A Few Things…

I’m just going to dive in for “funsies” while also sighing.

1: Book descriptions are often written before I actually start writing the book. Originally, my plan for Booked for Theft was to start with the declaration, but I found a better opener. I am NOT inviting political discourse, so don’t start any in the comments, for I will delete them without fanfare, but I am going to use real life as a pointer on why the description was written like it was originally:

In real politics, politicians make bullshit claims all the time, including presidents. In typical people fashion, following said declaration, it was promptly ignored/refused. (And, as is often done when people raise brows a little too far, walked back.) Decide for yourself how the walkback or ignore happened.

This just didn’t happen on the page as originally intended, and by the time I had written the opener, I just let it ride as “yet another time the description and the opener book plan didn’t work out as intended.”

It happens. If it makes you feel better going “hahahahahaa, author did this”, I mean, go for it. I’m not going to worry about it, and the reality is: at this stage, I’m going to just let it ride.

Rather than wasting a whole day or two rewriting the description, I’m just going to keep working on Prince of New York so it releases on time.

2: If it is a number in one of my books, it stands a high chance of needing severe help. I have a broken brain, and one of the consequences of said broken brain is an inability to properly parse numbers. Ask me around tax time about how awful this is. (Hint: it’s awful.)

My taxes were off significantly this year, fortunately in our favor, because of this inability to properly parse numbers. Best part is? I checked my numbers like 20 times and spent like three extra full hours, and my brain STILL refused to parse that a number was not correct. (And yes, getting just one number wrong on your taxes can be very bad. Oops.)

For the record, when I wailed about what had happened to my husband, he laughed at me.

I deserved to be laughed at, not going to lie.

As such, if my editors and proofreaders do not catch a wrong number, it is not getting changed. Chances are, if it isn’t changed by the time the book is published, it might not get changed at all.

And as I’m fully quite DONE with people expecting perfection for something they paid less than $10 for… some of these errors are just going to live on into eternity as a reminder that a real human wrote the book. (And just to confirm, I do not use AI for ANYTHING. The only thing that stays on in my word processor is a very basic spell checker. I also do not allow my editors / proofreaders to use AI on my books for any reason. This is a personal choice. I’d rather have mistakes than AI.)

Here is a statistic sheet for Prince of New York from my writing program, which is approximately two thirds finished and I’m supposed to be fully finished by April 7 to start going to proofing editors. (This one will be between 120,000 and 130,000 unless it goes off the rails again on me. We will see.)

Yes, that is a FUCKTON of writing I have to get done by April 7.

I am a very stressed and tired human, and I do not want to disappoint the other stressed and tired humans who escape into books for some joy.

“Moving” had not been anticipated when I initially set up my preorder schedule. I REALLY do not want to move the release date for anything. I only move the dates if I absolutely MUST.

3: I know a bunch of you absolutely delight in “catching the author being wrong” but seriously, it’s exhausting. The chance of perfection when writing a book is literally 0%.

It is absolutely the fuck impossible to write a perfect book, and I really do not understand why readers expect perfect books. They do not exist.

I have a pretty expansive editorial team, and we’re STILL going to miss things. It’s the name of the game. And sometimes, what was missed was “the description versus the opener of the book no longer aligned.” Sometimes, it’s a number I stared at for five hours and still got wrong.

But yes, you can absolutely include the declaration in your head canon, and yes, you can absolutely roleplay the reaction however you see fit.

In the original opener of the book, there was a fuckton of people going “Wtaf, no” and the government basically doing “hahaha, just kidding, we won’t try that again for a while.” Kinda like real life.

And yes, I absolutely will delete any politics that show up in the comments, so just don’t. It’s something for you to think about. (And yes, my server, my rules do apply, and we’re not going to discuss politics outside of “this is how it parallels the real life.” You are welcome to disagree with me, just do so on your own platforms. I do not want to moderate a bunch of people throwing temper tantrums over politics.)

Also, since we’re here: please remember that Amazon does not list TOTAL number of books in series, it only lists the number of books in series that have been released OR up for preorder. Just because some authors hold back books and release everything back to back does not mean what Amazon lists in its series record is the FINAL total of books in a series. It is not. We are not given a place to put “expected number of entries in a series”, nor would I use it if it was offered (because this game plan can and does change. Some series become shorter, some become longer.)

Vigilante Magical Librarians, as stated numerous places prior, is a five book series. Booked for Theft is the halfway mark. The next title will be Booked for Arson, and I will start it after Booked for Theft has 5,000 retail sales across all retail vendors. It is currently halfway there. (Woooaah, living on a prayer…)

With those numbers, I expect 1-2 years to reach 5,000 total sales unless something unexpected happens.

No, Patreon isn’t paying for Vigilante Magical Librarians to be produced faster. Patreon pays for the Royal States series to be on constant production. (After Prince of New York is finished, I will get into a street brawl with myself to decide if I’m doing an Agents of the Royal States or the next Royal States book. I will PROBABLY do the next Agents of the Royal States book because the lead of that one is not the RPS agent for a change, nor is the lead an elite nor royal, and that makes it interesting to me right now.)

Unless I decide to do a DIFFERENT Agents of the Royal States book, which is also an option. So many books I could work on!

And no, I didn’t use my normal 10,000 sales mark because there is zero chance that even Booked for Kidnapping is going to reach 10,000 sales, so if I did my usual rule, this series would never be continued.

I arbitrarily picked 5,000 as a number, thus giving the series a 5k (per book) handicap. And no, I will not be putting Booked for Theft (or this series) on sale anytime soon, because it already had a sale recently.

Once it hits 5k sales, I will start the preorder process for a year and begin writing the book. It’s not happening before that, because I have to plan on the books with weaker sales around books that have stronger sales. (Books are not cheap to write, and I need to plan my finances so I a: can afford to pay everyone involved with the process b: pay my bills/rent/etc.)

4: Print editions

Yes, yes, I know some of you want print editions. The finances of print editions are such where they are NOT a priority. Sorry. I have sent the Amazon trade edition to the designer to be worked on, and it’ll get done when it gets done. By default, I publish e-books, and the print and audio editions are extras I do as time, money, and sanity allow. (And as a general rule, I take losses doing these.)

With the move? Print editions are not a priority. Something has to give. Print editions are the thing that has to give (because I am not going to expend my effort/energy on something that loses me money during a move.)

I know that’s harsh, so I’m sorry for disappointing those of you who want print editions. They’ll come when they’ll come.

In other news, Trickster King and Iron Unicorn now have trade (6×9) print editions available through Amazon. If you want the 4.25×7 editions, you need to shop at Barnes & Noble, and I don’t even know where I’m at on those editions yet, because Ingram (the distributor for B&N) is worse than a nightmare to deal with, so I do those in batches as sanity allows.

With the move, sanity does not currently allow.

Thank you for your time, patience, and understanding.

Signed,

A very stressed and tired human.