Category Archives: Business Ventures

It’s time for another Infinitas Publishing Status Report! 😀

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Fractured Skies: (Book 2 of the Distant Horizon series). Print formatting almost complete. Got sidetracked trying to complete other projects, but the majority of the formatting is now done, so I plan to order a copy to proof in March (probably once I have Huntress also formatted). At that time I’ll also start the process of checking the other print books to make sure they’re still printing correctly due to the switch from Createspace to KDP Print.

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). Rough outline/synopsis written, and it comes in at 13,500 words. Isaac and I have gone through almost a third of the outline thus far in the process of finalizing it. We’re trying to tighten up the outline before I start the writing/revision stage in order to spend less time rewriting it later.

Lily’s Story: (Distant Horizon series spin-off/prequel novel) On hold.

Lady Black’s Story: Isaac and I are tossing around ideas for a young Lady Black prequel to Distant Horizon. Haven’t yet outlined this yet, though.

Sky Runner: (Multiverse novel). On hold while working on major projects. But we do have a rough outline.

The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold. (Needs edits).

Little One: I’ve started inputting Isaac’s notes into the manuscript for editing, but had to put that on the back burner while focusing on Magebane edits.

Magebane: (Book Three of The Wishing Blade series) Revisions complete! (Finally… this took a lot longer than I expected and set a few other projects back, including having Fractured Skies formatted).

Isaac and I are currently in the process of the read-aloud, but it’s a bit slower going than usual since he also has schoolwork. Due to some of the major changes that happened during the most recent stage of revisions, there’s a pretty high chance that I’m going to send this back out for one more round of beta-reading to make sure there’s not something we’re missing.

But I’m a lot happier with the pacing and how everything ties together now. (Seems like it’s following in The Shadow War’s footsteps in terms of those big edits).

Next step will be outlining TWB book four in hopes of avoiding the need for those bigger revisions.

Stone and String 3: On hold until the outline for book four of The Wishing Blade series can be written.

The Secret in the Shadows: (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade) On hold. I’m kind of thinking about rewriting chunks of this now that Magebane has been tightened up, since I saw some changes there that I think may be useful to apply to this story.

The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: Just finished the third story, and we’ve now started an all new story this week! (Now’s a great time to join in if you want to influence the direction of the character and plot).

The Wind Mage of Maijev: (A Legends of Cirena Short Story) Polished, read-aloud, proofread, and published! Now available! Seems to be getting good reception, and it’s looking like I need to write the sequel soon. I’m tossing around a few ideas regarding how to approach that, since I want to give the Legends of Cirena group a chance to have a say in it’s progress, while also continuing to write the stories for new characters. Not quite sure how readers are going to react to having the Legends of Cirena be a short story series that I plan to have jumping from character to character between each individual story, rather than following the same plot throughout the course of the series.

Nihestan/Shalant’s Story: (A prequel short story to The Wishing Blade series). As a thank you to TWB newsletter subscribers for filling out the survey for their newsletter preferences, and influenced by feedback on a gryphon-gone-wrong design I showed to the Legends of Cirena group, I’ve got plans to write a short story following Shalant as a young man when he first left his family for the Immortal Realm. The ideas are there, as are bits and pieces of a rough draft. Hoping to have that drafted soon.

“MOG”: On hold. Needs further revision.

Huntress: For now, I’m leaving this in KU (Kindle Unlimited). It’s doing well there, and with a sequel in the works, I want to finish the series before pulling it out and going wide across multiple retailers.

Once I’ve finished formatting the print edition of Fractured Skies, I’ll move on to formatting the print edition of Huntress.

Now I’ve just got to decide if I want to release Huntress in a 5.25 x 8 format (like The Wishing Blade series) or 6 x 9 format (like the Distant Horizon series).

Huntress 2: Still not titled, but the rough draft has been polished and I’m currently waiting to hear back from beta-readers.

Plus, I have ideas in mind for the third book, as well as a spin-off, stand-alone novel if readers like a certain character who shows up in book two. 🙂

Game Design: On hold.

Marketing: Sent out surveys in The Wishing Blade and Distant Horizon newsletters for feedback, and based on that feedback I’ve decided to make The Wishing Blade newsletter monthly (like the Huntress newsletter… which I’m going to start sending out monthly as of tomorrow, since I forgot to make note of it on my schedule and thus didn’t remember to send it out last month), while the Distant Horizon newsletter will stay mostly the same. However, both of the main newsletters now have a “Writer’s Life” section added to them where I go on about what Isaac and I have been doing lately or favorite video games… things like that.

From the Distant Horizon newsletter survey, I also found that several of our reader’s prefer using Google Play to buy their books, so I’ve managed to get an account set up. It’ll be a little while before I get the books formatted and included through that retailer, but the process has been started. (However, it’s worth noting that Draft2Digital just announced today that they are now beta-testing distributing through Google Play, for those who don’t want the hassle of dealing with Google Play directly).

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Almost finished finalizing the polished formatting and cover design for a client.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold.

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There’s a lot in the works, but that’s all for now! 😀

December has come and gone, along with the busy holidays. We did a lot of traveling and got to spend time with family. Overall, it was a good trip. Not quite as much done with the company due to the holidays, but that was expected. Now it’s time for the Infinitas Publishing Status Report! 😀

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Fractured Skies: (Book 2 of the Distant Horizon series). Part of the print edition has been formatted (mostly as a test to get the rough page count), but I’m hoping to finish the formatting process and order a proof copy in February.

Also, since CreateSpace (the printer of our books) has merged with KDP Print, we’ll need to have a second look at our currently published print books to see if any adjustments need to be made.

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). I’ve read through the rough draft I wrote several years ago, making notes on each section for an overarching outline. Some of it is salvageable (with edits), and some isn’t, and about 20,000-30,000 words need to be reallocated to book 4. (The current draft clocked in at around 160,000, but needs to be divided as we realized there was not only enough planned for two different books, but also two major climaxes).

I finished reading the rough draft before the break, but the next step will be to look through those notes and divide the story, then create an outline from the remaining notes to figure out what still needs to be written, rewritten, and revised.

Lily’s Story: (Distant Horizon series spin-off novel) On hold.

Sky Runner: During the break, Isaac and I constructed a rough outline for this project. Still has some parts that need fleshed out, but overall the concept is now there (including a rough pitch). However, I don’t anticipate starting on this project until other major projects are complete.

However, there will be airship pirates. And dragon eggs. And a frazzled, slightly naive beastmaster trying to clear his name after being framed for theft.

The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold. (Needs edits).

Little One: On hold. (Needs revisions per Isaac’s notes). I’m hoping to start revisions sometime in the next couple of months, but we’ll see.

Magebane: (Book Three of The Wishing Blade series) I’ve started the process of writing in the new scenes and editing for consistency. Hoping to do a read-aloud with Isaac sometime in the next month. If all goes well, I’ll move on to proofreading. If he finds major issues, then this may need to go back out to beta-readers before release.

Stone and String 3: On hold until Magebane is complete and the outline for book four of The Wishing Blade series can be written.

The Secret in the Shadows: (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade series) Feedback received from beta-readers and a round of revisions complete. Handed to Isaac during the trip, however, he found several consistency issues. Plus, after reading the first half of The Art of Language Invention by David J. Peterson, I’m seeing the potential to do a lot more with the whole prophecy “lost in translation” issue that I original wanted to play with in this story.

As such, I’m putting this one on hold until I can do more development and better work out the plot. I’m suspecting this one might not actually release until after The Wishing Blade series is complete, since it heralds some of the events for the series we have planned afterwards.

The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: Second story complete, and third story in progress. See “The Wind Mage of Maijev” below for news on the first short story.

The Wind Mage of Maijev: (A Legends of Cirena Short Story) Basic revisions are complete and feedback gathered from my beta-reader. I’m now in the process of polishing the story, and then doing a read-aloud with Isaac and preparing it for publication.

I currently have a rough blurb created and a semi-polished cover. If all goes well, I’ll be releasing this at the end of January. 😀

“MOG”: On hold. Needs further revision.

Huntress: Huntress is now available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited (KU)!

I’m testing it in KU first to see how it goes. At this point, I have a sequel in the works, and I’ll probably launch that one in KU as well, waiting until the series is complete before releasing it wide across other retailers.

Next step will be to make the print edition for Huntress.

Huntress 2: Not yet titled, though I have a rough draft already written (from the November NaNoWriMo. Plans are for it to be a Cinderella retelling. Hoping to work on revisions next month so I can send it out to beta-readers soon.

Also, I already have ideas for book 3. 😉

Game Design: On hold… though we did take notes after playing one of our work-in-progress games with family during the trip!

Marketing: Occasionally dabbling in Facebook ads… but I need to do more research before putting a strong emphasis on those. Thus far I haven’t had much luck with them.

In the meantime I’m continuing to research and learn Amazon Ads. I also attempted a test of adding meta-data to certain pages on the Infinitas Publishing website. Waiting to see if that brings any additional traffic.

I also still need to update this blog with information on Huntress, as well as adjust the side bar.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Print book formatting started for a client; need to do polishing touches and wrap-around cover.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold due to wanting to develop story a bit more before release.

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That’s all for now! 😀

It’s been a busy month between a trip to San Diego (school conference for Isaac where I got to tag along and see the sights), and a condensed NaNoWriMo (my goal was 50,000 words in 10 days, which I managed to succeed at. More about that in the “Cyberpunk Snow White” section).

In the meantime, here are the updates! 😀

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Fractured Skies: (Book 2 of the Distant Horizon series). Still needs a print edition. I’m hoping to work on that early next year.

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold until Magebane edits are complete, and then this will be the next major project. The first step will be to assess what’s already been written and figure out what still needs to be written or rewritten.

Lily’s Story: (Distant Horizon series spin-off novel) On hold. (Needs rest of rough draft written).

Sky Runner: *Cough.* Isaac and I might have seen a really cool premade cover that was on sale, bought it, and gotten an idea for a story about an airship pirate captain. *Cough.* Same universe as The Multiverse Chronicles, but takes place about fifty years later. On hold, but with plans to construct an outline. Not sure if this will be a short story or novella.

The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold. (Needs edits).

Little One: On hold. (Needs revisions per Isaac’s notes).

Magebane: (Book Three of The Wishing Blade series) Needs a couple scenes added, and then smoothed out. After that, a read-aloud with Isaac. Then we’ll determine if it needs another round of beta-reading. Still hoping to release this early next year.

Stone and String 3: Since a few events of this story coincide with events of The Wishing Blade book 4, I need to wait until that rough draft is written (or at least outlined) to work on this one. That will happen sometime after Magebane is complete.

The Secret in the Shadows: (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade series) Out to beta-readers. I’m hoping to finish revisions this month, depending on how extensive revisions are.

The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: Already completed one short story (tentatively called Livena: The Wind Mage of Maijev) and I’ve created a cover mock-up for it. We’re midway/toward the end of the second story now.

My current project is to revise Livena’s story and see what still needs to be done with it, so I can release it early next year.

“MOG”: On hold. Needs further revision.

Cyberpunk / Dystopian Snow White Story: *Cough.* Meet Huntress, a YA SciFi retelling of Snow White with a female huntress as the main character. You might remember me talking about the outline last year.

This was my surprise project of last month that I hadn’t planned to work on… but ended up going into overdrive to complete. I finished revisions, sent it out to beta-readers, made a few minor changes, did a read-aloud with Isaac, proofread it…

And Huntress should be launching sometimes next week. 😀

More on that in a few days. 😉

(And if you want more details, I’ve started a newsletter. Click here to subscribe!)

Yes, there will be a sequel following the same character, but focused on a different fairy tale. (That was the condensed NaNoWriMo project I mentioned at the beginning of the post).

I’m super excited and nervous to get it out there, but I hope readers enjoy it. 😀

Game Design: On hold.

Marketing: Continuing working on understanding AMS/Amazon Ads. Maybe seeing a tiny bit of traction… particularly with the UK ads?

Not enough data to say for sure yet.

Also, Isaac and I had a booth at the Geek U.P. convention hosted by Black Ice Comics, which went well. (Even with the surprise snow that morning. Not quite a storm, but definitely a lot of snow in a short amount of time. Looked outside once… it was misting. A few minutes later… heavy snow). Still, a lot of fun. Got to meet several other artists, and enjoyed talking to con-goers. 😀

I also dropped off doing the Weekly Book Promo Highlights last month due to the crazy schedule, but I intend to start back up again this month and see how it goes.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Ebook loosely formatted. Working on details for print formatting.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. Debating whether to release the first one as I soon as I complete revisions (and go through the usual read-aloud/proof-reading process), or to wait until I get the second one written.

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That’s all for now!

I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂