I wrote a book!

blankslatejoe

It's been awhile since I've pimped anything, polycount friends, but I hope this post has a place here in P&P.

I've been trying to teach myself how to write, an hour every day for a few years now. I've finally finished a full-length novel!




So...it's not game art, but I made an arty website for it!

http://www.armpitofevil.com


And, yes...I did register armpitofevil.com..!

Also, I'd love to hear what you guys think--of the site, of the free sample, of the illustration for the cover, of the politics of wall street, whatever!


Here's a link to the Smashwords site:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/95807

Edit: And now the Kindle Edition!
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005UUTSBC"]Amazon.com: The Armpit of Evil eBook: Joe Mirabello: Kindle Store[/ame]

Wells

JOE!!!

Hey man, glad this came to fruition. I'm totally keeping my loose-leaf early edition. It's going to be worth so much money now.

Any plans on getting a paper-print version?

Cover turned out great, too

Everyone should grab this. It's a quick, very fun read.

jmt

The book and cover look like a lot of fun.

Armpitofevil.com sort of confused me, though. I was expecting information about the book, author, etc (pretty much the stuff that's on the smashwords page) but the only things on the site are 1. Hammer 2.Skull 3.Art blog 4.Buy the book. I was wondering what buttom to click to get onto the actual website. Maybe this is my dumbness after working a 12 hour shift, but I thought maybe there were evil and good versions of the website, accessed by clicking on one of the symbols. Once I clicked on one, I realized the purpose (that text is funny).

The background of the website also looks kind of weird on my monitor. The gradient sort of goes (from top down) dark green - brown - yellow - tan - yellow - brown - dark green - then it fades into a striped pattern below. The "Visit Joe Mirabello's Blog and Art Site!" link at the bottom is difficult to read on top of the striped background. I like the illustration in the center the text and the icons, but it might look better if the painting was centered vertically, maybe with some sort of frame/border.

Jessica Dinh

Ah, really lovely painting!!

Mezz

Woah, it's no small feat to complete a full novel, so a major congrats!!

Looks adorable, the website is a lot of fun! Great job!

SsSandu_C

Cool! I can barely write post it notes :poly128:

Jeff Parrott

Awesome Joe! That's a pretty big accomplishment. Congrats!

Sayanora

This cracked me up

"..and then KILL HIM. A LOT"


I will buy your book sir!

blankslatejoe

Thanks guys! I'm working on getting the book up on amazon/kindle direct.

jmt - you're the second person to complain about that background in a row. I simplified it considerably now--I think it should be easier to read things. Centering the imagetable is a good idea too-I fix that up after work. As for more info on the site, I realized recently that I get myself into trouble by being overly ambitious, and so I forced myself to keep it simple, treat it like a teaser site for now and just 'get it out there' and worry about expanding it later.

Rhinokey

you small bit of fuck! i've been "atempting" to write a novel for years. But i never get more than a couple paragraphs in. I've got this big ol stupid idea in my head, but i just cant get it out!

blankslatejoe

Hah, I think that's the first time anyone's called me THAT, Rhino

Thanks everyone, I just got the book up on Kindle Direct: [ame="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005UUTSBC"]Amazon.com: The Armpit of Evil eBook: Joe Mirabello: Kindle Store[/ame]

Hayden Zammit

I know how hard and fulfilling it is to finish a first major length piece of writing, so congrats and keep it up!

Funky Bunnies

sweet, i was wondering where you were at all this time haha
I'll have to check it out

congrats blankslate!

LoTekK

Bought over the weekend! Haven't had time to start it just yet, but it's now on my phone, so I'll likely be reading during transit to and from work

Congrats!

blankslatejoe

Thanks Lotekk--I'd love to hear what you think! For those interested, I put up some stats about how long the project took and such up on my website (www.30lives.com)

Jeff Parrott

How easy was the kindle direct thing? Seems like a neat way to self publish a book.

blankslatejoe

Pretty easy actually, and it's pretty easy to track stats too, in terms of sales, royalty payouts and the like. You do have to wait for a vetting process to clear, so if you put something up, plan on waiting a day or two before it's live.

The biggest thing to watch out for is formatting--but if you format your piece by following Smashword's spacing/tabbing/paragraph guides (even if you don't use their format converter, since Amazon has their own) it seems that those fixes are pretty universal.