Dear Friends and Creatures Alike,
Get comfortable and get some tunes before we begin:
Today marks the end of a busy day of mine. I’ve been especially hard at work of late preparing exciting goodies for you all. I’ve been experimenting with various techniques to increase my pace of writing and accuracy in quality, and I’m receiving some encouraging results from the new things I’ve been trying.
Here’s how things have been since I wrote you last month:
-Substation 7 Book One: Done! Finally forced to come up with a name for it, I’ve decided on Condemnation. The next two books are planned to be named Liberation and Ascension. Let me know if you think those sound silly.
This has in fact been my fastest novel, at just around 51 thousand words before the appendix, so I landed pretty on-target with it all. I think you’re really going to like it.
It’s definitely going to be a different setting, but it’ll spook ya’ good, mark my words! It’s currently in revisions, and you can expect to see it sometime around late Feb to early March, probably with the next two books in the series following along very shortly afterward. By shortly, I mean like two months apart, tops.
I’m going to try a “rapid release” strategy with this series, releasing each book only a few months apart from the previous. I’ve heard-tell that this is how a lot of the current high-performers in amazon win over the algorithms, so we’ll see if I can play these cards to my advantage.
Be ready. You’re going to see some familiar faces in this one, and there will be certain thematics that will be eerily close to some other things in the Inkrealm Catalogue of Stories.
-Bloodkeep and Voidthrone: Under revisions as well, along with a slick amount of extra chapters thrown in for extra goodness.
“Kill your darlings?” Ha! More like “Kill your readers with awesome fight scenes!” There’s a lot more to be said in these two because a lot is going on, and in my first go ’round I skipped huge chunks of it- not this time!
I know you’re eager to see Chaos and Order duke it out again, as well as more super-meta Knight Love mind-games, but just bate your breath and think of it as getting the remastered edition upfront. : :!
It’s going to be radical and your wait will be worth it, rest-assured.
-Nocturna League #6: Near the halfway point in the draft. You might be seeing glimpses of this sometime before the holidays are over. I’ve thought long and hard about how I’ll release these, and it seems like the only right way is to make the project great, but not spend too much on the “packaging” like the cover and such. It’s far enough along in the series that the people who got this far understand that I’m a poor nerd living in a cardboard box peddling my adventures for head pats and cup noodles, so I think I can get away with it.
What I really need to focus on is getting more readers.
I’ve tossed the idea around in my head quite a lot, but it really seems as though the best way to go about it is to make Nocturna League #1 well trafficked and appealing to prospective readers. Is it completely insane to even try some paid ads for a free book? Probably, but I’ll still try it out! If any of you have any recommendations I’d love to hear it, but Nocturna League really hits a sweet-spot niche that’s kind of… hard to describe:
Eldritch Fantasy Thriller?
Lovecraftian-Inspired Multiverse Young Adult Fiction?
Foul-mouthed Sea Animal Adventures for Grown Men and Women?
It’s kind of a toughie for me. I can’t just lump it into something simple like Courts Divided: Semi-Postmodern Metaphysical Narrative Sci-Fi Fantasy, because that’s way easier!
*Sarcasm Alert Weeoooweeooo!*
Anyway, NL seems to be one of those series that people love once they get their crustacean claws into it, but I just need more people to go ahead, take the plunge, bite the hook, go off the deep end, another nautical or fish-related turn of phrase!
I don’t know what to tell you, tell your friends?
Whatever, just look forward to Nocturna League: The Mermaid’s Tear, coming pretty damn soon, like… I don’t know, January?At least sometime in 2019. You know how it is.
Moving right along…
-Other things:
I’m thinking of doing some audio-book readings of my stuff! Is that narcissistic? Yes, but I think I’ll do it anyway because it should help spread the word about my tubular adventures.
That’s right, in as soon as *whenever I care enough to go through all the trouble of it* you can be overwhelmed by the the sultry tones of my powerful, earthy, pumpkin-spice-latte tones being injected straight into your little ears via YouTube!
… That really sounded better in my head.
…Want to see some art for it?
…Y-yeah! Of course you do!
Mmm~
Just look at that dreamy analyst, what sorts of deep and wonderful things does it have to whisper into your ear?
Probably just short stories and whatnot; nothing too amazing.
I honestly don’t have a timeline for these little audio shorts. I don’t have any proper equipment, nor do I have enough practice to do it easily. I’m certain I’ll make a concrete attempt for it sometime next year, but until then, I think I’ll keep this one under wraps.
Last thing on the docket, I’d like to bring up those products I said I’d slowly release…
I’m still working on it!
Look, I understand you’d probably kill a person for your Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion mug right about now, but you must trust me when I say that these things take time! I promise I’ll keep you updated on it as progress continues, so don’t worry about it!
And there you have it.
As always, you may email me at kellr.inkston@gmail.com with questions, comments, or any declarations of undying love for either High Overlord Chaos or Miss Grancis Vereyrty, as they’re the only ones that ever get such things sent to them. Of course no one cares about the stupid analyst that brings them all these great stories, ugh!
…ehem.
Right, send me an email and let’s talk. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
Thanka you so much for a’buyin ma’ books,
Kell Inkston,
Head Analyst,
S.E.E.R. but also the Head Analyst of a cardboard box out in an alley somewhere in NYC.
Coffee... WRITING!... COFFEE!! 