📚 Time for another Infinitas Publishing status report!
Woooboy. The last three months were super busy.
Between having family visiting (which went super well), preparing and starting the moving process (across town, but we were trying to consolidate stuff, and it took much longer than hoped), finishing that same move (painful, but now we’re in a place with giant windows!), vacation and visiting family in Missouri, which resulted bringing back Isaac’s adorable old-man cat (we think he’s 18 years old?) to live with us in Michigan, and me getting a new part-time job (substitute librarian assistant, woot!), there’s been a lot going on.
But we’ve still had some publishing-related progress happening in the background, albeit at a slower rate. 🙂
I’ve highlighted the projects that had changes in blue.
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Crafting Your Fictional World (Non-Fic Book): After doing the world-building workshop in April for the CCCAC, which I really enjoyed doing and had a lot more ideas for, I talked with a few of our author friends and decided to move forward with writing a book based around world-building. I’m using the presentation as the starting outline, but have already added several sections to it in the drafting phase. I’ve also started editing chunks of it as I go.
Currently, I have about 22,000 words to the manuscript.
I’m hoping to eventually start a paid monthly subscription project for this where subscribers can read chapters early, offer feedback about what they’d like more detail about, and have a monthly Q&A. More on this in the future, once I’ve worked out the details. (But if it’s something you’d be interested in, please let me know!)
Distant Horizon: (Book 1 of the Distant Horizon series): Next up: Paperback version of this in Atticus, which can be used on Draft2Digital in order to release a paperback version wide across multiple retailers, rather than only on Amazon. I intend to revisit the blurb before finalizing this. On hold.
Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). Next up is polishing the print formatting. I also need to update the blurb and create the wrap-around cover once I have the final page count. On hold.
Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold while working on Legends of Cirena #9. Next step is to merge the two revised drafts and start writing the missing scenes.
The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): Goal is to create a new cover and print edition for the complete collection edition. (On hold).
Deceived (Distant Horizon spin-off series): Needs print formatting. On hold.
Betrayed (Deceived #2): The first four chapters have been posted on Wattpad. Chapter five was delayed due to not having enough time for both me and Isaac to do the read-aloud at the same time. I had hoped to be back on track before the vacation started, but the move took a lot longer than I’d expected, and was immediately followed by the vacation, and then adjusting to my new work schedule.
I do have a date scheduled on the back end for starting this back up in July, but I’m going to wait to announce that date until I have several episodes ready to release, that way the chances of having another release gap is much lower.
The next step is to continue revisions on Deceived #3.
Future Goals: Continue revisions to Deceived #3. Add 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.
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: On hold. (Needs revisions).
TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). On hold. Next step is to finish adding the remaining outline to Scrivener, review that outline for missing plot points, and then write the rough draft.
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. Needs the rest of Isaac’s notes input into the manuscript.
Wishing Blade Prequel (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade): On hold. My next step is to write the rough draft of the new scenes and begin revising the original scenes to match the updated outline.
Once complete, this is intended to be a newsletter-exclusive story.
The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: On hiatus.
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): A lot of progress got made here. I’ve shuffled several scenes around for better pacing and added missing scenes. There are still a few scenes I want to add, primarily at the end, but I’m almost done with revising what’s already written, and I’m much happier with the tone and plot.
I’ve also solidified some Cirenan lore that I’d been having a hard time deciding on, so that should help with the writing of The Wishing Blade #4.
At the moment it’s 36000 words long, and I’ve been tinkering with including story-based song lyrics, and maybe a third point of view I hadn’t originally planned.
I’ve also made some progress on setting up the book cover render.
Goals: Finish rough draft. Complete the book cover render.
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 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.
Legends of Cirena Epic: Outlining on hold. Not sure yet if it will be a series of shorts and novellas, or a novel. Map of Litkanston on hold. This is intended to be a back-burner project.
“MOG”: On hold. (Needs revisions)
Huntress 3: On hold while working on Changing Tides draft.
Huntress Prequel: On hold at 18,000 words. Needs rough draft completed.
Game Design: Mostly on hold, but Isaac and I started looking more into options that might let us feasibly produce Phalanx, at least for in-person sales events.
Future plans in game design involve: possibly preparing a print-and-play version of Battle Decks, polishing the elemental game card art and testing mechanics.
Space Adventure Comic: On hold.
Villain Problems: (WIP panels viewable on my Instagram). On hold.
Emberverse (Working Title): Revisions on hold. Needs title. Needs outline for “Season 2.”
Isaac’s Short Stories: – School’s back in session, so these projects are on hold while he writes his dissertation.
Isaac’s Untitled Sci-Fi Story: Isaac has added about 9,700 words to this story, bringing it to 41,700 words (including some notes). He’s continued plotting for the story, though he hasn’t had much time to work on the actual draft due to the move and finishing his dissertation.
Marketing: I put most of the marketing on hold during the past few months, aside from Amazon drip ads. No BookFunnel promos or newsletters, though I have one partially drafted to resume in July, and BookFunnel promos scheduled for July as well. I’m also considering running the Wishing Blade Newsletter twice a month instead of once a month, since I seem to do better staying on track with sending them if it runs more frequently.
I did finally purchase Jessie Cunniffe’s Book Blurb Magic course, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and I’ve started going through it with the intent to update the Distant Horizon series blurbs (and then to revisit my other book blurbs afterward).
I’ve sent in a couple more workshop proposals to the Copper Country Community Arts Center, which are set to run in August.
I’ve also created a Stripe and Payhip account for direct sales, though this is for a backburner project.
Additionally, I finally caught up on the business ledger for the current year. (Woot!)
Next up: Continue adding sample chapters to the BookFunnel pages and the main Infinitas Publishing website, and update my author bio across the different websites.
Other future marketing goals: Update the business ledger on a regular basis. Add a progress tracker somewhere for the different books. Revise Amazon ads, and overhaul book categories, keywords, and blurbs. Create a “Backburner Project Page” for projects that aren’t going to be focused on for a while.
LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).
Other Stories: On hold. Includes a “for-fun” space/portal fantasy story rough draft, YA SciFi Alien Invasion/Dystopian Conspiracy short story revisions, and Mermaid/Siren Sci-Fi short story draft. Comic script (“If I Had Asked”) on hold.
Untitled Fantasy Story: On hold. Next step is to review and adjust the first book’s outline, and then adjust book two’s outline.
Unofficial Minecraft FanFic: I’ve added 19,600 words to this draft (including notes), bringing the current word count to 34600. I think I’ve found a good stopping point for the book, so I’ve been going back and writing the sections where I only left myself notes at the time. If I decide to publish it, it will need heavy edits to smooth everything out and make a cohesive (and entertaining) story. For April, I aimed to write at least one sentence per day on the project. That plan fell apart afterward due to moving and vacation, but I got one month of steady progress in!
SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I’ve wrapped up an updated wrap-around cover for Rayme Michael’s Screw the Devil’s Daiquiri. This was a cover I originally created for Melange Books, but the update came after a rights reversion.
Future Goals: Figure out a schedule for uploading general art projects. Update the SBibbPhoto website to incorporate Daz work, and fix the SEO information.
SIFlintArt: Isaac and I are tossing around the idea of making stickers to sell at local conventions. At the moment we have a few designs we’re considering, including a set of Pride-themed planets. So far we have a draft for bi, ace, and trans planet designs. More on this in the future if we decide to go ahead and order stickers. (Maybe holographic, maybe not? Not sure yet).
In the meantime, RedBubble has recently changed their terms to be less friendly for artists, so we may need to see about setting up an art store elsewhere.
Daz PA: With everything going on, it took me a while to finish the limestone cave set… especially since I decided to add glow worms. Unfortunately, the fancier promos did take a while to render (longest one ran for over 40 hours because I decided I wanted an image that used god rays and atmosphere along with the pretty glow worms).
But, since I figured I wouldn’t have much time to do major work on any Daz projects while moving, simply letting an image render worked out all right.
Good news is that has now released. 😄
Meanwhile, the joint PA project ended up being cancelled, so I may repurpose my poses from that for something else, and soon I’ll be checking to see which of my other sets were almost complete and thus ready for me to give attention to finalizing.
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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 