Win a Paperback Copy of The Moon Coin

Here’s what it looks like:

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When Lily and Jasper’s uncle disappears, Lily must search for him in the most unlikely of places: the fading realms of her childhood bedtime tales.

Gold Medal Winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.

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Higer Resolution Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ulfhednar/15796332821/

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Copyright © 2011-14 by Richard Due. All rights reserved.

No portion of this website may be used in any manner without the expressed written consent of the copyright holder.

Gibbering Gnome Press, A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^®

The Moon Realm^®

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Moon Realm Themed 5K iMac Retina Wallpaper

Have at it, folks!

You can download the 5K version HERE.

..Roan
warrior, head of his clutter

Mr. Phixit
more than just two arms mounted to a tall dresser with exactly ninety-nine drawers

Greydor Goldenclif
of the clan Foamchaser, Lord of the Valley Rinn

Oscar
bright red-plumed flying seahorse, unique among the birdfish

Curse
nasty piece of work, inhabits a slag heap of a sword, likes to be oiled regularly

Dragon
one of the wingless dragons of Dain

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When Lily and Jasper’s uncle disappears, Lily must search for him in the most unlikely of places: the fading realms of her childhood bedtime tales.

Gold Medal Winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.

Epic fantasy for ages 9 to 99. Visit the Moon Realm

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Copyright © 2011-14 by Richard Due. All rights reserved.

No portion of this website may be used in any manner without the expressed written consent of the copyright holder.

Gibbering Gnome Press, A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^®

The Moon Realm^®

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The Moon Coin “charming and clever and beautiful and daring”

A Perfect Tales-Told-By-the-Fire Book

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By Tricia Rightmire

I’ve been working on how to phrase this review for a while, but I sit down planning to sound all clever and erudite and end up getting all wistful and making lots of hands-over-my-heart gestures at the screen, so I think this time I’m just going to go with that. . . .

The Moon Coin is lovely, folks. It is charming and clever and beautiful and daring; it’s full of adventure and surprises and courage and puzzles and characters with whom I fell immediately and permanently in love. It’s written with a younger audience in mind—think “older elementary school, some middle schoolers”—but it’s the sort of book that just begs for a blanket and some comfy pillows and a crackling fire on the hearth, with everyone piled in together and hearing about far-off lands full of faeries and dragons and cats big enough to ride (they get really crabby about that, though, so I don’t recommend trying it). It doesn’t shy away from big words or complex ideas, but couches them all in a universe that’s so rich and consuming that they’re not “too hard” . . . and it’s just. so. fun.

The downside is that it’s the first of an as-yet uncompleted series, so you can’t just sit down and binge-read through them all; the upside is that every minute in this world is delicious and grand, and makes you want nothing more than to have your own Moon Coin so you can go adventuring. Grab the youngsters who mean the most to you, settle in, and enjoy!

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From Sketch to Chapter Art, an Illustrator at Work

For me, getting to work with Carolyn Arcabascio was a dream come true. We worked from a master list of scene options, with Carolyn picking out scenes she liked and making sketches. For the prologue, Carolyn drafted three options. All three were great, but two in particular were spectacular. I first went with option 3 (one of my scene suggestions). I think we spent more time on this sketch and subsequent color drawing than on any other piece. But it never seemed right. At the eleventh hour, I asked Carolyn how hard she’d hit me if I suggested scrapping the thing and instead going with the pinky promise scene you see below (one of her scene suggestions).  Carolyn responded: “There would be no hitting involved!” and told me it wouldn’t be a problem. You sure can’t ask for better than that.

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From the Prologue: Bedtime Tales.

Click on image to enlarge.

Richard: Did you make all these sketches in the same location, Carolyn?

Carolyn: Yes, I do all of my work at a drafting table that’s situated in a little nook of my apartment in Acton, Massachusetts. There’s a bookshelf to my right and a wall of “inspiration” to my left, where I hang prints of other artists’ and illustrators’ work. On either side of my drafting table are drawers of supplies, and stacks of sketchbooks and old paintings. The drafting table faces a window overlooking a quiet street and the woods beyond it.

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From Chapter Two: A Coin of the Realm.

Click on image to enlarge.

Richard: Do you use models when you’re sketching?

Carolyn: I use a combination of models and photo references. If I need to work out the nuances of a character’s posture and really understand the perspective of it, I’ll ask whatever friend or family member is handy to pose for a sketch. Often, I’ll get into the position myself or mimic the facial expression I want to portray in order to get the feel of it. And sometimes, if there’s a character being portrayed multiple times across scenes, I’ll make a rough model of their head out of clay so I’ll have it to refer to.

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From Chapter Four: To Barreth.

Click on image to enlarge.

Richard: When drawing fantastical creatures, do you use bits and pieces of real animals for inspiration, or have you actually seen a wirtle and you’re just not telling us? 😉

Carolyn: No wirtles native to Massachusetts, fortunately! When figuring out the look of fantastical creatures, I use photo references of different animals to understand the way the anatomy might work, and then combine features as I see fit and as the story calls for. To understand the wirtle’s legs and paws, for example, I referred to a series of photographs of show dogs leaping over hurdles. The severely arched, scruffy back was influenced by photos of hyenas on the prowl. The bone-structure of the face ended up being something of a cross between a cow and a warthog, and I wanted the snout to be bare—kind of gross and raw-looking. Add it all up and, voila! We have a wirtle.

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When Lily and Jasper’s uncle disappears, Lily must search for him in the most unlikely of places: the fading realms of her childhood bedtime tales.

Gold Medal Winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.

Epic fantasy for ages 9 to 99. Visit the Moon Realm

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❍

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Copyright © 2011-14 by Richard Due. All rights reserved.

No portion of this website may be used in any manner without the expressed written consent of the copyright holder.

Gibbering Gnome Press, A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^®

The Moon Realm^®

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Polilla Writes Reviews The Dragondain

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An Interview with Richard Due by Stephanie Hopkins

 

Click HERE or on the image below to read the interview.

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Look! A New Header Banner!

Crossover!

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 (Click image to enlarge.)

The blog got a new header banner today! So, if you ever wondered what a crossover looked like, then check it out. Taw is on the left, Dik Dek on the right, and that’s the Moon Realm’s sun in the background. (The clouds are your clue that this vantage point is coming from the surface of yet another moon.)

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This Author’s Desk

My Desk.

The vintage items you see here aren’t part of a deliberate theme on my part. Everything simply came together over time.

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1. 20-inch Dell 2009w LCD monitor. I bought this in 2008. It’s great for text, but the color isn’t up to snuff for production work. (Oh, and hiding behind that lovely illustration by Carolyn Arcabascio, is the working draft of The Murk, which I am currently editing.)

 

2. Western Electric model 500 telephone (sold from 1950 to 1984). This is my high-tech communications system. I picked it up at a yard sale ($5) several years ago because I was getting tired of buying new batteries for my cordless phone. It still dials out, but when confronted with an automated message system and asked to press “4” or whatever, I just have to hang up.

 

3. Panasonic Electric Pencil Sharpener, model KP-77 S (probably early 70s, with Auto-Stop!). My trusty friend, bought by my wife for $3 at a church bazaar. Amazingly, you can still buy replacement parts for this model.

 

4. Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones. My portable orchestra. I bought these in 2001, shortly after purchasing an iPod, because said iPod couldn’t pump out enough juice to drive my old AKG 260s.

 

5. 15-inch Apple Macbook Pro (Winter 2006). Tucked behind the monitor, Graphic Mayhem rests in a little wooden bracket and runs in closed-lid mode when it’s not doing color work.

 

6. Apple Pro Keyboard (2000). The computer this came with is gone now, but I kept the keyboard because Apple built it to outlast the sun.

 

7. Apple Mighty Mouse (2005). I have no clear memory of how I acquired this mouse, but it’s still on the job.

 

8. Picture of an Egyptian chariot (gift from a friend), because chariots are cool.

 

9. Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition (1938). Yes, it’s old, but it still beats the hell out of any other dictionary I’ve ever used.

 

10. Two Rinn. These were a Christmas gift, hand-made by my wife and children. They are more precious to me than my weight in 1st edition hardbacks of The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (Fine in Fine dust jackets). And THAT, my friends, is saying something.

 

11. Placebo coffee (or sometimes placebo tea). It’s hard to see in this photo, but it’s right here on the corner of this middle shelf.

 

Featured on lifehacker.com.

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Crossover: the Moon Realm Invades Barnes and Noble Bookstores Everywhere

Crossover

The Moon Realm Invades Barnes and Noble Bookstores Everywhere

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I wish I had a more exciting tale to tell, but getting a self-published book into Barnes and Noble is all about time, diligence, and whether or not they want your book.

In a nutshell, here’s how I got the Moon Realm series into Barnes and Noble. Last fall I submitted to their Small Press Dept., at their Headquarters on 5th Ave, in New York. On their website, they said that if I didn’t hear back from them I should resend, as they get 2,000 submissions a week, which means, every once and a while, they have chuck everything and start over. I got a letter back from them maybe two weeks later requesting paperback copies of The Moon Coin (the only Moon Realm book in paper at that time). That was back in November. My next task was to get a distributor or wholesaler. B&N had sent me a list of them. I sent submissions two wholesalers that could work out for me. One replied in a week with a no. The other, Baker and Taylor, took longer. On March 26th, B&N sent me another letter saying they still wanted The Moon Coin, but that since they hadn’t heard from me in a long time, they were going to take their offer off the table 30 days from the date of that letter. That seemed more than fair to me, generous, in fact. It was a bit of a bummer, though, as I’d decided in my mind that Baker and Taylor, not having gotten back to me—I’d submitted to them in January—wasn’t interested in my book. Then, on April 11th, Baker and Taylor sent an email to Gibbering Gnome press saying “We are pleased to inform you that after reviewing your materials, we would like to have your company become a vendor with Baker & Taylor.”

That was a fine day.

Since the second book in my series, The Dragondain, had come out in December, and since my original contact from Barnes and Noble had changed since last November, I decided to send my new B&N contact new copies of both titles. She called a few weeks later to say they were going to order The Moon Coin, and that The Dragondain was now being reviewed by their buyer. During that time, Gibbering Gnome Press set up its account with B&T. I sent copies of books to my contact at B&T at that time, too. Soon, I was in B&T’s system.

On July 18th, the day before I was leaving for vacation, the first two purchase orders from B&T rolled in. So, instead of packing, I spent the evening thumbing through a 55 page document on how to make a proper shipping label for B&T’s warehouse. It involved me—I’m Gibbering Gnome’s typesetter, among other things—generating a label containing six barcodes. I’d never made barcodes before. I mean, I’d order them from Bowkers, of course, but never made them from scratch. By midnight, though, everything was boxed and ready to ship. I did what packing I could, then finished up in the morning. We sent the books off as we left town.

Unrelated to all this, I’d been in contact with a B&N Children’s Book Manager since last summer. Her store is in Utah. She’d contacted me on GoodReads, and wanted to know why my books weren’t in B&N’s catalog, Bookmaster. I’d told her I was trying my best. We kept in contact during this whole process, and, now that my books were in the system, she ordered copies for her store. She’s picked out a display, and Gibbering Gnome Press has sent her posters and postcards adverts.

Now all I need to do is sit back and watch the purchase orders roll in, right? Ha! If only it was so easy! But seriously, my job now is to run around to local B&Ns and independent bookstores, handing out free review copies and letting them know that I’m in B&T, or, in the case of the B&Ns, that I’m in Bookmaster. If I’m lucky, I might be able to get in on a few signings.

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Copyright © 2011, 2012 by Richard Due. All rights reserved.

Gibbering Gnome Press,

A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^®

The Moon Realm^®

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Good news for Moon Realm fans! Baker & Taylor has picked up Gibbering Gnome Press as a vendor.

Which means . . . after I slay a thousand forms, hire TRON to break into B&N’s catalog system, kill the witch, and bring back the broom to Oz . . . after all that . . . The Moon Coin is headed for Barnes & Noble!

Here’s how it happened: back in the fall, Barnes and Noble sent me a letter saying they wanted to carry The Moon Coin in their brick and mortar bookstores. The problem is that B&N doesn’t acquire books from publishers and authors, they get them from distributors and wholesalers.

Well, this week I heard back from Baker & Taylor. I’VE GOT THE BROOM AND I’M HEADING BACK TO OZ! My book is going to be available to B&N, (among many other bookstores), and a 95% of all libraries!

I have no idea how long it’s going to take me to get back to Oz, though. A couple months maybe? There’s just never a roving band of blood-thirsty flying monkeys around when you need one. Have you ever noticed that? But when I do get back, and into the Barnes & Noble catalog, B&Ns everywhere will be able to stock the series!

I’ve already heard from one B&N children’s dept manager who says she already has a special display in mind. She also plans to put up posters! Yikes!

One B&N store down, 722 to go.

In other news, I’m back up on Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116346566164783346454

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Notes from my Coat-of-Many-Pockets

You didn’t think Ebb was the only one with such a coat, did you?

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Jessi, from Maryland, sent in this pick of her pocket-Rinn.

She sent this message with it: This is Blooregard Q. Kazoo, commonly called Bloo. He just wants to read this pretty book with the similarly majestic kitty on the front of it, OK? But he doesn’t have opposable thumbs. : (

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Gibbering Gnome Press has been thrilled with the response to their ebook giveaway for THE MOON COIN. We thought it would take four weeks to get 50 takers. We got 40 in the first week! If the next 10 go before this weekend is out, Gibbering Gnome Press is prepared double the number of ebook versions they’re giving away. That’s right, they’ll give away as many as 100 ebook copies! Also, in addition to the Kindle and Nook versions, there are now a limited number of iTunes iBookstore versions available. So don’t forget to mention that if you want an iBookstore version. Please Share this Post. 🙂

Here’s the original offer:

In an effort to build up our email list, Gibbering Gnome Press is giving away 50 free e-books of The Moon Coin, the first book in the award-winning Moon Realm series, to the first fifty people who join our email list. Please specify if you’d like to receive a Kindle or Nook version in your email.

You will receive your gift link on February 18th.

Details here: http://themoonrealm.com/tmremaillist/

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There are some images in this film that come freaky close to the Moon Realm. If you want to see what it looks like to have one world hanging over another, or what a crossover might look like, then check it out! (As you already know, if you’ve read the books, the way gravity works in this film is VERY different than in the Moon Realm.)

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/upsidedown/

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Gibbering Gnome Press just made it a whole lot easier for librarians (public & school) to order MOON REALM novels. For details click HERE. There’s even a handy, printable Order From. So if your local library is lacking in the Moon Realm department, print out a copy of the PDF and take it down to your local library and tell them you’re dying to read the print edition. Which is quite lovely, btw. You can catch a glimpse of it HERE.

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If you’re a GoodReads member (What’s GoodReads? Imagine if facebook was filled with readers and authors and all they wanted to do was talk about great books!), and you enjoy middle-grade books (Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Percy Jackson, etc.), or shop for a middle-grader who does, check out the Group Great Middle Grade Reads. And while you’re there, don’t forget to give the Moon Realm books a vote on their Listopia List, which you can get to that list by clicking HERE. 😉

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We’re gathering quotes from THE DRAGONDAIN to include on five new Second Looks Books bookmarks. If you have any favs, please shout them out. (We may just use one of them!)

Here are the five quotes we used on last year’s booksmarks. They’re all taken from THE MOON COIN:

“But—” yelped Twizbang, “Greydor will eat us!”

“Some people are just sad when there aren’t talking squirrels.” —Lily Winter

“You won’t find the tales I bear in any books . . . My tales are from the Moon Realm.” —Ebb Autumn

“Odd names: Winter, Autumn—they almost sound as if someone just made them up.” —Dubb

Tavin cupped his hands to his mouth. “Here, dragon-dragon-dragon!” he yelled. Lily stared in amazement. Well, that was bold, she thought, and stupid.

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Lastly, for those of you who are wondering, I’m editing third book in the Moon Realm series, The Murk, as fast as I’m able. I’ve been handing off the first few chapters with my primary editor these last few weeks, and she’s been saying nice things about it. And she hasn’t read chapter 3 yet, which was great fun to write. I can’t wait to hear what she thinks of it. I’ll say only one word about it: Faerathil. 😀

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The Clock, She’s a Ticking!

I’m thick in the race to publish book three, The Murk, on time. I’m editing every day now. My primary job is to keep a steady stream of pages flowing to my editor. Chapter two feels like it’s just a few days away from being ready (eight passes so far, the last two on paper). Meanwhile, I’m still making my first pass on the book’s closing chapters! I’m so far behind! Making the Fall pub date is going to be a challenge!

Today, thankfully, has been one of magical editing days where not only do I have lots of time (so rare), but things are falling into place left and right (rarer still)!

So, while my wife and children race down the sloops like the ski bunnies they are, I’ve holed up at Trader’s Coffee.

This picture was taken directly across the street from the coffee shop. If you’ve never been to Deep Creek Lake, MD, in the winter: yes! the water really is that blue!

I’ve got a decaf latte, a warmed palmier, a printout of chapter two, and four very sharp dixon ticonderogas at my side. Now, to work!

Day two. On the way to Trader’s Coffee House, I pulled over and snapped this shot below.

And here’s the original shot I pulled this detail from:

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Pocket Rinn

(if you want to add to the gallery, send me a pic along with the name, State and/or Country of origin, to here)

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This Pocket Rinn is my daughter’s cat: Simpkin. She’s reclining

on 1,000 copies of THE DRAGONDAIN.

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This is Preciosa the jaguar. She lives in Peru. She REALLY wants to read The Moon Coin!

Preciosa is a tad larger than your average pocket Rinn. I can’t tell from the pic how many pounds she weighs, but I’m guessing she’s still smaller than a real Rinn cub, and so I decided to include her. Besides, how many North American authors get to post pics of a jaguar pawing at their book? 🙂

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This is Larissa’a Pocket Rinn, Max!  He prowls the jungles of Oregon, USA.

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This Pocket Rinn’s name is Moppet, sister to Simpkin. She was supposed to be given away while just a mere pocket cub, but, by some inexplicable process, she wheedled her way into staying.

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Jessi, from Maryland, sent in this pick of her pocket-Rinn.

She sent this message with it: This is Blooregard Q. Kazoo, commonly called Bloo. He just wants to read this pretty book with the similarly majestic kitty on the front of it, OK? But he doesn’t have opposable thumbs. : (

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THE DRAGONDAIN: Unleashed!

Gibbering Gnome Press has paperback copies of THE DRAGONDAIN in stock!

Book Two / A Moon Realm Novel

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The tale continues . . .

The Chronicles of Narnia meets Game of Thrones

Precocious reader to adult: 304 paperback pages, 85,000 words, full-color illustrations. Book two of the Moon Realm series.

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Gold Medal Winning Series of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.

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Two chapters formatted for ePub, Mobi, or PDF.

Please share these files with your friends. Enjoy.

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The Dragondain

Now available in paperback and ebook.

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes iBookstore.

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Paperback Edition

On Sale at Amazon

Click HERE.

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 The Moon Coin

Book One / A Moon Realm Novel

Now available in paperback and eBook.

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Amazon, Second Looks Books, and Back to the Books.

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Paperback Edition

On Sale at Amazon

Click HERE.

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Available for E-Readers:

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes iBookstore

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Copyright © 2011 by Richard Due. All rights reserved. Gibbering Gnome Press,

A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^® The Moon Realm^®

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The Traverse City Children’s Book Festival, the Moonbeam Awards, and a literary scavenger hunt.

I just got back from a trip to Traverse City, Michigan, where the Traverse City Children’s Book Festival was held in a beautiful old Opera House. It’s lovely town right on the shore of Lake Michigan, and the people there support not one, but two amazing independent bookshops: Horizon Books, and Brilliant Books. (You can get THE MOON COIN in Horizon Books now, btw, just sayin’.)

The Traverse City Children’s Book Festival. I’m in the lower right corner.

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I got to meet a lot of amazing authors at the festival, but for me the most exciting part was meeting the kids: you would have thought they were in a candy store!

Some of the winners on display in the Opera House. (I did NOT arrange these books!)

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After the festival, we packed up, got dressed up, and headed out to the top floor of the tallest building in town: the Park Place Hotel, where the Moonbeam Awards Ceremony was held.

I’m the dude on the far right. Jim Barnes, master of ceremonies, is in the center.

Link to the press release HERE.

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Lastly, I want to mention that the GoodReads Group, Anything Goes, has picked The Moon Coin as their December Book of the Month. Anything Goes is mostly comprised of UK members, but anyone is welcome to join. I’ve been in contact with Chris, a group moderator, and she’s given me permission to put together a little international contest. So get ready for a literary scavenger hunt (drawing off The Moon Coin). The winner will receive a signed, numbered, paperback copy (I will ship this anywhere I can (except to the moon Darwyth; if you’re on the moon Darwyth then you’re on your own; sorry). I’ll post the contest here at Anything Goes on the December the 1st. So if you like scavenger hunts, be on the lookout!

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Traverse City Children’s Book Festival

I’ll be at the festival, reading from The Moon Coin and signing books.

Dates & Location

10:00am to 4:00pm

The annual Traverse City Children’s Book Festival will be held Saturday , November 10, 2012 at:

City Opera House
106 East Front Street
Traverse City, MI 49684-2509
(231) 941-8082

Tickets & Admission

General attendance is free!
No tickets are required

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Sun-dappled Bluelines

Straight from the typesetting department

of Gibbering Gnome Press:

Here be the completed bluelines to the print edition of The Dragondain. I took this pic from Gibbering Gnome Press’s natural light studio (also known as my porch). I’ve burned the publication files to disc. Tomorrow, I’ll have another sample cover made—for correction verification—then it’s straight off to the printer. I’m really hoping this will be the only round of corrections, but I never really know until the boxes start appearing—like magic—in Gibbering Gnome Press’s loading dock (also known as my garage). For example, this time I had to change things around in the front matter to acknowledge that I’d won a Moonbeam award, which I still find hard to believe! Part of me thinks that if I see it in print, then maybe the news will get through my thick head and into my wee little brain. It’s so surreal. Maybe . . . maybe I’m in the Matrix! Now that seems much more likely. Yeah, that’s gotta be it: I’m in the Matrix! That explains SO much. I can’t wait to start dodging bullets in slow mo! Or run up walls and jump off buildings. Welp, off to go practice my new powers. Wish me luck!

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Baltimore Book Festival

2012 Baltimore Book Festival

I snapped this pic holding my camera over my head. The festival gets 50,000 people over three days.

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Michael Buckley (Sisters Grimm series)

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My first book festival.

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2012 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards: Gold Medal Winner

The Moon Coin just won the 2012 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award for pre-teen fiction.

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Link to the press release HERE.

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Cover Reveal for the Print Edition of THE DRAGONDAIN

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Click the image directly above or HERE for a larger image.

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Copyright © 2012 by Richard Due. All rights reserved. Gibbering Gnome Press,

A Division of Ingenious Inventions Run Amok, Ink^® The Moon Realm^®

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