I’ve just sent out my March 2021 author newsletter. You can access it here! It includes ten fun facts about the upcoming fourth book in the Reborn series, Retribution, as well as a synopsis!
As always, I’m a bit commitment-phobic when it comes to setting an actual release date. But, I’m very close to finishing this round of edits before I have a few trusted folks read it. I’m aiming for summer, but if I can get it out earlier, I will! Happy Saturday, and as always, happy reading!
Happy…Tuesday, dearies. (I had to double-check that it was, indeed, Tuesday before I typed that.)
This is just a quick post to announce my new author newsletter. It has been on my mind to start one for some time, but I guess it took a pandemic for me to actually do it…
I’ll be moving most of my book announcements to the newsletter and also plan to share exclusive excerpts and such from works-in-progress. Sign up below so you don’t miss anything! As always, we will only use your information to send you book-related updates and marketing via the newsletter, and we won’t share your information with others.
Stay safe and healthy out there. And happy reading. ❤
Transcript:
Hey guys, for my monthly update post, I’ve decided to do a vlog. I have a few general updates about what I’ve been working on, and then I have a special announcement just in time for Halloween!
First off, as many of you know, I’ve primarily been working on book three in the Reborn series. This is “Carly’s book” as I’ve been calling it. It’s told entirely from Carly’s POV at this point. Right now, it still doesn’t have a firm title. I had a title I thought I liked and then decided I didn’t, so it’s back to being “Carly’s book,” but I know I’ll figure it out! I was working on it pretty steadily for awhile, and then I sort of took a brief break from it. I’ve sort of been hopping around projects recently, but right now it stands at around 38K, so it’s about a little more than a third of the way done, I think. I like to split my books up into three parts, so that means right now that part one is finished, plus a little more. I had mentioned on the announcements part of my blog that I was aiming for a 2016 release date, which I’m still definitely on track for. To be honest, I’m aiming right now for a release date sometime in October of next year, which I know is a long time to wait, but for whatever reason–to go along with the theme and the atmosphere in Carly’s book–I’m planning to release it around Halloween. But, I am also a very impatient person, so if it’s ready before then–if it’s edited and has a pretty cover and I feel like it’s ready to go, I will try to release it before then. But it will still likely come out next fall.
As I’ve said, I’ve been hopping between projects, and another project I’ve started is a book from Anna’s point-of-view–mostly from Anna’s point-of-view, I should say. I’ve always wanted to write a book that focused on her. As you might remember in Reborn and Relapse, she is Siobhan’s good friend from high school, and in Reborn they have sort of a reunion and reconciliation–there are a lot of “r-e” words that could be possible titles I guess. Anyway, I had ideas for it but have always struggled to start it. Well, I finally wrote a beginning for it that I liked. So, right now, it’s in the very preliminary stages. I don’t really know where it’s going–I have no idea when I would even release it–maybe, if all goes well, around the same time as the third book. We’ll see. This would also a book that I think would be told partially from Peter’s point-of-view. I think it would be really fun to get inside Peter’s head–he’s a fun character, and there’s a lot more you’ll find out about him in upcoming books besides him just being sort of the comic relief and Anna’s friend and Jimmy’s bandmate. But, anyway, like I said, very preliminary, could be some exciting stuff.
But, the special announcement I wanted to tell you all tonight is that I have a little surprise planned for the week of Halloween. Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I wanted to do something cool for it, and I’ve been working on a short story to celebrate the season. “The season”–I make it sound like Christmas, but it’s Halloween, and that’s okay because I love Halloween, and I want you all to be in the spirit of Halloween, too. It’s a little ghost story–like I said, just a short story set in the Reborn world, and it’s told from Rebecca’s perspective. You might remember that Rebecca is in one of the other sororities on Siobhan’s campus, Alpha Rho. The Alpha Rhos and Gamma Lambda Phis don’t really get along, but this short story is focusing solely on them. It’s bringing some closure to their plot arc in the first two books.
If you’ve read Reborn, you know that one of the Alpha Rho sisters dies toward the end, and this is where the ghost story comes in, and it’s a story about sisterhood and forgiveness. It’s about 4600 words right now. I’m hoping it will be about 10,000 words when I’m ready to publish it. And by publish it, I mean it will actually only appear on my blog. They’re short installments, so it should be easy to read on your computer, and…I think that’s just about it. I’ll start releasing the installments on Sunday, October 25th. So it has sort of 10 short chapters that I’ll release one or two at a time over the course of the week leading up to Halloween. It’s not going to be super scary or anything, just a little dark–maybe a little sinister–nothing that’s going to give you nightmares. At least I hope not.
Again, it’s about Rebecca, the Alpha Rhos, Genie, and it’s called Revenge. And I’ll start posting it Sunday, October 25th, so last week of the month, all the way up to Halloween. I hope you’re excited for it. I just thought it would be a little treat in between time while I know you’re waiting for book three to come out. I’ll try to keep posting updates monthly. I used to blog a lot more than I do. I haven’t really been doing that lately, just haven’t been in the mood as much lately, also a time thing. But I definitely can manage monthly check-ins. So, until then, happy reading, and Happy Halloween!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Just a few quick updates and things, and probably the last post for awhile…or, at least, until after April 17th. Or maybe not, since I frequently get the urge to update social media and the good ol’ blog when I’m procrastinating. (But, seriously, if you catch me on here you should yell at me to get off and do my work.)
Last week was my spring “break,” over which I did work, although I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d planned. Instead my laptop crashed mid-week. As in crashed, to the floor, because it fell off my couch…onto carpet, and it really didn’t fall that hard, but apparently it was enough to screw up the hard drive. I knew it wasn’t good when the computer started beeping at me and wouldn’t reboot.
Anywho, my three-year-old laptop now has a brand spankin’ new hard drive, and I didn’t lose anything vitally important (like, you know, my dissertation) because I back that shit up. Although I am mad at myself for losing some book-related notes and things, which I thought I had backed up, but apparently I hadn’t gotten around to it in a while. It really wasn’t that much, and I was planning to make more detailed notes and get reorganized anyway…but still. Kinda mad at myself. Oh well. It’s like a fresh start…a clean slate. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
Okay, we’ll get to the update part now, I promise:
1. For Kindle users: Because I like to play around with the prices of my books to see what will happen, Relapse will be on sale tomorrow, Wednesday March 18 through March 20 for $0.99! And it’s always free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Get it here. On a related note, Relapse is enrolled in KDP Select right now and has to be exclusive to Amazon until the enrollment period expires. Which brings us to…
2. For Nook and all other ebook users: I’ll make Relapse available to all other platforms Tuesday, June 2, 2015.
Also, thanks to everyone who downloaded Reborn for Nook and iBooks during my last promotion a few weeks ago. To be honest, I hadn’t sold many copies through these other platforms (not nearly as many as I have through Amazon, and I’ve heard similar stories from other indie authors). But I had never really tried the free promotion thing on Smashwords, and when I did it boosted sales way beyond my expectations. I mean, I know people like free stuff–I do, too–but still, I didn’t expect to give away 400+ copies. And, at this point, I really just want to reach more readers and build my audience, so every little bit helps! Plus, it boosted sales post-promotion, too. So, I just wanted to say thanks…and, if you find yourself with a free minute or two, I would love you forever if you left a review on Barnes & Noble! And now you have Relapse to look forward to in a few months! 😉
It’s that time again…time for an update, that is!
Some of you may have caught the Facebook status update a few days ago, but just in case you didn’t…I finally finished my first completish draft of Relapse! Yay! There was a time when I was seriously nervous that this book was never going to happen. Getting over writing Part One was the biggest hump because it set everything else up. It was really hard for me to start writing past that until I was happy with it. But now, suddenly, it’s all out of me. I have a list of things to go back and tweak before I give it to my beta readers. Of course, nothing’s final yet…lots of editing will happen, I’m sure. But it just feels really awesome to have it out of my brain. It’s a lot closer to what I envisioned.
It’s also quite a bit longer than Reborn, which is about 230 pages. I thought that was a decent size for a debut novel, especially since you’re just getting to know the characters. Now that you realize you LOVE my characters (lol), you get to see even more of them. Right now Relapse is about 97K (yikes), which comes out to 300+ pages. Somehow I’ve managed to write so many pages of book and zero pages of dissertation. (Which I’m planning to start writing in August. I swear.) Priorities…..
Relapse has turned out to be pretty dark. So I’m a little nervous for all of the reviewers who were all “Oh, Reborn is such a cool, fun read! Yay!” That they’re going to read Relapse and be like…erm, well, this is dark/depressing. The ending in particular. It’s not a cliffhanger…there are loose ends in the book (because, if all keeps going well, I’m going to write even MORE books!), but it ties things up somewhat at the end since the next book is most likely going to focus on a different set of characters. Now, although I envision a happier ending for the series (because, come on, who doesn’t like those?), the ending of every book isn’t going to be puppies, unicorns and rainbows. Sorry, I’m rambling. Siobhan is going to fall, perhaps more than once, before she gets her happy ending. I guess I’m just curious as to how people feel about darker endings. It’s something I like exploring, especially since most YA/NA books these days seem to have happy-for-now or neat-and-tidy endings. Also, this book is full of most of my characters being very, very naughty (yes, even the ones you probably thought were good).
Some more bad news/good news: The bad news is, someone gets off-ed in Relapse. The good news is…it probably isn’t anyone you were getting horribly attached to (we’ll hope not).
Let’s see, what else can I ramble about? Hmmmmm…I think I’ve mentioned this before in other posts, but Relapse has two major first person POVs: Siobhan and Carly (one of Siobhan’s sorority sisters). This was something else I was worried about going into writing it because it seemed a little risky, and I wasn’t sure if I would end up liking it or not. That being said…I personally think it works really well. (We’ll see what my betas think.) Carly’s story branches off because she gets trapped in the clutches of another sort of dark, mysterious, mischievous character, who’s of course not all that he seems to be (yeah, I know, I’m obsessed, what can I say?). I think it’s a cool subplot because you get to see a little more of Olympus and its culture this way…a little more strictly fantasy, rather than fantasy mixed with modern times, like it is in Siobhan’s world.
Have I confused you yet?
Anyway, I’m getting super excited about Relapse, and I hope you are, too! I’ll try to post a teaser in the upcoming weeks. I think I’m still on track for a fall release date. I did not feel that way about a month ago, haha, but I’m definitely more confident now.
I thought I’d have more to write tonight, but I guess that’s it, so toodles for now! Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments…or comment with your favorite character from Reborn! Just because I’m curious…(And, ladies, pick someone BESIDES Jasper, lol.)
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