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

*leans against wall, huffing and puffing* Goodness....January Is Almost Over

I would say happy New Year, but at this point, it would be supremely awkward.

I honestly have no idea where this month has gone, but here we are. Just a quick blog post to let everyone know I'm alive.

Fate Unseen is getting put out of its misery this weekend, if not the beginning of next week. I have taken some time off from work to dedicate my life to it, so that is exciting. Once I get it to my editor, I'll be doing a cover reveal. Newsletter subscribers will see it first, and a few days later, I'll make a blog post about it. I hope I don't forget to do that, but I'm sure someone will keep me on track. Teaser chapters will be posted on my Patreon once I review my editor's edits. If I'm happy with the chapter, it'll go up as soon as I'm done with my review. Remember, I only put out 3 teaser chapters.

For book release time frame, I am looking at April or May. Way later than I wanted it to be, but that's fine considering how much I was struggling to ge Fate Unseen edited. I'm surprised I'll get out in the first half of the year.

Once these edits are done, this thing is going to get going like a steam roller, which means I'm going to be gassing up the heavy machinery. I'm plotting a story currently, and I'm going to get the first five episodes of Adventure of Swift written and edited. That will probably be making an appearance around late summer. Since I don't have any big trips planned, I should be able to stick to that. This is a year of frugal living for me since I splurged all last year. Oooh chile!

In exciting news, I'll be doing my first "event." I won't be doing a panel or anything, but I will be at QFX East in May, peddling my hard written books. As we get closer, I'll be able to let everyone know what the exclusives will be and how you can get them. I'm excited and nervous about this, but I think it will be a good time, and I'm excited to meet everyone.

Oh, price drop announcement! All my books are available for $2.99 at all eBook retailers, or it should be. If there are any issues let me know. I'm working on getting Murderous Profession in paperback format. It'll probably come out the same time as Fate Unseen.

Going completely off-topic, I'm sure everyone as heard about a major writers' organization taking a hard nose dive and imploding on itself, and while absorbing the facts and tea spilling of this clusterfuck, it made me wonder why there isn't a dedicated queer writers organization. I know these things take time to get off the ground, but like queer writers have to exist as a subset of  these bigger organizations and fight twice as hard to get some kind of recognition. I know this is the same story with other marginalized groups, and that these bigger organizations have resources and whatnot, but at the same time, why the hell don't we give it the old college try?

I'm sure someone out there is grinding the gears for that, or I at least hope they are. I think my only criteria would be that the organization not be restricted to one genre, because I'm not exclusive to one genre, and secondly that it broadly covers the entire queer spectrum.

I have a lot of thoughts on that, and I'm not sure if I'm going to bite the bullet on that one. I would need a helping hand or two because I want to write, and y'know, do hood rat things with my friends.

This post has gotten away from me, but I actually had thoughts and news this time! Seriously though let's all get excited that Fate Unseen is getting closer to being out in the world, and I'm anxious to know how everyone feels about it. Things get a bit more supernaturally, and Avery faces a whole slew of obstacles.

Also get pumped for Adventures of Swift. This was almost a Swan Queen fanfic instead of being an original story, so there is a bit of a zeal in it because Swan Queen is one of my 5ever ships.

All right, I'm off to edit. Remember to review your books, especially for those written by indie authors like myself. Oh, and enjoy the rest of your January 😊

New Year, New Site

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a good time ringing in 2019.

Nothing exciting with this post. Just wanted to announce the new site is up and running. I have plans for it which is why I moved to a different provider. I'm downsizing the number of places my books can be bought, and when it is all said and done you will only be able to get them on Amazon and my website. Jury is still out on Smashwords. I'm also going to start selling exclusive content through the site, so the change was a needed one.

One thing on the site I want to talk further about is I put up a form for anyone to fill to become a beta reader for me. I don't have anything yet, but it'll be nice to have people waiting to give me feedback before I put out a story. It'll be pretty cut and dry. You fill out the form, I reach out and let you know I got it. Then once I do have something I need feedback on I'll reach out and see if you can read it. There will be time frames, but they will be loose ones. Everything is covered on the page the form is on, but any questions you can email me.

I caught a wild hair, or I got one, I'm not sure about the logistics of the wild hair, but I acquired one and it has provoked a need to put out three books this year. I came up with a fun idea and really want to explore it. However, time is iffy for me. We'll see what happens because I'm hoping to finish the first draft of the second Avery Lawson book by the end of January (fingers crossed). Once that's done I'm going to start work on my next standalone which is outlined, so we'll see what happens.
 
Okay, that is it for me today. I'm not sure what 2019 will bring, but I'm ready for it and I hope you are too.

Until next time...

-DJ Small