The Writings on the Wall #6

A novel, two short stories, and some social media stuff...

May 4

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When things don’t go as planned…

I made two last minute changes last month.

The first was replacing “The Human Dilemma” with “Letter to Tya” when I decided to submit the former to magazines. Crossing fingers on that one.

The second was delaying the launch of my novel—initially announced for April 30.

The reason for this was twofold. First, I needed more time to finish editing the book. Second, I made some significant changes to my release schedule.

Instead of serializing the novel’s 68 chapters at the pace of three a week, I decided to release all of them over two months. Here’s how that’s going to work.

The five first chapters will be sent to all free subscribers on the following dates: May 11 (yes, that’s next week!), May 18, May 25, June 8, and June 15.
The remaining 63 chapters will be posted online on June 22, but will only be available to paid subscribers. I will not email them, though, as I wouldn’t want anyone’s inbox to explode, ha!

On a side note, I will also publish the novel on Amazon at some point in August (specific date to be determined, I’ll keep you posted).

I may have to spread those last 63 chapters over 2 or 3 days, depending on whether Substack allows me to upload them all in one go or not, but I’ll definitely try!

So, in other words… welcome to My Novel Releasing Months (MyNoRelMo?) LOL.

I have to admit though, I still don’t have a title for this book! Well, I have a working title, and if I can’t come up with something better, I’ll use that… but hopefully I’ll think of something better before next Wednesday!

Anthologies

I announced back in January (can’t believe that was already four months ago!) that two of my short stories would be published by The Great Void Books. After some delays, the first of those two anthologies is finally out! “Beyond” is a collection of flash fiction horror stories, available in both digital and paperback formats.

Note that proceeds will go to charity.

Oh, and there are even some short trailers available, two of which I’ve posted on my TikTok and YouTube channels respectively.

As for the other anthology—barring further delays—“Fall Into the Abyss” should be released… tomorrow! So obviously, I don’t have a link for that one yet, I’ll post it next month. Though I’m sure you can find it by searching for the title and/or the editor’s name (Aditya Deshmukh).

Some experiments…

Speaking of TikTok and YouTube… I launched both of those accounts last month, along with one on Royal Road.

Aside from those trailers, the content on TikTok and YouTube is identical. I started with a short story broken down into 15 parts. Not a great move, I’ll admit, especially since each segment is over a minute long—which isn’t ideal for those platforms. I’ve been working on some shorter pieces, which I’ve started posting, with more to come soon.

As for Royal Road, I am publishing my serial there, in hope to draw more readers here. Curious to see how that experiment goes.

Books to read

Here is a selection of books that might be of interest to you. All of these are free to download, though you’ll have to sign up to the authors’ newsletter to grab your copy.

Discovering Your Neighbor by Shane Shepherd

Baldwin Tavares is called up by the Admiral Pitch to join in their expedition to the planet Allende 1-b, also known as Neighbor. Baldwin and his team were requested for their very specific skill set, as they are the best in their individual fields. Eager to be part of something bigger than himself, Baldwin, aka Win, convinces his team to go on the expedition. They aim to find some remnants left behind of the once inhabited planet Neighbor in the hopes of studying and preserving whatever knowledge about them that they find.

Win begins to realize the expedition to Allende 1-B is not entirely scientific. He suspects the Pacific Ocean Mining Organization, or POMO, have sunk deep into [… read more …]