Meet my Strange Neighbours

18 Jul 2011 7 Comments

by mashadutoit in 1 My books, stories Tags:

At last! My stories are available as an e-book from both Amazon and Smashwords.  Here is the cover (I still get such a thrill seeing it on the Amazon web site!):

And here is the book description:

Strange Neighbours is a collection of ten illustrated fantasy short stories set in Cape Town, South Africa.

Meet a hitch hiking troll with a taste for pepper-spray and a homeless witch with a trolley full of secrets.  Discover a book hoarding mermaid and a fridge full of frogs. And learn how to greet a witch – politely, of course. These stories describe encounters with every-day magic, where strange neighbours live in the flat next door or under the manhole cover you step on every day.

-oOo-

You can buy the Strange Neighbours Full Illustrated Collection featuring all ten stories and many drawings, or you can try out  the smaller bundles:

Each of which includes 3 or 4 of the stories from the Strange Neighbours collection.

These links are all to the Amazon Kindle version of the stories. If you prefer a different format, such as .pdf or epub, have a look at my Smashwords page.

But what if you dont have an e-reader?  There are a number of options.

  1. Download the .pdf version of my book from Smashwords.
  2. Download this version of my book from Amazon, and download the Kindle for PC software so you can read it on your computer.

And now I can start writing the next book.  I already have several ideas.

Publishing E-books from South Africa

13 Jul 2011 31 Comments

by mashadutoit in Myself Tags: , , , , , ,

Updated to add: A lot has changed since I wrote this blog post.  Instead of writing a new one, I’ve updated this one.  Note the link to resources right at the end :).
10 December 2012

I’ve just published my short story collection as an e-book.  Here is a summary of what I’ve learnt about self-publishing e-books and a collection of links to helpful online resources.  Things are a little more complicated if you are not a resident of the USA, UK or Germany, as you will see below in the section on Tax.  It’s a long post but  I hope it’s helpful! 🙂

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The Doorbell Cat

12 Jul 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in 1 My books, All my drawings, Inspiration Tags:

I found some more old cat drawings (Procrastination? No!)  This one was done in Flash.   I liked this kitten so much that I named him Zumbador.  Apparently that means “doorbell” in some language, I forget which.

Zumbador stayed in my thoughts for many years and now he finally got a new life in one of my stories, the one called “Chasing Frogs” where he undergoes some startling transformations.

In this early version, however, he does not do much.  He can stand:

And he can sit 🙂

The Default Cat

11 Jul 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in All my drawings Tags:

I’ve been scratching around in my old image folders and found this forgotten drawing, done with the Harmony online drawing tool.

My default drawing settings are “cat” or “eye”.  When put on the spot to draw something quickly, out comes a cat or an eye.  But I like this one, a smoky cat with attitude and double jointed legs.  I suspect he can shape change at the twitch of a whisker:

The haunted phone and other drawings

09 Jul 2011 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in 1 My books, 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, stories Tags:

I’m another step closer to publishing my short stories as an e-book.  Today I finished the last of the illustrations.  These are mostly small, incidental drawings that get dropped here and there between scene breaks or at the end of the stories.  To my surprise, not all the stories were easy to illustrate.  Not all of them had objects in them suited to this type of drawing.  One of the most difficult stories finally yielded this, a haunted office phone:

 

Then there is this mysterious bottle that a character finds in his garden shed:

Another story features a cat hopefully peering under a fridge:

 

And here is a flyer for a micro-lending firm that comes to a bad end in yet another story:

I’m tempted to post them all here, but that would make a very long blog post 🙂

My stories have been proof-read and formatted, and when I’ve placed these drawings in the text, I should be ready to publish.  Sort of a scary thought!

Thanks to those of you who added your names to my e-mail list to be notified when this book will be available.  If anyone else wants to add their names, please use the form below.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

 

To Grahamstown and back

04 Jul 2011 4 Comments

by mashadutoit in Inspiration

Well, I’m back.

We left for Grahamstown while it was still dark, and it was a misty, rainy day.  We took about 12 hours to get there.  Some of the pictures I took with my phone came out OK:


We delivered my work to the exhibitions, and only stayed for the first couple of days of the festival as I have to start teaching again tonight.  The exhibition looked grand!  Lots of very interesting work. The pictures I took of the exhibition itself did not come out so well – but I’m hoping that the Co/Mix people will post some on their blog soon.  In the mean time – here is the road from Grahamstown back to Cape Town, that we drove yesterday:

The dolls are packed up and ready to go

24 Jun 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, Myself

This Sunday we leave for Grahamstown to take my work to the Com/Mix exhibition.  I spent yesterday packing my dolls and their glass bottles into heavily padded boxes. For some reason this makes me feel ridiculously pleased with myself 🙂

I still have to pack the framed pictures and oh! Did I mention that the coloured versions of my Antjie Donder and Mevrou Karwatz drawings came out looking fanTAStic?  So good that I wish I had them framed.  Cant wait to get there to see everyone else’s work .

Caught in the act

24 Jun 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in Inspiration

Every night, Brendon puts two chairs on our sofa to stop Anna from sleeping on it and leaving it covered in white hair.   The sofa is still covered in hair despite this plan and last night I discovered why.  It seems sleeping on the sofa trumps such trivial considerations as comfort.  Her head and front paws were hanging down over the edge,  never mind how hard those chair legs must be:

I love the look on her face when she woke up:

 

Surviving the longest night of the year

22 Jun 2011 8 Comments

by mashadutoit in Myself

Last night was the  longest night, deep in the heart of winter.  It was a bad one for me.  I found myself lying awake and slipping down the worry slope.  What was I thinking, giving up my full time job and salary?   What am I doing, going off to Grahamstown on an expensive trip?   The more I tried to sleep, the more that voice in my head went on and on.

Eventually I got up, and lit a fire in our new fireplace.  At midnight. In the middle of winter.  The worry voice just faded away.

A Civilized Witch

19 Jun 2011 7 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, stories Tags:

There are worse things than spending a rainy winters morning drawing while listening to an audiobook.  I had fun with this drawing too, although it was more difficult choosing the colours for this witch. She is more civilized than Antjie Donder, and needed colder colours.

 

I cant wait to see these drawings printed.  I’m planning to sell digital prints of both the black and white and colour versions at the Grahamstown exhibition.  One more week before we leave so I’ll have to get moving if I want to get these printed in time!

Here are some details.  The crows were supposed to be the indigenous “Wit Bors Kraai”  we get here in South Africa. But apart from not having white breasts, these birds are not nearly bulky enough to be the indigenous kind.   I think these crows come from Europe, like their mistress.

I did manage to work in some roses into the drawing.  The drawing is based on a story called “Thorn Rose”, so the roses are quite important.  Roses and thorns are important, I should say!

 

 

The witch in full colour

18 Jun 2011 11 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, stories Tags:

I finally got round to adding colour to my Antjie Donder drawing.  I wanted to use a method similar to a colour lino-cut print; layers of colour overlapping, with the gaps in one colour revealing the colour beneath.

I put a “multiply” blending mode on the linework layer to knock out the white areas but keep the black line.  Then  I created 10 solid colour layers under it, and used layer masks to hide each layer.  Then, I painted with white and black on the layer masks until the whole image was filled with colour.  Some of the top layers are partly translucent.  I discovered a useful keyboard short-cut: “X” while using the brush swops foreground and background colours.  This is great when working on the layer masks because it means you can switch between black and white while you paint.

Here is the (possibly) final coloured version:

Some details:

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One step closer to publishing – the cover design:

09 Jun 2011 3 Comments

by mashadutoit in 1 My books, 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, books, stories

I’m about to publish my collection of short stories as an ebook. It’s been a very interesting process so far, lots to learn. I’ve just completed the cover designs. The stories will be available as bundles of three or four stories each, or you can buy the full collection that  includes illustrations.

Designing ebook covers has some specific challenges as they need to read clearly at thumbnail size and also in grayscale , to look good to potential buyers browsing for books on their Kindles.

Here is the cover for the first bundle:

I like the way they look as a set.  Here are the rest:

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Nameless Girl gets coloured

30 May 2011 4 Comments

by mashadutoit in All my drawings, Colour, stories

I’ve managed to add colour to the Nameless Girl’s story that I’m working on for the Co/Mix show.  They came out rather different from one another, but still intriguing.  Here is the first one:

And the second one:

Stories with tentacles

27 May 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in All my drawings

I’m having another go at chopping up my drawings and seeing if I can tell a story with them.  Hoping to include these in the Co/Mix show as well.   The plan was to colour these, but I’m running out of time if I have to print and frame them as well…

A Witch Made of Ink

26 May 2011 6 Comments

by mashadutoit in All my drawings

I finished it yesterday! Here is the inked “Mevrou Karwats” drawing for the CoMix exhibition:

I’m making digital prints of these drawings, and if all goes well, these will be for sale at the show as well as the framed original pen and ink drawings.   And my next step is to see what the digital versions look like with some colour added…

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