Untimed Book Trailer

This awesome Trailer for Untimed was made for me by The Other House, a LA based firm specializing in book trailers. They’re one of the few houses with consistently classy output. I went with an animation style because I’m bothered by live action or straight up photography (in a book context). Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 70s and 80s when only cheesy Tie-In novels had photos on the cover, who knows?

In any case, I also had to keep my trailer short (mostly for budget reasons) and so it was also an interesting exercise to squeeze the basic concept into about 15 seconds of storytelling.

Let me know how we did! And make sure to watch it in 720p!

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Untimed and Forbidden Giveaway!

My friend Kimberly Kinrade and I did this cool live interview online tonight. It’s about 45 minutes long and part of the awesome Untimed and Forbidden Trilogy giveaway party. All week we will be giving away stuff, including an awesome Tick Tock watch, so go to the event page if you want in on that, and or, check out the video below!

Don’t miss out on free stuff at our giveaway party!

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Untimed starred in Publishers Weekly!

The latest issue of Publishers Weekly just came out, and Untimed earned a starred review! I’m 2/2 on this, as The Darkening Dream also earned a star — and they are quite rare, usually only 1-2 books per issue. The review is good enough that I’ll quote it in entirety, although you can find it on the PW site too:

Gavin (The Darkening Dream), perhaps best known for his work in the video game industry as the creator of Crash Bandicoot, kicks off an exciting series with an intriguing take on time travel. Fifteen-year-old Charlie, so forgettable that his own mother can’t remember his name, is inadvertently thrown back in time when he enters a portal created by a strange clockwork man Stranded in 1725 London, Charlie joins a gang of urchins, meets lively fellow time traveler Yvaine, and accidentally gets Benjamin Franklin killed, totally wrecking the course of history. Charlie and Yvaine must brave the hazards of unfamiliar eras (and the sinister mechanical Tick-Tocks) to restore the proper course of events. Gavin doesn’t sugarcoat the perils of times past, instead exposing his heroes to all sorts of experiences, and Phillips’s dramatically lit spot illustrations amplify the mystery and menace of the setting. The sense of adventure, chemistry between Charlie and Yvaine, and roller coaster plot are sure to appeal to a wide range of readers, who may cry foul at the cliffhanger ending before demanding more.

You can also find all the Untimed reviews (which are pretty uniformly stellar) here.

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Untimed – $1.99 this week!

To help kick off the launch, the E-Book versions of Untimed will be only $1.99 cents from Sunday, January 20 until Friday the 25th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

“A masterful storyteller, Gavin builds a solid plot with believable characters.” — Kirkus“Like science class in Las Vegas!” — FantasyLiterature.com

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Unbendable Untimed

I debated about publishing a hardcover edition of Untimed, as paper sales on The Darkening Dream leaned heavily to the paperback (presumably for cost reasons). In the end, I just had too, as they look so good.

This time around I did the entire mechanical (the print ready PDF) and layout myself, as I did with the paperback. Good professionals charge around $1000 per mechanical (so usually over $2000 for both paperback and hardcover). If you have a good eye and substantial Photoshop skills, it’s doable by yourself. I did every element on both paperback and hardcover exteriors except for the actual cover illustration (Cliff Nielsen did that, and that is way beyond my artistic abilities).

The hardcover mechanical would have only taken me about four hours, but I ran into a nasty bug with photoshop PDF output that cost me an extra eight. I hate that kind of thing, but it happens.

If you are interested in making a hardcover edition yourself through Lightning Source, you can read about how I did it here.

Here is what the mechanical looks like

In case you’re curious about the book behind the pretty cover:

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

(even if it says “out of stock” you can still order it and it’ll ship in a couple of days)

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The back cover. It has the usual cloth jacket and flaps inside.

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Untimed for sale at B&N and iTunes

My novel, Untimed, is now for sale at Barnes and Noble and iTunes. Well, B&N at least, as iTunes (as of morning 1/4/13) is still reviewing/processing, but will post shortly.

With my previous novel, Amazon had over 90% of the sales, and B&N probably did 90% of the remaining. This time around I may skip the Google Bookstore as it barely sold anything and provides a highly inferior customer experience. The Google formatting even mangled the images, which Untimed has in spades. Maybe I’ll take a look at Kobo too.

Find out more Untimed book here.

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Untimed officially for Sale!

Both the paperback and Kindle versions are available. If your stocking is stuffed with a brand new Kindle, or you already have one, or you read on the Kindle app anywhere (iPad, Android, etc.)…

The e-book launches at the low, low price of $5.99, certainly a bargain given that it took me a year to write. Plus the book is lavishly produced with a cover by award winning fantasy artist Cliff Nielsen and there are twenty-one gorgeous interior illustrations by Dave Phillips.

For those of you that aren’t Kindle people, in the next couple of weeks I’ll try to get all the other E-Book variants up (B&N, iTunes, etc.). Also, I’m also working on a stunning hardcover edition — just because I can.

About the book:

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

So try it out and see what you think. Afterward, please review the book on Amazon. Reviews matter!

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