Things Are....Going. Yep. They're going.

I started typing this up while I was logged into work since I was left to my own devices, and thought it was a good time to blog. Priorities am I right? I know it has been awhile, but with Spring being sprung, I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. I fcked up the blog. Fricking blogger changed their customizing page and everything looks horrible, especially with all that Arial font. Psh. Moving on....

Other than that, I would like to say in my absence I have actually been productive. I slowly getting a hang of my chord changes (anchor fingers are key), but more importantly, I have been chipping away at Fate Unseen bit by bit, and I've been outlining the second--and angsty as all get out--Detective Miller book. Can I pause for a moment to talk about this second Detective Miller book for a second? Of course I can. It's my blog. All right, so when I first started this series, I planned for it to be a rom-com that was sort of inspired by JD Robb's (Nora Roberts) In Death series. Something I could work on that would give me a break from the Last Pureblood series, but effin' A y'all. Because I am me, this second book has taken a nose dive right into angst town and it's unintentional but at the same time intentional.

I had to give Eliza and Dax some drama, and man did I bring it. I'm hoping by the time I get to actually writing this part of the story, I'll have figured out a way to make it a little more lighthearted, but it doesn't look like it. Eliza's past isn't the stuff rom-coms are made of, and neither is Dax's, so the best I can do is make sure it doesn't drag on too long. But goodness gracious. Sometimes, when I get an idea in my head, how I execute is so far on the other end of what I was going for that it aggravates me.

Anyways, back to where I was going. I've been putting in some work even though I've been radio silent. I try to post often on Twitter, but I know some of y'all are wondering where I'm at with projects and what my plans are for 2021 since they're always in a state of flux. Fate Unseen, like I said, I'm slowly chipping away at it and I've gotten past a pivotal conversation that happens in chapter 3. Can't say much about the length of it. It's still going to be a long book. I also could be wrong, but we're going to have to wait and see.

I've also been creating PDF, Mobi, and ePub files for the books I don't have these files for. This is part of my effort to use Smashwords and Gumroad as my primary distribution sites. Everything is still going to be on Amazon, but I think I'm going to have delayed releases for my future relases. I'm still trying to figure out how that's all going to flow.

While I've been creating these files, some minor updates happen because if I see something that irks me, I'm going to correct it. Once all those files are created, I'll update them across all platforms, so you might have an update coming to your current copy.

As soon as everything is said and done, the website will be back in action then I can restart my giveaways. For those who have participated in my prior giveaways, they were done through BookFunnel, which I might still use, but I'm thinking about stepping away from them and doing giveaways strictly through my Gumroad page. With BookFunnel it gives me a wider audience to draw in, but I feel some way about it. I'm still ruminating on it, so nothing is set in stone, but I do have to consider my newsletter, which we all know I struggle to put out. If I do come to the decision to end my newsletter, I'll make the strong suggestion for those who do receive it to sign up for updates through my Gumroad page. There's definitely a lot of thinking going on the author-y side of things, but it's nothing I can't handle.

Other than that, I'm just going to continue to eat away at Fate Unseen and we'll see what I can pull off.

In my opinion, I think this was a solid update. If you want to get a jump on everything, hop on over to my Gumroad page and sign up so you can receive updates. You don't have to buy anything to follow me. Now I just need to remember to make posts over there, but that for another day.

As always support your indie and self-pubbed authors by leaving a review, and everyone have a good.

- DJ Small

I Know. It's February.

January came and went. It was pretty wild. The Capitol was bumrushed by terrorist. We got a new president that doesn't look like a bottle of Sunkist gone wrong, and some other things happened, but I cannot recall them. We had some losses too. Larry King, who I didn't know voiced the bar wench in Shrek (thanks for that Tumblr). Cloris Leachman who was always a delight onscreen, and lastly, but certainly not least, the iconic Cicely Tyson. Her most memorable role for me, at least recently, is when she was on How To Get Away With Murder, but that woman was an icon who had bigger and more memorable roles than that.

I know I've been MIA for the last couple of months. I just didn't have it in me to do anything author related. Blogging, the newsletter, writing, editing....none of it appealed to me. Blame it on the holidays, or what, but I just wasn't feeling it, so my holiday break turned into something much longer. However, I did move into my own place at the end of December/beginning of January, so that took up a lot of my time and energy. Seriously the only things I had the drive for was Grey's Anatomy and Sims 4.

With me getting back on the high horse, I've done some author-like things. Website is down because I changed hosting services, but I should have it back up soon-ish. Depends on how much tweaking I need to do to the code. Newsletter is still once a month, but it's going to be used more for announcements and giveaways. My blog and website are going to be the main places to get information this year. It saves me from having to split my focus on a newsletter that usually doesn't have anything in it.

This now brings me to book distribution. Oh, how I would love to not be on Amazon, but it's the larger retailer so it's a necessary evil. I'm going to be doing more sales, giveaways, and name your own price events on my Smashwords and Gumroad pages. Sometimes they'll run concurrently, sometimes one will have something and the other won't. Either way, I would like them to be my primary distribution pages. Might have to come up with something bigger to gain some interest. These events probably won't start until March. I've still got to upload the electronic versions of my books on Gumroad.

I'm guessing it is time to address the elephant in them room...new releases. This year, is going to be the year of Fate Unseen, the second book in the Last Pureblood series. I've started editing again, right from the beginning, and I've decided it's going to be long book. There is no way I can cut out some of the details. If I can tweak something or remove it and put in a later book, then I will, but as for right now, we're looking at a long book. I hope you all enjoy that.

Once that is off my plate, I'm going to be focusing on The Adventures of Swift, which I started editing in December before I fell into a listless state. I know in prior posts I was saying it would be out the first quarter of this year, but since I've flipped my schedule around and decided to bring Fate Unseen to the first half of this year, Swift will be moving to the second half of the year for projected release.

Outside of that, let's just hope I continue on with this train of motivation and get something published this year.

I hope everyone had a safe and healthy start to the new year, and let's cross our fingers and hope we all get some semblance of a social life back this summer.

Remember to review the books you read. Until next time...

-DJ Small

Let's Get Ready To Rumble.....

Hopefully by the time I have posted this the US will have figured out who their president is. I'm sure the number of people that voted for the Orange Stain™ will get swept under the rug and people will proclaim this country has risen like a phoenix from the ash, but minorities like myself will realize that it will be nothing but a crock of shit. I've become bitter about this country, and I would apologize, but why?

All right onto why I'm here—announcements all around! I finished The Adventures of Swift this week. Like actually finished writing it, and not that kind of finish where you still have like two more pages to write, but you say you're done because it's just two pages. No one else does this? Just me? Of course. It came out to 48k words, and hopefully by the time editing is done, it'll be at the 50-55k mark. Each episode doesn't go more than 10k words, and you would think that would cheat the story, but not really. I actually have a little wiggle room in some episodes to give the story some more depth.

I'm going to start editing The Adventures of Swift this weekend, and I think we're still on track for having episodes one and two released during the first quarter of 2021. I've made the decision to make this a Gumroad exclusive. It makes no sense to have people sign up for a subscription for something that honestly doesn't have a schedule. Well it does but it's a real loose one. Like a floozy. I ❤ floozies. In fact, I think all my serials are going to be Gumroad exclusives and I'm going to shut down my Patreon. Again, it just makes no sense for me to have one. I'm going to sit down and explore Gumroad a bit more before coming to a final decision which I should have by the end of next month. I've got other things to focus on.

I inadvertently started writing the second Detective Miller book. I finished reviewing the first one for paperback and it sort of just happened. Murderous Profession got some good traction while it was in the Kindle Unlimited program, and free book day was a hit. For those who are anxious to know, book two starts off three months after book one ends, so Dax and Eliza have been seeing each other for like four and a half months. Dax is preparing to open his own sex firm and Eliza is still trying to make waves in the NYPD. Of course a murder happens, and it's going to test Dax and Eliza's relationship, but so are some other things. We're going to meet some more people from Dax's life, and we're going to dig a little deeper into Eliza's life. I only scratched the surface with her in the first book because that wasn't the focus, but I think it's time we get to know a little more about Detective Legs, right?

Murderous Profession will be a part of the small run of signed books that I will be sending out in January. I'm actually updating the file right now. The polls I conducted in my newsletter and on Twitter we're all favorable, so I'm going to put up an order form on Gumroad, and people can order their signed copies. This will only be for my continental US readers. International peeps I might be able to set something up, but it would have to be like a custom order deal so we can split the shipping costs. Each book will be limited to 10 orders. Anything over will be wait listed, and I'll do a second batch based off of how many people request a book after the initial run. Newsletter subscribers will be notified first of when the order form will be live, and a tweet will go out a couple hours later. This is where I will shamelessly plug my newsletter because if you sign up, you get notified sooner. Click here to sign-up.

For my Last Pureblood readers, Fate Unseen has been moved to a 2021 project. It was too much for me this year. I'm hoping when January rolls around I'll be ready to dive into it and make some serious headway with it.

I'm not sure what else is going on with 2021. I've outlined a couple of stories for a new series that I'm coming up with. This will more than likely be another Gumroad exclusive because I don't think they're going to be long stories. I know I have a stand alone book that's partly outlined that I can work on. I also have my dark and twisted story, but due to that nature of it, it might end up being another Gumroad exclusive. It's kind of messed up lol. It's a bit of a crap shoot. 

I think 2021 will be the year of Swift, Detective Miller book 2, and Fate Unseen. I'm just looking forward to a year of just writing and focusing on my serials. We shall see.

All right folks, that's all I have enjoy your weekend 🙂

Hello, hello!

I feel like it has been sometime since a blog post, but I haven't been doing anything except working. Kidding, I have been doing book and author things. A newsletter wasn't one of those things because I completely forgot, but October will have a newsletter.

Reappearance of Summer is still with the editor and I should have it back by the end of this week. Once I do my review I think I'll be two steps closer to being ready for the book's release at the end of October. If you haven't done so already you can pre-order the ebook on Amazon, my Gumroad store, and Barnes and Noble. Signed copies can also be pre-ordered through the Gumroad store. I'm only ordering enough to fill the pre-orders I recieve so if you want a signed paperback of Reappearance of Summer do it now because pre-orders end on October 15th.

For the last year or so I've been trying to figure out what to do with my serialized short stories. I was going to do Patreon, but honestly I couldn't justify charging people monthly and if I got caught up in something else then there would be a period of time where I wouldn't be putting out content. So, I nixed the idea in the bud, and kept thinking about what to do because offering the serials is a stepping stone for my graphic novel which isn't in the near future, but definitely in the next two years. I tried to go for Radish, but it seems I don't fit their platform. Fortunately, I rubbed my two brain cells together and have figured out how to offer my serials and will share the details at the beginning of 2019. I want to have the volume one of the first finished first. 

Book two of The Last Pureblood series is being written as we speak. It's sitting pretty at 15k word at the moment, but by the time my weekend is it should be at 20 or more. Things pick up right where we left off. I'm introducing some new characters, Avery meets Jon, and of course Avery's big change happens. There are also some exciting bits in this one. The second book is going to wrap up the groundwork book one started and we're going to start getting to the meat and potatoes of story line which is Avery dealing with her role in the supernatural community and the war among the werewolves. There is going to be excitement abound.

Lastly, my first book Pool of Lies turns two on September 26th, and to celebrate it's getting a face lift along with a nip and tuck. In book terms: new cover and I had to update the insides. The book will be on sale the entire week of the 26th for a dollar so make sure you get the story that drove me into self-publishing.

Okay, so this actually was an informative blog post. Proud of me. Main things to take away: pre-order Reappearance of Summer if you done so especially if you wanted a signed paperback; book 2 of The Pureblood Series is underway; and check out Pool of Lies new cover. Oh, and leave a review if you could on any of the books. They help the algorithms.

Be safe, be happy, and enjoy a good book.

-DJ Small

My Metadata Is Going To Be All Screwed Up

I can't seem to spell the word reappearance and spell check on my browser seems to only want to work 75% of the time. Thus, screwing up my metadata because I have to go back and change everything which takes like 24-48 hours to switch over. Anyway....rant over.

Pre-order your copy of Reappearance of Summer today! Physical copies can be reserved on my Gumroad page. Digital copies can be reserved on Amazon, Gumroad, and Barnes and Noble.

This is me putting my foot in my mouth. I said I wasn't going to do Amazon pre-orders because of how they do them. Well, I figured out if I schedule the book release for two weeks later than the release date then I can compensate for any incidents which may arise and cause me to delay the release. This being said, the release date on Amazon says 11/15/2018, but it is actually 10/29/2018 barring any complications. So, no one is getting jipped. This is me trying to get around Amazon's tight policy in regards to delaying pre-orders.

Any questions let me know. I have updated everything with the correct spelling of the word "reappearance" and you should see the update in like 3 days because everything is sooooo slow.

Oh, small announcement. I am beginning a serial and it will be available on my website. I have decided not to do Patreon because I couldn't justify it. I've deleted my page and if you were really stoked about it, I'm sorry. Maybe I'll work something out in regards to giveaways and what not.

All right, this was a quick update and don't forget to pre-order your copy of Reappearance of Summer especially if you are wanting a signed copy because I'm only ordering enough to fulfill pre-order numbers. Just an FYI for you all.

I'm off to go see where else I need to go correct the spelling of my book. Until next time...

-DJ Small

9/10/2018 Is The Day!

Good day one and all! I'm still recovering from Dragon Con and the rest of the work week, so bear with me. This was supposed to be a vlog, but then I realized I talk too damn much and have zero video editing skills. Also my face is ugly, but this is neither here nor there. Onto the purpose of this post.

Reappearance of Summer

I am aiming for October 29th for a release date, but it is a tentative one. Depends on what the editing process has for me. Pre-sales will start September 10th and end on October 15th. This will only be on Smashwords and Gumroad. I feel like a month and some change gives me enough time to order books, sign them, and ship them out to their new homes. If it looks like an October 29th release date isn't possible, I'll let everyone know, but fingers crossed for the 29th of October.

Amazon faithful, I mentioned in my last post why I wouldn't be doing pre-sales on there. You all will have to wait for the book to be released. Trust me, the pre-sale crowd isn't getting anything you aren't.

Patreon News

I talked about this in my last blog post and it will also go live on September 10th. This is where I'm going to post my short stories, commissioned artwork, and other stuff. I give stuff away also, but on a quarterly basis. So check it out and let me know what you think. The first few posts will be the intro post then I'm going to dive right in to my first short story series entitled The Trials of Swift and The Dark Queen. It's a superhero story. Excited for this one to get out.

Okay, those are the important points. I'm working on book 2 of the Pureblood Series and it is going swimmingly. If I don't run into any snags I should be on track to have it out in the first quarter of 2019. Anyways this was a quick update to let everyone know September 10th is a busy day for me, but you know what? I said eff it all and pulled the trigger on everything, so you all benefit.

Hope everyone is enjoying what's left of summer and can manage to enjoy a good book while doing so.

Until next time...

-DJ Small

Book Cover Reveal, Patreon, and Pre-Sales...Oh My!

Before I lock myself in my cave, to finish updating the digital copy of Reappearance of Summer, I've got a few thing to get out there.

To everyone who has read the teaser chapter of RoS, thank you so much! I'm just excited as you are to get to have you read the rest of the story. It is an intense one and you only got a taste of it. If you haven't read the teaser chapters got to my Wattpad and check them out.

Since I am on the subject of RoS, I also want to thank those who saw the many renditions of the cover and my newsletter subscribers for giving me input on it. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but it helped. Went back to the drawing board, stopped being a lazy git, and came back with a cover that does capture what I feel is the essence of the story. It's up on the Wattpad and on my Twitter header, but here it for you to see up close and personal. I feel like the font has a Law & Order feel, but I've come to appreciate it.

Next up, is pre-sales. Let me start by saying I honestly don't know when this book will be out. I'm aiming for late October, but being a realist mid-November will also be likely. There are too many variables involved, but it is what it is. Do know it will be out before December though. Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way pre-sales will go live September 15th. Pre-sales are going to be through my Gumroad store for EPUB, PDF, and physical copies. Pre-sales will also be taking place on Smashwords. Kindle pre-sales WILL NOT be happening. I only capitalized it to make sure it stood out. I've talked about my distaste for how Amazon does pre-sales, and I'm not going to get into it again. Pre-sales will go for probably a month, maybe later if it looks like the book is going to have a November release.

And lastly, and probably something that may intrigue you all, is my Patreon. I plan to launch it on September 1st. You're probably wondering what the hell is going to be on it and what I plan to give people. How about this, go to the preview site and check out the tiers. Some things may change prior to launch, but go look and get a feel of where I'm at. But this is where I'm going to be put my short stories and some of my other smaller projects. I can let you know the first thing I'm posting is episode one of my episodic story entitled The Trials of Swift and the Dark Queen. It's a superhero story. Anyway, I plan to link up with some great artists to get artwork done of my book characters so I can make posters part of the exclusive content. I've already got art of Avery from Avery Lawson: The Last Pureblood and I'm super stoked about it.


Okay, so I'm going to go lock myself in my cave to work on those edits and you all go click the links and have some fun. And before I go, here's the Avery Lawson artwork I was talking about. Done by the talented Nicole and you can find her on Twitter @tealideal. I am super geeked about it, and I do have a poster so I could see how it would look and it is frickin fantastic. I may give it away. Anyway here's the art and until next time....

-DJ Small

All Right, Let's Talk Reappearence of Summer

Last week I accomplished a feat bigger than man, I finished writing the story that will be my 3rd book entitled Reappearance of Summer. I begin editing next week after taking a two week breather from it. Trust me, that breather was spent working on other things, so it wasn't even a true breather. Anyways, I digress. Some housekeeping information. I should have a release date by mid-August along with an idea of when pre-orders will be. 

Due to my distaste for how Amazon handles pre-orders they will not be available there. You can pre-order on my website where it will take you to the various platforms you can pre-order from, which is just Smashwords and Gumroad. My distaste for Amazon is that they won't let you push back a pre-order date, and if you try to cancel a pre-order they pretty much penalize you for it. These other sites do not. They understand people are human. I'll put the links on social media and my website when everything goes down.

Okay, now that that is out of the way the true reason for this post, among other things, is I want to talk about the story. I know I've posted teasers on Twitter, and last week I posted the first chapter, but I want to discuss the themes of the story, so readers have a good understanding of it.

To start, Reappearance of Summer was an idea I came up with in ten minutes, in my car, after I had just gotten to work. I still don't know what sparked the idea originally, usually it's a song, but this one wasn't. Anyway, the story does take place 100 years in the future (for now), but there aren't too many futuristic elements because it isn't a major factor. The main character, Summer Hawkins, has lost her leg due to a plane crash she was involved in, but again, this isn't a challenging obstacle she deals with in the story. When it gets mentioned it's more because she has to do tasks differently because of it, but like her being a woman, it's not a big deal.

Summer's story is more about her finding her way. After her jet crashed and losing her leg, she lost her job which got rid of her sense of self, and coupled with the PTSD and depression she suffers from, Summer's having a hard time figuring her lot in life which causes a downward spiral. 

Before I can tie everything together I have to acknowledge Summer's ex-wife, Valarie "Val" Hawkins. Who is the first black female president of the United States (Holla!). When I created Val I said she was going to do all the things. Val harbors guilt over Summer's crash because she signed off on the mission that involved Summer's jet crash, and she also believes she failed her. After the crash Val didn't know what to do and she feels how she handled everything is what caused Summer to leave and eventually divorcing her. Did I mention this all happened during her first term as president? So you have to imagine the tremendous stress she was under.

Now everything with the crash and Summer leaving Val happened two years ago, so the story starts in "present day" with Val literally dragging Summer back to Washington D.C. Throughout the story the two of them confront the feelings and emotions they've kept locked up, and not with just each other, but also their friends and family. Summer finds herself at an impasse of either confronting her demons or going back to her life of running from them. While Val struggles with having Summer around again because their sudden divorce did a number on her and she didn't get the proper time to grieve it due to her being president.

There ups and downs, a subplot that seems cliche and it is, but Val is the president and I needed something that didn't result in multiple books; and perhaps maybe Val and Summer finding the light at the end of a long and angsty tunnel together. I tried to handle Summer's PTSD and depression with grace and tact. A lot of Google searches were done, so I hope it comes off as genuine as possible.

In a drawn-out nutshell this is Reappearance of Summer. Let me know how you feel about it in the comments.

Next up in this blog post, is the second book in the Avery Lawson series. I accidentally started outlining it, how that is possible, not sure, but it happened. We pick up right where we left off. As I've said before the 1st and 2nd books are one manuscript split in two. The thing was massive and horribly written, and by doing this I've come to realize some elements would do better in later books than they would now. Early 2019 is my anticipated release for that one, but only time will tell. I'm going to bust my ass to get out there though.

Okay, that is all I have. I'm anxious for you all to read Reappearance of Summer, so I will work hard to get out as soon as possible. Oh, one more thing. Cover reveal will happen after I finish this first round of edits. Might do some editing to it before letting it out.

Until next time....happy reading!

-DJ Small

Upcoming Sales And Some Rambling

While I'm busy plugging away at Reappearance of Summer, I wanted to let everyone know that Avery Lawson: The Last Pureblood will be be available for 3.99 on Smashwords during their July 1st - July 31st sale. I will hold a Kindle sale in August for it.

I want to have more traffic going to my Smashwords page because I am kicking around the idea that all future releases will be on it and my Gumroad store before heading to Kindle. They have a kinder pre-order program than Kindle does, and by kinder I mean it's flexible and offers more freedom. Plus it has this nice local business feel to it lol. But this decision also hinges on my ability to print physical books. I love Createspace, but, I want more options in regards to printing. This doesn't mean I'm going to go HAM, but I'm going to do some more research before making any final decisions.

All right so the Smashwords sale starts July 1st, and I will remind you all on Twitter when it gets closer.

The sale for Pool of Lies has ended, and it's now at the set price of $3.00 for now until I make it forever free.

Oh, I forgot! Who is excited for the super secret project? There isn't much I can tell at the moment. All I can let you know is that it's one of my Swan Queen fanfic ideas that I have turned into an original. There are other parts of this, but I'm keeping mum on it. But do know...

 Okay, that was a brief blog post. I'll hopefully will be coming back with another here shortly with some Reappearance of Summer news. I'm rounding the 3rd part of the book and I'm developing some immense feels for the characters which means they are suffering, so yeah enjoy that.


Until next time...


-DJ Small