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Coming Soon – Disappearances – A Novel

By luke bergeron 12 February 2010 One Comment

I’m excited to announce that I will soon launch a new novel on my site and out to the web at large. The book is called Disappearances and it has been long in coming, the product of years of work, and I’m nearly bursting at the seams to finish and get it out to readers.

Disappearances tells the story of a young man mentally disconnected. Early one morning he’s awoken from a restless sleep by a plane crash outside his apartment window. Rushing down to the scene, the young man is unable to find anyone – no people, no rescue workers, no survivors. He is alone. Everyone he loves, everyone else on the planet as far as he knows, has disappeared.

The young man sets off on a journey through the deserted landscape of America and his own memories that taxes him both physically and mentally. After months of searching, the young man finally finds one man, a grizzled old guide named Frank. It is with Frank, sitting by a fireside in an Arizona canyon, that the true test begins.

Frank’s task is to listen to the young man’s story, help him discover the secrets behind the disappearance of everyone he loves, and most importantly, to reconnect the young man with the rest of the human race. But before the young man can do that, he needs to learn the most important lessons about himself, his father, and how to move forward with his life.

In preparation to launch a new title, there is an endless list of preparations after the story is finished – extensive editing and cover design are first among those. I’ve listed people I’d like to thank in the Author’s Note after the novel, but there is one more person I’ve recently added that I’d like to personally thank here: Levi Montgomery.

Levi Montgomery, aside from being a self-published author and blogger, is also a photographer. I originally approached Levi in hopes of finding a fitting cover photo for Disappearances. He told me that he was interested in helping me, but would first have to read the novel before he knew if he had a suitable photograph. Thus, I sent him my novel and held my breath.

Barely a few days later, Levi responded to me. He’d already read my book in that short time, and although he regretted he did not have a fitting photograph for my book, he sent me a list of every single typo and error he found in the novel. In short, Levi provided another edit of my novel for me. He asked for nothing.

I’m completely blown away by the amount of work Levi put into editing my novel and I can’t thank him enough. Once Disappearances is released, if you like the work and want to contribute to those who made it happen, you can support Levi through purchasing his work, which he sells on his site. If you’d like to support me, you can help me spread my book around the net. But please buy a one of his novels from him, too.

So now I’m in the final editing stages of the work, trying to tease out extra awesomeness from Levi’s suggestions. I’ve also created the cover for book, though I’m still tweaking it. Instead of going with a photograph, as I originally intended, I decided to go with this design:

Disappearances Back CoverDisappearances Front Cover
(clicking thumbnails opens larger images – warning: big files!)

I feel like it conveys the sense of the book in a way that a photograph could not.

Please check back soon – Disappearances will be a big release for me, my biggest so far, and I can’t wait to serve it up, all hot, awesome, and willing.

Thank you for reading.

One Comment »

  • Levi Montgomery said:

    Wow. Luke, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.

    You make it sound like it was an onerous task I took on, and that I Fedexed you boxes and boxes of full of listed errors. In fact, it was a pleasure, because Disappearances is a great read, and the list was very short.

    Like it or not, independent authors are judged more harshly than others, and probably will be for the rest of my lifetime (maybe not true for you young’uns). I feel it is incumbent upon all of us to help each other make our books as excellent as they can be. All I ask is that when it’s your turn to get out and push the wagon, then get out and push. Someone, somewhere, is going to need your help (and that’s the plural you — all of you reading this. If you read Luke’s blog, you’re part of that “you.”)

    I like the cover, too. There’s a disconnect in it somewhere, an opacity, and these are exactly the feelings you needed.

    Again, Disappearances is a great a novel, and I can’t overstate my belief that everyone interested in today’s independent authors and fiction should read it.

    I’m glad to have done my part!
    Levi

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