My new poetry collection, SHALLOW POET, is now available at the Arachis Press store: https://www.lulu.com/shop/stephen-brooke/shallow-poet/paperback/product-95qk475.html
The book is also available as a free download in PDF and EPUB formats from arachispress.com , as are all my books.
This is an excerpt from the work-in-progress, a story I had no inkling I would be writing a couple months ago. Quite first draft-ish, of course. The not-yet-titled book will be not so much a novel as a sequence of related novelettes and short stories.
Zil was right. Tesra tomorrow—sleep now. But anticipation, excitement, maybe a touch of apprehension, prevented her from falling at once into slumber. The merchant’s donkey in the next stall didn’t seem ready to sleep either. She could hear it moving about, uneasy, restless, snorting softly now and again. A low ‘yip’ sounded somewhere in the dark. Close maybe.
“Doggie?” murmured a half-asleep Nib.
Lellie’s first thought was of wolves. She’d never seen a wolf but she had seen their hides, so she knew they existed. As to their exact appearance, much less their size, she knew far less. The girl suspected the marketplace storytellers tended to exaggerate such details.
Then the donkey exploded, braying loudly and insistently, waking all the travelers and, undoubtedly, anyone within miles. Immediately, figures rushed toward Zil, a man and a pair of what certainly weren’t wolves. Just what they were, she had no idea.
My new poetry collection, SHALLOW POET, is now up at the Good Reads site, with some pre-release reviews. Its page is here. We are only a little over a couple weeks now to the official release on April 21. I'll put up links to the print and free ebook editions before then.
I have been doing small-scale revisions on some of the already published work. No matter how many times they go through proof reading, some new mistake is almost always discovered. None of it is at all high priority but I and Arachis Press will roll out some new editions from time to time.
I do wish I could say I had something new in the pipeline for release but nothing is quite ready for such an announcement right now. Soon, we hope!
Although 'Shallow Poet' (out in less than a month now) is going to be released with an ISBN and full distribution, we are still seriously considering removing all the poetry books from distribution to retailers. This would allow us to offer them at a considerably reduced price. The ISBN's cost is negligible; it is the mark-up for retail that hurts, and nearly doubles the price on these smaller books (it's somewhat less noticeable on a thick novel).
Be all that as it may. This release will be distributed and we'll worry about changing anything of that sort further down the line. Of, course, 'Shallow Poet' will be free as an ebook (PDF and EPUB) at the Arachis Press site. In the mean time, I am doing re-reads of most of my stuff and inevitably discovering the occasional typo or such. New editions will appear as necessary, though none of it is at all pressing.
i have a proof copy of the print edition of 'Shallow Poet' in my hands, and have approved it. All is ahead of schedule for it official release on April 21. Now to get all the details of its release worked out, listing it here and there, getting the free ebooks up at Arachis Press, and so on.
Yes, the ebooks (EPUB and PDF) will be free, as with all my other books. Print will be for sale 'everywhere' as we are going for full distribution, with ISBN. To be honest, these poetry books end up overpriced with distribution and we are giving thought to selling them direct only. This is not so much of a problem with the thicker novels and such, though it still means tacking on several dollars more.
Here is the author himself with his copy of 'Shallow Poet.'
Announcements—that's pretty much the purpose of this blog. Announcements of the 'professional' doings of Stephen Brooke, his art, his writing, and so on. We already have a personal blog so there won't be much of that here. And there is a Stephen Brooke site at stephenbrooke.com. So, here we go: our first announcement!
A print copy of the new poetry collection, Shallow Poet, is in our hands and been approved, a month before its official release date of April 21, so all is well there. We'll let you know when something else of that sort happens. That's why blog is here.
