I’ve had several people reach out to me recently to make sure I was still alive… which is always a strong indicator that it’s been far too long since my last update. This month’s post will be a short one, because, as you’ll see, things are really busy. Still, May has one day left and that means I can squeeze in a very late status update.
One Tin Soldier Rides Away
Last month saw the release of the One Tin Soldier audiobook, and the response has been all I could hope for. Audiobooks are a bit of a long game, but the past two months have seen our best sales numbers ever1. And with a 4.9 average score, OTS is currently my best rated audiobook (or regular book), period. Thank you to everyone who has given my little trilogy a listen! Our narrator Joe Vernon put a lot of time, sweat, and pain into the 40+ hours of recordings, and it’s really gratifying to see his talents rightly appreciated.
The Writing is the Thing
So, about that writing…
As some of you may recall, my plan was to write a new series starter2 for release in late summer. Then, for the November release, I would pivot back to the post-Break world with a stand-alone novel featuring Her Majesty. That’s still the plan, but the timetable is getting seriously iffy. I was roughly 25k words into the new book when I realized what I’d written wasn’t working. At all. So, this past month, I scrapped all but the first three pages and completely altered the entrypoint for the MC. The good news is that doing so solved all of the issues I was seeing with the book. The bad news is… well, I lost ~23k words, and have yet to make that ground up. And that’s not even mentioning the 75k additional words I’ll need to add to have an actual book.
So, that’s a bit of a bummer. I’m giving myself until the end of June to make some real progress. If, at that point, I feel like things are rolling well and that I’ll be able to finish the book in a reasonable timeframe, I’ll press on. (That may slightly delay the Her Majesty novel, but only by a little bit.) If, on the other hand, I feel like the new book needs way more time to bake in the oven before it’s done, I’ll table it and pick it back up again in 2023 so I can move on to the Her Majesty book instead.
At this pont, I have no idea which outcome is more likely, because life has gotten very busy. We are selling our house, moving into a rental, and building a new house, and all of those things have tasks that must be completed asap. Cleaning, packing, design meetings, and house showings are very much the order of the day!
Okay, so maybe this wasn’t such a short update after all
And that’s where we are, currently. April and May were successful on the sales and reviews front, but less so on the writing front. June looks to be chaotic, but I’m going to get as much done as I can. I do think the new story has real potential; now I just need to turn that into an actual book.
Until next time, stay safe, and keep reading!
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