Artist Philippe McNally posted this photo showing some of the preliminary work preceding the final design for the cover of The Last Good Man. I repost it here with permission. (click the image to see a larger version)
Philippe was a pleasure to work with. Here’s a post on the cover design process.
Contact him if you’re looking for book-cover art.
Just a couple of reminders…
LAST DAY:
Only 9 hours left before the SFWA Storybundle is gone! Includes my novel TECH-HEAVEN along with work by Nancy Jane Moore, Paul Levinson, Robert J. Sawyer, and more.
Goodreads Giveaway:
This one is still ongoing. If you haven’t already, enter to win a signed copy of my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man!
Giveaway ends June 04, 2017.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
More soon!
A Goodreads Giveaway begins today. Enter to win a print edition of The Last Good Man. Open to readers in the US, CA, GB, and AU.
Giveaway ends June 04, 2017.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
The first official review (that I’m aware of) of The Last Good Man is out, and it’s a good one!
Publishers Weekly is an industry magazine that reviews massive numbers of books. According to PW, “A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality.”
Of course any author would be thrilled about that, and I was very pleased to see that The Last Good Man had earned a star.
The reviewer describes it as “…a thrilling novel that lays bare the imminent future of warfare.”
Update: Now available for pre-order at iBooks and Kobo.
The release date for The Last Good Man is June 20, but preorder links are going up — so far only for the ebook and only at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but expect to see it at Kobo and iBooks before long.
There will also be a print edition. I’m hoping that will be available to order through bookstores within a week. I’ll post more information here when I have it, and I’ll also update links on my website.
By preordering, you’ll get your copy of The Last Good Man automatically — so there’s no way you’ll forget — and that’s good for you AND me.
Pre-order the ebook at:
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
iBooks/Apple
Amazon – USA
Amazon – UK
Amazon – AUS
Amazon – CA
(Also available at other Amazon stores.)
“The pursuit of perfection is a cover for massive insecurities.”
I jotted this down in my journal this morning after loading my latest round of corrections into both the print and ebook editions of The Last Good Man. There were three corrections.
One was a spelling issue: “Acknowledgement” vs “Acknowledgment.” Both are acceptable, though supposedly the second is more commonly used in America. I’d used both versions, which is not acceptable, so I settled on the more-popular-in-America spelling.
Throughout the manuscript I’ve set text messages and emails in an alternate font. The second correction was to remove the use of that alternate font in one instance where it didn’t belong.
In the third correction I’d mistakenly typed “NGC” when I meant “NGO” (nongovernmental organization) so I fixed that. This one bugs me, though, because I failed to catch the mistake in all my read-throughs, none of my beta readers noticed, and neither did my line editor or copyeditor. Oops! Ron gets credit for discovering it.
“What’s an NGC?” he asked while reading through what I thought would be the final print version.
NGC?
In my mind I scrambled for an answer. NGC, NGC…that’s from astronomy. New General Catalog. Wait. THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT!
I took a look at the passage and finally worked it out. Oh.
I know I get way too worked up over these tiny issues. Refer back to the first line of this post.
On a more positive note, I’ve gotten some really kind blurbs in support of The Last Good Man, so all is not lost, even if the odd spelling error still awaits discovery.
I’m very grateful to Greg Bear for recently taking the time to read the book. He says: “The Last Good Man pulls us into next month’s headlines with a conviction and energy that makes for an extraordinary tale.”
Steven Gould and Vonda N. McIntyre have also provided advance praise which you can read here. I’m especially grateful for this support, given that I’m putting this novel out on my own.
Preorders Coming Soon
I’m hoping to be able to set up preorders in the next couple of weeks, but bear with me — I’ve never done preorders before and I’m sure there will be snags. The publication date remains June 20.
An email has gone out to those early-reviewer volunteers who sent me their email address.
If you volunteered as an early reviewer of my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man but you haven’t heard from me, check your spam folder!
Otherwise, shoot me your email address again or let me know in the comments.
When I first contacted artist Philippe McNally about creating the cover art for my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man, I told him I was leaning toward a minimalist design rather than a full-cover painting, and that I wanted an illustration rather than photo manipulation because the cover needed the suggestion of a machine element to place it in genre.
And what genre is that? The Last Good Man is a crossover. It’s science fiction because it’s set a few years into the future and deals with technology that is just over the horizon. But it’s close enough to the present time that it works as a thriller too.
I am so pleased with the cover Philippe created!
Click the image to see it in a larger version:
Philippe was very patient during the design process. We traded several emails. I talked more about what I was after, and showed him book covers that I liked. He found more book covers that suggested different design options. We weren’t looking at explicit details of those covers, but at the use of space and the different styles they employed. We gradually converged on the symbolic rendition you see above. Not an explicit scene, but suggestive of the novel’s theme.
I have an advance copy of the print edition and the cover looks fantastic with its matte finish. It also looks great at small size in my e-reader’s library.
The Last Good Man will be published on June 20. It will be available in ebook, trade paperback, and audio editions.
So what’s it about? Here’s the back cover copy:
Scarred by war. In pursuit of truth.
Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies. Robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are all tools used to augment the skills of veteran warfighters-for-hire. But the tragedy of war is still measured in human casualties, and when True makes a chance discovery during a rescue mission, old wounds are ripped open. She’s left questioning what she knows of the past, and resolves to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.The Last Good Man is a powerful, complex, and very human tale.
And here’s what Steven Gould says about it:
I asked to see an advanced copy of The Last Good Man: with the caveat that I was very busy and might not get to it. I was just going to glance at the first few pages but looked up to find myself halfway through the book in the wee hours of the morning. Only an early morning appointment kept me from reading on but I finished it the following evening.Welcome to the future of war. Soldiers on the ground depend more on their augmented reality visors, net connections, and hosts of robotic allies, than their rifles, but as long as they tread in harm’s way, certain things do not change, including collateral damage, ethical challenges, and the grief of a mother, a warrior herself, when her son dies in action.
Set where war’s bleeding edge of technology slams into people’s lives, this is a very human story, brilliantly told.
And from Vonda N. McIntyre:
“The Last Good Man is a compelling and subversive novel, told by unique characters, especially True Brighton: sympathetic, prickly, determined, all too human. Linda Nagata has impressive insights into technological advances and their potential effects. Not to mention some very cool invented AI critters…. It was a privilege to read TLGM before its publication.”
If you haven’t done so already, please
[* * cue flashing lights * *]
Through the newsletter I can let you know when The Last Good Man is available for preorder, and I’ll send you a reminder when it’s available to buy.
To see more of Philippe’s work and to view his resume, follow this link.
Update on my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man
One of the challenging things, for me, about publishing a novel under my own imprint is maintaining my confidence throughout the process. In traditional publishing an author can always fall back on the fact that a professional editor thought enough of their book to pay an advance and to dedicate a chunk of the corporation’s financial resources toward publication, publicity, and distribution. That’s part of the reason writers — especially new writers — talk about the “validation” of traditional publishing. After all, if someone experienced in a for-profit business thinks money can be made off your work, then it is, by definition, worth something. Right?
But when I shift from writer to publisher, I lose the validation of that third-party professional opinion. It’s all on me to decide if the manuscript is ready, if the cover will work, if I’m justified in sending it off to reviewers and pro-writers… That’s when it helps to remember all the positive responses The Last Good Man has picked up along the way.
So where am I in the publication process? I’ve continued to send out review copies and, since there is a small demand for it, I’ve created a print ARC (advance reader copy). Those are still being printed, but I should have them in hand by the end of the month.
The manuscript is presently with the copyeditor. When I get it back I’ll need to input corrections to my master manuscript and when that’s done, I get to create the ebook and the print edition all over again. ::sigh:: 🙁 There are always a lot of chores in this business.
So, the big news: The cover art is done! One of my tasks for the upcoming week is setting up the cover reveal.
More soon…
This website is in danger of turning into a ghost town, so I thought I’d post a brief progress report.
I’d like to say that I’ve been writing, but it isn’t true. Since at least the beginning of the year my efforts have focused on getting my forthcoming novel, The Last Good Man, ready for publication while working on promotional strategies for all of my books.
So what’s the status of The Last Good Man? The pre-copyedit draft is done. I coded the manuscript to create ebooks for advance readers and I’ve begun to send out review copies. I also did a quick and dirty print layout to determine the likely page count and price of the print edition. And cover art is on the way! We’ve agreed on the rough design, and now await the finished illustration.
Promotion continues, as you’ve probably noticed from the events I’ve been participating in. I’m working on connecting with more new-to-me readers by encouraging people to sign up for my email newsletter.
By the way, if you already subscribe to my newsletter, do be sure to check your spam folders and if you find one of my newsletters there, please whitelist it. I’ll have a new story out in an anthology next month, I have several promotions coming up, and of course The Last Good Man will be released in June, so there will be a lot of news!
One thing I’ve learned is that book promotion really is a full-time job — and most of that work falls on the author, regardless of whether the novel is traditionally published or indie published. So, onward!