Allow Me to Introduce Myself

I get about 5000+ visits per month to this site now. About 3000 unique visitors.

Wow. I'm utterly amazed at the outpouring of support I've received. Those who blog regularly know what an incredible number this is to gain in just a few short months. But something occurred to me: I don't believe I've formally introduced myself.

My name is Thomas A. Knight, and I'm a fantasy author. I feel a little like I'm at an AA meeting writing it like that, but writing truly is an addiction. All my writerly friends out there can relate to that. Of course, if you've visited my site, you already know that. So here's some things that you may not know:

Personal Life

I live in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, with my beautiful wife and two little girls. I also have two cats that drive me up the wall, but I love them too. I write full-time, but not fiction. Instead, I write software. I develop and maintain the custom ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Software used at a manufacturer and distributor of outdoor building supplies.

I know it sounds boring, but it's really quite exciting. Well, to me anyways.

Hobbies

There's more to me than just writing! I'm an avid role-player, having spent almost twenty years playing various pen and paper role playing games. I also enjoy the occasional video game, though I don't play 3D shooters unless I'm playing in a big group at a LAN party. Most of the games I play are of the RPG variety.

I also like board games, and many a night is taken up by me and my wife sitting around a Scrabble board, trying to best each other in an intellectual royal rumble.

She usually wins.

The Time Weaver

Today is also my official book launch date. As of today, my eBook and Paperback are officially unleashed upon the world. This has been my pet project for the last 15 months or so, and has consumed the vast majority of my spare time.

I started writing The Time Weaver as part of a personal challenge and fund raiser: National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. The challenge? Write 50,000 words in 30 days. This is harder than you might think. Not only is 50,000 words an enormous number, but by fantasy standards, 50,000 words is hardly even a novella, let alone a full length novel. The Time Weaver comes in at around 100,000 words and took 8 months to finish the first draft. The first half was done in 30 days. :)

This is easily the biggest, and most challenging project I've ever undertaken. Hundreds of hours of writing and editing later, and I've just scratched the surface of this self-publishing endeavour.

Self-published?

Yes, I've self-published The Time Weaver. The totally over-simplified process of getting a book published is thus: write a book, get an agent, sell the book to a publisher, and voila, you are published. What I leave out is the long and lengthy process of getting an agent, and then selling the book to an editor at a publisher. This is an arduous task filled with rejection. I wasn't prepared to deal with that.

Make no mistake though, self-publishing is not the easy road. What it means is, rather than having a publisher do most of the work for me (other than the writing), I have to do it all myself.

Write the book, edit the book, format the interior for both eBook and Paperback, design a cover, write a book blurb, write a pitch, design a website, establish sales channels, market the book, and so on.

Of course I have help. My very talented wife is a graphic artist and designed my book cover, web site graphics, and anything else that required any amount of artistic talent. So yeah, if it looks pretty and it came from me, it was most likely my wife's work. She is also my editor, and she did an amazing job weeding out the typos and nonsense from The Time Weaver. Her grasp of the English language far exceeds my own.

But What is The Time Weaver About?

The Time Weaver starts with an ordinary guy, Seth Alkirk, who wakes up on his thirtieth birthday, only to find that a book left to him by his missing father now opens for him, where it had never done so before. This is the first in a series of strange incidents that ends with a car accident. The accident should have killed Seth, but at the moment of impact, time stopped. With the world around him now frozen, Seth is able to get out of his car basically unharmed.

He wanders the intersection for a few minutes, trying to grasp what is going on, when a rift opens, and a monstrous creature steps through it and attacks him. He's knocked out during this altercation, but rescued by a warrior maiden that comes through a second rift. Turns out, Seth is suddenly a very popular guy amongst several wizards that live in an alternate world, and they have sent their champions to retrieve Seth. The warrior maiden is no exception, who takes Seth, still unconscious, back to her world.

When he wakes up, he's on Galadir, with no memory of how he got there, and a very long journey ahead of him.

And Then What Happened?

You'll have to buy the book and find out. ;)

Rest assured that even people who don't normally read fantasy books, should be able to find something interesting and entertaining in my book.

Really really don't like fantasy? Well, okay. But maybe you have a friend, or child, or parent, or cousin who does. The eBook is only $2.99, so it's not going to put you out much, and to make the deal just a little bit sweeter, for every eBook that I sell, I donate $0.50 to The Helios Initiative, a tremendous charity that provides computers to children of underprivileged families. I up that amount to $1.00 for every paperback sold.

Don't have a kindle? Well, if you have an iPhone or Android phone, the Kindle Reader app is absolutely free from Amazon.com. Also, they provide free Kindle software for Windows and Mac users, and if that's not enough, you can also use the Kindle Cloud Reader to read it right in your browser. No download required.

I hope you'll give me a chance, and I hope you enjoy my book. But even if you don't, thank you for coming to my site and reading my blog. I truly appreciate each and every visitor that comes.

Thanks for reading!

I'm always interested in hearing what you have to say. Contact Me, I'd love to hear from you.

Don't forget to join in on the conversation in the comments section below.