State of the CW

Well, it's pretty clear to me right now that this month will not be a repeat of last month's awesomeness. And next month probably won't run that great either because I have no major release planned until April.

Why do I have no major release planned until April?

Because I am a tired CW right now, that's why.

My job has gotten BUSY. This time last year we were having one table, two table nights where we'd spend all night polishing silverware and dusting tables and wind up with one two-top who couldn't really understand why we don't have hamburgers. (...because this is not a hamburger place. Or did the fake-Indian abisinthe room not clue you in?) This year? HOLY FUCK. This is all I will say. I had PLANNED on having two to four days off a week to get work done. Now I have one day (Monday). One. Day off. A week. Unless I pull rank and privelages to get another (Like I did today. Because it's my birthday. Go me!)

So between a highly stressful job with a verbally abusive boss (I like her. She's just...yeah. It's not right to take your frustrations out on your staff.) an EXTRAORDINARILY tight writing schedule (...at least, I assume it's tight. It feels tight to me) and having the bio-chemical equiviliant of a rollar coaster in my head, I kind of want to go find a nice, safe, soft fluffy corner somewhere and sleep for about a year.

And technically I'm not taking a break this month. I'm not releasing anything, but I'm still going to be working my ass off so I can get on track with those first-of-the-month releases again. And I have to finish the dragon project because that will be released in July and it has *issues*.

BUT! The sales totals for the month? They don't suck. 24 books, which brings us to 179 (<---that 179...="" 180="" a="" already="" anybody="" book="" bother="" buy="" copies="" don="" for="" going="" have="" i="" is="" july.="" little="" me="" much="" nicer="" number="" of="" s="" since="" six="" t="" than="" they="" to="" want="" while.="">Gray Fox
. Not blockbuster numbers, BUT! that's actually better than I thought it would do. Especially when it's only been out for 12 days. 

As for future releases...the next Starbleached book, which is tentatively called "Dark and Pale" (I will probably change that title. I don't like it much) will be released in April. It's going to be Bryan's book. His POV is bizzare as hell and so, so, SO much fun to write from. This one and the next one (Valkerie. Not changing it) are the parts of this story, other than the original Starbleached, that I've wanted to write the most. May's release will be Black Hounds, the next Exiles book. June's release will be Valkerie. The next Gray Prince book...at the moment I don't feel like there's a lot of demand for Leythorne, so that book will come out sometime between April and June. I WILL make an announcement when I have a hard date.

I'm also going to be re-editing all of the Exiles and Starbleached books--Smashwords, Amazon and Barnes and Noble all update the books on their own, and I know that Amazon sends out e-mail notifications when copies are updated. You will not have to buy another copy--and releasing them in an omnibus form. Technically, these novellas also count as a serial novel. Releasing them as a novel shoots an important career...thing...in the foot (debut novel status. It's important for some reason) but...yeah, I've talked about my career expectations before and I'm pretty confident ya'll are tired of hearing me complain.

Also also? Everything except Gray Prince will be hitting Smashwords and Barnes and Noble come March. Starbleached will be freed up March 18th, Silver Bullet will be March 25th, assorted short stories will drop in between the two dates. I intend to make Silver Bullet a free title. Because I cannot for the life of me figure out Amazon's free book policy outside of KDP (I. HAVE. ASKED) I will be pulling the title from Amazon and rolling it into Blue Ghosts. If I can't get a straight answer, I'm not going to fuck with it.

Last but not least...would anybody be interested in a, like, once a week discussion of self publishing stuff? Most of it would be what NOT to do (IE pay anybody more than 1K to "help" publish your book) and "take with a grain of salt" given that I'm not the most successful self pubber in the universe. It just strikes me that there's a lot of bad info out there and not a lot of places for a signal boost.

Oh, yeah. And it's my birthday. Birthday presents=buying books with my name on them. Just an FYI. It's not a demand or a requirement (just knowing that all of ya'll are reading my blog is happy-making enough) but watching the numbers go up makes me smile like you wouldn't believe. Just don't pay money for Silver Bullet right now, because if you do I'll feel really guilty. (and seriously. Don't buy anything if you don't want to. This blog is supposed to be, like, no pressure. Okay? Okay...)

Have a great and wonderful Wednesday, and I'll see you later.