The House of Grey Blog

So our fellow author JC Hutchins has been working covertly on something pretty epic over the last few months. The details have been sparse, but this morning it finally broke. Check out his blog post for all the goods and share with your friends and family. This is seriously one of the most creative endevers we’ve seen.

http://bit.ly/aRbS9Z

So the first season of Harmonics is just about written. We have a few more chapters to write, then it’s off to edits. The cover art is coming along (and is going to look sick!) and we are getting everything in order for the podcast, eBook, Print version, and audiobook. Collin and I both agree that someone else should have come up with this story because as excited as we are reading it knowing all the twists and turns, we can only imagine what y’all are in for!

We are still throwing around the ideas for the order of the next project. Basically it’s down to Tournament of Blades or the MASSIVE rewrite of HOG. If it’s TOB, it will be a start to another killer series. If we undertake the rewrite of HOG, you can expect it to take much longer, but at the end you’ll probably have the first THREE books in the HOG series to delve into. Either way, you win.

Watch for updates and sneak previews on facebook and twitter.

Chris and I were so excited about this project we thought we would give you all a little taste. ENJOY!

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Just a little update on what we are doing!!!

1. Harmonics- the world’s first audio manga. This will be an ongoing story with tons of seasons and volumes. It will be in the manga style meaning that each episode will advance the plot little by little. As with all of our future projects from henceforth, will we produce the full season then start releasing it. That way we never run into this waiting for a long time in between episodes. Fans will be able to consume it in multiple formats including podcast, eBook, and audiobook. We will also be adding our Segments show through out the season so we can introduce you all to anime in a slower fashion. We will be producing a free podcast version and a full cast paid audio verision. This is our current brain child.

2. DarkFire Productions- so Collin, Nick Taylor, and myself went to a local independent publisher’s association meeting here in CO last year. We were bombarded by people asking about podcast novels, ebooks, facebook, twitter, etc. It kinda felt like we were in another universe, but that’s another story. So the 3 of us got this crazy idea to help these atom-authors become bit-authors. Thus DarkFire Productions was born. Then things got crazy. We have clients coming out of the woodwork clamoring for our time and services. Because of this, we came up with another crazy idea. All these indie authors were getting pennies for their hard work when they sold a print book. So we decided to create an indie bookstore where they can sell their e-products and get most of the money that people pay for their stuff, instead of just pennies. So right now, we are producing audiobooks, formatting ebooks, training and teaching people to use social media, and ramping up to open a huge indie bookstore.

3. Tournament of Blades- this is Collin’s next full length series. Think Mortal Combat meets Constantine with lots and lots of swords. This will be Uncle V’s debut.

4. Short stories- we have a bunch of them that were submitted and I am busy pulling all those together so we can release them to you guys. Some are new authors, some just people with the beginning of their stories laid out. This is coming out soon probably in the next few days.

5. We are also working on the Alternate Ending Contest for the House of Grey that is going to be going on through may so don’t forget to enter as there are going to be some sweet prizes to win.

So heres what we want to do. Sometime in the future, we are going to migrate all of the houseofgrey website over to collinearl dot com. There will still be a forum and a blog, but we will add all of the projects and titles that we release. So the forum will have a House of Grey section, a Harmonics section, a TOB section, etc. The blog will show all the updates from all the projects, but will still have all the audio for all of our projects. AS WE HAVE SAID BEFORE, WE WILL ALWAYS GIVE AWAY OUR STUFF FOR FREE…..ALWAYS. You will always be able to come and listen to or read the stories we kick out. We’ll also share with you guys some of the titles from DarkFire clients that we like. There are some really great reads that just haven’t been converted to “e”.

That’s the update. I know it’s a lot (like a crazy amount of a lot), but hey we’re young ambitious dreamers that are constantly fueled by incredible fans who for some reason pay us a little bit of attention for which we are overwhelmingly grateful.

During the Q&A for The House of Grey, Collin and Chris unveiled the Secret Ninja Project, aka Harmonics. Check out the archive of the Q&A to find out all the details.

Blog Talk Radio: The House of Grey Q&A with Collin Earl and Chris Snelgrove

So how would you feel about that? I was thinking about doing the original epilogue in the form of a short story along with a few more tidbits. I already know that people want something to do with Cyann, we recorded that poll long ago. So in that spirit, I was thinking about putting these books into eBook and PDF forms in the hopes to make a little money to cover the cost of editing and producing the book. What do you guys think? Would you be upset if I made you pay for some House of Grey content? Is there enough demand? Are these stories worth paying a few bucks for?

So I know that we were supposed to have our Q and A today but something rather important came up…chris’s wife had a baby!!! YEAH FOR CHRIS!! That makes the lucky number four!! Crazy. In the light of that news we are going to push the Q and A off for a week!! Send Chris your best wishes!!

You’ve got questions; we’ve got answers….

Ok I’ve always wanted to say that in a real setting, but I’m done now. We’ve been talking about it for months now. The Q & A session with Collin Earl and Chris Snelgrove will be happening on Saturday, March 20th on Blog Talk radio at 1:00 p.m Mountain Standard time. This is going to be your chance to talk about the House of Grey with the guys that created it. So if you’ve got questions about the plot, story, characters, or future of the House of Grey, come and join us. (Hosted by Nick Taylor) We are also going to be talking about the New Secret Project which we will be unveiling at the Q & A, Tournament of Blades Collin’s next series, the Alternate Ending Contest and of course the next installment of the House of Grey. (YEAH!! that’s what i’m talking about!)

Here is the link!! Don’t miss it!

You aren’t going to want to miss out on this one boys and girls! So be there or be square.

As Monson discovers who has been behind the battle, Baroty Bridge, and the death of his Grandfather, The Heart of the Midday Darkness continues to rampage Coren. Fearing that his friends will be killed, Monson goes head to head with Gibson only to find himself facing two monsters. As he watches a friend fall, Monson looses control and unleashes Gi to do his bidding.

So I was talking to a fan the other day online that brought up something interesting. “Collin,” he said. “Why don’t you write some alternative endings to The House of Grey? It could be really fun to see what other endings you had in your head.”

 I thought about that but to be honest, I don’t think I had any other endings in my head. but then I thought, maybe you guys do. So here’s the deal.

 Introducing the Alternate Ending Contest.

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Just got off the phone with Collin. Despite his recent diagnosis of strep throat (hence why I was on the phone and not talking to him in person…it would be really bad if the voice talent lost his voice), he reports that he is about 75-80% done with the last chapter. Doing the math on his page count, that’s at least an hour plus of content…maybe more.  As things get closer to release check back here to get the final date and time.

We also want to do a Q&A after the book is done. If you didn’t know before now, the Forum has a board where we’ve been collecting some great questions about Collin, the book, future projects, and a ton of other stuff. Feel free to go add to anything you see there or come up with some new stuff. If we don’t pick it up in the Q&A, we promise to post a huge answer section on that board.

Anyway, that’s the 411 on the last episode. As always, catch Collin and I on facebook  and twitter for the latest updates.

Well if you caught Collin’s comment on facebook, he’s about 50% done with the last episode. It’s been 5 years in the making and trust me he wants it to be spectacular. While a good thing cannot be rushed, he’s putting it together as fast as he can.

In other news, Collin and I sat down and finalized the outline for the Secret Ninja Project. Preliminary work is starting to come together, so look for some announcements soon on what we’re crafting.

We finally got a site up for DarkFire Productions and have been in meetings with a number of authors talking about creating digital versions of their books. We”ll keep you posted on what shakes out.

Our DarkFire partner Nick is ramping up for the first release of his new online magazine about the publishing industry and all things related therein. There will some good stuff in there about the new iPad, new royalty rates from Amazon to indie authors, and much more. We’ll be sure to post that here when it comes out for your consumption.

Nick, Collin, and I are presenting at the April meeting of CIPA (Colorado Independent Publishers Association). They asked us last minute to host a roundtable discussion at their meeting last month. It started as a few people around one table, then grew to tons of people packed around three different tables with each of us talking about social media, blogs, and eBooks. Apparently we were such a hit that they asked us to present in April on those very topics. Once our presentation is all polished up, we’ll post it over on DarkFire so you can check it out.

That’s about it kids. Check facebook and twitter for more updates and news.