It’s that time again! (And this time, the report’s on time). 😉
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Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). New cover (after several iterations), a blurb, and it’s now on pre-order!
Next step: Revisions. Lots of revisions…
Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). The rough draft is currently 50,000 words. About 16,000 more words than last time. Not a huge change, and writing went a bit slowly (though I made sure to write at least a sentence each day… and that helped to get at least some progress in).
I’ve put this rough draft on hold during NaNoWriMo, and I’m focusing on writing a different project. I’m hoping to use November to finish a few rough drafts and revision projects that have been on hold for a while, and maybe start revising Starless Night depending on how those other projects go.
The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): The Glitch saga is out of Kindle Unlimited!
Which means you can now find it not only on Amazon, but also Apple Books, Kobo, BN.com, and Smashwords.
AND I’ve gotten it added to Google Play, too. 😀
(First series in Google Play. I plan to start uploading the others as I get time).
Last month I went through the process of updating the back matter, updating blurbs, fixing some early formatting issues that should make for a smoother table of contents, and re-uploading the books back to the various distributors. All three books (and the Glitch Saga: Complete Collection) are now available!
Side note… Whispers in the Code is free on all retailers. 😉
Galina’s Saga (Deceived) – Part Two (Distant Horizon spin-off series): This year’s NaNoWriMo project! 😀
I’m currently 14,000 words into the rough draft. I took the first day to discuss plot points with Isaac and get an outline made, and then started writing the rough draft.
Since these are novellas, my goal is to get books two and three complete for NaNoWriMo. Once I finish the rough draft for book two, I’ll outline and start drafting part three.
We might even have the title for book two… but we’ll see.
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.
TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). Needs rough draft written. Needs updated outline.
Runes and Ravens (Stone and String 3): Needs outlining and revision.
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 still on hold. At this point in time I have removed links to the Facebook group from the Legends of Cirena stories. Ultimately I still want to finish the Ro’nor-Zynia cross-over there, if anyone is still interested, and I’ll make the Legends stories available for free to everyone who participated in the voting process for choosing characters and their decisions. Beyond that, though, I haven’t decided how to proceed.
The Wind Mage and the Wolf (“Livena (The Wind Mage of Maijev”) & Nuaka (“The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear”) cross-over / A Legends of Cirena short story): This is still in the process of being revised, and then I need to go back and thread Nuaka’s point of view into the story.
Good news is that the book cover and blurb have been completed!
Better news?
The Wind Mage and the Wolf is up for pre-order! 😀
I’ve scheduled it for February 21st. I was hoping to release it in mid-November, but didn’t account for the amount of time it’d take to set up Starless Night for pre-order and get the Glitch saga back up and running wide.
Now that it’s NaNoWriMo and the holidays are coming up… I figured I’d play it safe and schedule it a bit further out.
Next step will be finishing revisions and sending it out to beta-readers.
“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.
Space Adventure Comic: Isaac has been organizing our Daz assets, kitbashing character outfits, kitbashing ship designs, and figuring out general scene settings for the project. There’s a few alien characters (the “orcs” and “avians…” which are more like feathered bat people?) left to organize, which I need to move from the Michael 4 generation up to Genesis 3 or 8 for the convenience of using more poses and outfits with them.
But he’s gotten quite a bit done in terms of making sure all the “elf” characters are in place and have outfits/uniforms to fit their particular culture, along with the ships.
Emberverse (Working Title): I was thinking of writing season two for NaNoWriMo, but decided on Deceived #2 and #3 since that series has already been made live.
As for Emberverse, I still need to create outlines for each of the short stories, which may require revising the season one stories to know what needs to come next. (Though I’m hoping looking at the original outlines for the first season will serve as a good reminder of what had been going on, despite changes).
Also… I need a new working title/series title. Apparently Emberverse is already in use.
Marketing: November’s weekly promo highlight posts have been schedules. Amazon US ads have all been converted to low-cost drip ads. I still need to revise the Amazon Ads for the UK and Germany.
Eventually, I want to re-evaluate categories and keywords of the various series, but that will be later.
I have been running paid newsletter promos for “The Wind Mage of Maijev.” So far it hasn’t done particularly well for paying back the cost (though I’ve stuck with low cost promos), but it’s also early in the test run, so we’ll see.
Now that Whispers in the Code is also perma-free, I’ve started scheduling promos on that one as well.
I did go ahead and create a Story Origin account (free) so I can test their group promotions. Took me a bit to figure out their set-up, but over all I do like it, and it does have some advantages over Book Funnel (particularly in the form of newsletter swaps). But I still am quite fond of Book Funnel, so for now, I plan to use both.
I’ve set up a focused group newsletter builder promo (YA Sci-Fi with a Side of Powers) on BookFunnel to run in December. I’m hoping that the banner will interest readers of YA sci-fi and be more likely to get more clicks, particularly those of readers who would like the Distant Horizon Universe.
I also put out a call for ARC reviewers on my Wishing Blade newsletter list soon, and sometime soon I’ll probably start the process of culling inactive subscribers.
And I created an ARC giveaway on BookSprout for the Glitch saga.
Are you a reviewer who uses BookSprout to find ARCs? Do you enjoy YA Dystopian Sci-Fi with super powers? There are the ones I currently have available:
https://booksprout.co/arc/50493/whispers-in-the-code
https://booksprout.co/arc/50494/ghost-of-a-memory
https://booksprout.co/arc/50495/spirits-of-a-glitch
I also participated in a large BookSweeps giveaway. The goal was to bring in new subscribers to the Distant Horizon Universe newsletter, while still offering something of value to my own readers. That contest has ended, so now I’m waiting for the next step. (Sending out prizes to the winners and integrating new subscribers into the mailing list).
I also did a “medium launch” for relaunching the Glitch saga wide, combined with the pre-order of Starless Night. For this, I warned the subscribers they’d be seeing more emails from me in this period, and then I emailed each day with something different and focused (rather than long with multiple sections like my usual newsletters). I hinted about what was coming in the P.S. section so there would always be something to look forward to. Though it did take more work on my part, it seemed to go over well. Combining the relaunch with the Starless Night pre-order had the advantage of giving me more to talk about. I’ll probably consider doing something like this again for some of my future book launches.
Also… I finally snagged a WordPress paid plan for the blog. I was hoping to get a sale, but the ads were driving me nuts.
LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).
SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I’ve removed the formatting and cover design pages from this blog. At this point, I’m only doing those services for previous clients, and that will depend on what other projects are currently happening.
I’m also considering overhauling the imagery on the blog, since I haven’t updated it since I first created it in college (2011). I also plan to start weeding through the side bar links as well.
Daz PA: Organized an older set that I hadn’t gotten around to completing and made quite a bit of progress on another pose set. Neither are finished yet, though.
However, I did recently release the SBibb Egyptian Ankh Makeup Set
https://www.daz3d.com/sbibb-egyptian-ankh-makeup-set-for-genesis-8-female
It’s for Genesis 8 Females. I kind of had a heyday with emission and metal flakes options. My first version was initially rejected, but after getting feedback and making tweaks (and adding glowy arm makeup options), it made it’s way through. 🙂
Even has a displacement option on the forehead to give the forehead ankh a bit of an upraised look… (which might have been inspired by Stargate SG-1… one of my favorite shows in high school).
I’ve also made a little more progress in learning how to use Hexagon to model my own 3D object and clothes, and how to use Substance Painter more effectively.
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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 