Happy Holidays, giants!
We hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday season! We surely did! Getting to spend time with our families and each other is almost as amazing as getting to spend time with all of you!
Be a part of the giant
Want to be a part of making Obsidian Giant great? This is the section that will tell you how to do that each month.
Submissions are still being taken!
I Thought These Were Haiku, Volume 2 is set to be released at the Spring Steel City Con! We’re looking for submissions from those of you who would like to be considered for publication in this sequel to our well-loved first anthology. The deadline is getting closer! March 4th is the last day that we can receive them for consideration, but getting them in early will be helpful so Emma doesn’t have to read them all at once!
The categories for Volume 2 are as follows:
Horror
Magic
Sports and Recreation
Reader Discretion Advised
We can’t wait to see your interpretations of these categories. All of the Giants have been busy writing as well!
An even closer deadline!
The cover of I Thought These Were Haiku, Volume 2 has yet to be decided. You can all help with that!!! You get to pick which creature will be on the cover! So far, the Raiju is in the lead, with the Bake-Danuki in a close second!
You can make your choices here:
The survey will close officially on February 1st to allow Leah the time to learn how to draw whichever creature is chosen!
Audiobooks
Emma and Jay have a meeting set up to review the submissions we’ve received to date. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started reaching out to people in the next couple of months. There’s still time to get your submissions in, though!
Step one is to email us at marketing@obsidiangiant.com.
We’ll send you the excerpts.
You record yourself reading the excerpts.
You send them back to marketing@obsidiangiant.com (or I’ll set up a drop box if files get too large).
We review all the submissions and choose the best person for each.
You record the whole book and get paid. We’ll also be available as a reference for other publishers and authors you may want to work with. That last part is true even if you aren’t chosen for one of our current books!
Call for artists!
We’ve drilled it into everyone that the new haiku book is coming out this spring, but guess what? So is the second book in the Bloodsisters trilogy!!!!!! We’re looking for an artist to complete the cover art. This will be a paid endeavor. It will involve meeting with Jay to go over his vision, creating samples of a few different concepts (quick sketches so that they can be visualized), then creating the fully complete and edited cover version of the chosen concept. We only have a few months left until publication, so this will probably move very quickly. If you or anyone you know is interested, please send samples of your work, or a link to your online portfolio, to marketing@obsidiangiant.com!!
A huge thank you to all of you!
I love that our audience participation section has so much news. I know that a lot of it has carried over for the past couple of months, but keeping you guys involved in the creative process is a goal that OG would like to carry forward indefinitely!! We are building a company, but we’re also building a community and are exceedingly happy to have each of you be a part of it!! We would like to thank each of you for the interest and attention you have given to our products, our participation initiatives, and your interactions with us. Knowing there is more to OG than just the 3 of us is a huge motivator!
What’s been happening!?
Gotta love that con experience
Especially after not having attended one for several months. Man, was it good to be back at Steel City Con!!! We were legitimately going through convention withdrawal. We didn’t release any new products this time, but we made new friends, got to hang out with quite a few of our established friends, and Jay got to introduce his new Godmer warblade!!!!
I’m pretty sure Sundays have become everyone’s favorite con day because Jay pulls off his costume so well. We love the looks, the reactions, the conversations, and the new friends that his presence brings to the table!
I feel like I say this every time, but this convention was the most packed yet! The lines to get in reached out to the main road, in some cases even with the lines being split between the convention center and the hotel. The fire marshals were having to let people in as others were leaving; I can’t even being to imagine how many people were there. These types of events really are our favorite!!
You know the first one is always going to be the table pic! Emma rockin’ her Christmas sweater and Jay looking decidedly Hufflepuff without even trying!
One of our favorite con friends, Evie!!! More about this visit later in the newsletter (the news is so awesome it deserves its own section!!!!)
Grinchpool is a thing, and that thing is insane, and a bit amazing…
We always need a visit from Eddie; he’s a featured poet in I Thought These Were Haiku, Vol. 1! Also, check out the work he does with his theatrical company Stage Warp, at https://www.stagewarp.org/. His talent knowns no bounds! I wonder if we can find a way to combine theater with the Giant…
The Monzo fam was in the house! Not only is Jonathon one of our published haiku poets, but these guys might read more than the Giants, and that is hard to do!
Don’t believe me? These are just some of the OG books on their shelves!! You can see stacks of other books in the background!
Black and Tan: A Crime of Fashion (any Psych-Os out there?? Keep reading on to the What’s Coming Up Next section…) Table pic, day 2!!!
I love the way the new warblade is painted – it constantly looks like it’s in motion!
It’s difficult to tell they are the same people from one day to the next sometimes!!
They think they stand a chance against a Godmer? They are wrong!
Surveying his domain.
At least this one is trying to fight with our not-so-friendly alien warrior and not against him…
Girl has got her Wednesday look down like a pro!
Through the warblade.
That’s all for this con!
What if I just want to borrow the book?
Well, thanks to Evie, you can do just that! The first two books in the Brim trilogy are now officially library books!!!!!
Check out those barcodes, baby!
Pride of place!!
Evie works at the Evans City Public Library, and was able to facilitate getting these on the shelf!
What’s coming up next?
From SCC to SCC
We just have to wait 3 months! So much is happening at the next SCC, it’ll be difficult!
In honor of our 6th time through we will have not one, but two books debuting!!!!
I Thought These Were Haiku, Volume 2 and the second book in the Bloodsisters trilogy will both be on sale for the very first time, March 31st at 9:30am! We’ll have Jay number the first 10 books sold, so you can brag that you were one of the first to have the book!!
Did you say new con?
I mean, the con isn’t new, but it’ll be new to OG!!! We were all set to attend this one last year, but the con was rescheduled. The good news is, we’re already on the books and ready to set up our table, so you’d all better get ready for…MOMENTO CON!!!!
Put it in your calendars! August 5th and 6th starting at 10am. The convention runs until 8pm on Saturday and 7pm on Sunday! This one is at the David L Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh!
For all you Psych lovers out there, one of our personal favorite celebrities, Timothy Omundson, will be making an appearance at the con! Emma fully intends to meet him (for the second time) and get a picture or two!