Duilleog cover with Global Ebook Award Nominee badge.

Awards Nomination

Duilleog is now nominated for the Dan Poynter’s Global EBook Awards for 2016 in the category Fantasy/Other World Fiction. Winners will be announced in August 2016. Until then I get bragging rights. Not sure what else to say other than Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo have all been updated to reflect the nomination. The updated book cover looks like the media added to this post. Its nice – but not yet a bronze, silver or gold badge. And yes, I need stinking badges! Or if you prefer the Blazin’ Saddles version. Or my favourite version from the movie UHF. But I digress.

Duilleog, A New Druids Series novel, Volume One

Good News! Everyone who purchased Duilleog Edition One from Amazon will soon be pushed the Second Edition! I had to work with Amazon on this. It was my first time and it was rather simple. Big shout out AGAIN to Steve Chase for his notes he drafted that led to Edition Two. I simply handed those notes into Amazon and they accepted that as evidence of the changes. Amazon is not a bad company at all and they protect buyers and sellers. It would be nothing for someone to scam Amazon by selling something and then pushing out new versions all under the auspices of a new edition. So I had to show where the changes were. Amazon breaks it down as follows:

Corrections to distracting errors. If we find only minor corrections, we won’t notify customers by e-mail, but we’ll activate their ability to update the content through the “Manage Your Content and Devices” page on Amazon.com.
Corrections to destructive or critical errors. If we find major corrections, we’ll alert the customers who already own your book via email. These customers have the option to use the “Manage Your Content and Devices” page on Amazon.com to receive your book updates.
Corrections to critical errors needed. If we find more major corrections are needed, we will temporarily remove your book from sale. We’ll notify you of the issues we found so you can fix them. Once the improvements are made, just let us know and we’ll email customers just like we do for major corrections.

I should know in seven days or less which of the above corrections categories they select and let everyone know here. It should be #2 because I moved the Craobh excerpt into Duilleog as an Epilogue. That was “destructive”. heh.

For those that bought the trade paperback version: I will put the Epilogue up here for you to read once I release Craobh.

Beta Readers Wanted

By donald

On February 4, 2016

In Craobh Volume Two, Editing, The Art of Writing, The New Druids Series

Craobh: A New Druids Series, Volume Two – Beta Readers Wanted!

Beta Readers Make Everything Pretty!

I have posted a request for Beta Readers on Goodreads for my second novel in the New Druids series, Craobh. This will be a first for me but something I feel needs to be done to take my writing to the next step. My first novel, Duilleog, was written solo, without anything more than a proofreader (who did a terrible job as it turned out). For Craobh, I want better feedback before I go to print, but I can’t pay for a freelance editor. And I can’t pay for beta readers. I can only hope that someone out there simply wants to be the first to read my next novel and is happy to jump on board and help. I am offering a free copy of my first novel Duilleog to any takers. If you are interested then please send me an email at donalddallan@gmail.com and I will get back to you soonest. First come first served but I reserve the right to be selective!

By selective I mean I need to get the right vibe from the person and sense a genuine interest in being one of the first to read my material. It’s asking a lot – but my options are limited. So send me emails and make a request! This is work but I can promise this: I will acknowledge you by name in the acknowledgements section of the novel! <— that’s a genuine carrot right there!

Craobh is still on track for a Spring 2016 release. I want the revised draft done by end-March. Then fine tuning and to print by end-May. Word count is now at 75K but I have done some minor editing on Part Three. I’ve written a couple of sections that perhaps I shouldn’t keep. It’s hard to give up the text. One I should move to the next novel – the other I should perhaps delete. Decision, decision.

Markup: HTML Tags and Formatting

By donald

On January 11, 2016

In The Art of Writing

Headings

Header one

Header two

Header three

Header four

Header five

Header six

Blockquotes

Single line blockquote:

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

Multi line blockquote with a cite reference:

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.

Steve Jobs – Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference, 1997

Tables

Employee	Salary
John Doe	$1	Because that’s all Steve Jobs needed for a salary.
Jane Doe	$100K	For all the blogging she does.
Fred Bloggs	$100M	Pictures are worth a thousand words, right? So Jane x 1,000.
Jane Bloggs	$100B	With hair like that?! Enough said…

Definition Lists

Definition List Title: Definition list division.
Startup: A startup company or startup is a company or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.
#dowork: Coined by Rob Dyrdek and his personal body guard Christopher “Big Black” Boykins, “Do Work” works as a self motivator, to motivating your friends.
Do It Live: I’ll let Bill O’Reilly will explain this one.

Unordered Lists (Nested)

List item one
- List item one
  - List item one
  - List item two
  - List item three
  - List item four
- List item two
- List item three
- List item four
List item two
List item three
List item four

Ordered List (Nested)

List item one
1. List item one
  1. List item one
  2. List item two
  3. List item three
  4. List item four
2. List item two
3. List item three
4. List item four
List item two
List item three
List item four

HTML Tags

These supported tags come from the WordPress.com code FAQ.

Address Tag

1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
United States

Anchor Tag (aka. Link)

This is an example of a link.

Abbreviation Tag

The abbreviation srsly stands for “seriously”.

Acronym Tag (deprecated in HTML5)

The acronym ftw stands for “for the win”.

Big Tag (deprecated in HTML5)

These tests are a big deal, but this tag is no longer supported in HTML5.

Cite Tag

“Code is poetry.” —Automattic

Code Tag

You will learn later on in these tests that word-wrap: break-word; will be your best friend.

Delete Tag

This tag will let you ~~strikeout text~~, but this tag is no longer supported in HTML5 (use the <strike> instead).

Emphasize Tag

The emphasize tag should italicize text.

Insert Tag

This tag should denote inserted text.

Keyboard Tag

This scarcely known tag emulates keyboard text, which is usually styled like the <code> tag.

Preformatted Tag

This tag styles large blocks of code.

.post-title {
	margin: 0 0 5px;
	font-weight: bold;
	font-size: 38px;
	line-height: 1.2;
	and here's a line of some really, really, really, really long text, just to see how the PRE tag handles it and to find out how it overflows;
}

Quote Tag

Developers, developers, developers… –Steve Ballmer

Strike Tag (deprecated in HTML5)

This tag shows strike-through text

Strong Tag

This tag shows bold text.

Subscript Tag

Getting our science styling on with H₂O, which should push the “2” down.

Superscript Tag

Still sticking with science and Isaac Newton’s E = MC², which should lift the 2 up.

Teletype Tag (deprecated in HTML5)

This rarely used tag emulates teletype text, which is usually styled like the <code> tag.

Variable Tag

This allows you to denote variables.

Markup: Image Alignment

By donald

On January 10, 2016

In The Art of Writing

Welcome to image alignment! The best way to demonstrate the ebb and flow of the various image positioning options is to nestle them snuggly among an ocean of words. Grab a paddle and let’s get started.

On the topic of alignment, it should be noted that users can choose from the options of None, Left, Right, and Center. In addition, they also get the options of Thumbnail, Medium, Large & Fullsize.

Image Alignment 580x300

The image above happens to be centered.

The rest of this paragraph is filler for the sake of seeing the text wrap around the 150×150 image, which is left aligned.

As you can see the should be some space above, below, and to the right of the image. The text should not be creeping on the image. Creeping is just not right. Images need breathing room too. Let them speak like you words. Let them do their jobs without any hassle from the text. In about one more sentence here, we’ll see that the text moves from the right of the image down below the image in seamless transition. Again, letting the do it’s thang. Mission accomplished!

And now for a massively large image. It also has no alignment.

Image Alignment 1200x400

The image above, though 1200px wide, should not overflow the content area. It should remain contained with no visible disruption to the flow of content.

Image Alignment 300x200

And now we’re going to shift things to the right align. Again, there should be plenty of room above, below, and to the left of the image. Just look at him there… Hey guy! Way to rock that right side. I don’t care what the left aligned image says, you look great. Don’t let anyone else tell you differently.

In just a bit here, you should see the text start to wrap below the right aligned image and settle in nicely. There should still be plenty of room and everything should be sitting pretty. Yeah… Just like that. It never felt so good to be right.

And just when you thought we were done, we’re going to do them all over again with captions!

Look at 580×300 getting some caption love.

The image above happens to be centered. The caption also has a link in it, just to see if it does anything funky.

Itty-bitty caption.

The rest of this paragraph is filler for the sake of seeing the text wrap around the 150×150 image, which is left aligned.

As you can see the should be some space above, below, and to the right of the image. The text should not be creeping on the image. Creeping is just not right. Images need breathing room too. Let them speak like you words. Let them do their jobs without any hassle from the text. In about one more sentence here, we’ll see that the text moves from the right of the image down below the image in seamless transition. Again, letting the do it’s thang. Mission accomplished!

And now for a massively large image. It also has no alignment.

Massive image comment for your eyeballs.

The image above, though 1200px wide, should not overflow the content area. It should remain contained with no visible disruption to the flow of content.

Feels good to be right all the time.

And now we’re going to shift things to the right align. Again, there should be plenty of room above, below, and to the left of the image. Just look at him there… Hey guy! Way to rock that right side. I don’t care what the left aligned image says, you look great. Don’t let anyone else tell you differently.

In just a bit here, you should see the text start to wrap below the right aligned image and settle in nicely. There should still be plenty of room and everything should be sitting pretty. Yeah… Just like that. It never felt so good to be right.

And that’s a wrap, yo! You survived the tumultuous waters of alignment. Image alignment achievement unlocked!

Donald D. Allan

Global Ebook Awards 2016 and Duilleog Second Edition

Beta Readers Wanted

Markup: HTML Tags and Formatting

Headings

Header one

Header two

Header three

Header four

Header five

Header six

Blockquotes

Tables

Definition Lists

Unordered Lists (Nested)

Ordered List (Nested)

HTML Tags

Markup: Image Alignment