Fans have mentioned how vivid descriptions are in Weun Academy: The Shadow Maker. Among them are the descriptions of what everyone is wearing. Let’s dive into the behind-the-scenes thought process around some of those fashions!
Let’s start with the academy jumper. Uniforms are common among schools across our world. While controversial, some suggest they promote equality and reduce social pressure, reduce bullying based on appearance or wealth, build community and a shared identity, improve focus on academics, increase safety through identifying intruders, simplifying morning routines, and reinforcing discipline and professionalism.
The Japanese culture heavily influenced Weun Academy with their school uniforms along with portrayals in across manga and anime.
Looking to other beloved series, the first two Harry Potter movies used standard robes and uniforms. In the sci-fi space Ender’s Game (2013) was a heavy military focused school that had uniforms for their students. Every version of Star Trek had their students and cadets in uniforms.
It only seemed “logical” to design something for Weun Academy’s futuristic school for those with superpowers.
Here was the original design…
Because training was both academic and very physical, the uniform had to be versatile, cloth breathable. Footwear had to be classic and functional. I wanted to include the school colors including the purple tones. I wanted something that someone in real life could see themselves buying and wearing (at least to cosplay and at conventions)!
I also thought about ways students could could determine the classification of someone’s abilities. The pin on the neck represents one of six D’mok Classifications (the sprit, the body, the mind, the world, the universe, the beyond). Perhaps there could be a secondary connecting pin that could indicate more specific sub-classifications.
On the chest, the Weun Academy emblem would serve as a communicator, holographic emitter, localized computational device with embedded AI, etc.
The final design is inspired heavily by Star Trek DS9, TNG, and Discovery. I feel this result would be something that could fit well into that property while still being distinct.
It’s been a few days now. Weun Academy is fully released with all formats available on Amazon.
This feels like it’s been a VERY long time coming. For those have been keeping track, it has! So many things in my life and in the world have changed since I started writing it.
My son’s original start-of-3rd-grade school outing inspired the experience when Eisah arrived at Weun Academy. And the speech D’abar gives after the bad stuff happens (trying to avoid spoilers) was what I wrote to make sense of my sister-in-law Kristen’s passing. My son graduated from high school at the start of 2025… That is how much time has passed.
In my professional life I’ve moved between jobs. In my personal life I met someone wonderful who then became my spouse!
Oh and the world went nutz with Covid and politics…
When the book released I had one hope: this book would surpass the performance of my first book (D’mok Revival: Awakening) back in 2013. That book reached #18 in space opera before I very stupidly had KDP send out free books which yanked me from the paid ranking… A mistake that I never recovered from.
This time… I DID BETTER!
#15 on AMAZON’S BEST SELLER LISTING and…
WOW WOW WOW!!!! Over the moon on this. Considering I don’t have a developed follower listing, this is amazing. I really appreciate all my friends and fans of the original D’mok Revival series that made this possible.
Now… I get to do this all again for Toriko Tales. I DID push out the launch to the end of December versus the beginning. More time would be good to prepare everything more thoroughly.
It’s hard to believe, but my book series is now 13 years old with seven released works! Though it’s been a while since I’ve released a new book, I have two new ones coming out yet this year. With the new editions comes a branding update. I wanted to share with you the journey and how things evolved over time.
Zummo Books, LLC
This is my “parent company” responsible for all production, publishing, manufacturing, advertising, and distribution. To be honest the original left-ide version started as a very basic legal entity. I wasn’t thinking about brand. Even the name wasn’t very inspired (but very functional).
My original logo played off what my friend Tara began calling me (“Z”). while I wasn’t very focused on the look and feel, the simple letter and books label got things started.
As we approached the two new books in 2025 Matt redesigned the logo. Using two books he reconstructed the “Z.” I really like his font update for “Zummo Books.”
D’mok Revival
This was my debut series! I spent a ton of time on the cover and crafting something intense, interesting, and feeling very space opera-ey… I wanted the wordmark to feel very classic ala Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. I heavily modified a futuristic font and added the golden bars on either side. The top version lasted in all books, media materials, and the Web site until September 2025!
Matt’s updated design (lower version) is coming out this month. It feels more robust and modernized but still retains the original overall style. It’s interesting how just the shape of an apostrophe can make all the difference too, but it does!
D’mok Revival Emblem
It wasn’t until Weun Academy that emblems came into the picture. Before that it was all wordmarks! Sometime around 2016 Matt made the first emblem… Years later I would craft one for D’mok Revival… Intending to look like a Northstar beaming brightly on the horizon (or Rhysus up in the atmosphere blazing in light)… Matt still needs to do an updated version of this. Seeing I don’t fully need this until D’mok Revival book 5 comes out (likely a few years), he has time.
D’mok Universe
We needed a concept to put on the back covers of my first two spin-off series from D’mok Revival. It had to show it was in the same literary universe without confusing people that it was an edition of the D’mok Revival series! In the end, Matt and I feel it holds true to the original while clearly spelling out what the labeled book is offering: a piece of the D’mok Revival expanded literary universe.
Weun Academy
My first spin-off series!! Originally the hands of Segie Weun (originally spelling) with her famous green crystal floating in the air, the Weun Academy Symbol intended would become the emblem worn on all students and faculty (and double as a communicator / AI assistant source). There was a etched stone motif for the outer hands and a 3d rendered crystal as pictured on the left. The updated version, which will appear on the cover and within the Weun Academy book content is now flattened with versions provided for use based on color vs B&W, and background.
It’s simple, elegant, and I love it.
Weun Academy Wordmark
While we had an emblem, we still developed a wordmark. As you can see we “attempted” to look like a real university(-ish). We also attempted to play off the D’mok Revival wordmark. They were all pretty rough (to be nice).
The above version is taken directly off the cover. We have a more “academic looking” font with some flourishes. The emblem is on the spine and inside the book content.
Toriko Tales
My second spin-off series! The very first placeholder emblem started as Toriko’s outline, then a cat’s paw, and finally transformed to a kitty head with a Dragonball Z eye glass device.
Once we started working on “real emblems” Midjourney came into the picture. As a springboard for ideas (not final renders) a range of cat/robot/cinematic emblems were generated.
Then came the updated “let’s represent the virtual and real worlds including robotics/AI” approach.
A rough version based off my original placeholder led the approach followed by a collaboration with Matt.
Finally we landed on the versions above that Matt and I both really love. It even creates some unease with the viewer when looking at the “digital side.”
Evolution over timeand the future
What a ride! I’m so proud of how far branding has come–and impressed with Matt’s amazing skills and contributions! I’m very thankful to have such a creative and invested partner in something so fundamental to my life!!
Can’t wait to see where the third spin-off series, Wayfinder, goes. If you want a little preview… He’s an emblem I did years ago (yes, I’ve known about this spin-off for a long time). Clearly Matt did not work on this. But it’s what I have for now. đ
Amazing visuals are required to make even the best story get noticed. I’m very thankful for all the time, effort, and creativity Matt continues to put into the D’mok universe.
Weun Academy’s book one softcover edition will release this month (August)! These days softcovers are considered soft launches where publishers and authors share upcoming projects to drive interest and get early reviews. The strategy is by the time the main ebook launches there’s plenty of “social proof” reviews to get new eyeballs and readers! The ebook will be going on Book Sirens within two weeks or so to get early eyeballs and posts.
It seems strange to say the softcover is a soft launch, but ebooks are the majority of sales these days! That said, we will also offer a hardcover edition for those that want a truly special edition for their shelves.
Matt and I are putting together a presentation around the Weun Academy softcover design. Holding a “cover reveal” event is a must-do these days. We’d love to share what process we went through to land on such a phenomenal design! As soon as we have a date for the event I’ll post it. We’re going to record the session just in case you can’t make it.
The ebook launch of Weun Academy: The Shadow Maker is still planned for late October!
How about Toriko Tales, you ask? The content for the softcover edition is completely done. It follows a similar formatting used by Weun Academy’s softcover, which helped. Though, we have a completely new series logo design that took numerous iterations to get right.
The front cover design is complete! It’s VERY different than any book within the D’mok Revival series and completely contrasts with Weun Academy’s design. Matt really dug deep to create an interesting, high tech, cat-gal, contemporary cover… Don’t worry about the use of “contemporary” here! Many of you have seen Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon, Audible, and store shelves littered with books with covers of mostly a few HUGE WORDS and some semblance of “an image” behind them or integrated into or around the words.
I get the strategy for “those types of covers.” Digital consumers mostly see thumbnails on one Amazon platform or another. The big words stand out to get attention and quickly convey a vibe. But … that’s not us. People always judge a book by its cover. So, we want to give them a bit more of a show. Expect a cover reveal for Toriko Tales in early October (date to be announced). The launch of the book for Toriko Tales is planned for mid-December 2025… So still this year (technically)!
The dmokrevival.com Web site design is slowly getting upgraded. Content revisions for the original D’mok Revival series books are in. Weun Academy information has been added. The top content of the homepage has been revised to spotlight the two books, along with the ability for people to subscribe for updates! A complete design overhaul is needed but likely not going to happen until the two books are launched.
I am going to enhance the site so the homepage can transform into more of a landing page when a code is passed in the URL. This way I can do targeted landing pages for Weun Academy and Toriko Tales without spawning other HTML, etc. That’s the plan for the moment at least… I do plan on performing some competitive research on landing page best practices just to see if I need to revise that plan to be more effective with my marketing.
There’s a new offering as a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association that I’m going to take advantage of. Apparently there’s a whole promotion apparatus there! I’ll post about details as it moves forward. But I’m glad to have the help of such an amazing organization and peer group!
Feels like it’s been a long (very long) time coming, but 2025 is the year. I’ve now worked with all three professionals (JD, Courtney, and Johnathan). The finalized Weun Academy and Toriko Manuscripts are ready, Matt has been working hard on both covers, manuscript reviews from Readers’ Favorite and Reader Views are underway.
I’m taking the amazing marketing work done with JD and enhancing it with a more complete launch plan starting April 1st. My goal is to launch in October.
I still need to work out if I’m doing a parallel launch with Toriko Tales at the same time as Weun Academy, or if Toriko Tales will come 3-6 months later. Technically I shouldn’t flood the market with all my available books. Contemporary strategies suggest I would get all I could from the market with Weun Academy and then keep the market fed by releasing Toriko Tales. Using up all my available stories at one time would put more pressure on me not only to sell what I released, but also fast track my next works. Dual wielding like that could be difficult!
Anyway, good news is: you’ll see a lot more of me and the D’mok literary universe! Stay tuned!
So much life happening. Lots of inspiration that I can channel into Toriko Tales. I’ll admit I had some trouble seeing past a chapter I was working on. Usually that means I’m trying too hard to manufacture a plot and not listening enough to the characters.
A few nights ago I kept seeing a particular scene in my mind that ended up getting me past the mental block. Then yesterday morning I ended up writing an entire additional chapter. I hope this is setting a new trend for progress on this manuscript.
Honestly, I think this happen in part due to being on vacation. I’ve been burnt out with my regular job, getting ensnared with the political dramas going on in our government, and other things. I’ve recently taken steps to prune away my visibility to much of the things that were distracting me. It seems my current tactics are working.
As a side note, HoverDome is coming along great. Matt and I have the box artwork done. The updated cards based on the past Protospiel testing are complete. We can send them to our manufacturer for a professional prototype now.
As of right now I have nearly 11,000 words of backstory written for Toriko Tales. This compares to the 12,175 words currently written in the book manuscript.
That doesn’t even factor in the original module I wrote for Toriko’s original introduction for D’mok Revival first book. In fact, much of what I wrote back then I’m updating for use in her first solo book.
It may seem excessive, but to me, I want to understand the bigger picture before attempting to add something into the main manuscript. I feel if I understand the history around locations or events, or the motivating factors and experiences of a character I’ll be able to represent them more authentically and consistently in my main story.
To do this I simply write some short stories.
If it’s about a character I conduct a little interview. I’ve never had a situation where I couldn’t “hear” their response. In fact, it’s fun to ask follow-up questions. I’m always surprised by the answers (despite it all coming from my own mind.).
If it’s about a location, before trying to visualize the place, I ask myself lots of questions about the area it’s in. What is it’s function? How does it fit into the bigger scheme of the area or society? When was it built and how old is it? Is this place important or forgotten? How is the space used now?
Then, based on all of that, I begin visualizing. Again, starting with the surroundings and moving to the location of interest. What type of architecture is used in that area? What type of materials? The short could be a totally different set of characters that are just interacting with the space, or a discussion from the architects themselves on the approach used to craft the location.
The type of short story used all depends on what I want to understand about the subject.
For the character of Mini-T (v2) I did a number of shorts. One was a stream-of-consciousness understanding her mindset in a particular moment. Another was a set of “diary entries” (requested by Toriko) to help show the progression of her development. Another was a semi-structured interview at a later point in time (towards the end of where I expect the Toriko Tales manuscript to go). It did wonders for understand that characters arc for this book.
I highly recommend doing something like this. I believe it prevents a lot of the inconsistency problems with commercial IPs where characters don’t act consistently. I don’t know about you, but it bothers me when a character does something totally contrary to what we’ve learned about them to that point, unless it’s some shocking reveal of a totally other side we had no idea about. Then it’s okay, otherwise it’s not. So, I work very hard to maintain consistency in my stories.
From their site: “A Library of Congress catalog control number is a unique identification number that the Library of Congress assigns to the catalog record created for each book in its cataloged collections. Librarians use it to locate a specific Library of Congress catalog record in the national databases and to order catalog cards from the Library of Congress or from commercial suppliers. The purpose of the Preassigned Control Number (PCN) program is to enable the Library of Congress to assign control numbers in advance of publication to those titles that may be added to the Library’s collections.”
Each book should have these if you ever want to get your book in a library, etc.
The following is an official email directly from them to publishers (and self-publishing authors).
Thanks for your patience as we have been preparing our new pre-publication tool for the book publishing community, PrePub Book Link from the Library of Congress. The new tool will bring the Library’s Cataloging in Publication (CIP) and Preassigned Control Number (PCN) programs together in a unified, easy-to-use web-based tool.
Weâve made the decision to delay the launch of PrePub Book Link until spring of 2019, in order to make sure we roll out the best possible new tool to make your workflow easier, whether you’re an author, a publisher, or a CIP partner institution.
The Library will provide user guides for PrePub Book Link to ease the transition to this powerful new tool. You’ll receive additional emails with more details and specific launch date this spring.
Another active shooter. More students dead. Yesterday the news reported 22 school shootings since 2018 began.
22 in 20 weeks. Let that sink in for a moment. I still havenât fully absorbed it.
Predictably, we see the dance of legislators, victims, and big gun businesses begin once again. Hope of change fades.
When asked âWas there a part of you that was like âThis isnât real,â âThis would not happen in my school.ââ one of the students shook her head with a sickening smirk. Clearly she wasnât happy, it was more an expression when youâre overloaded and in disbelief. She said âNo there wasnât. Itâs been happening everywhere⌠I thought eventually it would happen here too.â https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/us/student-on-texas-school-shooting/index.html
It breaks my heart.
Then I think of my 11 year-old son.
Then I think of the all the kids in his class that just graduated elementary school with him.
Then I recall the âyellow alertâ his school campus faced this newly completed school year where an outside lingering interloper caused the school to go into a semi-lock-down.
Whatâs more shocking, my son didnât tell me when it happened. Nor did the school. My son mentioned it months later. The school never did. Itâs as if this is ânormalâ and not needed to be mentioned.
Itâs not normal. Itâs not right.
But policy is the adult world. My mind goes back to the children. How can we help them? What can we say?
Eerily, my latest novel, the Weun Academy: The Shadow Maker is all about terror at school. Itâs sickening (literally) how timely and topical it has become. I want to bring children a message of hope while securing them with tools to manage the growing chaos.
They are not helpless. They can become the instruments needed to counter what’s happening. Reviewers have called out key aspects of the book’s messaging:
âThe curve in character development is calculated and it is interesting to follow the protagonist as he quickly learns to think beyond himself and his immediate world.â – C. Sia
â(The main character Eisah) took charge of the situation, took a chance and didnât back down when his plans didnât work. This story talks about things that teenagers face and have to fight every day. Author Michael Zummo addresses these issues with care and takes on these sensitive topics with diligence.â – R. Tanveer
âSchool violence, bullies, and adults who don’t seem to get it at all are a current problem in schools all over the world so the book definitely will hit a nerve with readers from the intended target group. It is a great, exciting story that shows how easily things can be misunderstood when you don’t take the time to ask questions about what REALLY happened.â â K. Anasi
But the one that really hits home, that makes me feel like Iâm doing something right is this:
âAnd yes, without being preachy, there is an agenda implicit throughout this story, one much needed in our world at large: helping students to deal with and bring to an end (to) the recent horrific trend in school violence. This is an engaging, fast-moving, and richly imaginative tale, with characters both likeable and unlikeable, but often relatable, particularly by younger readers.â â A.L. Peevey
â(A story and agenda) much needed in our world at largeâŚâ
I hope it’s the right messages at the right time. It seems the case. Now I just have to convince others to help me spread this message.
In the meantime, Iâm going to spend some more time with my son.
