Wow, what a summer. The last time I did an Infinitas Publishing Status Report was… *checks blog* April?
O.o
Apparently I need to catch up on posting stuff.
The good news is, it’s that time again! I may have been scatter-shot active in posting on the blog, but things have been happening. 😀
Without further ado… the updates!
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Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). Back in April I was only at 8,500 words. I managed 50,000 words by the end of April, through Camp NaNoWriMo, and then I slowed down again for a couple months. I made a point to at least write a sentence every night before bed to make sure I kept up with at least some progress.
I made another push in July’s Camp NaNo, and as of July 31, I completed the rough draft at 119,000 words. 😀
It will likely require extensive revisions (especially since I need to figure out the time frame to make sure I got the seasonal plants and weather correct), but it’s sitting aside while I work on the rough draft of book 4.
Also… I’m planning on listing a year-long pre-order soon, so there’s a semi-hard deadline of completing the book by mid-October of 2021. That said, I’m hoping to have it done sooner, but a year gives more time for unexpected delays.
Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). As soon as I completed the rough draft of Starless Night I moved straight into writing the rough draft of Changing Tides.
Originally I was going to make them into a single book, but realized I had enough material for two, and that Starless Night had a good ending point based on Jenna’s goal. So I went ahead and split them back into two books.
Writing for Changing Tides has been going in spurts and slow segments, but the rough draft is currently sitting at 34,000 words.
I have a rough storyboard pinned to a cork board, but some sections of the plot may still need to be ironed out before I get much further. (Isaac and I have the beginning and end, and here-and-theres of the middle).
My goal is to get the rough draft finished before moving on to other major projects.
The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): After going back and forth on cover design, and discovering the magic of Photoshop brushes, I finally made one more cover design choice and completely redid all three covers.
I’ll probably make a blog post showcasing all of the new covers, and I need to update them on the main Infinitas Publishing website, but you can see them now on Amazon. 🙂
On that note… The Glitch saga is coming out of Kindle Unlimited!
Once it’s three-month term ends in mid-October, I’ll be moving it wide across multiple retailers once again. It never really took to KU.
Expect to see it at most major online retailers in early November. 😀
Galina’s Saga – Part Two (Distant Horizon spin-off series): Outline needs revision. (That said, once I finish the Distant Horizon drafts and revise them, I’ll want to work on this soon after to make sure everything coincides properly).
Lily’s Story: (Distant Horizon series spin-off/prequel novel) On hold. (Has outline).
Sky Runner: (Multiverse novel). On hold. (Has outline)
The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold. (Needs edits).
Little One: Needs Isaac’s notes added to manuscript, and then revised. Like Galina’s saga, this is one I’ll probably want to work on before releasing Distant Horizon 3 and/or 4, as there may be references to events that occur.
TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). Needs rough draft written. Possibly needs updated outline.
Runes and Ravens (Stone and String 3): Needs revision and the rest of rough draft written. I’m itching to work on this because I’ve got ideas for it, but I want to finish the Distant Horizon draft (and the Legends of Cirena revisions) first.
The Secret in the Shadows: (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade) On hold.
The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: Ro’nor-Zynia cross-over is on hold. I’ve stopped advertising the Facebook group since I haven’t had time to maintain it. I’m not sure if I’ll try to revive it once I get everything back on track or call it good after I finish the Ro’nor-Zynia cross-over.
That said, it was definitely fun while it lasted. 🙂
Since the last Infinitas Publishing Status Report I’ve published The Scars of Her Past and The Dragons of the Mist. That completes the single-character arcs. The next arc, currently in the process of being edited, will return to Livena with cross-over appearances from Nuaka.
Title and release date to be determined.
The Scars of Her Past (Alia’s Story / A Legends of Cirena short story): Sent to beta-readers and published in late May.
If you like fantasy thrillers, check this out. Tone-wise, it’s similar to The Cursed Halls of Kalecen, with a bit darker of a story than most of the others in this series.
The Dragons of the Mist (Zynia’s Story / A Legends of Cirena short story): Revised, sent out to beta-readers, and then published in mid-July.
This returns to a more light-hearted tone, with a look at the dragons of the Darden Isles.
“MOG”: On hold. (Needs revisions)
Changeling: (Huntress #2) Needs formatting for print.
Huntress 3: Needs rough draft completed. I’m about halfway through. (25,000 words) On hold.
Game Design: On hold. We need product shots of updated Phalanx board for The Game Crafter. On the bright side, thanks to doing some online Cirena role-play games with friends, we’ve been getting a few ideas for flavor tweaks to make to our Cirena board game we’ve been working on in the background.
Space Adventure Comic: We’ve been making slow progress on this, but there’s definitely been progress. We’ve created a loose storyboard for the first episode, and Isaac is in the process of organizing and updating the characters and ships we’ve decided on thus far.
We’re going to completely redo the first scenes, no longer worrying about the original renders I made. (We’ll call those concept art). But Isaac has a lot of plotting for where the story could go past the first episode (and even the first season, which he has an end for), so we know where it’s heading. We just need to start piecing the first panels together. In the meantime, I’ve been using a mix of Daz and Substance Painter to design the elves’ home planet.
Emberverse (Working Title): Sort-of on-hold? The first episode has been revised because, since the Writers of Warrensburg moved their critique group online, I was able to attend again. (Woot!) I’ve been bringing pieces of the story there for their feedback. With the first episode having finished being critiqued during the last meet, I now need to go back through the feedback and make revisions, none of which looks too difficult. 😀
That said, I now need to start revising the next episode, which might take a bit longer since I think it’s Jekk’s, and his is one of two that need major revisions.
This has been a side project, and I’m kind of hoping to write season two during NaNoWriMo this year, but it depends on how the other projects go.
Regardless, I don’t plan to start releasing any of these until the majority of it is finished, and I want to focus on finishing a few of the currently open series (Distant Horizon (two more novels), The Wishing Blade (two more novels?), Stone and String (one more novella?), Legends of Cirena (three more novellas), and Huntress (one more novel) before releasing a new series.
Marketing: Um… I finally remembered to post new weekly book promo highlight posts. I’ve got the next month already scheduled since I was proactive and actually scheduled newsletter promos in the middle of the month. If I can devote 30 minutes to an hour toward marketing each day, that ought to help a lot.
I’ve also been weeding out my Amazon ads, and I’m trying to focus on keywords that have gotten clicks before, with an emphasis on very low bids (maximum of 5 cents per click). “Drip” ads, rather than high-spending ads. At this point, all of the US ads have been revised, and my next step will be to update UK and other international territory ads.
Instead of ads, which I haven’t really been maintaining well and thus have been losing money on, I’m testing paid newsletter promos (ex. Fussy Librarian) on perma-free books. Right now, my only perma-free story is “The Wind Mage of Maijev,” but I’m planning on making Whispers in the Code perma-free once I pull it out of Kindle Unlimited.
I finally culled the Distant Horizon Universe mailing list of inactive subscribers, taking it down by almost half (but being quite happy that about 30 of the “inactive” subscribers opted to stay when I sent out the email asking who wanted to stick around–I know the past few months have been hectic and not all emails register as open). So it’s back to being around 900 subscribers but the open rate is looking decent again.
Soon I’ll need to cull the Wishing Blade Universe mailing list.
Eventually I should probably run another BookFunnel promo. I’ve done a couple GameLit/LitRPG themed ones in conjunction with another author over the past few months, but since I don’t have a GameLit story out at this point, I’d like to also do a promo focused on the genres/themes from my books.
I’m thinking about picking up a WordPress paid plan for this blog (no ads!), so I’m going to start watching for sales.
LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).
SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Both formatting projects complete. At the moment there are no new cover design or formatting projects. I will likely remove the cover design and formatting pages from this blog sometime over the next month.
Daz PA: Making progress in getting sets done. I had a nice burst of speed on these for the first couple months, but the last couple months slowed down a bit. I just finished revising and resubmitting a previously declined product, as well as making an adjustment to an earlier pose set now that I know more about how the poses work. I’ve recently started a new pose product, and then I have a character to revise and resubmit.
In the meantime, if you’re curious to see what I’ve released thus far:
Wonder and Curiosity Poses: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-wonder-and-curiosity-poses-and-expressions-for-genesis-8
Dreadful Pirate Captain Poses and Expressions: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-dreadful-pirate-captain-poses-and-expressions-for-genesis-8
Secret Reflections Poses and Expressions: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-secret-reflections-poses-and-expressions-for-daisy-8
Flower Family for Daisy 8: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-flower-family-for-daisy-8
Temple Brethren for Ashan 8: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-temple-brethren-for-ashan-8
Insulting the Dragon Poses: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-insulting-the-dragon-poses-for-angharad-8-and-dragon-3
Frog Prince Poses: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-frog-prince-poses-for-bullwarg-hd-and-genesis-8
Rukodzi for Celani 8: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-rukodzi-for-celani-8
Natilda for Honni 8: https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-natilda-for-honni-8
Also, I’ve begun learning how to use Substance Painter. (Handy when trying to re-texture things or make my own textures).
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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 
How you keep up with your plots and characters, I do not know! Admire you. I’m very interested now in designed poses and expressions. It’s a major aspect in the modern world, where people want to look more like avatars themselves than human, and I mean in real life–touch and taste life. You’re ahead of many.
Thanks. 😀
In regards to keeping up with the plots and characters, it does help that I have multiple outlines that can help me refresh my memory. When I switch gears after working on Distant Horizon, I’ll probably take a look at the most recent outline I wrote for the next project and skim the previous book before starting again.
Lately I’ve been trying to focus on writing in one world at a time (even if I’m doing editing on other worlds), though this status report had the past several months of projects, so it has more notes than usual. It also helps that I have Isaac to bounce ideas off of. 🙂
The designed poses and expressions are fun to make. Mostly I work with characters and morphs that have already been pre-created (though I’m in the process of learning how to model outfits/props from scratch and create my own character morphs). Then I position those characters to achieve the desired look. The cool thing about using the different morphs is being able to make your own characters if you want… whether they look like yourself, or whether they look like characters from your own stories. I’ve definitely had fun visualizing different characters using Daz.
I use Daz Studio (though other programs can do something similar), a 3D modeling/rendering program, which comes with base generic figures and morphs (though you can buy all sorts of add-ons to make it easier to get the look you want). You can pose and dress those figures (kind of like playing with dolls or action figures), before rendering out whatever artistic vision you had.
Requires a fair amount of computer power, but it’s a different way of creating art and can get some really neat results with practice.
😀