Finally got the previous round of artist drama dealt with. One of the issues with Fiverr is that you have to be willing to deal with performance issues on the part of artists. Many of them are wonderful; some are … less wonderful. Had one try to put the Millennium Falcon on the proposed cover – Just what I don’t want: an invitation to dueling lawyers at three paces with a global megacorp known to be outrageously protective. Most recent actually gave me something pretty damned good artwise, but didn’t make it the right size and didn’t include the ‘no text’ version I always want for promotional purposes. Had she done so, I would have been willing to sign off on it as it sat. I did request a couple minor changes, but had she simply resized what she sent me in the first place and included the no-text version, I would have accepted it happily.
Instead she disappeared. I told the customer service folks at Fiverr what I really wanted was the art; that was why I’d agreed to the offer in the first place, so it took basically a month trying and failing to get any kind of response before they refunded my money.
So now I have a new artist engaged, with a 10 day window. The text is still with the primary editor at the moment, but that should be done this week.
This means it’s time to ask if anyone wants to beta read?
If you’re like me and want to know what you’re getting into before you sign up, it’s just under 80k words as I sent it to the editor (so it’s a novel, but not a long one and comparable to most of my others in length) , and here’s the proposed blurb:
Meeting The Morelli
Tessa was desperate, and a two year contract with an Imperial Embassy looked like the way out. Helping a newly contacted species develop to a point where they’re ready to deal with the universe is a years’ long project, and those whose missions succeed can expect more lucrative contracts in the future as well as the knowledge they’ve helped an entire species survive.
The Empire of Humanity is not being altruistic. It has selfish reason to want the Morelli and others to survive. But the Morelli must be willing to learn, and there’s only so much latitude a species may be given before even the Empire’s own citizens require suppression or worse. Tessa and her superiors must find a way to persuade the Morelli to learn about the dangerous universe beyond their current holdings before the Morelli do anything irreversible.
Because evolution is not done when a species achieves sentience, or even technology. It becomes communal, and the penalty for failure is extinction.
I would need the feedback within a couple weeks of sending it out. An Amazon review upon publication would be nice, but not mandatory.
Let me know either via email or comment if interested.
(An AI illustration I did to help guide cover artists. Alas, I cannot ethically show the art the first artist did because it’s a lot better)
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