5 Titles Aimed for September

When I visit the blogs of my favorite living authors – Lois McMaster Bujold and Robin McKinley – the number one thing I’m looking for is news of their next books.

Is she working on one? What is it about? When will it be in stores so that I can buy it? And read it!

5 new titles banner with Fate's Door

I don’t know if any of my readers feel as passionately about my stories as I do about Bujold’s stories and McKinley’s. Comparing feelings doesn’t really lead far, does it?

It’s sort of like the children’s book Guess How Much I Love You.

I love this book more than the distance to the moon. I love it more than the distance to the moon . . . and back! No, Pluto! Alpha Centauri! And so on.

But I know I do have a few fans who are probably wondering when my next title will appear. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve released anything new.

To those of you wondering and waiting, rest assured that I have been writing. A lot! And all this writing has been piling up into books.

Where are the books?

I have two that are ready to release. I always intended to release Serpent’s Foe, which appeared in Quantum Zoo, solo – for readers who don’t care for anthologies.

Serpent’s Foe is ready for release: cover complete, story file formatted.

Winter Glory is also ready for release: cover complete and story file formatted for upload.

In fact, not only are the ebook editions ready, but the trade paperback editions are also ready.

What am I waiting for?

I’d really like to increase my visibility. A number of readers have contacted me or written reviews saying they were delighted to have found my books. A recurring phrase is: “hidden gem.”

Naturally I love the idea that my books are gems. But I’m not so keen about the “hidden” part. I’d like to have more readers.

Almost a year ago, I read about something called the “Liliana Nirvana technique” on a blog written by SF author Hugh Howey.

The technique is simple: release five books on the same day.

Why? Because your visibility will soar. With five titles appearing on the “New Releases” lists, browsing readers will see your name more than once and be more likely to remember you, to check out your books, and to consider reading them.

If this were just a theory, I’d be skeptical. But quite a few writers have tried the technique with excellent results.

Honestly, I’m still skeptical.

But I’ve not gotten to where I am by staying with the tried and true. New ideas and new ways – and sometimes old ways that are so old they’re new – have always attracted me.

So I’m going to give the Liliana Nirvana technique a try.

Sept 2015However, the wait for my five new titles shouldn’t be much longer. September is looking good for their publication.

Hunting Wild is with my proofreader. When it comes back from her, I’ll correct the typos and format the file. It’s a few hours work at most. And the cover is already complete.

Caught in Amber is with my third beta reader. Normally, my books go through only two beta readers, but I made so many revisions to Amber I wanted a third reader’s eyes on it to be sure I got it right. The cover for Caught in Amber is already complete.

I’m still writing the fifth book – Fate’s Door – but I’m closing in on the end. The last fifth of the novel, in fact. The word count currently stands at 80,000!

I’m a writer who picks up steam through a book. I start out slow, achieve a respectable speed through the middle, and then barrel through the end like an express train.

I expect to finish Fate’s Door by the end of May. Then the manuscript goes to my first reader, then my second reader, and then (after my revisions) to my proofreader.

So what exactly will come your way in September? Here’s the list:

Amber web cov 200Caught in Amber • When young Fae awakens in a locked and deserted castle, she remembers nothing. Who she is, where she comes from, none of it.

Beauty from all the ages – medieval, renaissance, and gothic – graces her surroundings, but underneath the loveliness a lurking evil stirs.

Fae must recover her memories and discern the true nature of the challenge before her, while she confronts the castle’s dangers – both subtle and not so subtle.

Somewhere in her forgotten past lies the key to her freedom.

 

Serpent’s Foe • Bastet, divine protectress of the gods themselves, lies defeated in a cage.

Trapped in beast form, imprisoned behind bars, and confused by nightmares, she struggles to regain her sanity.

Yet clarity of mind is only the beginning of her fight for freedom. In the dimness of the ancient Egyptian duat – where Ra journeys from sundown to sunup – a potent enemy lurks.

When strength battles compassion, what guise must victory assume?

 

Fate's Door, web cover 200Fate’s Door • Secrets, like troubles, come in threes. When you possess one of either, two more arrive to keep it company. Nerine, a sea nymph of the ancient world, knows too much about both.

Each morning, in the chill before the sun’s rising, Nerine and the three Fates stand under the mighty branches of the World Tree, gazing into the depths of the root-girdled Well of Destiny, watching the dooms that must come to pass that day.

But when the dawn’s visions show Nerine’s lover, shipwrecked and drowning, all her renounced yearning for him rises anew.

Somehow – this day, this morning, this time – Nerine must subvert destiny or lose the companion of her heart forever.

 

Glory web cover 200Winter Glory • In the cold, forested North-lands – prowled by trolls and ice tigers, redolent with the aroma of pine, and shrouded in snow – Ivvar seeks only to meet his newborn great granddaughter.

Someone else has the same plan.

Traversing the wilderness toward the infant’s home camp, Ivvar must face the woman he once cherished and an ancient leviathan of the chilly woodlands in a complicated dance of love and death.

Ivvar’s second chance at happiness – and his life – hang in the balance.

 

Hunting Wild200 pxHunting Wild • When a king begs a boon, can you refuse him? Young Remeya – fosterling and maid-in-waiting to King Xavo’s sister – thinks you cannot.

Her king requests that she retrieve a dread secret from the well on the grassy hillside of his castle’s outer bailey, and she complies. From the moment her sovereign grips the unwholesome treasure in his hand, the coherence of his mind, his court, and his kingdom start to unravel.

 
 
 

* * *

So…get ready to binge on a handful of new stories in the fall! 😀

 

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5 thoughts on “5 Titles Aimed for September

  1. I can’t wait to hear about the cover for Fate’s Door – I kept looking for it in your post, but it isn’t ready for us yet!

    The nice thing about your planned release is that you also have five DIFFERENT stories, different worlds, different times. Which means that if people see your books, and don’t like one (they hate Ancient Greece or something), there are plenty more.

    I can’t wait for September. It’s my birthday month, so if you can manage…

    I hope you will blog about your hoped-for release strategy: pre-order vs. order them all on the same day vs. spread them out when purchasing. Some of those things affect ‘velocity’ – which affects the rankings. Or so they tell me.

    Which affects discoverability – which puts your fine work before more readers – so they can read the blurb and see the cover.

    I read about the technique on Hugh’s blog, with a bit of envy: I’m so slow, it’s never going to happen for me. But I am really looking forward to watching you do it – and soar.

    • I’ve chosen the photographic images I plan to use for Fate’s Door, but will wait to build the cover until the first draft is complete.

      Nice point about my 5 stories being set in different times and different worlds. I believe many of the authors seeing success from the Liliana Nirvana technique released series. I’ve been concerned that not releasing a series might change the effectiveness of the technique. But maybe it’s a feature, not a bug! 😀

      There’s a chance I might hit August, depending on how fast my beta readers are, but September is a safer bet.

      I will probably blog about how I set up the release and the results from it after I have some results. I’m certainly curious to see how it will all unfold.

      When I first read about the Liliana Nirvana technique on Hugh’s blog, I had the same reaction that you did: I write too slowly to try this. Then I thought again. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself. “I already have Serpent’s Foe and Hunting Wild written. All I have to do is write 3 more stories, and I’m there!”

      Winter Glory went just as planned. It’s a novella, and I wrote the first draft between mid-August 2014 and the end of October 2014. While my first reader read it, I started on Caught in Amber, a short novel, and finished it just before Christmas.

      “Beautiful,” I thought. “Fate’s Door is another novella. I can finish it by the end of February, or early March at the latest.”

      Little did I know that Fate’s Door had disguised itself as a novella, but it was not. Once I started writing the story, it became clear that my outline had missed a bunch of middle scenes. As I wrote those middle scenes, I found yet more middle scenes that were indubitably part of the story. They had to be included. My 20,000-word “novella” has grown to 84,000 words (as of today) and probably has another 15,000 words to go before it is complete. Which is why you find me writing it through May, instead of completing it in March.

    • The cover for Fate’s Door hadn’t been created when I wrote and posted this in May.

      Now, as I write this comment in August, the cover is ready!

      I’ve added the image above for visitors to my blog who missed the post when it first went live. Enjoy!

  2. I followed you here from your comments on The Passive Voice. I’m writing ancient Egyptian flavored fiction and am looking forward to reading Serpent’s Foe.

    • Thanks for following me over, Jim. Welcome!

      I’ve loved learning about the ancient Egyptians ever since I first encountered them in school lessons. I moved from reading history to reading fiction set in ancient Egypt. Mara, Daughter of the Nile by by Eloise Jarvis McGraw completed my enchantment with the culture. Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie was a fun read. And Child of the Morning by Pauline Gedge became one of my favorite books. It was inevitable that I would eventually write an ancient Egyptian story myself.

      Do you have a title for your ancient Egyptian-flavored fiction?

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