For today’s Infinitas Publishing Status Report, I’m covering the last two months (November and December). It’s also time for the end of the year report… wow! That will be coming soon.
I’ve highlighted the projects that had changes in blue.
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Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). Paperback formatting on hold while working on Changing Tides draft.
Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). I concluded the NaNoWriMo month with 70,000 words (59k since the previous update). While not 100k, this put me in a really good spot for finishing the Changing Tides draft. (I even hit my goal of reaching at least 1667 words daily during the month! Woot!)
There are still a few scenes that have missing chunks, and some scenes that need a better transition, but the majority of the book has now been written.
My current goal is to complete the first round of revisions to part two of the Changing Tides draft and start piecing together the two sections. I’d hoped to hand this over to Isaac during break. That hasn’t happened, unfortunately, but I am at 40,000 words revised of the 74,000 words in the second section.
I’ve also restructured my calendar for this project, since the original set of deadlines wasn’t going to work. (Surprisingly enough, the new structure might actually give me more leeway without shifting my final release day goal).
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 #2 – (Distant Horizon spin-off series): I’ve decided to serialize the near-final version of Deceived #2 as a way to continue providing content for readers while working on getting the various projects finalized for publication.
That said, I realized that it would be helpful for serial readers to have access to Deceived, first, so I’m going to start by offering Deceived as a weekly chapter on Wattpad, starting Monday, January 9th. I’ll also offer a weekly email where you can sign up to get chapters of Deceived straight to your inbox (and a day earlier than Wattpad). I’m thinking I might include a weekly blog post reminder as well with a link directly to the newest chapter.
Meanwhile, once Isaac has some spare time, I plan to hand this to Isaac for a final round of developmental edits. Next step is to create a book cover for Deceived #2, and continue revisions on Deceived #3.
Future Goals: 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: I started entering the episodes into Scrivener for better organization. Otherwise, this is still 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): On hold.
Goals: Rough draft needs completed via the Collaborative Adventure Facebook group, and there are a couple scenes I’d like to add earlier in the story. I already have a book cover concept, which still needs to be completed.
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) : I’ve revisited the Joran short story project and revised the current draft. There are a couple spots I still want to smooth out, and there’s a final section that I need to write based on cross-referencing the same scene in The Wind Mage and the Wolf (except 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: Minor update. After doing a bit of thinking about the story and why it’s been stalling for me in revisions, I’m very tempted to drop the current draft altogether, reread the first two books, and then create a new outline from that reading. We’ll see about that as a potential change once I’m done with the Changing Tides draft.
Huntress Prequel: On hold at 18,000 words. Needs rough draft completed.
Game Design: On hold.
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, and looking into options for feasibly producing Phalanx.
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: – Isaac drafted two short stories: one sci-fi (this has had one round of revisions – ready for me to make editing notes), and one leaning toward sweet-weird sci-fi (I’m not sure if he wants to do another revision pass on this before handing it to me for edits or not). These will likely be on hold now that school is starting back up for him, but I look forward to seeing these polished.
Marketing: No paid ads this month except for Amazon drip ads and a few BookFunnel Promos. I ended up doing a monthly roundup of the promos on the blog for December since I didn’t get them posted weekly, and I ended up delaying the newsletters during November. Partly because we did a lot of traveling that month–went down to Missouri for the Hawthorn Creek Anthology release party, and then visited family. Good times. 🙂
I started up the newsletters again in December, and even got the automated onboarding sequence running for The Wishing Blade Universe newsletter. Woot!
I also did a little more experimenting with Atticus, since I’m hoping to use that for book formatting in the future.
Our booth at the Poor Artists Sale in Calumet
Poor Artist Sale – Isaac and I shared a booth with our artist friend, Gray, at the Poor Artist Sale in Calumet, Michigan. We’ve gone there in previous years to browse, but this is our first time having a booth there. We had a great time, and I hope to do more in-person events in the future. 😀
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. Add a progress tracker somewhere for the different books. Test Draft2Digital for wide print distribution, revise Amazon ads, and overhaul book categories and keywords. Create a “Backburner Project Page” for projects that aren’t going to be focused on for a while. Start overhauling book blurbs.
LitRPG / GameLit Story: On hold. (Needs revisions and restructuring).
Other Stories: Isaac and I headed down to Missouri for a surprise visit to the Hawthorn Creek Anthology release party with the Writers of Warrensburg. We had a blast, and it was great getting to see everybody in person again for the first time in several years (most of our communication with them has been via Zoom).
Hawthorn Creek Anthology Signing – Photo by Trish Smith
Additionally, I’ve started writing a “for-fun” space/portal fantasy story during my free time that’s about 7700 words currently. I don’t know if this one will get finished or not, since it’s mostly for my enjoyment, but it’s writing, so I’m tossing this one in here.
The YA SciFi Alien Invasion/Dystopian Conspiracy short story revisions and Mermaid/Siren Sci-Fi short story draft are on hold. 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.
SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I’m still working on the book cover polishing and print formatting of the small press’s book. I’ve started specifically scheduling time in my new planner for this to make sure this gets done.
Future Goals: Figure out a schedule for uploading general art projects. Update the SBibbPhoto website to incorporate Daz work, and fix the SEO information.
SIFlint Art: Isaac and I started a Redbubble shop! This features art from both our Distant Horizon and Wishing Blade universes, as well as other miscellaneous art we’ve made.
The cool thing is that we’re able to use Redbubble to make mugs, jigsaw puzzles, stickers… a lot of merch we normally wouldn’t have access to. (Since it’s print-on-demand, no need to figure out where we’re actually going to store it!).
Daz PA: No new releases in the last two months, though I’m close to finished on several projects. Had a bit of a slow-down on the holiday freebie, had to switch to a whole new project, which unfortunately didn’t get it turned in on time. Oh well. I’m expanding the newer project into a full-sized shader product (snow… so much snow!), which I hope to turn in early next week. I’ve also got a pose set that I’m making promos for and checking for a potential issue that I saw in the promo renders, but that one’s just about done.
Still waiting on the joint PA project, and no new progress on my morph/outfit set. Once my current projects are done, I plan to finish up an adjacent pose set to the one I’m almost finished with, and then finish the set Isaac helped me with, as well another partially complete pose set.
(Needless to say, I’m hoping to see a spurt of project releases sometime around the beginning of February, if all goes well).
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Happy New Year!
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And happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 