Why'm I so quiet lately?
You’re not the only one who got used to me releasing books every six weeks or so. This gap in my publishing schedule is weird and kind of freaky for me, but it isn’t because I’ve been bored, trust me.
So what’s going on in the Katverse behind the scenes?
Well, a while back I was approached by an imprint of Hachette called Second Sky. They’re brand new, and they wanted me to write a romantic fantasy for them. Seeing as I already had one on the burner that was a bit lighter than my usual horror romps, I figured it would be a good pair for them.
And so, I have been bashing away at “The Iron Crystal,” a four-part series that features Mordred, the Prince in Iron and ex knight of Arthur, and Gwendolyn Wright, a nice girl from Kansas who got sucked into one of several world-ending situations. It’s basically Arthurian Lore meets the Wizard of Oz meets The Dark Crystal.
Like y’do.
Book one, “To Charm A Dark Prince” is in line edits currently, and book two, “To Seek A Strange Wizard” (both titles subject to change) is about 30k words deep and due in a few weeks time.
Why do you think I’m writing this blog post right now? It’s called procrastination.
Both of these books will release together in mid-August. It’s such a strange thing to have such a long lead time to publish a book, but I get it. They do extensive structural edits, line edits, copy edits, proof reading, cover design, marketing, etc. etc. I decided I wanted to see how somebody might market my books, and since they do their own marketing (which is a rarity these days) it was worth a go.
In the background, between frantically finishing books for The Iron Crystal and doing edits, I’ve been plucking away at “The Duke of Bones”, which is a stand-alone four part series feature Izael, the Unseelie Duke. It takes place on Earth and in Tir n’Aill. If you liked Valroy from Maze of Shadows and you liked Simon from Harrow Faire, you’ll love Izael. He’s a naga-esque fae shifter, and…extremely extra.
There is a chance that while I will finish Duke of Bones after I finish two books of Iron Crystal, that it’ll actually be published before Iron Crystal because of the trad-pub long lead time.
On top of all that...
I was recently promoted at my job in video game design to Studio Design Manager/Managing Design Director, whatever you wanna call it. In short: I manage people and processes and now have twenty-ish direct reports.
It’s a lot of stress and a lot of work trying to adjust to the new gig, so I have that pulling me in multiple directions.
So, yeah. Life’s a little wacky right now.
What's up with Creature Feature?
Two things.
- Other series rose to the surface faster than The Wayward Wolf, the next installment. I write things in the order of inspiration, and sometimes other dudes just want their limelight first. Izael is a needy bastard and Mordred’s on a schedule, what can I say?
- The series as a whole isn’t selling in the way that I had hoped. So I’m re-examining how many books should be in the series. But don’t worry, Mr. Baltimore will get his story.
What else is on the burner?
I do still intend on writing books 3 and 4 of “Immortal Soul,” the continuation of Dracula’s story. While it centers Walter and Zadok, not Vlad & Maxine, they are so central to the story that I wouldn’t consider this a sequel. It’ll be set in modern day. No clue if I’ll get around to that in 2023 or if it’ll go to 2024.
Besides that? I eagerly await the return of the rights of Masks of Under from my [adjectives redacted due to legal reasons] former publisher so I can polish them up, include the spicy scenes, and republish them myself with a higher quality control standard and better covers. But I don’t think that’ll really happen until I get all six books back in June of 2024. Bleh.
Well, that’s all from me for now. I’ll leave you with my terrible doodle of Mordred, the Prince in Iron.
Tata for now!
