A Long Overdue Update

It's been about 4000 years since my last blog and much has changed. For anybody who is interested, let's go through all the things.

Right, so first things first, a numbers update. I have, between books 1 and 2, sold over 300 copies, both ebook and paperback. That's kinda nuts when I think about it. Of course, I wasn't payed for all of them as several times I did some free ebook promotions, which got some decent traction as people love free stuff. But either way, that's still a lot of copies of my work out there in the wild.

Second thing. I finally finished Book 3, the first draft in January 2022 and the whole thing in April 2022. Boy, did I miss my deadlines by a country mile. Poor, stupid past me, thinking I would be done in the few months after the last blog. It took over a year more. This book was pretty complex to write. There were so many plot threads to keep straight and character arcs to continue, along with creating a satisfying story for this third installment. It took a lot of writing and deleting and rewriting and deleting and re-rewriting. I probably redid about 35K words two separate times before I was happy with it. For a good while in spring and summer 2021, I was stuck in a slump, getting very little done. But, by August, I broke through and got on a roll. The rest of the draft came together pretty well after that. She is a big book, lemme say that. Even after a long, arduous edit with much input from betas and a ton of cutting, she's still 216K. That's long. But, this book is different than many, and different than my previous in that its split into 3 parts. Part 1 follows 3 characters and half the storyline, while part 2 follows 3 others and their half. Part 4, which is only 4 chapters, sees the two parts join together into the exciting climax that ties everything together. I did think about having only 1 part and saving the other for another book, but I decided against it, as I wouldn't be able to have a satisfying climax or a good resolution to the first without the other half. So, it got big. But, according to my ever-helpful beta readers, it's an exciting, edge-of-your-seat read, that doesn't feel as long as it is, so that's a good thing.

For the cover, I used the same awesome artist as last time, and she created a great complementary cover to the others, this one being a bit lighter than the others, as a good deal of the book takes place in winter and snow. Have a look.

With the cover finished and the ever-boring formatting done, I got it published on April 29. Along with it, I had my first 2 books free for several days as a launch party thing, which drew in a decent 35 or so downloads. Now, I'm waiting for my copies to arrive so I can sign em and sell em to everybody around home.

Also, something I'm pretty excited about is that my books are going to be in a store. It isn't a bookstore exactly, more of a local art store, but we got talking and signed a contract for them to stock my books for the foreseeable future. That's super cool and hopefully it attracts some new readers.

Last update. I have begun writing Book 4 (which is just crazy to think about). I've got a pretty decent plan, for someone who usually just wings it, and I'm really excited to get into it. The beginning is proving to be a bit challenging, as I decided for another year+ time jump, during which the characters grow stronger and smarter. They've come such a long way since the first book and I have to scale up the antagonists and problems to their new level, which is both exciting and a bit daunting. Still, I'm getting into the real meat of the series now and I can't wait for you guys to see what I've got in store.

That's it, that's all. You're caught up (assuming you've read the newest book). I'll try and blog a bit more often than once every 17 months or whatever it's been since the last one. Oh, I also updated the website a bit, but if you're reading this, you saw that already. So yeah, thanks to all my readers and I'll catch you later.