the Author
October
27
22 Comments

Hunter’s Redoubt, print edition progress report

Posted in Essalieyan, Publication, Hunter's Redoubt.

I am writing from Kansas City, as I am here for my first in person conven­tion since 2019. Some of you may have noticed that the trade paper­back edition of Hunter’s Redoubt is now avail­able on Amazon & B&N. In theory, the hard­cover should make its way out into the world in a similar fashion. To be kind to book­sellers, I don’t expect that the print editions will make their way out onto book­store shelves – so walking into a book­store to ask where the print version is will not make their jobs any easier. I do expect that you’ll be able to special order the book from various book­sellers. This is pretty much how BakkaPhoenix handles self-published books. We carry very few as a matter of course, but will order … Continue reading →

October
17
20 Comments

Hunter’s Redoubt, preview chapter & cover art

Posted in Jody Lee, Kathleen Oudit, Hunter's Redoubt, The Burning Crown, writing, chapters.

This book had a bit of journey. I’d written 200k words. I’d cut 110k of those words, but still believed I had 90k words. This is not what happened. What happened in the end was I had 0k of the orig­inal words I’d written — and 303k of the new words I’d started once I’d typed “the end” (which is figu­ra­tive as I don’t think I’ve ever typed that unless instructed to do so). It is the longest first book in an arc I’ve ever written. Which was not my intent. But. Michelle. Story length. It is the story of my writing life >.< Jody Lee did the cover art, and Kath­leen Oudit, the cover design across all four formats. This is the front cover and the … Continue reading →

October
17
16 Comments

State of the Author: October 2023 edition

Posted in Essalieyan, chapters.

The state of this author is fraz­zled. The only thing I’ve really self-published before were ebooks; the print collec­tion Memory of Stone came later, and there wasn’t neces­sarily a ton of excite­ment about it; it wasn’t new per se. Hunter’s Redoubt is entirely new. And I have discov­ered that while uploading ebooks is simple and clean, uploading files for print books is … not. Little things have to be adjusted. Big things have to be adjusted. The book is at the maximum length that Amazon will print, which means some of those adjust­ments are diffi­cult to make. But Amazon’s processing tells you imme­di­ately when you have to make adjust­ments. IngramSpark’s processing does not. I know I uploaded the wrong cover file for IngramSpark because neither I or my … Continue reading →

September
9
29 Comments

State of the Author, September 2023 edition

Posted in Audio books, Cast, Essalieyan, self-publishing, writing, life.

I’m writing to you all from Australia, where I have come on my writing retreat, which used to be an annual thing until Covid. I have an unfor­tu­nately tight dead­line, and I’m neck deep into Cast in Atone­ment, which is not yet done. I hope to be finished before I leave Bris­bane. And when I say finished, I mean: finished first draft. After which I will revise for submis­sion, and then submit. Shards of Glass is due out at the end of November, so I’m fielding a few ques­tions about that — but my head is fully entan­gled in the Cast novel, so Shards feels like it was written years ago (it wasn’t). My toe has improved enough it doesn’t bother me much, but according to X‑rays taken a week before I left, … Continue reading →

August
2
25 Comments

State of the Author, August 2023 edition

Posted in Cast, Elantra, Essalieyan, Jody Lee, life.

As those of you who follow my Patreon know, at the begin­ning of July, I had a drive-by argu­ment with a chair in the living room, and lost. I managed to break not one, but two, toes. I have been off work at the book­store, but in theory will return on the 10th of August, the day on which I can take off the boot on my foot. Previous toe breakage did not require a boot. But I could stand on the foot in both prior cases. By the end of the day of the 2‑toe breakage, I was reduced to crawling because I couldn’t actu­ally put any weight on the foot at all. Which meant, when we went to the hospital, I went in bare feet; I couldn’t put even a sandal on. … Continue reading →