State of the Blain: November 2023 Edition

Greetings, folks!

Enjoy this picture of Princess refusing to sleep somewhere more comfortable. She has plenty of beds, hammocks, and other nice places for cats to sleep, but she decided she wanted to sleep on the cold bathroom floor.

Do you, kitty… do you.

I’ll try to be as brief as possible, so here goes!

1: The second Magic, Mayhem, and the Law novel will be presented as a read along to Cindercorns and Spicy Ponies with bite in the Monthly Patreon.

I am working on this as a side project, so chapters will be posted every Monday I have chapters available. I will use the Monday slot to post random snippets/previews and other news stuff in case a chapter or a scene is not ready. I should be posting the first scene on Monday.

As a reminder: For the Cindercorn & Spicy Ponies read alongs, I delete the previous scene from the Patreon as the next is released. I TRY to post a reminder of what happened prior, but I sometimes forget. (Sorry about that.)

The read along schedule is currently as follows:

Pixies and Otters:

Monday – Wednesday – Friday: Playing with Fire.

Cindercorns and Spicy Ponies:

Monday – Wednesday – Friday: Playing with Fire.

Monday: Partner in Crime (or other preview)

Wednesday: Trickster King

Friday: Murder Floof or Iron Unicorn (these tend to alternate.)

2: Old Secrets was pushed off until late November. This turned out to be a very good thing, as I became ill this week. (Boo!) In good news, because I had pushed it off, I was able to just be ill without overly stressing about work.

3: Whiskers on Kittens will still be releasing as scheduled on December 19. I’m doing it the week before Christmas this year, as I am planning on taking the entire holidays off until the New Year to play, run wild, and be freeeeeee~

4: REAM just opened up to have pen names, so I’m going to queue everything I have across all pen names into REAM. I will post links for those who want to play with that specific subscription service. Currently, it’s priced at $5 a month to access the read alongs. I’m releasing one novel as a read along at a time, so the $5 will have more bang for buck in the future. (I’m doing it this way so it’s low-key and not stressful for me to get everything uploaded into their system.)

5: A bunch of Magical Romantic Comedies are on sale for $0.99 at Amazon. If you don’t have them, grab them now. Monday, I’ll be fixing a bunch of the prices. I’ve been overwhelmed with everything, so some stuff stayed discounted at Amazon for longer than intended. (Grab what you’re missing with much delight and glee.)

6: Blending In is now available at ACX/Audible.

7: The Captive King is now available at ACX/Audible. (Rerecorded with Keira as the actress.) I do NOT have rights to the Reba version, as that was done with a publisher. (It is also available at other retailers as well.)

8: Null and Void is now available at ACX/Audible. (Rerecorded with Keira as the actress.) I do NOT have rights to the Reba version, as that was done with a publisher. (It is also available at other retailers as well.)

9: Cameron Hill will be recording A Guiding Light. (Once again… I do NOT have rights to the Reba version…)

10: The Witch & Wolf series is coming up next in audiobook format, but it WILL take a while. Sorry not sorry, production is a LENGTHY process.

11: Re: Cameron Hill… he has a huge roster of audiobooks he is working on for me, and while it takes time to get the recordings back, I will be keeping him as the male lead for most of my works. However, there are a few pen names with male-only leads that will be done with another male actor. (I am hoping to introduce the new pen name next year officially.)

12: The second inspection never happened on my apartment. To say the very least, this has severely fucked me over on the anxiety front. My doctor increased the dosage of my anxiety medication, but I lost two weeks of my life to that bullshit, and I’m still scrambling to catch up. Please be patient with me. (I’m not okay.)

13: Kickstarter stuff is slowly happening as I scrape together time. I have to assemble 17 swag packs, and once that is done, 17 boxes will be going into the wilds to their new homes. I was hoping to ship tomorrow, but it’s looking like next week. (See: was sick, didn’t do as much work.)

14: Paperback prices have gone up horrifically, especially for mass market size. I’m sorry. This is out of my hands. I will still be moving forward with the special print editions of my favorite books, but those will be closer to $50 a pop.

To give you an idea of what the fancy hardbacks will look like, they will have dual covers; the dust jacket and a laminated hardback cover. (The top one is the laminated cover, the bottom one is the dust jacket.)

See that blank space on the back of the dust jacket?

I will be signing that should anyone bring me their hardbacks. In silver sharpie. I will likely put my favorite quote from the book there along with my scribble.

I am very excited over the hardback edition of this book to say the least. (But it’s a huge amount of work, so don’t expect this to be finished for a while.)

15: 2024 will be a year of writing with minimal publication. I may make 2025 a year of writing with minimal publication as well. What this means is that once I do return to publication on a larger scale, there will be a new release every month, rotating through my various pen names. The publication process is strenuous, and I want to just enjoy writing for most of 2024.

Will things be published? Yes.

Will a lot of things be published? Very probably not.

Why am I doing things this way?

Writing Brain is the exact opposite as Editing Brain. I have a very difficult time switching between the two, and I would rather edit ALL the things at one time and queue up releases and spend a huge chunk of time writing and giving things to my editors.

Then, when the mood strikes me to edit, I will.

in good news, this ultimately will mean a LOT will get written, as I write a lot more (in raw volume) when I don’t have to stop and edit something else.

(Let’s say I spend six months writing and one month editing; I can edit like three books in a month if ALL I’m doing is editing. I can write 2 books in the six month period of time. If I write a book and edit a book, I will spend 3-4 months writing 1 book and lose 2 weeks to editing…)

If I have a 6-8 month period of time to just write books without worrying about editing, I can quite possibly write 6+ books in that period of time, just because of how I flit from project to project. I don’t flit as much when I’m breaking up editing every 1-2 months.

So, patience is a virtue and ultimately means you will get more books faster.

Last but not least: Zazzle says hello. She has taken over my lap and states that I may not spend any more time on the blog today. All hail Zazzle.

Have a great weekend, y’all.