Three Hoarsemen Interview

Interview on The Three Hoarsemen Donna Royston, Martin Wilsey, and David Keener were interviewed a week ago for Episode 44 of the Three Hoarsemen podcast. They got to discuss the new anthology, Fantastic Defenders, in their various roles as editors or, in Marty’s case, as the publisher (Tannhauser Press) of the volume. That podcast episode is now available online.

Fantastic Defenders Of the interview, David Keener said, “We had a lot of fun being interviewed. We got to talk about the anthology, our other works, Tannhauser Press, and a few other subjects.” The podcast is an hour and forty-two minutes long, but you can skip to the interview at the 1:07:48 mark if you’d like.

Since the podcast hosts also discussed the movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, earlier in the podcast, the title they chose for the episode was: “Fantastic Defenders of the Guardians of the Galaxy.” Check it out now!

David Keener Interview

David Keener Speaking to a CrowdMartin Wilsey, best-selling author of the Solstice 31 trilogy and publisher of Tannhauser Press, released an interview with David Keener on his blog. Martin does a regular “Fast Friday Interview” feature where he runs interviews with fellow indie writers.

In the interview, David talk about things like how he became a writer, as well as his mutant writing method that STILL has all of the other folks in his writing group shaking their heads in bemusement. He also talks about some of his upcoming projects, including Fantastic Defenders, volume 1 of the Worlds Enough anthology series.

So, that’s right, go over to Marty’s site right now and check out the interview.

Worlds Enough: Back Cover Blurb

The stories are all in for Volume 1 of the Worlds Enough anthology series, with Fantastic Defenders clocking in at a highly respectable 88K words. Now that the stories are off to the copyeditor for final revisions, we thought it would be interesting to share the back cover blurb for the volume:

YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD HERO DOWN

Across astounding and magical worlds, five heroes step forward to defend against fantastic threats:

  • A sorceress in a besieged city faces a malignant force even more dangerous than the city’s would-be conquerors.
  • An unassuming bureaucrat stumbles upon a threat to a vast empire and deals with it in his own inimitable fashion.
  • A resourceful bodyguard for an infant princess, trapped and surrounded by merciless assassins, finds a unique way to hold them at bay.
  • A mage press-ganged into the Royal Navy finds himself volunteered for a dangerous, secret mission on foreign soil.
  • A disgraced royal guardian who failed in protecting his king hunts down those who cost him his honor.

These are…the Fantastic Defenders!

David Tatum Makes the Cut!

David Tatum, author of fantasy books like In Treachery Forged and The Kitsune Stratagem, has been selected for the fifth and final slot in the anthology, Worlds Enough: Fantastic Defenders.

His story is “A Gun for Shalla,” about a hapless wizard named Kusk who gets press-ganged into the imperial navy. After serving on board a ship-of-the-line, he’s singled out thanks to his unique combination of magical talents. He’s forcibly volunteered to assist in a dangerous mission to rescue the imprisoned relative of a high-level diplomat. Naturally, things don’t go as planned.

Look out for it on May 5, 2017, when Worlds Enough: Fantastic Defenders is published.

Copyediting “Reliquary” Ebook

Publishing a book is a detail-oriented process and, to a large extent, most activities need to be done in a fairly specific order. Mess with the process…and you’ll pay for it later. At least, that’s the experience of David Keener, commissioned to do the ebook for the anthology, Reliquary, being published by Tannhauser Press.

“After the copyedit phase,” stated David Keener, “it’s fairly common for a book’s text to branch into print-specific and ebook-specific versions. That’s even more the case with a complex project like Reliquary, with internal illustrations, custom separators, chapter-leading dropped caps and some complicated custom typography. Which was why we were dismayed when we realized—well after the split—that the copyedit phase hadn’t accomplished all we’d hoped.”

After that, David brought in Donna Royston to do an emergency copyedit. “The usual procedure, at least in the indie world, is to order a proof from CreateSpace. Then you hand that to your copyeditor and she marks it up in red ink.” David sighed. “Lots of red ink.”

With a second round of copyedits, producers have the choice of copyediting the original content and then re-branching. Alternatively, if the separate branches have diverged too much, it may be easier to apply the copyedits to both branches. “For us, it was the latter,” David explained.

After all the delays (for this and other behind-the-scenes drama), the producers decided to release the print edition as soon as it was available. Accordingly, John Dwight finished the final design work on the print edition and published it on Amazon. Logistically, it was anticipated that the ebook edition would follow in about two weeks.

For those who aren’t familiar with the copyediting process, Worlds Enough thought it would be interesting to share a summary of typical copyedit markings:

Copyedit Markings
Copyedit Markings

“Yeah,” responded David Keener. “I’m really tired of seeing these.”

Be on the lookout. The Kindle edition of Reliquary will be available next week.

Note: (2017/05/25) Yeah, OK. That next week thing didn’t happen. Reliquary got preempted by some other projects. Still, it’s next up in the queue, so we’re looking at a June release for the ebook.

Note 2: (2021/01/06) CreateSpace is gone now, at least as a brand. The functionality got folded into Amazon’s Kindle ebook creation toolset quite a while ago.

Notable Release: Reliquary

Reliquary A new anthology called Reliquary was just published on January 6th by our publishing partner, Tannhauser Press. The anthology features twelve stories by new writers on the theme of relics.

We’re proud to announce that four of the writers for our upcoming anthology, Fantastic Defenders, are represented in that volume. Those writers are David Keener, Jeff Patterson, Donna Royston, and Martin Wilsey.

David Keener, an IT specialist in his day job, has also been pressed into service to assist Tannhauser Press with ebook production. Due to some logistical issues, the Kindle edition of the anthology will be available on Amazon in about two weeks.

The Submissions Are Coming In!

Worlds Enough: Fantastic DefendersToday is Deadline Day, or D-Day, for submissions for our first anthology: Fantastic Defenders. It’s terribly exciting to see all the stories coming in. It’s the culmination of the first phase of a journey that started when I said to a bunch of my fellow writers, “I have an idea for an anthology.” Wonder of wonders, they took me seriously. Equally as important, Tannhauser Press took us seriously, too.

It’s also scary because it means that I have to start the second phase, providing the necessary editorial feedback to help the contributors tune their stories to the max. Technically, I guess this makes me an Editor, a role in which I’m happy to have also enlisted the help of Donna Royston (who also has a quietly powerful story in the anthology).

It’s an anthology of novelettes/novellas in the range of 10-20K words each, with a total of five slots. As a “mostly” curated anthology, four of the writers were pre-selected, and I have three of their stories in hand. The fourth writer is in the final stages of finishing up his story, which I expect to have in about a week. The stories are:

“The Mists of Lu-Shan” by Donna Royston
“Once Damned” by Martin Wilsey
“The Rooftop Game” by David Keener
“The Iron Garden” by Jeff Patterson

We opened up the fifth slot for competition. I’ve also received three submissions thus far for the last slot. I’ve heard that there may be a few more on the way.

We’re planning to publish the anthology on May 5, 2017 in print, ebook, and audio formats. Stay tuned for more news!

Call for Stories: Fantastic Defenders

Worlds Enough: Fantastic DefendersWe’re producing an anthology called Fantastic Defenders. It’s targeted for five novelettes/novellas in the range of 10K to 20K words. It’s a semi-curated anthology, which basically means, at least in this case, that four of the slots have been filled by hand-picking authors we’re familiar with and who have a track record of doing excellent stories at this length.

That leaves us with a fifth slot that we still need to fill. Accordingly, we’re opening the slot up for competition, with a deadline of December 31, 2016.

Basic description is:

Looking for novelettes or short novellas in a fantasy setting featuring heroes defending against the forces of evil. Examples range from a royal bodyguard defending an infant princess against a well-organized assassination attempt to an aging bureaucrat defending an empire using only his wits. No elfie-welfie fiction.

Other information can be obtained via email inquiry (to dkeener _at_ davidkeener.org) if you’re interested in competing for the slot.

NOTE: This Call for Stories is closed. The anthology was published on May 19, 2017 and is now available on Amazon.

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