Over 100 advance readers have now downloaded the extended sample of Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies, and early reactions are trickling in. Reader feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive, which is better than a bar of Xanax for this author’s anxiety.

If you haven’t claimed your extended sample, it will remain available through the end of October, and if you’d like to join the ARC team to receive an advance copy of the entire book, just email [email protected] with a link to your Amazon and/or Goodreads profile. 

Onto the good stuff…

Hurry up and wait. That’s the reality of the publishing cycle. Thankfully, the wait times aren’t half as long as those I’ve become accustomed to in the world of traditional publishing. The first three novels heading to market are all sitting at a phase where there’s not much I can do other than ping contractors for updates and wait for the passage of time to trigger some marketing deadline. 

Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies is ready to go gold, but I’m still waiting on final typography to be set for the front and back cover. Those deliverables will trigger a lot of work on my end, but until then, I’m stuck here twiddling my thumbs.

Book 2 in the Tales of Ciel, Ophiuchus Flinched, is in a similar place. The galley has been proofed and the interior art is complete, but until the cover design is finalized for Ardent Wings, the series artist won’t have time to break ground on Book 2.

Seven Days of Mercy for the Apostatic Priest is currently with the proofreader. I must resist the urgent to tinker until I have their edits, otherwise I run the risk of working from two conflicting drafts, and that way lies madness.

And then there’s The Politics of Fear, Book 1 in the Compact Cycle. The developmental edits on this one were more substantial due to the novel’s length and complexity. It’s going to take me a while to produce the polish draft, so that one’s sitting on the top of my desk until I have the time to commit to it.

The good news is that the early marketing efforts around Ardent Wings have been more successful than I hoped. Adding my reader magnet to a few multi-author giveaways has brought dozens of new readers into the HTP fold. These efforts will continue right up until the November 11 release.

I’ve also distributed the first review copies of Ardent Wings to all the usual suspects. It’s a little nervewracking awaiting your first professional reviews, but reader feedback has been so positive that I’m hopeful the pro critics will provide some nice cover copy.

Here are the publications where you should be able to find advance reviews of Ardent Wings over the next few months:

• Kirkus
• Publishers Weekly
• The Midwest Review
• Independent Book Review
• BookLife
• Self-Publishing Review
• Library Journal
• School Library Journal
• Choice Book Review
• LA Review of Books

The last one is aspirational. The LA Review of Books is very selective, but they accept ARCs from indie presses, so we’re taking a stab. I’m not even going to spend the time trying to court the New York Times. They do review indies, but they tend to pluck them up from more established authors who have already made a dent in the market. I’ll wait for them to notice me.

Professional reviews are important, but reader reviews are crucial. A five star rating from you all on Goodreads and Amazon will sell more books ingratiate me to the algorithm more than a starred review from Kirkus, so once the book is live I will impose upon you all frequently and fervently to pop onto your accounts and give me an honest appraisal. Thank you and I’m sorry 😉

With so many books in pre-production, it’s a natural time to focus on a new manuscript, but newborn life hasn’t really yielded the large chunks of focused time I need to produce new prose. With the smaller windows I have had, here’s what I’ve been up to this week:

• Refining the outline for The Divine Heretic Book 2: What Lies Between
• Outlining the second trilogy in Tales of Ciel
• Editing a couple short stories in the Tales of Ciel world
• Ever-so-cautiously beginning the polish of The Politics of Fear

I have a few different visions for the Ciel short stories. I plan to make them available on KU, which means I can’t really give them away for free without violating my exclusivity with Amazon. That said, I’ll likely hold at least one back from Amazon publication to give as a gift to subscribers and use as a future reader magnet.

Once the first Ciel trilogy is out, I’m going to collect those three novels–Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies, Ophiuchus Flinched, and The Mark of Cain–in a special edition hardcover. That tome will include two previously unreleased short stories, one that serves as an extended prologue to Ardent Wings and one that connects the first and second trilogies, linking The Mark of Cain and Book 4: Cut Him into Stars.

Featured Giveaway: Ashes of Xyphos by Kevin Sanon

This week, I have my first author swap to present to you all. Author Kevin Sanon is offering his sci-fi novella Ashes of Xyphos for free to all HTP subscribers. That’s you! At 71 pages in Kindle, Ashes of Xyphos is a quick, action-packed read, perfect for fans of military science fiction and space opera. I admire Sanon’s breakneck pacing and economic storytelling. Space opera is a genre predisposed to meandering plots and bloat, but this is a short, taut, thriller that satisfies from start to finish.

Please click the link and take a gander. If you like what you see, you can download the whole shebang!

Ashes of Xyphos by Kevin Sanon