Tag Archives: book review ARCs

March 5, 2021 · 12:06 pm

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

Now it’s March!

Time for another monthly status report!. 😀

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Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold for revisions while revising Deceived drafts.

Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold with a rough draft at 50,000 words.

The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): Goal is to eventually create a new cover and print edition for the complete collection edition. (On hold).

Galina’s Saga (Deceived) – (Distant Horizon spin-off series): I’m almost finished with revisions to the second book in the series. (12,000 words to go out of 55,000 words total). Once that’s done, I’ll hand it to Isaac for his notes. I’m not sure if I’ll switch projects while waiting for feedback or jump straight into revisions for the next book.

I’m debating whether or not to change the cover design for the series. I also plan to update blurbs/keywords/categories, and that sort of thing before release. I might even change the series title since I rarely call it “Galina’s Saga” and more frequently say “the Deceived series,” and I’m thinking something more genre-relevant might be a good change.

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: I got a few more of Isaac’s notes added to the manuscript, but there’s more to be added. After that, it will be on hold until I can start revisions.

TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). Needs rough draft written. Needs updated outline. On hold.

Runes and Ravens (Stone and String 3): Needs outlining and revision. On hold.

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 plan to make revisions to everything already written to give myself a reminder of where everything’s at plot-wise, and then I’m thinking I’ll continue the voting process of story creation while finishing up this story.

SBibb - The Wind Mage and the Wolf CoverThe 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 novel) : Now available! I got feedback from my beta-reader (who was awesome and read it on really short notice), I did a read-aloud with Isaac, made final edits, and then uploaded it to all stores. By the time it was complete, it came in at around 45,000 words.

As a small side project, I’ve been working on a short story following Joran’s point of view during the events of The Wind Mage and the Wolf. I’m debating offering it exclusively to the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter subscribers, at least to start with.

Legends of Cirena #8 (Hahven (The Cursed Halls of Kalecen) & Alia (The Scars of Her Past) cross-over / A Legends of Cirena novella) : Still deciding on a title and working on a cover design. (Got the base of it figured out, but it needs some tweaks to really be polished). I didn’t quite figure out the title and cover before I needed to submit the final version of The Wind Mage and the Wolf for publication. Once I have the title and cover finished, I’ll upload this for pre-order. I’m currently aiming to release it in July.

On the bright side, I did a preliminary read-through of the current draft, and I’m fairly happy with it. Next stage may be a read-aloud with Isaac to see if he thinks any of the areas need to be fleshed out, or if it’s good to go. Then I’ll need to run it through ProWritingAid and send it out to beta-readers.

“MOG”: On hold. (Needs revisions)

Changeling: (Huntress #2) Needs formatting for print. On hold.

Huntress 3: Needs rough draft completed. (Currently at 25,000 words) On hold. (Maybe finishing the last half could be an April Camp NaNo project? Haven’t decided yet).

Game Design: Officially, it’s on hold while Isaac’s working on his PhD. That said, Isaac’s been tinkering with some fantasy card game mechanics and a bunch of Daz artwork for that idea. Though it’s primarily for fun, it may eventually work its way into a polished game.

Also, as with the last few status reports, we still need product shots of updated Phalanx board for The Game Crafter so we can make that public again.

Space Adventure Comic: On hold until both of us have time to sit down at the same time and finalize panels for episode one.

Emberverse (Working Title):  Revisions on hold. Needs title. Needs outline for “Season 2.”

Marketing: BookFunnel promos for March have been submitted to, and I’ve set up the weekly promo highlights for this blog. I still need to set up the paid newsletter promos for the month. I wanted to make sure I had the books of the Wishing Blade universe on Google Play before submitting to new ones.

 Soon I’ll look over the results of the paid promos to see if I want to continue running those or hold off for now.

I uploaded the Wishing Blade universe books (Stone and String, The Wishing Blade, and Legends of Cirena) to Google Play. I’m thinking of doing a blog post to highlight those links. At this point, the only books not on Google Play are the Huntress series (currently Kindle exclusive, though I think after I’ve given the third book some time in KU, I’ll pull them from KU and distribute them wide), and 1000 Words/Ashes.

I set up a few more Huntress Amazon ads, but haven’t seen much of a result.

I still need to revise Amazon Ads for the UK and Germany. I also need to check book categories and keywords, and I need to cull the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter for inactive subscribers.

I’ve been continuing to read related fiction books (right now, YA dystopian stories), though I didn’t read quite as much non-fiction writing/marketing craft books as I would have liked.

Also, I’ve been working on business taxes. Note to self: This year, actually start inputting royalties monthly, rather than waiting to do it all at once.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).

Other Stories: YA SciFi Alien Invasion/Dystopian Conspiracy short story revisions on hold.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I still need to update the imagery on this blog and the Infinitas Publishing website banner.

Also, I finally remembered to buy some more dry erase markers when I visited the store. Now I can use my whiteboard again– and with pretty colors! 😀

Daz PA: Submitted another pose set to Daz, which released today! The SBibb Charismatic Bard Poses and Expressions for Torment 8.1 set! As a bonus, since it’s part of their March Madness sale, they included a special today where people who buy that set can also get one of my other sets free (the Wonder and Curiosity set or the Frog Prince set). I really like the setup. Anyway, the Charismatic Bard poses had been in the works for a little while, but was put on hold while working on the hearing aid pose set.

SBibb Charistmatic Bard Main Promo

Now I’m working on promos for a character head morph set. We’ll see if it gets accepted once I submit it. (That one was even longer in the making, since I got distracted by other shiny projects. It was one of the sets I started putting together to apply to become a Daz PA).

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😀

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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂

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February 5, 2021 · 3:10 pm

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

It’s time again!

Another monthly status report! 😀

* * *

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold for revisions while revising Deceived drafts.

Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold with a rough draft at 50,000 words.

The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): Goal is to eventually create cover and print edition for series complete collection. (On hold).

Galina’s Saga (Deceived) – (Distant Horizon spin-off series): The rough draft for Deceived #5 is now complete at 32,600 words. (Previously 25,600 words). Managed 7,000 words last month. With that, the series drafts are now finished! 😀

I’ve started revising Deceived #2, but didn’t get far because of needing to finalize The Wind Mage and the Wolf.

I’m debating whether or not to change the cover design for the series. I’ll also plan to update blurbs/keywords/categories, and that sort of thing before they’re ready to release.

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. Once The Wind Mage of Maijev is uploaded for pre-order, I want to get these notes added in.

TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). Needs rough draft written. Needs updated outline. On hold.

Runes and Ravens (Stone and String 3): Needs outlining and revision. On hold.

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.

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): I finished the main revisions and added in Nuaka’s point of view (which brought the story up to 43,000 words). After one more read-through to fix a few small details that changed after adding Nuaka’s POV, a check in ProWritingAid (a handy editing software I recently picked up), I sent this out to beta-readers.

Once I get feedback, I’ll finalized the story and upload it for release later this month.

Next up is reading through Legends of Cirena #8 to decide on a title and cover design. I’m hoping to have that up for pre-order before the release of The Wind Mage and the Wolf.

“MOG”: On hold. (Needs revisions)

Changeling: (Huntress #2) Needs formatting for print. On hold.

Huntress 3: Needs rough draft completed. (Currently at 25,000 words) On hold.

Game Design: In a surprise twist, we ended up creating a simple card game based on Maijevan lore from our Wishing Blade series. I wanted to go a little more in detail about the gambling game Nuaka plays in The Wind Mage and the Wolf, so I started coming up with ideas, and ended up working with Isaac to make something that was playable.

Not sure if we’ll try making a published version of this yet, but we have ideas for it. It’s kind of like blackjack, but with special trick cards and abilities.

Also, we still need product shots of updated Phalanx board for The Game Crafter so we can make that public again.

Space Adventure Comic: Isaac has put in quite a bit of time on organizing the various scenes from the first episode, and it’s coming along nicely. He’s even started working on some of the settings for the second episode. I helped create a couple of the backgrounds for him to place the scenes in, but he’s done most of the work thus far. I’ll mainly come in to help with the polishing stages.

The next step is to start finalizing the actual panels from the first episode.

Emberverse (Working Title):  Revisions on hold. Needs title. Needs outline for “Season 2.”

Marketing: BookFunnel promos for February have been submitted to, and I’ve set up the weekly promo highlights for this blog. The February paid promos have also been set up. A couple more months, and I’ll evaluate to see whether it’s worth continuing the paid promos or whether to put a hold on those until trying them with a different series.

I started testing Amazon Ads for Huntress again, since I suspect it wouldn’t be as likely to interfere with my paid newsletter promo tests for the Wishing Blade universe and Distant Horizon universe. So far, not much luck, but I’ve kept the cost-per-click low enough that they may not be activating.

I still need to revise Amazon Ads for the UK and Germany. I also need to check book categories and keywords, and I still need to cull the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter for inactive subscribers.

I’ve continued doing more reading of related genres and non-fiction marketing and writing craft. I plan to occasionally review books I’ve read and enjoyed. Click here for my review for The Way of Kings, which I especially enjoyed.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).

(We also have ideas for a GameLit-themed spin-off for one of the characters from the Deceived series, but right now it’s very much in “idea” phase, and might not actually get written.)

Other Stories: YA SciFi Alien Invasion/Dystopian Conspiracy short story revisions on hold.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I still need to update the imagery on this blog and the Infinitas Publishing website banner.

Daz PA: Finally, finally finished the pose project I’d been working on for Daz over the past couple months: the Hearing Aids Poses and Expressions set! This one was different for me, partially because I worked in collaboration with another artist (who created the hearing aids for the poses), and partially because it was more contemporary. Since I’m hard of hearing and have worn hearing aids for most of my life, I asked about doing the poses when they had a theme that involved a character who was deaf. They accepted, and this is the result. 😀

https://www.daz3d.com/hearing-aid-poses-and-expressions-for-genesis-8-and-81

Now I’m working on a different pose project, fantasy themed, which is almost ready to be submitted.

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😀

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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂

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January 1, 2021 · 9:46 am

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

A new year, and it’s time to reflect on the past month with a status report! 😀

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Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold for revisions while finishing Deceived drafts.

Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold with a rough draft at 50,000 words.

The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): I’d eventually like to create a new cover for the complete collection as well as a print edition for it. Might be a while before we see this, though.

Galina’s Saga (Deceived) – (Distant Horizon spin-off series): The rough draft for Deceived #5 is currently at 25,600 words. (Previously 6,200 words). Managed 19,400 words last month. Progress on this was slower due to working on other projects, holidays, and needing to work out some plot issues.

Once the rough draft is complete, it’ll be time for revisions of the entirety of the series (except book one, which is already released). I’m debating whether or not to change the cover design of the series before I get started on the next one.

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 on hold.

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): On hold while finishing the rough draft of Deceived #5, but will be the next major project so I can get it ready for release in late February.

“MOG”: On hold. (Needs revisions)

Changeling: (Huntress #2) Needs formatting for print.

Huntress 3: Needs rough draft completed. (Currently at 25,000 words) On hold.

Game Design: On hold. We need product shots of updated Phalanx board for The Game Crafter.

Space Adventure Comic: Due to me doing a lot of work with a Daz project, Isaac didn’t get as much access to the computer to work on this. He did however, manage to get a little work in on choosing character outfits for a couple of the main characters, and he also managed to get the computer away from me long enough to set up a scene which should include several different panel shots for the first chapter/episode.

Emberverse (Working Title):  Revisions on hold. Needs title. Needs outline for “Season 2.”

Marketing: BookFunnel promos have been submitted to, though I still need to set up the weekly promo highlights for the blog. Most of the paid newsletter promos for January have been set up, as well as a few for February (yay for end of the year coupons!).

I still need to revise Amazon Ads for the UK and Germany. I also need to check book categories and keywords, and I still need to cull the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter for inactive subscribers.

Last month I continued running paid newsletter promos for Whispers in the Code as well as The Wind Mage of Maijev. We might be starting to see some sell-through, but it’s too early to tell for certain.

I’m also trying to do a lot more reading of the genres I write in,  as well as non-fiction related to writing and marketing, and reading for-fun genres I don’t usually write to improve writing craft. (Plus it’s nice to be reading again. Seemed like I hadn’t been doing that as much lately).

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).

Other Stories: I still want to revise my YA SciFi Alien Invasion/Dystopian Conspiracy short story. But it’s currently on hold.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I still need to update the imagery on this blog and the Infinitas Publishing website banner.

I’d like to create a general plan for what I want to write/release/create for Daz next year to start off as a general blueprint.

Daz PA: The holiday kitten morph and poses set I created for the DAZ House Cat was sent out and seems to have been nicely received. 🙂 It was one of the PA Holiday freebies that was free for a few days in December. Not sure if it’ll have any more free days or not. I’ve also finished the main pose project I’d been working on last month, with the exception of if there are any issues during testing.

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😀

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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂

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December 4, 2020 · 10:40 am

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

Another month has passed, and so the author recounts the previous month’s accomplishments and her plans for the next month…

Time for another status report! 😀

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Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold for revisions while working on NaNoWriMo projects.

Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). Rough draft on hold at 50,000 words. Current plan is to revise Starless Night before returning to this, that way I can make sure the time line is on track.

The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): I’m thinking of creating a print edition of the three books combined, possibly with a new cover. Might be a while before that happens, though.

Galina’s Saga (Deceived) – Part Two and Three(Distant Horizon spin-off series): So… last time I posted a report the plan was two write two novellas for NaNoWriMo, thus completing the main ARC of Galina’s story.

Does anyone even want to guess how that went?

Anyone?

*Sigh.*

I’m absolutely thrilled to say it went a lot better than expected, and here’s where it landed (off in “Stephanie writes more than she plans and Isaac keeps giving her more plot points” land):

Deceived #2 (Tentatively titled Exposed) – Rough draft complete at 50,000 words (my NaNo Rebel novella ending up actually being a novel).

Deceived #3 – Rough draft complete at 22,000 words. Ended up being a plot that was not in my outline because Isaac wanted to see them have a little more trouble getting back to the Community, and saw the perfect opportunity for cameos of side characters we see briefly in Distant Horizon. Sounded like fun and made a lot of sense for the story, so I ran with it, and dropped my original outline. I have a few more scenes I’d like to add to this during revisions.

Deceived #4 – Rough Draft complete at 25,000 words. It felt complete before I actually reached the end, though, so cue another book in the sequence

Deceived #5: NaNoWriMo rough draft ended at 3,000 words, incomplete. I’m still working on this one, and it’s currently at 6,200 words. I expect this one to be somewhere in the 20,000-word range.
 
I think #5 should wrap up Galina’s primary arc, though there may be a stand alone #6 because I really want to see how they handle helping the Community when Legion shows up.

So yeah… the next step is finishing the rough draft of #5 and then revising all the rough drafts.

Good news is that this project showed me just how helpful 20 minute and 40 minute sprints can be to my writing productivity.

That… and 100,000 words in a month! 😀

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. Waiting to finish current projects before I revise what’s already written, and then continue the next section.

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): Revisions on hold for NaNoWriMo. But as soon as I finish the rough draft for Deceived #5, this is next big project I want to focus on so I can get it out to beta-readers.

“MOG”: On hold. (Needs revisions)

Changeling: (Huntress #2) Needs formatting for print.

Huntress 3: Needs rough draft completed. (Currently at 25,000 words) On hold.

Game Design: On hold. We need product shots of updated Phalanx board for The Game Crafter.

Space Adventure Comic: I finally converted the “avian” aliens to Genesis 3 and 8 to make it easier for Isaac to work with them. Not a whole lot of new progress here (unless you count a brief flurry of reading web comics to start getting a feel for how they’re structured).

Emberverse (Working Title): Currently on hold while working on other projects. Still needs actual title. Next step will be revising what’s currently written so I know where to take “season two.”

Marketing: I’ve scheduled most paid promos for December and need to finish setting up the scheduled weekly book promo highlights. I still need to revise the Amazon Ads for the UK and Germany. I also need to check book categories and keywords, though Legends of Cirena and Whispers in the Code has had some updates in that regard. I also still need to cull the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter for inactive subscribers.

I’ve begun running paid newsletter promos for Whispers in the Code as well as The Wind Mage of Maijev.

Sent out copies of Distant Horizon to the contest winners of the YA Science Fiction and Fantasy BookSweeps giveaway. I also created a longer on-boarding sequence for the subscribers who signed up for my newsletter through that method. I did have a couple sales of the Distant Horizon books during that week, but I’m not sure if it was a result of the on-boarding sequence or of the paid newsletters.

LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).

Other Stories: I wrote a 5000 word short story (science fiction) and submitted it to an anthology. Got a rejection, but that’s okay, because I’ve got ideas of how I’d like to flesh out the story a bit more and try to improve the twists so it’s not so predictable. (YA SciFi Alien Invasion/Dystopian Conspiracy). Not sure if I’ll try submitting it to a couple other science fiction magazines I used to enjoy reading once I finish revisions or go ahead and self-publish it.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I still need to update the imagery on the blog (and I should probably update the images on the Infinitas Publishing web site banner, while I’m at it). I also want to weed through the side bar links.

In other news, this blog now has a new domain name! Since I mostly focus on books now, the domain is now stephanieflintbooks.com . You can still reach the blog through sbibb.wordpress.com , however. 🙂

Also, I finally updated the Contact page. It had, um, apparently been a while since I’d done so. I removed the links specifically for my book cover design business since I’m no longer actively advertising that, and I updated it with the various author links.

That said, I still have my original SBibbPhoto domain, and I’ve been debating if there might be something I could do with that for my Daz artwork.

Daz PA: I accidentally corrupted my document with notes and how much time I was spending on each project, but at least it’s not a huge loss and was for my own personal use.

Started a new one.

(Reminder… don’t forget back-ups or periodically saving under a new file name!)

No new releases since last time, but I did finish up the holiday freebie I wanted to submit, so that should show up eventually, and I made progress on another pose set.

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😀

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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂

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November 6, 2020 · 1:34 pm

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

It’s that time again! (And this time, the report’s on time). 😉

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Starless Night CoverStarless 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.

SBibb - Whispers in the Code - New CoverThe 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.

SBibb - The Wind Mage and the Wolf Cover

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


SBibb - Daz - 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)! 🙂

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