Time for the February Infinitas Publishing status report! 📋
Let’s see if I can actually keep this thing going monthly this year. 😅
I’ve highlighted the projects that had changes in blue.
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Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold while working on The Dark Forest of Aneth. Next step is to merge the two revised drafts and start writing the missing scenes.
Betrayed (Deceived #2): Released! My goal for January was to get everything set for launch, and it went live on January 28th! 🎉
I’m going to have a full-length post examining everything that I did for the launch later this month (I want to give the promotions on Deceived, which is temporarily free, time to follow through, that way I can analyze the results).
Long story short, I finished the proofread, updated backmatter in the related books, prepped several launch week emails for the newsletter, prepped a few goodies in the form of character dossiers with art, chose a few paid newsletter promos, and got the pre-order up and running!
Next up, revising Deceived #3 (tentatively titled Exposed).
Other future steps: Input Isaac’s notes from Deceived #5 (formerly #4) into the manuscript, revise Deceived #5, and revise #6 (formerly #5) before handing it to Isaac for his feedback.
TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). On hold. Next step is to add the remaining outline to Scrivener, review that outline for missing plot points, and then write the rough draft.
The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: On hiatus. There’s a possibility I might move this concept to the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter, but that’s just a vague idea at this point.
The Dark Forest of Aneth (“Ro’nor (“The Restless Sands of Neel”) & Zynia (“The Dragons of the Mist”) cross-over / A Legends of Cirena short novel): With Betrayed complete, this is my next big project. My goal for February is to finish another round of revisions, including writing the missing chapters. I’ve finished the initial input of the simpler suggestions Isaac had. Now it’s on to the bigger changes!
Goals: Revisit the book cover concept (which had been unfeasible until getting a more powerful computer that could actually render the scene in mind, but I may still overhaul the design anyway). Create a blurb.
The Ruins of Amixthael (The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear Spin-Off): On hold. Next step is whole-story revisions for continuity. At the moment I’m leaning toward publishing this a stand-alone ebook, but offering the final version of the story to newsletter subscribers for free.
Untitled LoC Short Story (Standalone – Merchant in Reveratch): I polled the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter regarding the details for the main character in the next short story (much like how I started new stories in the collaborative adventure Facebook group), and then created an outline from the winning results. The first chapter has been written, revised, and sent to the newsletter.
I’m expecting this to be complete between four to six chapters, and I’m rather excited for this one because, spoiler, I realized I could introduce an immortal that’s something like a selkie! 🦭
The Wind Mage and the Wolf (“Livena (The Wind Mage of Maijev”) & Nuaka (“The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear”) cross-over / A Legends f Cirena short novel) : Joran’s short story is on hold. Still needs a couple scenes smoothed out, and I need to cross-reference the final scene in The Wind Mage and the Wolf (from Joran’s point of view). After that, it’ll be ready for a read-aloud and proofreading.
Huntress 3: On hold. Next step is to finish re-reading Changeling to make notes on the series guide, finalize the cover (proof created), and create a detailed outline.
Other Stories: On hold. Next up: Revise ending of YA Alien Invasion/Dystopian story.
Game Design: On hold. Isaac made some notes for an astrology-themed game with some similarities to The Game of Life. I think this was more of a for-fun project, but what I saw of his notes looked interesting.
Marketing: Most of this month’s marketing efforts were focused on the launch of Betrayed, and I plan to have a detailed post about that later, so I won’t get too in-depth here.
- Checked that Whispers in the Code and The Wind Mage of Maijev are still permafree. Created a private webpage with links to more easily check each territory on Amazon.
- Created a promo for Deceived to run for free between January 18th and February 19th. I purchased slots in a handful of paid newsletters to promote the freebie, in hopes that some of those might translate to purchases of Betrayed or Distant Horizon, or that I’d see a spike in organic newsletter subscribers. I also updated my paid newsletter spreadsheet, since I hadn’t updated it for a couple years. (Once all the promos have run, I need to update their numbers in that spreadsheet).
- Sent ARCs for Betrayed after updating the list.
- I didn’t tinker with Amazon Ads, so the only ones here were those that were already running.
- No new BookFunnel promos for the month (though I have scheduled a newsletter swap with an author friend).
- I announced the Deceived promotion, the pre-order of Betrayed, and then the release of Betrayed on Facebook and my blog.
- I created a couple of extra detailed behind the scenes emails for the Distant Horizon Universe newsletter, as well as a piece of character art and a few character bios, but written to be a dossier from the point of view of a future antagonist.
- Isaac and I took a business trip to Marquette to update our UPS mailbox for the newsletter.
- I wrote a blurb for Betrayed.
- Printed a calendar of the year so I could mark out the dates I expect to be busy or that already have events planned, that way I can better see when different projects are likely to happen.
Next up: Continue adding sample chapters to the BookFunnel sales pages for each book, and then to the main Infinitas Publishing website. Add BookBub and Goodreads links to each landing page. Update my author bio across the different retailers. Continue updating Stripe and Payhip so I can offer direct sales from the main website. Maybe add a progress tracker somewhere for the different books? Revise Amazon ads, and overhaul book categories, keywords, and blurbs.
Substack – I’ve continued adding writing tips to my Substack, though I scaled it back from six times a week to five. (In theory, I don’t post on Sunday or Wednesday, but sometimes that gets shuffled around a bit).
Events: No events for January, though Isaac and I will be joining local author, R.Aveen, for a YA Author Panel at the Portage Lake District Library on February 6th, so I’ve been helping with making the flyer for that and creating a list of moderator questions.
On February 21st, I have another rendition of my free, Crafting Your Fictional World workshop at the Copper Country Community Arts Center.
SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I’ve finished my most recent book formatting project for Cave Hollow Press! You can now pre-order Just Willa by Helen Sheehy. I may have another formatting project coming up, but the details for that is still in the works.
Future Goals: Update the SBibbPhoto website to incorporate Daz work and fix the SEO information. Finish designing cute mascot for local store.
SIFlint Art: I’ve colored the line-art for my Ghooste of Christmas Yet to Come and the Ghoost of Christmas Past, as well as finished my trans, shark-hoarding dragon art. Those have been polished and the stickers are on order!
Eventually I’d like to place another order with Vograce, but we’ll see whether or not the tariffs make that unfeasible. I’ve also been looking at nifty little micro puzzles, so I’m investigating whether those might be an option in the future.
I got my sample paper in from Red River Paper, so I created a test page with a few different images to try and ran that image across each different type of paper.
*Cue very, very delighted Stephanie. And also a housemate’s happy cat perched on top of the printer.*
The results came out great, so my next step is to decide which projects I want to focus on so I can order the paper I need for them.
Daz PA: On hold. Next step is to search for a collaborator for my Genesis 9 Diverse Worlds set, and to complete some of the pose sets that Isaac started last summer before he got his new job.
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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 