To both of you that read this blog, let me apologize for not posting last week. I'll blame illness, but there's a 84.2% chance laziness was also involved. But know I have not been entirely idle. In fact, having learned a thing or two about how to release a book over the last two years, I've been gearing up for the release of book three in mid December for several months now.
But before we get to that, let me regale you with my second favorite joke:
Q: How do you make God laugh?
A: Make a plan.
That there sums up the release of book three pretty well. I had big plans of getting in touch with loads of review bloggers (about halfway through this at the moment) to do the basic sort of stuff like interviews and a cover reveal, as well as putting together some Amazon and Facebook ads to coincide with said cover reveal. Because the general rule of thumb is it's not worth spending the money on ads until you have a third book out, and my goal was to have it out three months in advance for preorder.
You'll note you still don't see that preorder out even though the release date is only two months away. That's because, even though we signed the contracts back in July, my cover artist still has not produced the cover for book three (and has stopped responding to my emails, but that's another matter).
I could complain about this for a long, LONG while, but I'd prefer to be active at the moment. I'm already in contact with some other artists for book four (and perhaps three if I can't salvage anything on this deal), so with any luck I won't be too hamstrung.
Yet this does get across how much one little snag can hold up the whole process.
But enough complaining. There have also been some other fun stuff happening in the background. For one, I'm working with an actual cartographer to redo my maps. As you'll probably not, my current maps, while exhaustive, ain't exactly aesthetically pleasing. However, working with the amazing Soraya Corcoran has been the exact opposite of my experience with my cover designer, as she's already putting together sketches that put my own trifling work to shame. Seems she actually knows about geography and is fixing a few physical impossibilities on my map. Want a sneak peek?
Well too bad.
Also, I got book three (have I even revealed the title of this?) back from my beta readers, and all seems well. I'm completing my final edits now, with the hope to send it off to my copy editor in the first week of November. Which is totally not daunting in the least.
Finally, I took part in the Hero Forge creations of our characters that all the members of Sigil Independent did a while back. And as a treat for finishing the rough draft of book three, I ordered one of Marta and Luca. They arrived over the weekend and I'm over the moon. Now I just need to find someone who can paint the things.
And on a personal note, my great accomplishment for this book was NOT devolving into some sort of apeman when it was all over. In fact, instead of the usual 10 pounds I gain, I managed to stay on my exercise routine and lose weight. Yeah, I had to sacrifice at least an hour of sleep a night as well as watching TV and reading, but it was totally worth it.
Right?...
