Call for Beta Readers! Rhinegold, Chapter 1 - iBooks Edition

For anyone with an iPad who is interested, you can now download the opening chapter of my illustrated novel project The Curse of the Rhinegold in fixed layout format for iBooks. The file is available for free for a limited time, so get your copy now before it's gone.

The story is based on Richard Wagner's opera The Ring of the Nibelung, which is itself based on old Norse mythology, and was used by Tolkien as both source and inspiration for his Middle Earth stories. While I'm following Wagner's basic structure, I'm also bringing in a lot of the mythological material he left out, including ultimately the final apocalypse of the world known as Ragnarok.

The book is an experiment in creating a full color, fully illustrated novel for an older audience. I use the term graphic novel loosely, since this has come to denote a longer work in the comics medium. But I have never liked dialogue bubbles, and prefer considerably more narrative than standard graphic novels offer. So my intention here was to try and bridge the gap, to present a proper novel in a highly illustrated "graphic" format. I look forward to your feedback, as it will help me determine if the project has been successful, and to shape its future course.

Chapter 1 is 22 pages long, plus full jacket cover, title page, and an afterword addressed to beta readers. The file is 24.2 megabytes, optimized for the highest quality graphics, with images at 1788 x 1118 pixels (just under 2 million pixels each) to future proof them against increased screen resolution in the coming months. This project is an experiment in creating a full color, full bleed illustrated fantasy novel for a older audience (i.e. it is not a children's picture book, although young adults have read and enjoyed it so far). You can learn more about it on the Fantasy Castle Books website, or just download it and have a look. It won't cost you anything but time.

As with the initial PDF file, I'm extending the beta reader offer to this new iBooks edition. To anyone who sends in a review or critical comments on this chapter I will send a limited edition autographed chapbook of this section, as well as the next chapter in iBooks format as soon as it's complete. The second and subsequent chapters will not be made available online, and will only be free to those who have reviewed the earlier sections. For each chapter you critique you will receive the next one free. For those who send in comments or reviews on all five chapters of Book One, you will earn a signed print edition of the final published book, as well as the finished ebook in the format of your choice.

For more details see the final pages of the sample chapter download.

UPDATE 1/23/12:

For anyone who downloaded the file yesterday but only got a corrupted file, the sample chapter has now been moved to a new host, as Yahoo has doing something funky to zip/epub files. I'm in the process of moving my website to a new host, so I'll update the links as soon as possible. For now you'll have to use the external host's link. Sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE 3/2/12:

The newly updated "Version 1.1" sample chapter is now uploaded to my new web host. Some minor text corrections and a new Table of Contents are included. Beta test info pages have been removed, but the offer still stands.