C.C. Hogan - Author

January 2016 and after a lot of hard work, I have now released new covers for series one of my massive fantasy saga, Dirt.

New dragons, new maps, new backgrounds and a stronger, richer feel. All are now uploaded, though they may not show up immediately in all areas.

When the alarm goes off the brave writer is faced by a number of choices. Most of them revolve around caffeine.

I am doing my own artwork at the moment - it is purely for economic reasons - but when it comes to working out the ins and outs of a dragon, the process goes far beyond simply what they look like.

Long before Johnson Farthing was born and the beginning of the tale that is told in series one of Dirt, the dragon Fren-Eirol was young, opinionated and had yet to meet either her pairing Aneirin or the annoying magician Weasel.

Until that is she visited the Catre Sarad on the small but dramatic isle of Taken in the Yonder Sea...

The struggles of a poet to connect to his muse. Or perhaps climb out of his bottle. Close call...

Unless you are creating a surrealistic world with floating rocks and see through mountains, the chances are that your fantasy world resembles our own in many ways. It has oxygen, is in the "sweet spot" around the local star and people attempt to eat three meals a day.

Writing DIrt has included lots of interesting research about our own world, which has taken me by surprise.

Becoming an Indie author has been a trying experience. I have spent hundreds of hours working on my masterpiece (I hope) and now I need to promote it.

But most authors, like me, do not have the money to advertise and we fear that the countless paid book-promotion websites out there will do us little or no good. What is vital to us is reviews.

Write a review, even just one line, and you can make an author smile!

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This is a narrative poem about a special meal cooked between friends in a cabin when we were all young, just out of school.

How I went from starting tons of novels, failing to finish any, to actually writing seven (and counting).

To be honest, I am writing this at least partly to try and find out for myself...

A selection of verses that randomly play with love and other ideas. Mostly untitled but all very much by me.

I have been very busy with my ongoing fantasy Dirt.

Major updates to the website, talking to a good friend about organising a Giveaway, working on series two and, most importantly, persuading Amazon to make the first book Permanently Free.

Following an email from myself to the KDP team at Amazon, they have reduced the first book in my new Fantasy series Dirt to zero so it is permanently free. This is crucial part of my sell, because as an author it is one of the few marketing techniques I can afford to help sell my whole series.

It made me think about the Amazon KDP offering and how it could be improved to help Amazon, Authors and the vital readers.

If you are publishing a book, your first port of call is probably Amazon KDP. However, you may with to make your book available on other platforms too.

Publishing through Smashwords will give you access to Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo and lots of other outlets. But the set up is a little different to KDP.

However nervous I am, I love that moment when books arrive, hot off the press!

I have been slaving over Dirt for the last year, and the first four books landed with a thump on my doormat a couple of hours ago. So, what next?