anthology

A Look Behind the Curtain: My Expected Publishing Schedule

Hi everyone, thanks for stopping by the website today and reading about some of my updates. I’ve been going right along this last week and making some plans about a few releases, so I’ll mainly focus on those today with a little bit of Reformed Mage news mixed-in and a concluding publishing schedule.

Project Updates:

An Arrow Against the Wind Print

As I mentioned last week, An Arrow Against the Wind print edition is very close to being completed. Well, it’s no longer close. It’s finished and ready. The print edition has been approved and I will set my official release announcement for next week. Since the book has been out for three years, there’s not much reason to do a massive release, but I will schedule some blog visits just to get the word out some.

Work has already begun to create the print format for The White Arrow. Depending on availability and time to create the print cover, the last of the three books should arrive in print during the summer, most likely late June or early July.

Anthologies

Created by Brosedesignz

Moving on to the next item on the list, is my first short story anthology, entitled: Curses Dark and Foul. This is a small project for me, one that already has content available so I expect to move through it very quickly as I mentioned last week. It will comprise three short stories. I’m currently working to brush up the stories with some additional editing since they have been completed for a while. My expectation is to release this anthology later in May, possibly early June. I just don’t want to step on the print release of An Arrow Against the Wind. The basic cover I’m using without the title is shown for reference only and created by warrendesign.

Regarding additional anthologies, I have plans for a total of four editions. The second edition already contains three completed stories while the third one contains three stories in various states of completion. The last anthology contains three stories which I have either begun or planned loosely. Those latter two anthologies will require some dictation to complete some of the stories, but my hope is to release them further into the year. It is my intention to release the second anthology during the summer, possibly during July or August.

Reformed Mage

My main project for the year is the Reformed Mage series. I’ve been working consistently with revising the first novel. As I mentioned last week the prologue to the first book will be also published as a prequel short story entitled, The Changeling Incident. I’ve completed dictation on that short sub-project and hope to edit as quickly as possible for a release during the summer. You can see the cover from warrendesign. Work on the prequel release means that I’m loosely targeting the release of the full first novel series in late September or early October. I’m creating a new page for the book on this site soon with more details as I progress through the work.

There’s quite a lot to complete, but I’m feeling fairly confident that I can meet that schedule but I can slide the novel back to November as necessary. The main issue is completing the revision soon enough to hand-off to my editor. Of course, there still remains the need for a cover and formatting as well as the outside possibility of it going directly to audio. I also plan to release it in print at the same time. I’m also considering whether to release individual cases as books and then bundle them which makes for a more brisk publication schedule and creates the need for more covers. Something to consider and which I’ll cover in detail in a later post.

There are two other books already in rough draft for this series, so my goal is to revise and release those as soon as possible after the first book. Both book two and three will also have a prologue which will also be released as a prequel short story before each of these two novels are launched. Dictation is my main tool at the moment to create additional content, but once these additions are completed, I’ll shift to short story projects for later anthologies, then begin additional novels for Reformed Mage, Black Glove and other books in my two other series that are waiting their turn.

The main goal is getting Reformed Mage content to my editor as soon as possible so that I can release them fairly close together while I’m writing the fourth book in the series. I might also mention that there are least six books planned for this series already.

Black Glove

Also sitting on the back burner is the first book of the Black Glove series. That one is largely ready for editing so I’m considering exactly what I would like to do with it. One of my holdups is actually developing the entire series so I’m a little hesitant to move forward with it just yet. The other consideration is whether I want to submit it to InkShares to be hybrid published or if I would prefer to self publish it early in 2021. That’s the big question and one of the pros for submitting it to InkShares is that I would be doing something with the manuscript while I’m working on all these other projects. The con to using InkShares would be a lower royalty rate. The other main pro to using InkShares is it’s more likely to reach retail bookstores since it would be published almost like a traditional book. It also would likely debut in audio.

Upcoming Schedule

Beyond all of that, it looks like I’ll be able to attend the SFWA convention at the end of May which will now be online. I wanted to attend a science fiction and fantasy convention at a local library which is usually well attended. There was also another local one for the same genres, but I’m not sure either of these conventions will actually be held as scheduled this year so I’m waiting to see what can happen with those. It looks like I’ll have some print books available, so the two events would be excellent for talking to readers in person.

It looks like I’ll have a busy release schedule this year after all. Here’s the run-down:

An Arrow Against the Wind will be released during May – target date 5/11.
Curses Dark and Foul, my first anthology, will be in late May or early June.
After that my plan is to release the print edition of The White Arrow during July.
By August, my hope is to release the prequel, The Changeling Incident for the first book of Reformed Mage.
After that, is the release of the first book of the Reformed Mage Casebook series during the fall, September, if possible.
A second anthology will be expected during the Summer or Fall if my publication schedule for Reformed Mage falls behind.
Beyond that schedule it is my hope to quickly follow up the first novel with material from the second book of Reformed Mage. My main goal at that point is to possibly release the prequel of Reformed Mage #2 before the end of the year and the entire novel just after the new year.
From there the schedule gets a little more murky as I may release an anthology or be ready to release Reformed Mage three. That will come clear as soon as I make considerable progress on everything, but it certainly fills up the calendar nicely.

Thanks for stopping by today and catching up on the latest news and my plans for the rest of the year. Next week, I’ll be back with the specific release information about An Arrow Against the Wind print edition. Please leave your thoughts in the comments and share or reblog this post. I’ll reply to comments as soon as possible.

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Project Updates: An Anthology, Print Edition and a Prequel

Hello to everyone! I know I been absent for us several weeks, but it’s been that busy. I hope everyone is well during this difficult time and hope I can offer a bit of distraction from the difficulties we’re all facing.

Progress, though somewhat slow is continuing in many ways. Over the last several weeks I’ve been picking up some steam as I work toward several goals at one time. Here’s the latest:

Anthology Projects

A possible cover.

My memory is dim on the point of mentioning anthologies earlier, but my intention is to publish several of these this year. These books will stem from short stories already written and which I’ve decided to share more widely. I’m excited about these projects and spending some time brushing up the stories for the first anthology. My hope is to release the first one within the month if at all possible.
If progress is good enough, I’ll share more about it next week.

One of the main holdups is deciding on a title for this anthology but I’m going with a working title of: Curses Dark and Foul. Your comments about the title are welcome but each story will involve a curse. After that, the next priority is settling on a cover that suitably represents the anthology.

Just have to finish the print cover

An Arrow Against the Wind Print Edition

I’ve also been making some progress with my print edition for An Arrow Against the Wind. The print formatted version of the book is now complete. I am working to adjust a print cover which I hope to have done in short order, but releasing that print version is very close at hand. I’m already working on the formatted version of The White Arrow and very excited to complete the series and print as soon as possible.

Reformed Mage & the Series

The biggest news is that I’m planning the preqeul/prologue for the first book or Reformed Mage with a target release date during the summer depending on how fast it’s ready. I’m doing some dictation for this content now. One of the main goals in writing this book is that it npth triggers me and challenges me with adding details about characters and the world building into my existing manuscript. So the project is twofold, releasing a prequel later in the summer and supplementing my thinking about the series and my ongoing revision.

As already mentioned, my main goal is to release a full novel beginning with the first book of the Reformed Mage series this year. If that’s going to happen this year, I will have to get with it and complete the revisions so I can send it to my editor as soon as possible. There’s also work on the cover which needs to be done, but that will happen over the next couple of months as the editing cycle continues. The main goal right now with the manuscript is completing the revision which includes some additions. Since I’ve reorganized all of the material that I first wrote for the series, I’m now working on a reconstructed order of the book that keeps me on task.

So those are the developments with all of my immediate writing. Of course there are more editions of the Reformed Mage series in the works with a rough draft already written of books two and three. The hope with the first book is that it will make all the editing easier to complete other books as I move forward.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back next week with more about what I’m doing immediately and some possible dates on releases for print and my first anthology addition. Thanks for stopping by today and visiting with me. Please share this post as you see fit over social media or a reblog and I’ll stand by with respond to your thoughts as soon as I am able. Don’t forget to leave an opinion regarding the anthology title: Curses Dark and Foul.

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And a Few Steps Forward

Good morning everyone! Last week had a few setbacks but this week saw a few steps forward. I finally purchased a new vehicle but I’m still going through all the changes of information with insurance and the registration. Nothing big, just a few details to cover. Aside from that, there were some other nice developments.

First, a new feature on this site was started named Fantasy Friday. For now, it’s nothing major while I develop where it will go so I’m starting with some re-posts about my published books. I have quite a lot of material by now so I can cover several weeks and those when I just don’t have time to write something new. But I hope to share new content soon enough.

Print for An Arrow Against the Wind is well underway. The print cover is complete – well, mostly. The final version will be adjusted for the number of pages in the print format. My formatting specialist has the manuscript now so it shouldn’t too long until the final versions are available. The print book will appear first on Amazon and then later on Barnes & Noble. Here’s the current cover version which was share last week if you missed it:

Maybe I’ll have a preliminary print cover for The White Arrow done in a week or so to share in an upcoming post.

I’m still up in the air about several events. There’s semi-interest on my part in attending the SFWA convention this summer. I’m still considering a local SF&F convention at a local library that draws well. With print coming along, I expect to be positioned well for an appearance there if I’m interested. I will attend a local writers conference and visit with a few people, maybe make a few pitches to an agent. All these are a goals this year in various degrees of importance. I’m also considering entering The Bow of Destiny in a print contest for Writer’s Digest. Who knows what could happen with that last one, but a friend suggested I give it a try.

Also in the past week, there were other developments. I made some steady revision and editing progress on Reformed Mage. It’s nice to move forward there even while the week was full of distractions from the new(er) car purchase. I’m hopeful that I can get something done to publish the book in June but that will be dependent on my editor’s schedule and cover art. Still, progress is progress. I really want to get some cover art so I can share that development too but I’m holding off a while until I can settle the concept more, then see what my artist thinks.

I’m mainly itching to release to the next books in the series as well as the first book of Black Glove. The latter has been in solid development stages for a while but it’s waiting for more series development. I don’t want to publish it too soon without more books planned and at least one in finished first draft status. Then there are some other books which have been pushed aside for a while that are clamoring for attention and publication. There’s quite a lot to do. Here’s something of my expectations based on the amount of material I have written:

Publication of Reformed Mage, Book 1
Publication of Reformed Mage, Book 2
Publication of either Black Glove, Book 1 or Reformed Mage, Book 3. Whichever comes first, the other one will be released afterward.
Publication of Broken Shield, Book 1.
Publication of All Things Forgotten, Book 1.

Along that publication schedule, I’d like to start dictating new books for Reformed Mage, Black Glove, The Bow of Hart Saga sequel, Broken Shield and All Things Forgotten. Just making progress is the overall interest, but my main goals are for Reformed Mage, Black Glove and The Bow of Hart Saga in that order. The others are much further back in development and publication so they will have a much lower priority. It’s a long list but I hope to make some serious progress over the course of the year, publication first and then new drafts. The publication calendar is at least a year and a half long, probably more. Some of the drafts that are completed during that time may will elbow their way into the schedule ahead of others based on reader demand. Nothing is set in stone at the moment and I don’t expect to release more than two books this year at the rate I’m going. I might even throw in an anthology of fantasy short stories I already have written, just for fun.

Regardless, I have to focus on the immediate and keep moving toward the goals. It’s demanding and fun. Thanks for reading today. Please share this post with others on social media or re-blog it as you see fit. Leave your thoughts in the comments and I’ll respond as soon as I’m able.