So now I'm back from a fabulous trip to Los Angeles pursuing the production of a science fiction television show with a well known producer. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of detail about the show or our meetings that I can tell due to our confidentiality agreement. However, I can say that I was on the studio lot for meetings three out of five days I was on the trip and things went amazingly well. Far better than I could have hoped. We had some actors do a table read and the reaction to the script was remarkable. It felt so good to see something I have been revising and polishing for a good long time see the light of day and be enjoyable to so many people. The readers got the humor and the drama of the story and with only a few tweaks it is ready to move on to the next stage of development.

My trip was a wonderful experience and I can't wait to see this things take off and fly. Overall I did the following during the trip; Slept too little, met with five different producers and half a dozen actors, was in a live studio audience for a taping of Hot in Cleveland, visited the Reagan Presidential Library, and sipped a Long Island Ice Tea in a 5 star hotel on Santa Monica beach. The picture above is dinner on Saturday night with (from l to r) Anthony Montgomery -Star Trek: Enterprise, Peter Borreggine- My writing partner on this new series, Garrett Wang- Star Trek:Voyager, myself, John Cairone- Our business guru and the lovely Dawn Noel - A fantastic local LA actress/dancer, etc.

In other news, my pilot script for the 1930-40s period television show is now in the hands of a veteran producer to review as well. He doesn't take on many projects anymore, only ones he feels passionately about, so we'll have to see if he like Starring:Zack Reilly or not in the coming months.

I'll be plugging away at Pact with the Wood Witch very soon in order to hit my March release date. I hope to have the manuscript in the hands of my readers within 2 weeks. BTW: If you did not already know this, The Stolen Throne is now available to Nook at Barnes & Noble online.

It's amazing how quickly a week rolls by and we're back to Sunday night and amazingly I'm at the keyboard to write my blog. I think this is the most consistent I have ever been on a blog in my life. It's at least one thing I can do every week without weather and other events getting in the way.

Today's monthly, or should I say, almost monthly table top game that I host had to be postponed due to snow. Those of you in southern climes don't have that kind of consideration for your game planning. I so envy you and someday I hope to escape the great whiteness of Maine and find my own place in the sun. Savannah, Georgia is at the top of my list so far.

Anyway, without a game the time allowed me to get some overdue edits done on The Stolen Throne. Yes that is the first part of my Hidden Novel series and it has already been out for a month on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and Smashwords.com. However, I have had some very shrewd comments indicating that I had some issues with punctuation and some inconsistent capitalization for races and titles. I think I caught most of those and a few word omissions that I can't believe I missed in the first five edits. The new versions are now live on Kindle and will be soon on Smashwords. There is no change to the content of the story at all so no worries there, but if you did purchase your copy through Smashwords you should be able to re-download the revised version without paying for it again. Give it a day or two to update on their site first.

In the past week, I also finished another round of edits on the Mission:Thanatos pilot. This project really seems to be gaining some traction so much so that I'm off to California on Wednesday to have development meetings, etc. I have been official given a gag order by our Executive Producer so I cannot relate any more details about the show or anything about it until official press material is released. That will likely come a little over a week from now. So please be patient dearies, I've been working on this project for a decade now. I have had to be patient, we can all wait just a little longer. At least I hope I can. These next two days will be a serious test of my mental fortitude. I still need to work my day job and be productive there while my head is off in the clouds dreaming of Hollywood. Wish me luck. The good news is that I've only got two more days before I have a plane to catch and hopefully start the wheels turning on a life changing event. Savannah, here I come.

Still no word on Tommy & The Troll artwork. I will try again tomorrow, but I really hope this guy wasn't a false hope, too. Eventually, I may just come up with the money an pay for it to be drawn page by page as a work for hire, just to get it done, maybe as a Kickstarter or something. 

Well, as I mentioned last week, with my trip next weekend's blog post will likely not happen until Monday. I will get one done and give as much as I'm allowed for info on my trip. Until then, fingers, eyes and toes crossed for success.

Happy Sunday to everyone that reads my blog. Even if there are only two of you, just kidding. I'm sure there are throngs of folks hanging on my every word. Not so much. Anyway like Vanilla Ice we're back with a Brand New Edition this week. Only a couple things to talk about and they are mostly to do with Mission:Thanatos.

Those of you that have been keeping up with me throughout the years know that I write all over the spectrum. Pretty much any genre except romance. Why do I exclude romance, I dunno, just never been something I was any good at. Usually I end up cheesy and over the top. Even more over the top than a Hugh Grant movie or slipping into some strange deeply repressed misogynistic fantasy courtesy of far to much James Bond.

Anyway, Mission:Thanatos is a sci-fi television show set in Earth's future that follows the adventures of a captain and a crew as they struggle to expose a conspiracy that claimed the life of our dear captain's father 40 years earlier.  At this point we have an Executive Producer, Suzanne DeLaurentiis and a great partner in Mark Valinsky media group (Not sure of his official title- May be a second Exec Prod.) They have set up an office for the show at Paramount Studios in Hollywood and are working to find the proper investors to make the pilot. My partner and I will be traveling out to see them and have some meetings and a table read of our script the last full week of January. I will be traveling back on 1/26 so it is likely that blog post will be a day or two late. We're hoping they can quickly find the money necessary to make the pilot and then an appropriate outlet for the series to continue. We'll see how that all develops.


Closer to home, I had the opportunity to be on and internet radio show last night hosted by Jeff Ferguson. the show Jeff Trek is broadcast on-line every Saturday Night from 5:30-7:30 ET from Jeff's home studio in Massachusetts. I called in and we had a lively discussion about Mission:Thanatos about science fiction television in general, technology we will use in the show and about the various projects I have been involved with over the years. It was a really good time and I look forward to being on again in February to give an update after our trip west. If you want to check out Jeff Trek he has a website and a facebook page.


Just to keep up with other Items:

• I've now sold 14 copies of The Stolen Throne including 13 at Amazon and 1 at Smashwords. There may be more, but data from B&N takes a while to come in. oh yeah, that is another piece of news: The Stolen Throne is now available directly through Barnes & Noble online for your Nook.
  
• I'm waiting for the first of new artwork for Tommy & The Troll. I'll email the artist later today to see how he is progressing on the initial sketches.

That's all for now. Have a wonderful and creative week.

Well it is Sunday again and it's time for another blog. I'm trying my best to keep on schedule with these things so that I get something posted every week but it is getting very challenging to find the time. With the normal life stuff; jobs, family, PTO, etc. then add on to it all the projects I have in the works it's going to be a busy year. Here is a brief rundown of the the irons in my fire;

Mission:Thanatos -
The science fiction television series that I created with partner Peter Borreggine a little over ten years ago is now entering development with Suzanne DeLaurentiis Productions at Paramount Studios in California. I plan on traveling to California in the next month for meetings and a table read of the pilot script with some actors we have attached to the project. FMI: Mission:Thanatos on FB or www.missionthanatos.com

The Hidden World Series -
The first installment of my series of Fantasy short stories has been published on Amazon and Smashwords. I also received word recently that The Stolen Throne has been approved for premium distribution through Smashwords, so soon it will be available at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, I Stores, Flipcart, etc. I've sold a dozen copies since release on 12/21/13 and received couple of very nice reviews including one on www.goodreads.com. I hope you give this series a chance and get your own copy from your favorite e-tailer. Part Two, Pact with the Wood Witch is about half written and will be going to first readers in February.

Tommy & The Troll -
Last year I finished the manuscript for the first in a series of four (or more) children's books. The first artist I had started working with, although very pleasant and quite passionate about the project was not prepared to produce a full book. I have now found a new artist and expect to be seeing some of his work on the first book in the next couple weeks. The goal here is to have the art finished by the end of 2014 and publish either via crowdfunding and/or Createspace in 2015. We may then use copies of the first edition to pursue a traditional children's publisher.

Spirit Island, Murder in Maine and other Clockwork Pirates Projects -
Both Spirit Island and Murder in Maine are in the hands of a producer and his financial manager in California. They are looking for backers or buyers for the scripts and will take a commission if they make a sale or come on as producers in the event of production. My adventure project based on a public domain character is still early in the treatment stage and once the Mission:Thanatos pilot script edits are finished and Pact with the Wood Witch(The Hidden World: Part 2) is in the hands of my first readers next month I will return to that.

So that is it for now. 2014 will be a busy year. Come along for the ride, I assure you it will be exciting.

At this point www.garyhauger.com has been live for a week. Just a couple days before that I published my first e-book The Stolen Throne on Smashwords.com and Amazon.com. This e-book is the first in a series of short stories ,or Novelettes, that sets the stage for a broader exploration of the Faerie world of Avalon. So far initial response has been favorable with five star reviews on both websites. These are possibly close friends using aliases so I'm not letting it go to my head. I've sold a total of eleven copies in a little over a week. I'm happy with that pace. The numbers also indicate that ten times as many copies were sold on Amazon as Smashwords, but that is also expected. Presently, I have almost two hundred friends on my facebook author page and hopefully they will turn out soon to purchase their own copies. Maybe when the versions become available at their favorite e-tailers like B&N, Kobo or for Iphones in the next few weeks they will take the leap of faith and buy it.

A friend made a page for the e-book on Goodreads.com but I haven't check out if anyone has commented or posted any reviews. The Stolen Throne is also list on Shelfari.com which is the Amazon branded Goodreads site.  This is exactly what I expected. I'm a new author yet to make a reputation with just this one title under my belt. The idea of slowly growing an audience is a challenge I gladly accept and hope those of you that read my blog will join me on my quest to be a "successful" author. In terms of this blog, we'll define successful as an author that sells enough copies of his books to be profitable. In this regard I have an advantage. Since I did all my interior work, and conversion prep myself and found great deals on stock illustrations for my covers; my overhead is really low. Sure, if you count my time spent writing the cost goes up quite a lot, but I do this for many reasons other than profit.

I have stories to tell. I have characters in my head, many of whom have been with me for decades, just waiting for me to get around to telling their stories. The joy of completing a tale and letting one of these characters out drives my writing as much as any desire for fame or financial reward. Sharing these stories with current and yet to be friends is just as much a motivation as the potential money to be made.

It really comes down to a few things that drive me to write; The challenge, the relief of completion and the satisfaction of sharing a bit of myself with others. If you are a writer reading this blog, why do you do it? What motivates you to bare a part of your soul to your readers? Do you characters live inside your head and pester you constantly to write about their exploits? Go ahead and share little insight here. Come on in the water's fine.

Welcome everyone to my new blog at garyhauger.com. Now that I have an e-book published on Amazon and Smashwords the "Get Published or Bust" blog as served it's purpose and will be discontinued.
Earlier this year, when I started that blog I set a specific goal...Get published or Produced before the end of the year. I've done that. I've had lots of support along the way and have learned a lot about indie publishing. As of this writing, four copies of The Stolen Throne have been purchased from Amazon and an equal number of free promo copies have been downloaded from Smashwords. Soon the e-book will be available for sale in over 50 countries around the world in nearly every format available. I must thank Kristine Kathryn Rusch for her indispensable advice on navigating the world of indie publishing. As a result I will be an indie author rather than chase traditional brick & mortar publishing. If you are interested in learning more about the changing landscape of publishing check out her blog at www.kriswrites.com.

This blog will take up where the old one left off. What happens to an author once he gets his first product to market? How does it sell? Where does it sell? What do the readers think? What will he do to follow it up? and a bunch of other questions will be answered here as I pursue this whole thing call a writing career. I'll also keep you posted on other developments with my other projects from screenwriting to acting and everything in between.

So let's pull back the curtain and chat about anything under the sun. Welcome again and th