The Hottest Update

Hello everyone, this is ESB 'Stringfellow' and I have a Hun-Gurrr, and this is...

The Newest Book Created By The Author!!!

Does anyone else realize how many "fire" related titles have already been taken?

 People, I am incredible happy to bring this long overdue update (it's been almost two years!) to let you know that I have not been idle.

I mean, for one thing, I work at retail, so any typing I get is very sparse. That means I can not, despite how very much that I want to, churn out a book every year or two. However, I truly feel that all of the work I put into this new book was totally worth it. I feel like this is my best one yet.

Here is the synopsis...

The Wind howls with the screams of the damned...

The Earth tears itself apart to consume the unfortunate...

The Water rages to violently wash away all in its path...

Only Fire remains to prevent the onslaught and destruction...

On the Great Continent of Colinaus, supposedly the birth place of gods and magic, a great and powerful secret remained hidden for millennia. The Elemental Stones...

For so long, these fabled and ancient relics had been lost to society they were regarded as nothing more than simple myths, stories told to incite awe and wonder. However, one man, a king of wars, believed them to be real and vowed to make their power his own. His thirst for power and his arrogance knew no bounds. So great were his beliefs that he considered himself worthy of godhood. In the end, though, his actions will create a terrible imbalance to the forces of the Elements. In his pursuit to fulfill his lofty ambitions, he will throw the world into danger, threaten to unleash untold chaos.

As the War of the Elements begin, all hope will fall onto the shoulders of the Fire Guardian... and she is only fourteen years old.

...

...

...

So, what do you think? I'm going to wait a bit before I talk it up some more, but in the mean time you (yes, YOU) can take this opportunity right now to check it out on Amazon (links to both paperback and Kindle versions are in the side bar to the right). After all, given how things are going, I hear that there's no better time to settle in with a nice long book (this sucker is 571 pages!).

So, get your Fiery Chaos today!

A New Start

Hello everyone, this is 'ESB' Stringfellow, and I have a lovely bunch of coconuts, and this is...

An Update Regarding The Author's Books!!!

I am as pleased as punch to announce that I have taken the chance to republish my books on Amazon! All of the links to the right in the "Books by the Author" section have been updated and will now take you to the new versions of my books, where none of them, I promise you, are priced at four hundred dollars (I'm still scratching my head at that one). If you find that the links don't work, or that they're taking you to the wrong place, then tell Amazon as well as myself, and we'll try to figure it out together.

Now, what are the differences, you must be wondering. Basically The Five Year Pilgrimage series is unaltered, but there are a few things in Path of a Hero I'd like to mention. For one thing, I cleaned up some more writing mistakes, but I also took the opportunity to take out the word okay whenever it was used by someone who was not Magus. Why? Because I felt that was a slang/informal word that should be used more sparingly, thus helping to make Magus' way of speaking stand out more, and I only thought of doing that until AFTER my first time publishing Path of a Hero.

A couple other changes I did had more to do with gaining newfound knowledge over the years, which made me want to make things more appropriate. One of them was General Demana's outfit, which originally was on the sexy side, but after learning that was an overused and even problematic trope, I decided to give Demana a new outfit that reflects her status as a warrior more. The last change I did was refer to Sa'Phi'Ro's sword, Muramasa, as an odachi. When I first wrote Path of a Hero, I never bothered to ask if a katana-like sword that was six to seven feet long was named anything else, and to my slight embarrassment, I asked rather on the late side. But that has been changed now, and hopefully for the better.

If you are, by any chance, someone who has purchased and read Path of a Hero before, you might find that these changes are not great incentives to buy it again, and I will not blame you. All that I ask is that you tell your friends/family, if they had not read my book yet, to give this version a shot (that way, I'll actually get royalties).

Oh, and also, I added a relabeled map of Trino.



Now you can follow Cyan and Magus' "Path" to "Heroism"

Hopefully, that does turns out good (I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it myself yet outside of digital previews) and you'll be able to read the labels well enough. My fingers are most definitely crossed!

Now, there is the other difference that will stand out with all of my books that I had published with America Star Books, and that is the covers. I would like to share them with you now...

Where Darkness slowly engulfs the Light.

So, first up is the Path of a Hero cover, which I feel captures the idea of Cyan slowly losing his Light to Darkness. Not really half Darkness and half Light, but the sense that Darkness is indeed growing.

A Temple With a View!

Book I: Chi had to have some earthy hue to it, so I created a cover that had some various shades of brown to it. I also wanted to have a temple in it, to convey to the readers the location that this story takes place, the Tu Long Academy.

Blinded By The Light!

In Book II: Sui, there are two things going for it: A water theme and magic, and definitely lots of magic. So I used this mystical looking image that I found and gave it the best watery color that I could get.

Enter The Dragon!

Shockingly, Book III: Ka's cover came out looking almost exactly the same as its original! I found myself wondering if America Star Books had used the same cover creator that I did! And I must confess, I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to find a dragon image/emblem that I could use, but I lucked out!

The Colors of the Wind?

Hmm, starting to wonder if I had done right with Book IV: Fu's cover when in comparison to the others. I still like it, but I can't help but wonder if I could've done better. Oh well, I'll be sticking with it, no doubt, even if it does seem to lack a certain wind factor.

A Heavenly Light.

And finally, we come back to Book V: Ku, where I did a little color addition at the top and bottom of the cover so as to not have pure white there whenever it gets printed into a physical book (a flaw I had discovered only after getting some copies for myself).

So, what do you think? I know they don't quite have the cool factor of the old covers, especially when they're all missing that wonderful katana sitting beneath the words, which had become something of a regular recurring theme. But hey, I make do with I got, and the main thing is that my books are all on Amazon now and at much more reasonable rates.

If you find yourself having trouble, again, contact Amazon and inform me as well so that I can also contact them. This is my first time publishing on my own, with so many books at once. Things are bound to have a bump or two along the way (trust me on this).

Until next time, my dear readers.
Sincerely, 'ESB' Stringfellow'

Bringing The Author Back

Hello, everyone, this is 'ESB' Stringfellow, and I have a bone to pick, and this is...

The Long And Largely Overdue Author Update!!!

Wow, it sure has been awhile since my last post. Last thing I did was inform readers (if I even have any) was that I was going to Tri-Con. That was last June...

SORRY! I am so, so sorry that I've been gone for so long (at least I wasn't gone as long as the last time I let this blog go quiet [three years, for those who are wondering]). All I can say is that it just got away from me, where Life just kept happening, getting in my way and making me not feel the need to get back to blogging. For one thing, my computer died... Took a little while to get a new one. Then my truck broke down. Then my tablet, which I was using to type my next story, stopped working, so I had to get a new one. Throw busy time at the place that I work (sadly, these books do NOT put food on the table), any down time I had was just dedicated to catching up on a whole lot of laziness. Know what I mean?

Bottom line: Blogging is like exercising. If you let yourself stop for even a little bit, that little bit will eventually turn into months of putting it off.

Well, now is the time. This is me getting back into my exercises. I'm going to keep blogging until detailed posts for each of my books are up, maybe some more pictures, and updates of what I've been doing/working on for the last year (remember the aforementioned tablet?).

However, and this is a big one, there's something of a problem that I need to share with you all. For those who don't know or can't recall, my first five books were published through a little company called Publish America, which changed its name a few years ago to America Star Books. They took care of everything for me after I handed them the manuscripts. The conversions to book format, the covers, the printing, all of that stuff that I have no idea of doing on my own. And they were nice... for a little while.

Maybe I should have seen the warning signs at the beginning, but then again, the beginning was over nine years ago, when I published my first book, Path of a Hero. It was a different time then. I don't think I've even heard of Kindle at the time, nor can I recall at the top of my head just how old Kindle is. Anyway, they seemed fine at first, even if their pricing of my book seemed outrageous. I did it with a gleam in my eye and a dream in my heart that I would be able to make something of myself so long as my story was in book form, ready to be bought by the masses. Heck, I even saw Publish America's author discounts (where sometimes they would give them up to 90% off!) was a good enough bonus for me to buy my own copies and resell them at a fairer price.

But... that feel-good and I'm-Now-A-Published-Author drive wore out, and in more recent times, after my publishers changed their name to America Star Books, I had a powerful longing for something better. I thought that I would keep publishing with them until the Five Year Pilgrimage series was done, but shortly after publishing Book IV: Fu, I just couldn't shake my unease with them or get excited like I used to.

By that point, I had finally caught up on my internet and found out that Publish America/America Star Books had a... less than stellar reputation, and their track record was actually growing worse. So, after publishing Book IV: Fu with them, I decided (after reading some blog that I can't remember that highly motived me) to try my hand at self-publishing through Amazon... and let me tell ya, I wish I had gone with them a long time ago.

Don't get me wrong. Amazon hasn't made me able to quit my day job, but I now know that they are exactly what I really needed, a service that in honesty should have been America Star Books M.O.

I can publish my books completely for free at Amazon, both paperback and Kindle (yes, it may shock you to know that America Star Books actually charged you to convert a book that they published for free into an ebook. I really, really wish that I had know what B.S. that was a long time ago now). Not only that, but I can set the price myself, and they don't have be to outrageously expensive. Whereas America Star Books would charge somewhere between $20 to $30 for an average sized book (say, about two hundred pages), I can set the price for $10 or even less (but I won't get as good as a profit margin, so that really is the best I can go without charging too high). In the end, I am incredibly happy to have gone with Amazon now, even if it is a little late to the party.

And frankly, it is a damn good thing that I made the switch, because sometime in the Fall of 2017, America Star Books has... vanished, I think is the best way to put it. "Have gone under," is another way of putting it. "Have emptied their safes full of money and gold bars and fled in the dead of the night so as to avoid prosecution for fraud," is yet another, more cynical way of calling it.

This is why I'm not sharing a link to their website. Not because I no longer wish to the give them the traffic... but it's Gone with a capital G.

Like I mentioned earlier, their reputation wasn't that great to begin with (and yet I remained loyal and hopeful), and it only got worse as time went on (where I became less loyal and more dissatisfied). And in all honesty, I have no idea what the Hell happened. When I looked into it about a month ago, they just seemed to have disappeared, and this leaves a conundrum for me.

Now, before they went under/fled, I exchanged some emails establishing that I wished to pursue self-publishing, with the Kindle version of Book IV: Fu being my first  foray into it. Remember, America Star Books only published the paperback version, opting to sap me of money to do something that I could, as it turned out, do for free on my own. This is why there are two different book covers for the same book.

Another thing that I made clear with them was that I wished for my contracts to expire when their time came, because terminating beforehand would cost me $99 per book, which really, really sucked.

But that was before they disappeared. Now, I have no idea. Following the links to my older books show an unpleasant picture. Despite that America Star Books seem to be no more, the books they had published are still available on Amazon, but things are wonky. For example, Book III: Ka is being priced at $440! What the Frack?!

So, here's the problem that I face: If America Star Books is truly gone, does that mean all of my contracts with them are null and void? Can I, with my rights as the author, take my original manuscripts and just start all over, publishing Path of a Hero and all the other A Hero's Path books through Amazon?

Or will America Star Books decide to come back like a bad cold and sue me for breaching the contracts? The very ones that I can't even terminate now because I have no way of contacting them?

If by some miracle a legal expert reads this, please, do not hesitate to send me a message. Otherwise... I'm definitely leaning in the direction of taking my chances. After all, I did tell them to let the contracts expire, meaning that we had an agreement for all rights to return to me. The way I see it, them disappearing just bumped the expiration date up to last Fall.

Well, I think, I rabbled on long enough. Hopefully, I am indeed back, and I will get posts about The Five Year Pilgrimage book series up within the next few weeks. And, more importantly, I'll be able to get the series republished, but that will take a bit of time, seeing as I'll have to make my own book covers now.

And lastly, I am happy to share that sometime between Tri-Con and now, I published the last book of The Five Year Pilgrimage! I give you Book V: Ku! Available in both Kindle and paperback. So, if you're interested, give it a go! Remember, reading the previous books are not required! Like the others, this is a standalone adventure with very little references to past events, and nothing that's worth knowing in order to follow the story (I mean, it's not like I have one or two character's death haunt our hero, right?)!

Do me a solid... because I now have truck payments to make.

Maybe one day, I can get a paid illustrator, 'cause my sister has a day job, too!

Until next time then, this the author, signing off!

TriCon Away!!

Hello everyone, this is ESB ‘Stringfellow,’ and I am Iron-something-or-other, and this is...

The Author Telling You That He Is Going To TriCon!!


What’s a TriCon, you may ask? It basically boils down to a little slice of the more popularly known Comic Con (tm), right here in the Wild and Wonderful state of West Virginia! For one day, people from the tri-state area of Huntington, WV gather to celebrate their love of comics, games, costuming, toys and all things nerdy.

And yours truly has his very own booth there, where I’ll be selling copies of my books, giving away prizes and artwork done by my sister, on Saturday, June 3^rd! Here’s to hoping to another excellent year, where I see many great costumes, buy posters and toys, and maybe even sell a few things myself.

Wish me luck, True Believers! (Shout-out to Stan Lee)

Sincerely, ESB ‘Stringfellow’

The Resurrection

Hello everyone, this is ESB 'Stringfellow,' and I am back in the saddle, and this is...

The Overdue Return Of The Author!

I can not believe that it has been three years since I last came to this place. No doubt, many of you reading this now might not have ever known that this blog site of mine had become very much dead. I lost sight of it, I became weary of it, and ultimately became just unmotivated.

Well, after a few years, I have decided that the time was NOW to get back into the swing of things. To do that, though, I have decided to do a complete clean slate. If you have been to this blog before, you may remember that I had posted over a hundred different posts before just up and leaving without a single word, and I am sorry to say that everything is gone.

The excerpts, the profiles, the randomness... All of it gone, never to return.

Well, except for the stuff that I will repost. I mean, I'll put things up again, just not all of it.

For those of you returning, for those who missed my randomness or Magus' postings, I am afraid to say that particular brand of humor will be downplayed, if not flat-out abandoned. You see, I think my problem with this blog before was that I tried to make it a weekly thing, where I would post at least once every week, or ever two weeks, even if that meant random things or rants. Instead, I have decided to bring this blog back from the maws of death and to give it back its original purpose: To be a hub-site for advertising and promoting my books. I will not be beholden to the idea that I have to maintain a constant update. From now on, the main goal is to just give you the basic details of the books I have published, maybe hints of what I am writing at the moment, and, naturally, excerpts from my books, and other book related updates and explanations. If I have nothing to share in regards to my books, then I will simply not post anything, even if that means going months or even years (again) without posting anything. My problem with this blog before was that I tried to treat it as a diary whenever I had nothing book related to talk about, and I will not be making that mistake again. I might still make a joke post from time to time, or celebrate a mile marker, because I really did enjoy those, but do not expect those to happen too often.

Alrighty then, let us get down to the first important update: See those links to the side? Under the Books by the Author? Any book that I get published will be given a link there directly to Amazon (maybe my publisher's online bookstore too, if I feel like it). You might notice that some of them have (paperback) in the links? That is because those links will take you directly to the paperback version of those books, and the one that has (Kindle) will take you to the (what else?) Kindle version. The one's that do not have anything written next to them in parentheses means that you can just find either version on that particular link. Now, I do not know what the deal is with Book I: Chi or Book II: Sui and their apparent lack of Kindle versions, but I can not seem to find them. I will make an update later, and of course update the links, if and when I find those Kindle versions.

Then there is Book IV: Fu, which is a totally different topic. If you follow that book's links, you'll notice something... off about the cover to either version. The paperback version looks pretty darn cool, while the Kindle one looks... well, bland. The reason behind this is because I have decided to publish the Kindle version of Book IV: Fu on my own, rather than have my publisher, America Star, do it for me. Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, the royalties would flow easier for me if I do the Kindle version on my own, the price would be cheaper if I do it on my own in comparison to America Star, and all I have to do is not use the cover art that America Star had made for the paperback version. So yes, the cover is super boring, but hopefully, once I get a real handle on this Kindle thing, I will be able to update the cover (they make it sound like I can) with something better. I will be sure to update you on that whenever the time comes.

Well, I guess that will do for now. I will be back as soon as possible with more updates, especially if I want to rebuild this blog's archive of book-related-posts.

Until next time,
Sincerely, ESB 'Stringfellow'