different ideas and developing nascent stories, I’ve finally arrived to the point of releasing a new volume of short stories! I originally wanted to publish this ebook shortly after Unguarded came out earlier this year, but I opted to focus my writing efforts on Imminent. At that point I thought, “I’ll get the new volume out by summer.” That didn’t happen. “Early fall, perhaps.” That didn’t happen either. My goal, then, was to release it by my birthday in February.

However, my writing muse intervened and urged me to finish the work and finalize the stories, one of which was already completed. I sent the other two off to a friend for some feedback, which I quickly got back and implemented. After a final read-through, I submitted the ebook to be released through Amazon, and it was done very quickly. I submitted it Thursday night and it went live within a few hours, having the official release date of October 15. You can check it out and purchase it on this sales page!

Cover of Volume 2 in “The Short Story Collection”

Like my first volume, the stories in Volume 2 vary from my larger projects with regard to different aspects, such as scope and story premise. That’s been the whole goal all along: to produce new content that is different and that allows me to experiment with my writing. So I encourage you to pick up a copy on your Kindle (or through your Kindle reading app) and let me know what you think about my new work. I hope you enjoy it!

The Faces of the War Collection

Progress is being made with the edits for Imminent, with everything still on track for an early December release. This story is really coming together as I’m going back through and addressing changes or additions from my editor. The idea is that she’ll complete her work by November (thus allowing her to do NaNoWriMo), which then will give me a month to go through and do my final read-throughs. My goal is to submit the final manuscript to Amazon by November 30 so that it can be available for purchase by December 11. Details regarding pre-order for Kindle and the costs for both formats (print and Kindle) will be given when the cover is released – sometime in the next few weeks. Barring any major impediments, you’ll have another WWII historical fiction book by Christmas!

Indie Writing Advice

Due to Volume 2 being released, I had to take care of the book’s details in Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). There’s a YouTube video that covers this on my channel, so feel free to check it out. I’ll say that it would be good to explore the ins and outs of Amazon KDP before you are ready to upload your book. This way, you are familiar enough with how it works and what all needs done in order to complete the uploading process for publication. That is, if you’re wanting to sell your work on the Kindle platform. Personally, I only sell through Amazon. Everyone has their own reasons for choosing what platform(s) they sell their work through, and each certainly has its own draw. So if you’re in a position where you have a manuscript nearly ready for publication – and you want to sell it on the Kindle – I suggest you log into KDP and get acquainted!

That’s it for this week, but there’ll be more in the coming weeks! Thank you so much for reading this post, and for your support and encouragement of my work. If you haven’t yet done so, I encourage you to join my mailing list (you can email me with a brief “Hey, how are ya? I wanna join the mailing list!” at elikale.author@gmail.com) to get the most detailed and behind-the-scenes information regarding my projects, especially Imminent!

Until next time,

-Eli

News, Quotes, and Such

/ Eli Kale / Leave a comment

Friends,

I’d like to start this week and this post off with one of my favorite quotes:

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.” Let’s get down to today’s material…

The Faces of the War Collection

This past week, I had one day off from my day job. I earmarked that day as a day of writing, and let me tell you–I wrote. I typed over 3,000 words in Book Three, bringing the size of the manuscript up to just over 12K words. That’s a little more than a quarter of the way done with the first draft! I was satisfied with the writing I accomplished, and am looking forward to yet another full day off this week. I only hope I can be just as productive, if not more!

Resistant and Unguarded, my first two books in this collection, are continuing to sell at a slow but steady rate. I hope to see that rate increase after I attend the Dayton Book Expo and as the following few months roll along.

Dayton Book Expo

I am looking forward to heading south to Dayton on April 25 for the Expo. This week, I’ll be putting together all my table supplies and book accessories for the event; I hope everything comes together all right! If you will be in attendance at the Expo, I hope to see you at my table. You’ll be able to find me in the Expo author directory; however, I’ll be under my real name of Mike Pratt because that’s how I signed up. Remember, Eli Kale is merely my pen name.

If I get things put together well enough over the next few weeks, I might slip you a sneak peek at my table materials, perhaps through Instagram. So keep an eye out!

The Short Story Collection

I will resume work on my next short story book, Volume 2, this week. I gave myself almost a week off from the project, mostly so I could rest my eyes and brain from those stories, but also to devote time to my WWII project as mentioned above. I also have one of the stories out to an editor friend who is looking over the story for me. Another set of eyes always helps with writing!

If all goes as planned (which it sometimes doesn’t) with this project, I’ll release the ebook by May 1. I’ll keep you posted on it. You can check out Volume 1 on the Kindle here.

YouTube

If you haven’t checked out my vlogs (video logs) on YouTube yet, I encourage you to do so! I am currently in the middle of a series on my writing process and my writing life in general. In each video, I include details about a specific step in my writing process, and how it can relate to you. I also give brief talking points on other writing-related topics, some of which go hand in hand with the day’s writing process step. Not only do you learn of how I write, but you get a glimpse into my life and what makes me the writer I am. Be sure to subscribe to my channel (by clicking the red Subscribe button below any video of mine that you watch) and to give my videos a Thumbs Up (by clicking the thumbs-up icon near the video’s title). It helps grow my presence on YouTube!

GoFundMe Campaign

I am still awaiting my first donation to my campaign to support the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. As an incentive, the first few donors will receive a Kindle ebook copy of one of my books, as a thank-you! So head on over to my campaign site and donate – even $5 will do!

As always, thank you all for the support and encouragement you’ve given me to do what I have a passion for doing. And if you’re new to me and my work, welcome aboard and I hope you can get something out of what it is that I do!

Until next time,

-Eli

It’s Already March!

/ Eli Kale / Leave a comment

Friends,

A new week, a new chance to make a difference, a new opportunity to accomplish your goals. It’s crazy that March is already here! Let’s delve into today’s post…

The Faces of the War Collection

Some more copies of Unguarded have sold in the past week, and that makes me very happy to see! I encourage you to please check out my new book if you haven’t already done so. And pass the word along to your friends and coworkers!

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I haven’t put much time toward Book Three because of work and the fact that I’ve been writing my next short story volume. However, I’m not going to fret over this. The book will be tended to in due time. I don’t want to rush the writing just to match the time frame of previous books. It will be written in its own time. Another big part of why writing has taken a hit in these past couple of weeks is because of my launch on YouTube, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

As for Book Three, I am anxious to see where the story takes me and how the process goes along this time around. I’ve said it before – the writing experience for all of my books thus far has been different every time. And I like that. It shows that I am improving my craft and making the stories new and exciting, not recycling the same routine and feel when writing.

In terms of the story, I can’t give out too many details just yet, but they will be coming to you over the next few months!

The Short Story Collection

I have two of the three stories fleshed out and already half-written, but the third story has yet to be figured out. I have a pool of story ideas from which I can choose to fill that spot, but I just can’t seem to land on a solid enough idea. There is still time, though. I don’t plan on releasing this volume until further into spring, and I’m almost three-fourths of the way through the first two stories. If you haven’t checked out my first ebook, Volume 1, I encourage you to do so.

YouTube

The first two vlogs on my YouTube channel launched this past Friday, and they both already have more than a dozen views each! If you missed the launch and what it’s all about, you can check out my post about it here.

I am really looking forward to the journey ahead and seeing where it takes me, and who comes along for the ride. If you check out the videos, please “Subscribe” to my channel. It greatly improves my presence and author platform, and besides – I do this for you, my readers, and also for fellow writers!

GoFundMe Campaign

I recently started a campaign to raise money on GoFundMe, a crowdfunding site. I want to raise money for the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana because keeping the history of that time period alive and understood is something important to me. If you’d like to learn more about it, you can check out the link for it here. I’d really appreciate it if you considered donating some money, even five dollars, because every little bit helps and will get me to my goal!

I am very thankful for those who have been following my work since the beginning, and for the support and encouragement you’ve given me. Please pass the word along to anyone you know who would be interested in what I do. I always love being able to share my passion with new people!

Until next time,

-Eli

Bear with Me

/ Eli Kale / Leave a comment

Friends,

Welcome to a new week with a fresh start! I hope you are faring well in all your projects, whether it be writing or reading. Remember, you should always try to write a little each day even if it is only a little bit, and reading other authors’ works helps in the creation of your own.

There has been some progress since last week, so let’s get right into it…

The Faces of the War Collection

If you have tried to purchase Resistant in print from Amazon, you will have noticed that there is no stock. That is untrue, however that is what it has to say for now. The reason for that is because I am in the process of switching everything for Resistant from WaveCloud (the company I used to distribute the book upon its release) to me. I wanted to have complete control over it, especially when it came to tracking my earnings and sales rankings. Because of this, WaveCloud had to “unpublish” the book (essentially take it down from Amazon on their end) and then send me the files to upload myself (“republishing” the book). The process can be slow at times, I’m told, so I ask that you please bear with me. Resistant will be made available in print again soon! It is available for the Kindle, so that option is open to you if you’d prefer.

As for the second book in the collection, Unguarded, it is coming along well. The first draft word count came in at just over 43K and I have since added to it while doing slight revisions. I am currently waiting to receive Part I (of III) from my editors, going back through the other two Parts in the meantime. I also mentioned before that there is an Epilogue in this book, which helped in extending the word count past Resistant’s word count of 38K. I am aiming to release the book by Christmas, which is dependent on how quickly and efficiently I can get through the editing process. If not, the book will release shortly after Christmas like I originally intended. Nothing but good news for my readers, as I am ahead of schedule.

The Short Story Collection

If you haven’t checked it out already, I have published the first volume of short stories that will contribute to my short story collection. The idea behind this project is that I would release volumes of short stories (usually containing 3-5 stories each) over time, in between my other larger projects. After a handful of volumes are released, I would have a large enough collection of short stories to offer my readers (especially new readers), which would afford them material to read aside from my WWII collection. I would like to give as much variety to my readers as I can manage, and I figured this would be a good way to it.

The second volume is underway and should be release in early 2015. That’s how it looks at this point!

Other News

Also, if you haven’t already joined my mailing list, I encourage you to do so. There is quite a bit of information that is revealed through my newsletter that comes out about every two weeks, and it contains more details than my blog does here. I’m using it as a means to connect with my readers on a more personal level, because I think it’s great when a person can interact with the author of a book they like. It makes the reading experience more meaningful, in my opinion.

All of the links needed to check out my upcoming books, as well as to join my mailing list, are located on this website by using the tabs at the top of the page. So please take a moment to browse my site–it is laid out very practically and can be easily navigated and accessed.

That is all I have for now. I hope to get to work on some more revisions this week and planning ahead for my upcoming projects after Unguarded is released. If you want the real scoop on it, join my mailing list!

Until next time,

-Eli

Much More News!

/ Eli Kale / Leave a comment

Friends,

I have much to tell you today, so let us jump right into it, shall we?

The Short Story Collection

I mentioned in last week’s blog that I would be releasing the first of many volumes (hopefully) that will come to comprise my Short Story Collection soon, as in sometime by last Friday. To my surprise, and a welcomed one at that, the publishing process through Amazon KDP was very easy and much faster than I thought it would be. I submitted my story Monday night and by Tuesday morning it was live. Since then, I have made a few changes here and there–mostly formatting and aesthetic changes–but I still got it “out there” long before I thought I could. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can go to the tab on my website that says “The Short Story Collection” and find information there as well as the sales page. Note that it is only available for the Kindle.

Volume 1 - Cover

I am very satisfied with the effort and work put into this first volume, and I can safely tell you that I already have a handful of more stories in the works for upcoming volumes. So stay tuned!

The Faces of the War Collection

Last week, I began Monday morning with ZERO words typed for Part III of Unguarded, the second book in the collection. By Friday, I had nearly reached 10K words. For me, that is an incredible accomplishment. I have never written that many words in such a short amount of time. I am in no way meaning to boast, but rather to use it as encouragement for others, especially if they are experiencing a rut or bump in their own writing path.

If ever you find yourself encountering an obstacle in your writing, do not give up. I repeat…DO NOT GIVE UP. Find a way around that obstacle. In most cases, or at least in my experience, the best first option to take is to give yourself a break. Even if it is only for 5-10 minutes, that little bit of time away from a project can work wonders. There is more I can tell you, but I am putting together material and ideas for a blog post related to this topic, so keep an eye out in the coming weeks for it!

The point is, a vast majority of beginning writers–and sometimes even not-so-new writers, quit writing even for a time because of the obstacles they face. That is part of the whole process. Writing is not meant to be easy…not good writing, anyway. It takes time and practice to come close to reaching whatever it is that you consider “perfection” for your own process and purpose. I am by no means “perfect” myself–not by anyone else’s standards or my own–but I accomplish most of what I set out to do because I make it work. I don’t give up on myself or what I am aspiring to do.

In Other News…

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I revamped my website. I also mentioned that in last week’s blog as something that would probably happen in the coming weeks. I felt compelled to do it sooner, apparently. I’m sure you don’t mind, as it is hopefully a pleasant surprise for you. I feel that it is more streamlined and better looking than the old website.

As for the mailing list, it is slowly growing! I am very pleased that I have gained some readers in my “inner circle” if you will. That is, after all, the intention of the mailing list: to reach readers on a more personal level. I think it is great when readers can connect with authors whose work they enjoy. It helps you appreciate their work more, I believe. If you haven’t joined yet yourself, or if you know someone who you think would like to join, you can find the (free) subscription form under the “About” tab on the website.

The last thing I wanted to touch on today is regarding ratings and reviews. I recently reviewed a memoir on mental illness (something I don’t usually read about), which turned out to be a very interesting read. It is entitled, “Please Save Me From Myself” and is written by Sebastian Aiden Daniels. Afterward, he told me he was very appreciative of me for leaving him a review. If you aren’t aware, ratings and reviews really help spread the word about someone’s work. Not just of any one particular book, but of all the work of an author in general. Writing a review literally takes no longer than fifteen minutes, tops. And it goes a long way, let me tell you. So to close this spiel, I encourage you to leave a review for books you read. If you didn’t like the book, that’s one thing. But it really encourages an author when he/she sees a new review, and it inspires them to keep on doing what they love. So please, think of that the next time you finish a book!

Until next time,

-Eli