It's been a momentous few weeks since the last post here.  During this time, some changes have occurred, hopefully for the better.  You may have noticed that some of the wordings around the site have changed: this has something to do with the upcoming changes.  I'll be keeping you posted in this space, but the very complexion of Desert Coyote Productions will be making a major shift in the next month or so.

In the meantime, head over to Goodreads and check out our new giveaway.  Now through July 4th, enter to win one of three signed copies of The Advance Guard, version 2.0.  Also while you're travelling the interwebs, be sure to check out digital editions of all of DCP's books, now available through three outlets (Goodreads, Kindle, and Barnes & Noble), all for an affordable price.  Also, there's new merchandise available at the Zazzle store: check out the Dragon's Voice doodle speaker, or if you prefer additions to your wardrobe the Sonny Lauzanne Experiment T-shirt.

What's the most you could lose?  Just a little bit of time while you're being enthralled by the books.  Keep your eyes on this space, though, for major DCP changes.

As I've gained more experience in the self-publishing game, I'm realizing exactly how little I knew about it when I first started nearly two years ago.  Once I got in, I started keeping tabs on what other professional publishers were doing with their offerings, and trying to crib ideas on how to make my own offerings look more professional.

In September of 2009, I released my first book, The Advance Guard.  It came with little fanfare, and even less sales.  To date, I still have a number of consignment copies still in a box somewhere in the mess in my new house, waiting to be sold.  I wouldn't be surprised if the five books consigned to Talking Leaves Books in Buffalo are either still on the shelf or in the store's dumpster by now.

I realize my mistakes now, and that includes my lack of real promotion for the effort.  I was limited by time (working on a Master's degree at the time), money (had none to spare), and lack of understanding about exactly what went into being a published author.  I didn't have the support group I have around me now, both with the ETWA and with Goodreads.  Instead, I made myself a nuisance on anime/sci-fi message boards attempting to shill a book that nobody really knew or cared about.

It's time to rectify those mistakes, and it's time to give The Advance Guard the attention that it's due.

Keep an eye on this space in the coming months.  I'm currently preparing to re-issue a new version of The Advance Guard.  Many things are going to be going away, including:
*The size of the book.  Currently it's in a 6"x9" format, which is slightly larger than most self-published paperbacks, and creates a lot of unwanted negative space.  Version 2.0 is going to be a 5"x8" offering, the exact same sizeas Dinétah Dragon. This should create a more uniform DCP library, as the cover will also gain a similar layout. 
*Speaking of the cover, the crappy MS Paint cover is going away as well, to be replaced with a cover similar to the one on Dinétah Dragon.  All future DCP offerings (starting with Version 2.0 and the next novel I'm writing, Guarded Son) will share this general size and look.
*The interior layout.  The negative-space problem I mentioned?  It was the text being vertically centered nearly two inches in the pages.  No more: the layout will be more professional looking, the Table of Contents less haphazard, and it'll generally look more professional.
*Some of the text.  One of the things that gave me fits with The Advance Guard's publication was dialogue misprinting in Chapters 21 and 22.  Some of the dialogue was written in Greek, and used Greek characters: however, depending on which printer produced which book, it would either reproduce the Greek in full or leave huge blank spaces where two to three lines of dialogue were supposed to be.

There's some things that will be added, as well:
*New text to replace the Greek text.
*An author's foreword.
*An actual photo of the author on the book jacket, so you can know the face of the author you're either praising or cursing.

Keep an eye out here in the coming weeks.  And yes, there will be a Goodreads giveaway connected to this release, as well, so keep an eye out for that as well because it'll be a halfsies giveaway: at random the winners will receive either a signed copy of Version 2.0 or a signed copy of the Classic version.