February 2025 Newsletter
So…. I’m behind schedule. Just as I’m a few days behind in posting this newsletter, I’m a few weeks (or more) behind schedule for getting book 2 out. Bottom line, I’m probably missing my internal deadline for getting it out this month. I am hopeful that I’ll get it out next month.
I’m going to ask for help up front: I could really use some reviews. If you bought the book off of Amazon, I’d really appreciate a review. If you didn’t like it, that’s fine, I can take the feedback. I’d ask you to be constructive, though. If you bought it from me in person and can’t make an amazon review, then hit me up and I’ll start a goodreads account or some similar platform.
So, with that said, let’s focus on what did get done.
This is one in a series of maps of the city of Versingit drawn by Luke Bauer. I was in a writers’ forum on facebook a few months ago, showing off another map of Luke’s and someone asked me ‘hey, so did you draw the maps of the rest of the battle?’ I hadn’t. The Battle of Serna Hills is fairly straightforward: secure the creek bed to the southeast and attack northeast to destroy the orc encampment. The Battle of Versingit has a lot more moving parts in it and a lot more people involved.
Here’s another sculpture of Ys, made by my Mother, Sandra Spring, as she’s working on another illustration. You’ve seen the sculptures of Ys’ and Kachem’s heads in previous newsletters, but this is the first of her full body in a the pose it’ll be in for the illustration.
Fan art of Irduin Ursani by Jade Bohlsen. Jade produced some of the drawings of humans by ethnicity for the human appendix in book 1 and has made quite a few drawings of the various characters.
I’m dragging my feet on this, but at least the buildings are about done. I have to clean up the roofs a bit and I think I am going to draw thatching on the roofs… but I’ve started drawing the figures. There are going to be about thirteen figures in this drawing. All of the other work for book 2 could get done, but this is what’s going to be holding it up. I’ve got this and one more (comparatively much simpler) drawing to do.
Speaking of things not done yet, there’s the other drawing that I haven’t started yet, the one from my Mother, and possibly one from a new teammate that I’m eager for. I’d be very happy to get a depiction of the Goblin City of Kogylar into book 2, but the scheduling is going to be quite tight. Let’s keep our fingers crossed on that. Only other things are finishing the cover art by Dale Cordes and one more map from Luke Bauer…. then it’s my favorite task of formatting and publishing.
Episode 4 of our podcast is out: Arts & Crafts, wherein the heroes eschew the idea of buying cold weather clothing for the coming winter and instead labor mightily to make their own.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEIgTv8Yvp8)
Last bit of surely good news. I don’t have a ton of readers (under 100, I believe) and only about 1 on Kindle Unlimited, but it seems someone got interested and read the whole thing in about a day.
While I normally go on at length about business at this part of the newsletter, I will only mention a few things briefly.
1) As I said up top, I could really use some reviews on amazon or whichever platform you’d prefer. It’d really help me out. If you enjoyed the book, tell your friends, too. The dream is to be able to write and illustrate full time, but that’s a ways off and I have a lot to work out in the business model.
1) I’m planning a promotion where the ebooks for book 1 and book 2 will be free on amazon for about a 5-day period. I’m trying to time that with the release of book 2 and I’ll keep you posted on that.
2) Although I said I was going to have to raise the price of the paperback last month, I have a potential new teammate and we’re going to be talking on this in detail, as well as some other options to make this a bit more economical and to be able to reach other audiences.
Song(s) of the month:
SewageBipolar (1/2 and 2/2) by Sewerslvt
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RonF8mURD9w)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7US21orGO3w&list=RD7US21orGO3w&t=628s)
The remodel that I showed you last month has made a little bit of progress, but I’d like to get more done before I show an update on that.
Stay classy, folks.
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