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YEAR 2007 UPDATES Current 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998
November
28, 2007 New
merchandise: A
new store is now open featuring the "Cast" from
Cyberdrome - get your
t-shirts
and
coffee mugs before the holiday rush! Click here to
see all 3 designs. November
01, 2007 New
wallpapers: A
new wallpaper is now
available
that matches the new
t-shirts & mugs in our
store
Click
here to see the
wallpapers
- Click
here to visit the store October
30, 2007 New
merchandise: Another
store is now open featuring a new Cyberdrome design
- get your
t-shirt, October
18, 2007 New
merchandise and Wallpapers: Two
brand new t-shirt/mug designs are available in our
online store - click
here.
Two
brand new wallpapers are also available in our
Media Section - click here. September
20, 2007 Major
Announcement! : The
Cyberdrome Novel is becoming a Reality
!!
Expected
release date: January 18, 2008 August
16, 2007 Website
Update: The
1-chapter
preview of the Cyberdrome
eBook is
now separated into 19 pages - with only one image
per page this should speed up loading each page
quite a bit. August
07, 2007 Website
Update: Several
major changes: August
02, 2007 Story
Update: The
newly rewritten first 3 chapters of our
108,000-word Cyberdrome
novel were finally mailed off to a New York
literary agent yesterday. We should hear from them
in 4 to 8 weeks - as opposed to 6 to 8 month for
most publishers, so that's good. We will keep you
posted. July
31, 2007 Story
Update: The
Cyberdrome
Novel Preview
is back online! If you haven't read it yet, or you
haven't read it in a while (it's changed!),
check
it out now! July
07, 2007 Story
Update: The
Cyberdrome
Novel has
another new cover. This one is based on the new
Poster,
and is similar to the last one, but even better.
Also, even more important, you can disregard
everything said in the June 27 posting below. After
2 weeks of work and discussions, we have decided to
stick with the current version of the story, and
not try to make it a modern retelling. That option
is still there if nobody likes our ""near
future" version, but we will cross that water
body when we get to it. What this means to you, the
readers, is that the Novel
Preview
will go back online very soon. Stay
tuned... July
03, 2007 Media
Update: Two
items today: A new Poster
series is
now available in our Store,
and a new Desktop/Wallpaper
is available in the Media
section.
Both the new poser and wallpaper are based on a
cool new image by Dave
Rhea and
features the Cyberdrome Grid and some of the
creatures that reside there. Also, all of the
Wallpapers in the Media
section
are now available in full-resolution PNG (Portable
Network Graphic) format. The files are much
bigger now, but we wanted to offer you the cleanest
and best looking backgrounds for your computer.
Check them out. June
27, 2007 Story
Update: The
Cyberdrome
Novel has
a new cover design. Also, the Novel
Preview
is temporarily offline as we continue the rewrite
of the first act. Rewrite? What rewrite? Oh,
I guess we forgot to mention this on the site
- we have been too busy actually doing the rewrite
to post about it. Sorry. Well, long story
short(ish) - after several weeks of discussion, we
have decided to rewrite the first act to place the
story in a modern setting, as opposed to 25-30
years in the future. This is a style used
repeatedly by authors such as Michael
Crichton
and others to make sci-fi more appealing to more
people, not just us SF geeks. I had this
idea many years ago, and though then that if the
story doesn't sell in a pure sci-fi format, then I
would rewrite it as modern day story. The big
difference is that now Cyberdrome is a "secret
organization that has developed a key piece of
technology many years ahead of the rest of the
world," similar to Crichton's books; Jurassic Park,
Prey, and Timeline. Anyway, since 3/4
of our book takes place inside a computer
simulation, we only need to tweak the first 1/4 to
place the story in a modern day setting. Once the
rewrite is completed and edited a few more times,
we will once again post the first few chapters
online. Stay tuned and wish us luck... April
20, 2007 Story
Update: Well,
the expected rejection letter came last week from
Tor
books.
All I can say is that at least they didn't
wait the full 6 months to give us the bad news. As
I mentioned last year, Dune was rejected 13
times before it was published, and the first Harry
Potter had 14 rejections, so we are in good
company. With all the
problems involved in getting manuscripts to
publishers (who get literally hundreds per week),
our new plan is to obtain the services of a
literary agent and let them do the work for us (for
a 10% to 15% commission, of course). All
but one of the remaining SF publishers require
agented-manuscripts anyway, so it is time for us to
go this route anyway. We have a few good agents in
mind, and while they can be as difficult to obtain
as a publisher, at least they let you know if they
are interested within a few weeks (instead of six
month to a year for publishers.) We will let you
know how that goes. In better news,
we decided to add two additional chapters to the
Cyberdrome
Novel Preview,
which now gives you 5 full chapters to read (and
hopefully enjoy.) We also changed the book cover,
going back to our original "Spider in the
Valley" design. Click the Novels
button above, or go to www.Cyberdrome.net
to read the story now. March
06, 2007 Website
& Story
Update: The
Cyberdrome
Novel Preview
now has a new home (and web address). Go to our
sister site; www.Cyberdrome.net
to see it now. Of course, you can still access it
from here, in the "Novels" link
above (top navigation menu), which will just take
you to the new site. Check
it out! March
01, 2007 Story
Update: Well,
it's been just over 5 weeks since the preview and
synopsis for our Cyberdrome
Novel was
sent to Tor
books and
no news yet. They say it takes 4 to 6 months, so in
this case, no news is---no news. In other words, we
just have to keep waiting. On a related
note, I just finished the absolute final edit of
the complete 432-page (108,000 words) manuscript,
and it surprised me how much I liked it. That might
sound strange coming from the author (you might
say, "Of course you like it--you wrote it!"), but
after nearly 8 years of development and countless
rereads and rewrites, most authors would not be
able stand the sight of their own work anymore. I
think what makes this story special for me, is that
it is literally the best thing I have ever written,
and reading the whole thing one more time made me
realize that I simply can't write any better than
this (at this point in my life, anyway).
In other words,
I've given it my best, and it's the best I can do.
Take it or leave it. The great thing
about that realization is the knowledge that even
if the story is rejected by every major publishing
house, it really wouldn't bother me that much. This
is not my career, this is not my day job--it's a
hobby that I love and nothing more. It is also
something that keeps my brother Dave and I in
contact. We have been brainstorming together,
creating worlds (and cool machines), ever since we
were little kids, and I would hate to have that
part of my life taken away. Sure, I will
admit that it would be fun to sell a book, but only
as a novelty (no pun intended). There simply is no
money in novels (unless you are Stephen
King or
Michael
Crichton,
and most of their fortunes came from selling
TV and movie rights), and that is not why I
write anyway. I write because I have stories in my
head that need to be written down. If other people
like them enough to buy a copy, then that's great.
If not, I move on to the next story, and the next,
until either I run out of stories, or
I find another hobby, or I die. Either
way, I don't stop because of some publisher's
lack of interest. So there! I said it (and I
wrote it down). And that is enough for
now... January
23, 2007 Major
Story/Site Update: As
promised, a 3-chapter preview of our
Cyberdrome
Novel is
now available online, exclusively for our fans.
Click
here, or
on the "Novels"
link above, to begin the journey. January
19, 2007 Story
Update: The
new synopsis and rewritten first 3 chapters of our
110,000-word Cyberdrome
novel was mailed off to Tor
books
today. As we mentioned, it is expected to take 4 to
6 months for them to decide, so in the meantime, we
plan to add a lot of new content to this site.
We're
talking; The length of the
excerpt is yet to be determined, since we don't
want to screw up any future publishing deals. We
will look into how much we can legally give away,
and go with that number. I'm hoping to be able to
put up the first 5 chapters, which will give you a
really solid idea of where the story is going (and
hopefully make you want to buy the book when it
comes out). Stay tuned - it's
going to be a fun year! |
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