Tiffany Rambles

I'm a big supporter of author David N. Alderman and his communities/books. The Crossover Alliance Giveaway contest looks really awesome. I'm particularly hoping to get my hands on The Maze.

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Last year, I did a post summarizing what I did all year. Why not do the same thing for 2012? Unfortunately, I didn't write as many posts this year as I did last year. In 2011, I was able to read all my posts at Tiffany Rambles to jog my memory. I'll do the same for 2012, but I'll definitely have to fill in the blanks more often.

Keep in mind that this list is not in order of when they actually occurred.

• I discovered myself and learned to accept who I am and who I'm becoming: Many of my posts in February revolved around my battle with overcoming depression and how much I have changed since meeting Matthew. Discovering and accepting myself as well as learning to fully trust my love for Matthew were two of the most important things to happen to me last year, but I did spend a considerable time making sure I didn't regress.
• Indiegogo Campaign: Though I'm still working on Unconventional Methods due to having a lot to learn about self-publishing and unfortunately being distracted by a number of other assignments, last year I ran an Indiegogo campaign and made about 16% of my goal ($290 out of $2000). It wasn't enough to fully self-publish the book, but it's definitely a much better amount to start with than $0. I plan to have Unconventional Methods ready for publication and in the hands of formatters and artists sometime this month.
• Launched an author website: I mainly launched the site for the Indiegogo campaign, but, when the campaign ended, I dedicated a good amount of time and energy into making the site something I'd be proud of. I succeeded in that enough to get a great website critique from Author Media.
• Wrote Unconventional Methods: Sure, I still need to edit it again and get it ready for publication, but I did finish writing the book. It's the first nonfiction book I've written, the first book I plan on self-publishing. Because of that, writing this book means a lot to me. Unfortunately, I wrote little to no fiction, but I've pretty much accepted the fact that I won't be writing fiction for a while. EDIT: I'm currently working on a contemporary fiction book that I'm very excited about.
• Went back to college: In spite of my love/hate relationship with college, I enrolled myself in Purdue Calumet in time for the fall semester. I actually did very well. I got a 3.53 gpa, which was much better than my 2.7 gpa from the Fall 2011 semester at IUB, and I enjoyed college this time around much more than I did the first time.
• $1400 Month: Last year, I made more money in one month editing and reviewing novels than I made all 5 months working as a barista at IUB. It was a very busy, stressful month, but definitely well worth it. The $1400 gave me much more confidence about taking my freelance duties to the next level. Soon, when I can find a way to make $1400 months a more consistent thing, I will be going full-time.
• Stopped Being a Wallflower: By that, I mean I finally stopped despising myself for not hanging out with people, for feeling like my life revolves around Matthew too much, and actually hung out. Spending too much time with others does drain energy from me. If I start feeling like I'm obligated to be social, I very quickly get miserable. However, when I allow myself to be a social butterfly after spurts of being a loner, I genuinely feel a lot better about myself. I'm still trying to figure out when to switch between the two.
• Became a writer for Neatorama: Neatorama is my first paying gig, and it's an amazingly fun and flexible job. I love finding interesting content to share, sharing it, and then actually getting paid at the end of the month for doing something I'd do for fun anyway. I can't thank Adrienne Crezo enough for putting up a status on FB about a website hiring writers. Without her, I would have never had the opportunity to get this job.

Since 2012 is coming to an end, I figured it would be a great idea to write a post featuring my top five most popular/helpful posts this year. Listing and rereading these posts are as helpful for me as they will hopefully be for you. 2013 will be one hell of a year for me, so it's important I take note of what posts were popular and try to comprehend why. Enjoy!

It's a good thing I don't have an established, large fanbase yet. I still have a lot to learn about self-publishing, especially when it comes to conversions, distribution, and cover art. Even worse, a lot of personal matters interfered. Unfortunately, that means that I couldn't release Unconventional Methods December 5th.

At first I thought I could learn and do all the conversion and distribution on my own (generally my downfall; I'm learning to get better at accepting help), but then I realized that was unlikely to happen. I almost turned to Book Baby, but after lots of research and discussions with other writers, I decided against that. While I wouldn't say Book Baby is a scam or that it's vanity, I have heard that the prices can easily be avoided and that the customer service has a tendency of going down once you actually sign on with them.

Instead, I think I'm going to The Eyes for Editing or WalkingStick Books for ebook and print conversions. I've come up with my own ideas for promotion, but I wouldn't mind turning to Xpresso for a book tour. Of course, this depends on how the tour sign-up process works and if they do tours for nonfiction books. By that, I mean how exactly does Xpresso get participants? I wish I could turn to Novel Publicity for a tour, but they're much too expensive for me.

While I like my current cover, I'm thinking about buying a stock image and creating a new cover. Interior design and book jacket design are two things I never thought about, unfortunately, so I still have a lot more planning to do if I plan to make this book both an ebook and a print book. I still have to create and pay for a number of tl;dr cards as well.

So far, here are prices (as of now) for what I'm talking about:

1.) Stock Image - $19
2.) eBook formatting - $100
3.) Print formatting - $150
4.) 100 copies of tl;dr card - $39.99

Already, that's over my current budget ($300) and that doesn't even count taxes or other hidden prices I may not know about just yet. My ordering of print copies for Indiegogo backers will have to wait. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I don't have to put one of the things above on hold until I do other freelance things on the side to pay for it.

In all, I'll have to update my Unconventional Methods page to make it clear that most of the dates there have changed and that I can't do the book tour (Only two people volunteered anyhow).

This is all a learning process for me. As of now, there are three other books I'd like to self-publish - a how-to series and an anthology. Working on Unconventional Methods is a great way to prepare me for those books.

Nathan Pierce has a lot in common with the Broken Lands. In spite of how much damage has been done to the world thanks to Legion and the president, there is still sunlight and love within Nathan. Sure, he struggles with the sunlight, but it's still there and can remain there as long as he has enough faith in himself and those he loves.

As thus, it's only fitting that Exodus, the last book in the Black Earth series, begins with Nathan reflecting in the Broken Lands about the many people who have already departed either from this world or from his life before continuining his journey against Legion.

Sitting in the Broken Lands playground, watching the sun set with Ginger, is one of Nathan's last moments of peace.

Soon after, they find a woman who is part of Legion, a woman willing to help Nathan and betray Legion in the process. Unfortunately, her very presence causes more members of Legion to arrive, and things can only get worse when more members of Legion join the fray.

In a dark realm far from where Nathan and members of Daisy's Rebellion ran into trouble, Cynthia Sin Ruin sits atop a throne as the princess of the Black Cathedral, the mysterious Ryn her king. She doesn't know exactly why Ryn asked her to be the princess or what exactly she's supposed to do, but she has mixed feelings about the Black Cathedral. Sometimes she's anxious and afraid; other times, she loves the power, and she loves the power even more when Ryn gives her the one thing she loves most - sex slaves. Her battle is within. Will she lose herself to her sex addiction and the darkness involved in being the princess of the Dark Cathedral?

Back on Earth and inside the high tech SilverTech facility, Mr. Silver is still dealing with the assassin who has been trying to kill him for a while. Even more, he has to prepare to leave for Anaisha along with the selective group of people being sent to Anaisha with his special airships, but that won't be so easy with an assassin as successful as Mira deadset on taking his life.

Of course, as the case with all the books in David Alderman's Black Earth series, there are more plots than just the point of view (POV) ones. Ericka Shane, Heather, Pearl, President Stone, Evanescence, Olivia, Absolute, Marigold, Ryn, Chaos, Legion...they all play a considerable role in the plot. All of the sub-plots intertwine, but this time around there aren't as many sub-plots to keep up with.

For the most part, I really liked Exodus. The descriptions, especially the descriptions for battle scenes with Legion, were wonderful. I loved the character development for Nathan, Heather, Cynthia, and Ericka. I enjoyed reminiscing about how certain characters were in the first book and marvelling at what they became. Since I knew that the Black Earth series would lead to David's Expired Reality series, I didn't expect a happy-go-lucky movie ending where the main protagonists would somehow defeat the antagonists in the nick of time and save earth moments before it could fall apart. I don't want to spoil the ending, of course, but my expectations about the ending were true.

There were some things I didn't like, but I'll cover that below, in my review of the entire Black Earth series.

Black Earth Series

I've read and reviewed all four books in the Black Earth series. If you want to read my reviews of the first three books, just click the corresponding title:

Black Earth: End of the Innocence 
Black Earth: The Broken Daisy
Black Earth: Dark Masquerade

This is the first book series where I've reviewed all the books. That in itself makes me very happy. It's been quite the ride, but I enjoyed reading the series as much as I enjoyed talking to the author.

Characters have grown, some more than others, and much has changed. Many have joined the tale and disappeared. The conflicts became tougher in each book, the stakes higher. David Alderman outdid himself in each book with his great writing and immense imagination.

With each book, the number of sub-plots grew smaller and smaller. That's a good thing! However, there's a bad side to that downsizing. By the last book, I couldn't shake off the feeling that seemingly important plot points that carried on through multiple books didn't really get a proper ending.

I'm okay with the fact that some of the major plot points weren't resolved since David makes it very clear that the story continues in the Expired Reality series, but I felt like there were one or two sub-plots that could've been resolved. For instance, it bothered me that the origin of Cynthia's book wasn't really explained. I also didn't like that her pregnancy often seemed like an after thought. When her pregnancy first happened, it played a vital point in the plot, but, by the last book, it seemed like a build-up with no 'up.'

I'm not really a fan of ratings. The numbers usually seem arbitrary to me, but I feel the need to rate Black Earth.

4.5/5

If you think you'd enjoy Edgy Christian Speculative Fiction, this is definitely the book for you. There are demons, aliens, sci-fi technology, angels, battles, and much, much more. Even better, the series is mainly about hope, faith, love, and willpower. I hope you enjoy the series and meeting the author as much as I did!

Author David N. Alderman