End Of Year Post

Goodness, 2023 is coming to a close, which makes some people reflect on goals and hopes that we had wished to accomplish this year along with looking ahead to 2024 and figuring out new goals, hopes, and dreams as well as wanting to bring missed goals or hopes from 2023 to fruition. With all this being said, I hope we all accomplish what we want in 2024 and then some.

With that out of the way, let me go into what I've accomplished writing and author-wise in 2023:

• Finished first-round of edits on the 1st book for my new short-novel/novella series.
• Started the 2nd book for that series.
• Moved my site from Wix to Webwave.
• Started editing Fate Unseen, the 2nd book for the Avery Lawson series.
• Outlined several new stories
• Went to The GCLS conference in June.

And I'm sure I did other things, but I can't recall them. I'm thinking about picking up journaling in 2024 to help me keep track of things and feelings, but we'll see. It might help me when I'm in my pit of despair. While the above list definitely isn't everything I've done in 2023, it does give me some perspective. A lot of what I did in 2023 has set me up to release a book or two in 2024. So, I'm super excited for that to happen.

Also happening in 2024 is my newsletter. Bringing that back because as I once said, the world of social media is such a shit show, so between blogging and putting out a newsletter, I'm hoping to establish a central location where people can get news and updates from me. Same goes with my website, but anything on it will be more of a high-level overview and nothing too in-depth.

My first newsletter will be pretty much a re-introduction of myself. Might do a giveaway, and this, that, and the other. Something new I want to implement is a coupon code in every newsletter. While most of my books are available for next to nothing, I'd like to implement coupon codes for my newsletter subscribers. Another reason for this is that with the exception of the Avery Lawson and Detective Miller series, all my future releases will be distributed through Smashwords or my Ko-Fi page, and not Amazon. I'm hoping by rolling out monthly coupons codes I'll be able to get some traffic to them. It'll be a surprise for how much the discounts will be.

Expect my first newsletter to be out at the end of January, and I'm hoping to stay with the same cadence for the rest of them.

First release of 2024 is going to be Outside The Game. I'm aiming for a Spring release. Fingers crossed. After that, I will more than likely release the second book of the Detective Miller series, which is titled Grisly Politics, late in 2024. It's an ambitious scheduled for me considering from 2020 to 2023 I didn't put anything out. Granted I should give myself a break since I've put out 4 books from 2016 to 2019. It's a roller coaster on how I feel about my level of releasing books.

That's where my thoughts are at the moment. Anywho, here are some useful links you should bookmark, favorite, or save on a notepad somewhere. My Ko-Fi page, sign-up for my newsletter, and My Smashwords page.

Hope everyone had a good holiday season, and y'all have a good new year, all right? Let's make 2024 our bench!

As always please review, rate, and recommend the books you read along, especially those books released by indie, self-pubbed, and niche authors. There are some good ones out there, and people aren't going to know about them until you let others know about it.

Until next time....

-DJ Small

Hibernation Season Is Upon Us

Hope we're all fattening up and getting ready for a long winter's nap. Ha! Wouldn't that be fantastic? Just be like a bear or a chipmunk and get fat over the course of fall then sleep my way through winter. Ugh. Such a good life. The closest thing humans get to hibernation is the food coma we fall into after a big meal. Speaking of big meals, Turkey Day is coming up for USians, so I'm excited to stuff my face and the 2 weeks I will be off during November. It's much needed.

A couple of weeks ago, instead of editing the first book of my novella series, I read the second book in the Detective Miller series, which is titled Grisly Politics. I hadn't meant to do that, but I completely forgot how the story ended since it has been a year since I finished writing it. I opened it up, and I was cool with reading just the ending, but when I did that, I was like what happened here? So, I ended up reading the whole thing. I am really happy with how that story turned out. Like Eliza and Dax's relationship gains so much depth, and we get more of Eliza dealing with her shit, and of course let's not forget the murder! The murder is an intriguing plot point, and definitely one that challenges Eliza. I have a feeling people are going to get frustrated with Eliza in this next book because I certainly did, but considering her history it sort of turns that frustration into a simmer instead of a full on boil.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading it, and as apparent from my weekend, I wasn't able to put it down. Hopefully I can get to editing it Summer of next year, but I've got to see what hell that albatross Fate Unseen is going to put me through. After reading it, I don't think it will be that much of a challenge editing wise, but there is a couple of things I do need to fix. Like me providing a more coherent path when Eliza is trying to solve the case, and some other things, but it's all pretty minor.

Okay, while I'm super excited about Grisly Politics, let's talk about Outside The Game the first book in my novella series centered around a fictional football league. This is US/Canada football for my global folks. First, I had to change the title because there are way to many books titled Beyond The Game. I think one of them was a Charles Barkley book. Second, I'm almost done with editing round one. I've got three chapters left then I've got to review my changes then I'll be done. You all can thank my therapist for this. She challenged me to have either my embroidery project done or my book edited. Clearly we see which one I have put my focus on.

During editing, the word count went up 7k words, and I can no longer call it a novella. This is why I struck through the word novella in my prior mentions of the series because I can't call it a novella series when the first book out the gate is probably going to end at 45k words. While it is no longer a novella series, I still plan to keep the word count for each book in the series under 50k words, so a novella will get tossed in the series at some point.

The increased word count is due to some added scenes and I'm going to rewrite the ending. I think. It's fine in its current iteration, but I feel like it falls flat. We'll see how I feel when I get to it.

In other news, during the week that I'm off in November and not around my family, I'll be running a sale on Ko-Fi and Smashwords. So, if you've been looking to get my books for free or at a cheaper price, that will be the time to do it. I'll announce when the sale is on my socials and website.

Speaking of my website, a couple of week's back, I changed who was hosting my site because I've been trying to get away from Wix forever. I just don't like the way they do things. They're more focused on e-commerce, and I'd just like my website to be more than that. It's my spokesperson for when I'm not available and gives people into a peek of who I am as a writer. I'm sure you're all thinking, but that's what social media is for, but 9 times out of 10, I can't be bothered with social media author wise because I feel like I need to be saying something exciting, and my life is pretty boring. So, that's why leaving Wix was important to me.

I eventually found Webwave, and while there is a bit of learning curve, I do like how everything is laid out and you can do absolutely everything you need to do with it. Not an ad, but I'm definitely glad that I found them. If you do go to my site and find something off, shoot me a message. I haven't looked at it in a while after I launched it, so I'm sure something is wrong with it.

Goodness, look at this post doing the most, but it's also been a while. Oh, newsletter will be launching 2024. Not sure what is going to be in it, but it's launching lol. Key takeaways from this post: there's a sale in November, I'm still editing, and the newsletter is launching. Sign up here to make sure you get the 1st edition.

Other than that, remember to rate and review the books you read, especially those written by self-published and indie authors because boy you're missing some gems there.

Until next time...

-DJ Small

Whoops!

August is almost over, and I had this post in my drafts since the beginning of the month and did not post it. Love how my brain operates.

Just a quick check in this time around. I have paused on my Fate Unseen edits to do the edits on the first book of my new novella series IFL Tales. I definitely just made that up since I don't have an official name for the series. I currently have a name for the book, but I might need to change it because there are a number of books titled with same thing, and that's a sure way for my lil ole novella to end up buried even though it's not going wide for awhile. Anyway, I created a cover few weekends ago, and got a two thumbs up from one of my favorite people who I can trust not to bullshit me, which is exciting.

I'm not sure if I've gone over what IFL Tales is about or what this first novella will be about, but I'll hold off on going into them because I want to be in my third round of edits before I do that. By that point, I know I'm pretty much one or two more edits away from releasing it. However, I will tell you all what the series is about. As we all know, well as you all are learning, I love a good series. I've got the Last Pureblood Series, The Detective Miller Series, and now this one. Avery Lawson has an end date, and Eliza and Dax will run for a minute, but I think that series will also have an end date. What I want do is pull of a series like J.D. Robb's In Death one. Like Nora Roberts has been writing those books since 1995, and is still going strong almost 30 years and 69 books later. Do I think I have that kind of staying power? No fricking clue. But what I do know is that the IFL Tales has the potential to be a number of books. Why do I think that? Because IFL Tales is going to be a set of books centered around the International Football League, which is a women's football league. The football in these books will be American football. Sorry to my non-US readers.

And while the primary bulk of the league is centered on women's football, there are offshoots of it for reasons I've planned out in other books, and you'll get a taste of in the first book. So with that in mind, I've got the makings of a decent series because the books can be centered on players of the game, coaching staff, administrative positions, and whatever else my brain develops a yen for. I've already started on the second book for this series, and I want to say I have four more stories partially outlined. Since these are novellas, they're not going to be daunting reads, but emotionally impactful. It's a bit of a challenge for myself considering my writing has taken a bit of weird turn here lately.

Anyway that's all I have to say about IFL Tales (definitely need a better name), but if you''re intrigued and want to be the first to have it, go to my Ko-Fi page and follow it, or you can sign-up for my newsletter.

Once I'm done with my novella edits, I'll get back to Avery Lawson and her wily ways. Before I started working on my novella, I got in a good place with it mentally, so I'm excited to get back to it and knock it out. Because while I know what's going on in the second book, I don't feel safe starting the third one until I get that under my belt. It's a nit-picky consistency thing with me. I don't want to include something in the third book from the second book, which I might have taken out in the 6th round of edits. It could change the whole vibe.

Anywho, I want to say that is it for now, but stay tuned because I actually have something coming out and hopefully this year. Depends on what my editor's schedule looks like. 

Remember to review the books you read, especially those from indie and self-published authors.

Until next time...

-DJ Small