Title Chosen – Fool Me Once (Privateer Tales Series 1.5)
Fool Me Once is a story that takes place in the Privateer Tales universe. We get to follow the once pirate hostage Celina Dontal as she flys across the solar system in search of her sister. Will she be too late? Can she save both herself and her sister from the...
Rookie Privateer Weekend Read-Off
A fun update from my family. My brother-in-law, Jon, and my nieces, Jalen and Jordan are having a Rookie Privateer Read-Off this weekend. Hearing this, my wife's mother, Doris, has also decided to join in on the fun. I can't wait to hear how their weekend goes, I...
Privateer Tales 1.5 – Last Chapter and Title
I had difficulty writing the last chapter of Rookie Privateer and at the time I chalked it up to the resolution being difficult. I won't do a spoiler and talk about what the resolution was just that getting it all to come together was difficult for me. When I finally...
Privateer Tales – Insider Information
A wonderful reader posted a nice review on Amazon and expressed a concern about how Tabby and Liam's relationship will be treated in future stories. After a few tries and finally purchasing the book (again) I was able to reply using Amazon's forum feature. To save you...
Free Paperback Giveaway on Goodreads MAY-2014
Long before I started writing, I was a fan of Goodreads. The site is dedicated to keeping track of books I have read or want to read. It is completely a fan site, where we are encouraged to share our views about different books we are reading. About a year ago Amazon...
Rookie Privateer Swag
Rookie Privateer is only ten days old but that hasn't stopped the swag train from arriving. My sister, author of the Bellingwood series, treated me to a new coffee mug, flask and a cutting board. It is all so pretty thanks to Kristina Del Valle's beautiful artwork....
Ratings and reviews
As a new author there is a struggle to become known to my would-be audience. In this day-and-age of social media a big part of exposure is related to ratings of your books and getting people to leave reviews. If you look at different statistics you find that the odds...
Rookie Privateer Paperbacks
I finally received my first batch of paperback copies of Rookie Privateer. I have a decent number of people that I owe signed copies to including my beta readers. As a writer the first step in releasing a book is to turn it over to a group of readers. Being my first...
Privateer Tales 1.5 – Brave enough to delete
One of the hardest things I do as a writer is deleting words that I have written. In my current project I became more and more dis-satisfied with a path i had chosen. Two and a half chapters in it became unbearable and today I decided to clean it out. Argh! It was...
Sterra’s Gift Ship Layout – Rookie Privateer
Writing a book in our house is a family affair. My sister is principal editor, my wife is all about continuity, and my son is apparently my technical drawing expert. The impetuous for the drawing came from a discussion between my wife and me. She was getting tired of...
Wrapping up Rookie Privateer
It is hard to imagine that the work is all done. I was cleaning up the space next to my computer and realized that it was time to put the manuscript away. While cleaning I also got a call from a long time friend. He had received a call from a common friend that knew...
Rookie Privateer Now Available
Rookie Privateer, the first book in the Privateer Tales series has been released to Amazon. It is available in both print and kindle formats.This is the first published work of author Jamie McFarlane.Rookie Privateer is the coming of age story of Liam Hoffen....
Rookie Privateer – Back to my editor
I have coalesced the work of many readers into a final manuscript. Most of the hard editing work has been completed. I have learned a lot in the process and am confident my next book will go more smoothly. I had several readers, many of them direct family. I know I...
Rookie Privateer
When you are old enough to finally become an Earth Mars citizen, everything should be perfect. Right? Not for Liam Hoffen. He's stuck on a mining asteroid called Colony 40, helping his father work a claim that is never going to pay out. His best friend, Nick James is...
Fiction work classifications by word count
One of the things I have been struggling with is to know what to call the things I am working on. I recently learned that my upcoming second book, Naughty is Hard to Forget, will actually fall into the category of a Novella and not a Novelette. I am about 50%...
Rookie Privateer Final Editing
A number of my friends have asked how it is that I will edit Rookie Privateer. The answer is with an incredible amount of help from my family and friends. I have a wonderful group of readers that have read the manuscript and provided feedback from their perspective....
Naughty is Hard to Forget
Cover art provided by Sicilian Valkyrie on DeviantArt. Tumblr: http://sicilianvalkyrie.tumblr.com/ This is a rough sketch from an artist I am working with on DeviantArt.com. Good chance this will end up as the cover art for my next book which is a novelette.
Cover Artwork
The Rookie Privateer taking a rare moment to rest. Artist Kristina Del Valle
Waiting for readers to finish
I am new to the entire write/edit/publish process. It is a terrifying experience to take a story that you have worked hard on and give it to other people with the express purpose of having them tell you what is wrong with it. I question just how much criticism I can...
Wringing Wet Washcloth in Space
One of the test readers for Rookie Privateer sent me a link to this Nasa video. Commander Chris Hadfield demonstrates the unique properties of the surface tension of water in a zero gravity environment. Pretty much it is just...
Second book 20% written
One of the characters I introduced in Rookie Privateer was a pirate by the name of Celina Dontal. Celina's story is a hard luck story. She becomes separated from her only living relative a younger sister. The story is about how Celina overcomes the odds and brings her...
Rookie Privateer Summary
Liam Hoffen is a second generation asteroid miner from an out of the way mining colony in the main belt. His life is changed forever when he and his friends foil an attack on their home station by the Red Houzi pirates. As the proud new owner of a rundown old cutter...
Cover artist selected
I have asked Kristina Del Valle to work on the cover for Rookie Privateer. I was struck by a cover she drew for her own creative work. You can see Mystic South cover. I cannot wait to see what she comes up with for Rookie Privateer! She has agreed to allow me to...
The hard life of a graphic artist.
When I was building an android app called HealthTracker I worked with a graphic artist goopymart. I really want a fickle dragon for my blog so I contacted him to see what he could come up with. The picture below is not his, it is what I provided him. The funny...