Well, it’s finally here!

Yes, you’re not seeing things: my new novel, “Camp Ferguson”, is now officially in paperback form. But before you get all excited and start trying to look it up on Amazon, I should tell you that this isn’t finalized yet: it’s only the proof copy. The final step in my editing process is looking over this finished proof for any other things that I’d like to change (and I think I’ve found a few things that need to be fixed already), then making those changes to the digital copy, and finally putting it officially on the market. I’m getting very close now, but of course this involves me reading back through the entire book one more time, which will make it about the thousandth time through for me. I won’t lie, I’m getting pretty tired of paging through the same work over and over again at this point, but I know it’s for a good cause and in service of making my book the best it can possibly be.

As for that cover art, I should probably explain. Yes, I drew it myself. I haven’t really indulged by artistic side with respect to drawing since I was very young, and I honestly don’t think I have a ton of talent for it, but I was thinking about it while I was writing the book and decided to take a crack at doing the cover art myself. I used colored pencils, which were my favorite as a kid because of the precision they offer, and it turned out that I was pleasantly surprised with how the whole thing came out. I had to slap on a border so that the entire artwork could be seen on the cover without problems, but I still think it looks pretty good in the final analysis.

Content-wise, I wanted early on to draw the actual characters themselves together on the cover, but drawing things that resemble actual people and not stick figures is way, way beyond my artistic abilities. So because I still wanted to make sure the characters were represented in some way, I instead decided to go with signatures, of a sort, from all of the major players. It kind of gives you a sense of who they are before you even start reading, and a hint of things to come.

So what do you think of my artwork? Let me know! I don’t know if I’ll be doing this again anytime soon, but it’s nice to know my drawing days didn’t entirely go to waste. “Camp Ferguson” comes your way in less than a month!