It’s fairly obvious, if you’ve been checking the site, that nothing has happened here for a while. My only explanation is it’s that time of life. As in, it’s that time of my life when my parents are needing increasing amounts of care, and it seems that everyone around me needs my attention more than my own interests do. I appologize to those who have been waiting to find out what happens next in the story.
I also need to appologize to folks who have read the first book, because I’ve decided to change the story somewhat. For this reason, I have unpublished The Seeker’s Journey while I make revisions to the book. Once that is complete, I will re-publish and offer free updates to everyone who purchased the original version. If you’re curious what kinds of changes I’m planning, let me just say that a nearly universal reaction to the prologue has been “huh?” So, the prologue is going away and there will be more focus on what Melissa goes through as she adjusts to her adventure.
The good news to take away from this news is that I am once again working on the series.
A fantasy fiction series by Todd A. Phillips
Taking a break
Getting things back on track
Well my break from work is almost done and I return to work on Monday. Looking back I’m disappointed that I didn’t make progress on the Imprisoned God series, but at the same time I am grateful that I could be around when my parents really needed me most. My mom is doing well after cancer treatments; the tumor is shrinking nicely and we’re hopeful she will achieve a full cure. Now my dad is having problems. I’m sure there are many middle-aged folks out there that can sympathize with this thought: it hardly seems fair that just as my son is becoming self reliant my parents are becoming more child-like.
Operation eBook Drop–Supporting Our Troops
About a year ago, Vet and author Ed Patterson started the Operation eBook Drop. The project supports US troops in current service by providing free access to new eBooks. This is a chance for our troops to have access to reading material to help pass the time while they are away from home in our service.
Lots to do
In a perfect world I would be announcing the release of the Rat’s Trial right about this time. Unfortunately, real life has intervened with some rather unwelcome distractions. Honestly, ‘distractions’ doesn’t come close to describing the past couple of months. My mom is fighting her second bout with lung cancer, and nearly all of my attention is on supporting her and getting her where she needs to go. We have a great deal of hope for her getting through this, but even so, it’s my mom and I have to be there.
On the business of writing, the draft of The Rat’s Trial is nearly complete. My wife is helping out by reading through the draft and giving me her feedback. As usual, her questions and suggestions are really helpful to me. What’s not so good is that she has suggestions that would necessitate changes to the first book. Sigh. I’m still looking at that possibility. And honestly, every time I read through the first book I find things that need to be revised. Fortunately, those things are very small changes, but I care about the quality of anything I make. So I think there will be a revision in the offing sometime this year.
I received word recently that Amazon is hosting another new novel contest this year. I haven’t fully decided to participate as of now, but I am leaning toward entering The Seeker’s Journey. I felt good about the performance of an early manuscript of mine in one of the first Amazon contests. It survived through the first couple rounds of the selection process and had some good feedback. I firmly believe that The Seeker’s Journey is a more mature example of my writing and the feedback I have received from readers has been extremely positive. We’ll just have to give it a try and see where it leads.
All of these things are on my plate at the same time, and will leave me with lots to do in 2011.
Discount code ending soon
The discount coupon offer at Smashwords will be ending at the end of December 31st, so be sure to order your copy soon.
To take advantage of the 50% off coupon, use coupon code LJ62P when ordering The Seeker’s Journey at Smashwords.com.
Remember to vote, November 2nd
This election is one of the most important elections in the history of the Republic. I highly encourage you to express your opinion on the course our nation will follow in the next few years.
Please do not trust the mainstream media as your only source of information. Look it up for yourself, whether it is the actual wording of proposed laws or the historical significance behind the claims made by either party. America stands at a crossroad, and we will stand or fall by the path we choose.
I am heartened by the candidates that are aligning with the values of the Tea Party. Many of these folks are campaigning entirely on issues and leaving the mud-slinging to their opponents. There are a lot of lies out in the popular media. I encourage you again to investigate the truth for yourself.
Please, for the sake of our children, don’t sit this one out. Your vote does matter, and your voice should be heard.
The Seeker’s Journey is available at Barnes & Nobel and at Kobo
The ebook version of the Seeker’s Journey has been made available for purchase at both Barnes & Noble and at Kobo. It was rather surprising to me to go out to a couple of the sites that Smashwords distributes to and search for the book and find it in their catalog. What was a bit more surprising to me was that I found ebook versions of a couple technical books I wrote years ago.
Apparently, the publishers are making more and more books available online as ebooks. Although, in the case of my computer books, I don’t think there will be many calls for a study guide on migrating to Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. I could be wrong, but that’s my guess. 
I’m hoping to see the Seeker’s Journey available in other online sellers very soon. If you don’t see it at your favorite site, please keep checking.
The paperbacks look great
I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me when I got home from work last night. There was a package from Lulu.com containing the proof copies I had ordered. I hurried into my office to open the package and then sat there for several minutes holding a physical copy of the Seeker’s Journey. I’ve accomplished many things in my life, but very few have the same feeling as holding a copy of a new book that I wrote.
Change of publisher for the eBook
I’m not unhappy with Lulu.com; I’d like to state that right up front. They’ve been a good place for me to have books printed on demand, and their eBook service wasn’t bad. However, I have reconsidered my decision and gone with Smashwords.com instead.
The reasoning went something like this. My mother-in-law has a Kindle and wants to read my book (for which I am very grateful). But the need to produce a Kindle-compliant version of my book got me into looking carefully at what I could do through Lulu, and I discovered that they would only produce ePub or PDF copies of the eBook and would only distribute (other than to their own site) to the Apple iBookstore. Well that would be awesome if the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch platform were all I cared about, but like I said, my mother-in-law has a Kindle. My initial plan was to leave the book at Lulu for print and iPad and then publish at Smashwords for everything else. The publishing process and superior toolset at Smashwords sold me, and I un-published my eBook at Lulu and published it instead through Smashwords.
The Seeker’s Journey is published!
Whew! It’s finally done and up on Lulu.com for download as an eBook or as a paperback.
The Seeker’s Journey by Todd A. Phillips (link deactivated due to change of publisher)
Friends have been asking for weeks what I was planning to do when the book was published, and we came up with all kinds of ideas. But after working on the production files all night and almost no sleep, all I want to do is take a couple days off.
After some rest, I’ll be digging in on the second book in the series. Be sure to watch for updates here on ImprisonedGod.com.
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Copyright 2011 Todd A. Phillips