Just some quick updates, I will be charging cards for shipping by this weekend. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up!
Shipping should start happening next week.
Also, I did a silly thing. I forgot to add one poem to the book entirely. I only noticed this as I was working on the ebook.
The poem, "Being of Winter" is in the ebook, as it was meant to be.
For physical copies already printed, I will be making a bookmark with the poem on it. The good news is that the table of contents is accurate for the book. So yaaaaaay!
Future copies of the book will have the poem as well, but the first 75 copies are just some fun first editions. So yay collectibles!
I'm spending this week finishing up the ebook, doing many tweaks in Calibre. I'm also getting the sheets for the Make-Fairy creatures made. I know not everyone uses dndbeyond, and I want to make my creatures accessible for all sorts of ttrpg players. And if people tweak the stats and abilities, I say heck yeah.
I have used InDesign in the past for putting books together, but have transitioned to Affinity and Calibre. There's a slight learning curve, but I'm getting through it.
I am feeling way better, by the way. My head isn't fuzzy and foggy anymore. Though, I am not pleased with playing catch-up. But, it is what it is.
Despite all the obstacles thrown my way, I think things turned out way better than I originally thought. The book exists and it's cute! The stories and poems are pretty good, too! I'm proud of this work. And I'm excited to share it with you all!
And just as nervous.
But hey, if you don't like the thing, that's okay. I don’t expect everyone to like it. I just hope more people like it than not. But if you do like it, then yay! That makes me happy.
Anyways, I don't have much else.
If you find my work to be pretty cool, and wish to see more of it, follow my Book Bazaar campaign, Fistfuls of Poetry.
Slight Delays and Shipping: August State of the Fae
Hello fairy friends and fiends!
It's been a bit and I apologize. There is a little bit of bad news. Digital rewards will be delayed by at least a week. This is due to myself coming down with some sort of plague. I've only just started to feel decent enough to do computer things. There's a good chance I'll get everything ready by the first week of September, as I had hoped. But, I just want you all to be aware just in case.
I've been working on getting prints done. I found a really awesome 5x7 paper that I like. The only issue is that I don't have most things formatted to fit 5x7 perfectly. So things will be a little smaller than I meant.
I'll start charging shipping once I've got the books in hand and have things officially packed. Expect charges to come in the next two weeks.
The book looks great, by the way! I shared videos all over the socials showing it off. I also got copies of my Make-A-Fairy trading cards from Cat Print and they look pretty cool!
Here are the fronts! And yes, I am aware of the typo in one of them. I, uh, didn't catch that until my partner pointed it out.
And here's the back!
Anyways, those are all the updates I have at this moment. I'll be sure to let you know if they are more.
Also, while you're here, have you considered more poetry in your life? Good! I have just the thing for you!
Why hey there Fairy friends and fiends! I have some quick updates on Fairy Seasons for ya!
Okay, so, I finished the print layout for the book. It's processing in Ingram right now. Hopefully there's nothing bad with it, but if so, I'll fix it and all that fun stuff. So far, the print cost is way more decent than I thought. And that's nice.
Some fun numbers for ya'll- Page count: 268 Word count: 56,113 Stories: 11 Poems 32 Illustrations, photography, and more: ???? (I don't feel like counting them all, but it's a good amount) Size: 6x9
Now, with the ebooks, there will be a few doodles that might not make it in. Mostly, there's just a couple little things that might not work as well (side border design things). However, all the main doodles, photos, and full art will be just fine. It's going to be an easy, but tedious task that I've done enough by now.
Shout out to TBB peeps mention Affinity. My partner ended his adobe subscription (which I am very happy about). However, I was like "Oh...Oh no!" Now I had to figure something else out for layout stuff. I was messing with Scribus. It's not bad. It's great, but it just felt so much more tedious, so I was stalling. I got way further way faster on Affinity. And no, I did not use an AI stuff because like...ew. No thanks. I know how to do the things. I don't need that stuff to mess everything all up. I can do that by myself.
I still have some designing to do for the Make-A-Fairy Cards. I decided to give them TTRPG-ready stats. Yes, it'll generally be for dnd, but I hope conversion for other TTRPG things will work just fine. For further explanation of their abilities (instead of just naming their abilities), I'll have companion PDFs made, too. I have a place I'll be ordering from (different from where I'm getting prints made). I'll get that done by the end of the month.
All the stickers are printed, by the way. I also have a printer and have found some excellent paper for the prints (Okay, well, what I think is excellent paper, A-Sub)! However, my printer can be real nasty with lines when it comes to the Make-A-Fairies. So, I'll be ordering those from the wonderful Prints&Repeat. I love working with local businesses, and they've always printed high-quality stuff. A lot of my vendoring prints have come from them.
Anyways, that's all for now. I don't want to get too ranty. And I'm tired. I've been on the computer all weekend, so I'm logging off for a bit while I work on some things.
Why greetings my beautiful fairy friends! Sorry it's been awhile since I've done an update.
I've been quite the busy bee, both in book world and in personal life world. I have a plethora of updates for everyone. I'll have them sectioned a bit so you can get to whatever you care to know more about. And if you care about all the things, then yes! even better!
Ooooookie dokie, let's get one with the updating and the things! First things first:
Fairy Seasons
Everything is back from my amazing editor and I've been typing away on fixes, rewrites, and more. Steph had a lot of great suggestions and I feel like so much of my writing is better for it.
I unfortunately still have a weird habit of using homophones for some reason. I don't know why I do it. And I have some other really bad writing habits I'm working on. So, even after my own proofreads, I have a skilled proofreader lined up to find any oopsies I missed.
Thankfully, I got a great deal on the proofreader, too. I can just pay him in kisses. Yes, the proofreader is my husband.
I have some finished art for the book, too. I'll do even more as I edit, and even during the layout process. Every story will have at least one original art piece and / or line art. The poems, well, not all, but certainly some. There's other decorative elements as well. I just like to make my books pretty as heck.
Here's a couple fun pieces of art for y'all!
I'll be starting the layout process very soon, as well. It might be a slight struggle simply because I'll be using a new program. But once I get the hang of it, shouldn't be a problem.
I am a little more behind than I'd like to be, but sometimes it's like that. I had a big art event that I spent time preparing for that cut into Fairy Seasons time. The goal is to send off for a book proof by the end June, beginning of July. Or middle of July by the latest. And goodness, let's hope I get it right the first time! I mean, I usually do.
Oh! I updated the cover to reflect my new pen name. S.P. Green is here, queer, and ready to spread some cheer and some fear. Anyways, I'm so excited for getting this book finished and getting it into your hands. I hope you're excited, too!
Pre-Order Information I will be closing the Backerkit pre-order store on July 1st. This is so I can lock orders and get final order counts.
Once pre-orders appear in online stores and on my website, prices of the physical books will go from $15 to $20. So, if you want cheaper books, now is the time! Pre-Order now! Or convince your friends and family who have extra muns to do so!
I plan to put together some special bundles when I finally publish for people to buy. The bundles will have some of the special prints and stickers that people can get through this campaign.
I have a new book campaign coming up! For now, I'm calling it Fistfuls of Poetry. It's an Oops! All Poetry campaign in that all three books in the campaign are poetry.
Yes. You read that right. Three books!
I'd like to think of them as poetry zines rather than chapbooks. I have a good amount of poems for each already, with more to come. I can't focus on the writing of those until I finish Fairy Seasons, though.
I don't have much on my teaser page yet, but I will soon. If you're a fan of poetry or are poetry-curious, it'd be a great idea to follow the campaign. So, please, for the love of poetry! Clicky clack! Don't look back!
The Book Bazaar is currently holding a really cool Summer Bonanza. It's like a mini Book Bazaar event, but for the summer.
There's eleven awesome projects that are funding until June 30th. Only two more need to meet their initial funding goals, but heck! Toss a coin to an indie or two to pad their campaigns. I know from my own experience that extra always helps. Especially in this economy.
I have a website now! It's pretty late 90's, early 2000's looking. But, hey! It's everything I need it to be. I have blog posts and categories, some art, and a shop. It's a continuous WIP. I'm not doing too much tweaking until Fairy Seasons is more finished.
I've been adding blog posts to highlight Summer Bonanza authors and their projects. I'm a little behind on that, so I should get on it.
Other Stuff? Er…I'm hoping to get into the South Dakota Festival of Books! So far, I haven't seen anything about applications. I think it's at the end of September. I'm trying to get in early to pay the early bird fee rather than the full fee. It's, uh, spendy.
I generally don't make all my money back from events. There was one time I made a good amount for the day, but then I got super sick AND it was a miserable time because of the wind. So, I don't go for anything that has a super high fee that isn't comparable to the venue and amount of time spent as a table. It'd be nice to do more, but it's not affordable for me. Yet.
I've also been dealing with some not-so-fun health issues. I have alleged endometriosis. It's alleged because it isn't officially diagnosed in these parts without a exploratory surgery confirming it. My OBGYN thinks I have it, but it's still just supposed. So, dealing with the back and forth of doctors, trying to get appointments made, and so on, has been frustrating. I have calls I have to make right now that I've been putting off and forgetting to do.
I've been working to be kinder and more understanding with myself. That's not easy, but it has to be done. Or else things get real unpleasant.
So, with this in mind, I plan to bake extra time into future projects and campaigns. And then if I get done with them early, then woohoo! Yes!
Also, Pride! Yay Pride! I hope this Pride month treats you well. And if not, well, Pride is everyday for a some of us, so I hope many upcoming days are way better.
And that's all I have for updates. I'll have more at some time! Probably!
Ahhhh! Sorry there hasn't been an update for awhile! It's been...well, it's been.
I have lots of excited news, though!
I started going by S.P. Green for writing stuff now. And now have my personal press, Pickle Jar Press.
You can find me all over the web as Spooky Pickle, though!
Anyways, Fairy Season things! Art things are done! So, now I can send out the smoke tests. Once those are good to go, I'll send out surveys.
I'm receiving edits from my editor (The Amazing Editing Otter), so I'm working on those. Once finished with edits and proofreads, it'll be layout time. I hope to be able to send out for a proof copy of the physical version by the end of June or early July. I think things are looking to be on schedule (especially since I keep forgetting that August is a month for some reason)
That being said, I'm looking to close the pre-order store by the end of June. This is so that I can have final orders in once I get back a good-looking proof.
Also, have you heard the good word? There's a Summer Bonanza starting May 28th! You ought to check it out! It's just another cool thing The Book Bazaar is doing.
Anyways, I don't have too much else to say. So, look at some art while I slowly scoot away with an awkward expression on my face.
First up, Into Shroomen's Grove
Alt text for the painting: A photo of an acrylic painting. The painting is called "Into Shroomen Grove". A dirt path full of little white mushrooms and glowing footprints wounds its way through a mushroom forest. The end of the path is bathed in a blinding, golden light. Several mushrooms fill the forest. There are tree-sized muscara amanitas (red and orange capped with white dots), some purple mushrooms with gel-filled pustuals, large and small common mushrooms of browns, pinks, and dark grays, there are some chanterelles, and even some small puffball mushrooms.
I'll have a scanner soon, so I'll be able to get a better scan of this rather than just a photo with my phone. This was really fun to do! I love painting, especially with acrylics. I'm most familiar with them.
Alsooooo, I finished the final Make-A-Fairy. Meet them below!
The Fae Trap and Their Collection
Alt text for art piece: a digital artwork made in infinite paint. The subject is a Fae Trap. The Fae Trap has a large flower pod base as their lower half. It is light green with yellow spots. The petals surrounding the opening are yellow and orange. Out of the top opening springs the rest of the fae trap. They are made of a human spine and rib cage. Their arms are made of old, pinkish meat. Feathers and leaves are mixed into the arm from things previously digested. Various pitcher plants grow out of their body, as well as venus fly traps. Their head is made of a crumbling masquerade mask. Out of the eye sockets, more pitcher plants grow. Out of the back of their head are several venus fly traps and long, light green sundews. The fae trap stands before two torches. The torches have skulls on their tops. The background, overall, is a wall of bones and skulls.
It's a short one. Basically, I'm going over written things, doing some personal edits, before I send things off to my awesomeeditor, Steph (https://storyotters.wordpress.com/otters-editing/). While they are looking over things, I'll be working on layout elements and art things.
I have the mushroom forest to paint, and only have one remaining Make-A-Fairy to finish. Though, I do have some small details I still want to add to the Swamp critter fairy.
I'll be finally sending surveys out around the end of March, once the mushroom forest and last make-a-fairy (the venus fly trap one) are finished. I wanted all the art done before I did that.
Anyways, here's some cool art I've finished (and one sticker design I haven't finished yet):
This here is the Crystal Fairy in their final form! They're so beautiful and soooo deadly.
Now, for the swamp critter, I still have some detail stuff I want to do. I want to add scales to the lizard parts, and make the mantis arms look more dynamic. I also realized I didn't add much shadow to the critter itself. I changed the sword to a rusty machete. Thought that was more fitting for the swamp. Also, the jellyfish-like swamp friend just didn't quite fit. So, eventually I'll use that design for some cute critter sticker. If I have enough time, I might even have it ready as an option for sticker packs! I won't promise that. Though, I will absolutely try.
My version of a wisp. Well, at least one form of a wisp. I feel like they take many forms. This particular fairy creature wanders the swamp. They guide lost travelers to safety. They are not to be confused with their evil cousins, whisps. Whisps love to trick and confuse lost travelers.
There really isn't a good way to tell the difference between a wisp or whisp until it's too late.
And that's it for this State of the Fae update. I'll be sure to have more next month!
Hello fairy friends! It's time for a very another update!
We have the final poll for this week's make-a-fairy ready for everyone to vote on. Go vote!
We have less than four days left before the campaign ends! Ah!
As a special weekend treat, I'm revealing the sketches for last week's fairy animal companion.
The fairy animal companion, a creature with a mix of traits
A cute, jellyfish-like creature carrying an umbrella.
The first of these sketches is the animal companion. He has lizard traits, a unicorn horn, fuzzy mammal fur, a mermaid tail, and the appendages of a insect. I chose praying mantis. The sword wasn't a winning thing, but it did tie with all the secondary traits. The winning accessory, a cute friend, is what the second drawing is of. The cute friend is wearing earrings and carrying an umbrella. I didn't quite know how to fit the sweater in without it being too much, sadly.
While these creatures look aquatic, and can swim if need be, they are more apt to levitating above the ground. They swim through the air.
I'm excited to ink these very soon! I hope you like them!
And be sure to vote on the polls for the latest fairy!
Fairy friends, we did it! We configured our first fairy. I'm going to put it in the kiln to cure. It takes about a week for the pieces to set. For review, here's what we used to craft out fairy (AKA, the poll winners):
A Crystal Theme
A regular fairy head (elven-ish)
OOPS! All Eyes
For wings, we had a tie. We just couldn't decide between delicate fairy wings and dragon wings. So we did something with both.
And the limbs of our fairy are animal-esque and end in claws.
What an interesting and beautiful fairy!
One of the high-fey, Blutterbarts, Princess of the Stink Swamp, is looking for an animal companion that's as beautiful as they are. As long as we make the companion with some fairy magic, we'll be still fulfilling our mission to make more fairies. We'll need to decide on body features and the kind of hat Blutterbarts' new companion should wear, as well as an accessory.
Check out the first of these new polls below. Then, go check out the other ones! Ah! A wild moth! Where did that come from? Well, I guess there's no harm in letting the little fella hang out.
Now, onto Book Bazaar news!
We've completed our first week. Yippee! Fairy Seasons is almost 50% funded! I think that's pretty awesome. We have two weeks left and I think we can reach the initial funding goal for this project.
Please continue to share Fairy Seasons with others. It helps more than you think! And share often! There's quite a few times that someone shared something several times, and at the right time, I saw it and got it. Perhaps, with a little luck, we'll all share this project at the right time.
On November 23rd, The Book Bazaar will be streaming a reading of my Fairy Seasons Sampler. It's read by the author (me!). Be sure to stop in and listen. It'll start at 6pm (CST).
Just some quick updates, I will be charging cards for shipping by this weekend. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up!
Shipping should start happening next week.
Also, I did a silly thing. I forgot to add one poem to the book entirely. I only noticed this as I was working on the ebook.
The poem, "Being of Winter" is in the ebook, as it was meant to be.
For physical copies already printed, I will be making a bookmark with the poem on it. The good news is that the table of contents is accurate for the book. So yaaaaaay!
Future copies of the book will have the poem as well, but the first 75 copies are just some fun first editions. So yay collectibles!
I'm spending this week finishing up the ebook, doing many tweaks in Calibre. I'm also getting the sheets for the Make-Fairy creatures made. I know not everyone uses dndbeyond, and I want to make my creatures accessible for all sorts of ttrpg players. And if people tweak the stats and abilities, I say heck yeah.
I have used InDesign in the past for putting books together, but have transitioned to Affinity and Calibre. There's a slight learning curve, but I'm getting through it.
I am feeling way better, by the way. My head isn't fuzzy and foggy anymore. Though, I am not pleased with playing catch-up. But, it is what it is.
Despite all the obstacles thrown my way, I think things turned out way better than I originally thought. The book exists and it's cute! The stories and poems are pretty good, too! I'm proud of this work. And I'm excited to share it with you all!
And just as nervous.
But hey, if you don't like the thing, that's okay. I don’t expect everyone to like it. I just hope more people like it than not. But if you do like it, then yay! That makes me happy.
Anyways, I don't have much else.
If you find my work to be pretty cool, and wish to see more of it, follow my Book Bazaar campaign, Fistfuls of Poetry.
It's been a bit and I apologize. There is a little bit of bad news. Digital rewards will be delayed by at least a week. This is due to myself coming down with some sort of plague. I've only just started to feel decent enough to do computer things. There's a good chance I'll get everything ready by the first week of September, as I had hoped. But, I just want you all to be aware just in case.
I've been working on getting prints done. I found a really awesome 5x7 paper that I like. The only issue is that I don't have most things formatted to fit 5x7 perfectly. So things will be a little smaller than I meant.
I'll start charging shipping once I've got the books in hand and have things officially packed. Expect charges to come in the next two weeks.
The book looks great, by the way! I shared videos all over the socials showing it off. I also got copies of my Make-A-Fairy trading cards from Cat Print and they look pretty cool!
Here are the fronts! And yes, I am aware of the typo in one of them. I, uh, didn't catch that until my partner pointed it out.
And here's the back!
Anyways, those are all the updates I have at this moment. I'll be sure to let you know if they are more.
Also, while you're here, have you considered more poetry in your life? Good! I have just the thing for you!
Why hey there Fairy friends and fiends! I have some quick updates on Fairy Seasons for ya!
Okay, so, I finished the print layout for the book. It's processing in Ingram right now. Hopefully there's nothing bad with it, but if so, I'll fix it and all that fun stuff. So far, the print cost is way more decent than I thought. And that's nice.
Some fun numbers for ya'll- Page count: 268 Word count: 56,113 Stories: 11 Poems 32 Illustrations, photography, and more: ???? (I don't feel like counting them all, but it's a good amount) Size: 6x9
Now, with the ebooks, there will be a few doodles that might not make it in. Mostly, there's just a couple little things that might not work as well (side border design things). However, all the main doodles, photos, and full art will be just fine. It's going to be an easy, but tedious task that I've done enough by now.
Shout out to TBB peeps mention Affinity. My partner ended his adobe subscription (which I am very happy about). However, I was like "Oh...Oh no!" Now I had to figure something else out for layout stuff. I was messing with Scribus. It's not bad. It's great, but it just felt so much more tedious, so I was stalling. I got way further way faster on Affinity. And no, I did not use an AI stuff because like...ew. No thanks. I know how to do the things. I don't need that stuff to mess everything all up. I can do that by myself.
I still have some designing to do for the Make-A-Fairy Cards. I decided to give them TTRPG-ready stats. Yes, it'll generally be for dnd, but I hope conversion for other TTRPG things will work just fine. For further explanation of their abilities (instead of just naming their abilities), I'll have companion PDFs made, too. I have a place I'll be ordering from (different from where I'm getting prints made). I'll get that done by the end of the month.
All the stickers are printed, by the way. I also have a printer and have found some excellent paper for the prints (Okay, well, what I think is excellent paper, A-Sub)! However, my printer can be real nasty with lines when it comes to the Make-A-Fairies. So, I'll be ordering those from the wonderful Prints&Repeat. I love working with local businesses, and they've always printed high-quality stuff. A lot of my vendoring prints have come from them.
Anyways, that's all for now. I don't want to get too ranty. And I'm tired. I've been on the computer all weekend, so I'm logging off for a bit while I work on some things.
