Birthday Time (Patreon)

So, as usual, my birthday sort of snuck up on me. Today, I'm turning mumble-mumble years old. More importantly, I survived another full orbit of the earth around the sun. Yay me! 

So, a few things are happening behind the scenes in Eric-land that you might be interested in. First of all, I just got the audiobook files to review for the third book in my ongoing urban fantasy series. I expect some of you just blinked and thought, 'Eric has an ongoing urban fantasy series? Since when?" Well, since about 2011. It was a self-published passion project (still is really) and has moved slowly. I've written three books out of an expected five. But, if you're really interested, I put out a collected edition of the first three books. It's call The Samuel Branch Omnibus.  It's available through Kindle Unlimited, and you can find it here. 

I won't sugarcoat it. The first book was a journeyman effort, and the weaknesses show. I revised it once already to shore up the worst problems, and could probably revise it again to good effect, but at some point you just have to declare a book done. I learned a lot about writing between book 1 and book 3, and there is huge qualitative improvement between each book.

In other prior publication-related news, the publisher of my other urban fantasy novel is putting together a chapbook of some of my short fiction. That will include a version of a story that you can read on here named Confluence. I'll be expanding that story to something in the neighborhood of novelette length, which is the length that it probably always should have been. The plan is for the chapbook to be digital only (I think) on Amazon and likely retail for 99 cents. I expect it will contain 3-4 short stories. Including one that, in my opinion, is probably the best short story I ever wrote. It may or may not be available on Kindle Unlimited, but I'll find out for sure closer to publication. That should be out in the very near future, and I'll keep you updated.

If you're wondering what other urban fantasy novel I'm talking about, it's called The Midnight Ground. I always intended it to function as the first book in a series (and that may still happen), but it also works as a standalone novel. You can think of it as me making a list of all the mistakes I made writing The Sam Branch books and then, you know, not doing any of those things. Again, if you're interested, it's available through Kindle Unlimited, and you can find it here. 

Finally, we're about one month out from Unintended Cultivator Volume Two going live. All of the document review has been done, and I believe the cover has been finalized. Yes, it's the same artist. The first cover set the tone, so we're sticking with that style for marketing reasons. I'm not sure about the status of the audiobook version, yet, but I'm pretty confident that there will be one. I expect if there's a holdup, it's just a matter of scheduling the same narrator. However, in conjunction with the release of Volume 2, I will be writing another short...well, short-ish...story that my publisher can use in promotional efforts. I will, of course, post that story on here for everyone with a paid subscription to read. 

Finally, yes, there will be a chapter today. I just need to go out and buy the things for my birthday dinner. There will be steak tonight! Probably, also a cake if i can find a small one.