Looking ahead

It’s weird to be back at this spot, a year later–looking at what I’ve accomplished, what’s left to do, and what the year ahead contains. Last year, I set the goal of writing 4 books and publishing 3 of them. Now that Paragon of Shadow is out there in the world, I’ve sort of met part of that goal. I got 3 books finished and 3 published, but that book number 4 I planned to write has ended up being the final book for Spectrum Legacy, and it’s not going to be done by the end of this year.

That’s all right; I made my peace with that early on, when I had a couple unexpected family emergencies crop up and Paragon of Shadow ended up running long. In order to give those things the time and attention they needed, something had to be pushed back, and the best choice was letting Spectrum #6 slip to the back burner for an extra month. But now that I’m writing it and looking at the calendar, everything ahead is a little… fuzzy.

A few things will change in 2025, I think. I’ll be finishing the last Spectrum Legacy book and getting it published in the first half of the year, but after that? Well, it’s hard to say. After that point, there are 3 directions I can go with my writing, and I think all of them will be slower.

For the past 5 years, I’ve prioritized writing above everything else I do, and while it’s been amazing for letting me get my stories out into the world, that means things got a little unbalanced. After all, the more time I spend writing the books, the less time I spend letting people know about the books, and the lack of solid marketing has really shown in how slow Spectrum Legacy has been to take off. I’ve spoken before about the challenges of continuing a series like Spectrum Legacy when readers are hesitant to pick it up, being that it’s unfinished. But I’ve invested a lot into it, after all, and it deserves to be seen.

So we shift. If people aren’t reading, it means people aren’t seeing, because if I can be a little egotistical for a second, these are really fun books. Fun to write, fun to read, fun to see the emotional reactions they pull from my family in real time. And they’re good, too–I know they have to be good from a quality perspective, or else a panel of literary award judges wouldn’t have chosen book 1 as a finalist and book 3 as a winner in their respective years. (Book 2 was released outside the nomination window, and book 4 wasn’t nominated because The Witch and the Wyrm made it onto the list in the same category. I’m fine with that; I don’t care to compete against myself.)

In the past, I’ve spent 80% of my “book time” writing and 20% of it talking about the books and doing the admin work that comes with publishing. In 2025, the biggest shift will be flipping that. 20% of my time spent writing and 80% spent on marketing efforts. After Spectrum Legacy is finished, of course. My first goal is still getting that book into your hands. But then I’ll be at a strange point where I don’t have an open, ongoing series. The first time that will have happened in… I don’t know, 15-20 years. Wild.

There are a few directions I can go after Spectrum Legacy is done.
Route 1 is writing Snakesong Serenade, the spin-off from Snakesblood Saga that’s been hanging in the back of my mind for the past two decades.
Route 2 is a story for Tahl, which has also been hanging out in my head for years, but it’s a lot more niche and unlikely to be successful.
And then route 3 is starting a new fantasy romance series, which seems like the best decision so far.

There’s also the possibility of adding a few more standalones to Artisan Magic, but I’m short on ideas for that and I’d like to try something fresh, so I think the above-mentioned route 3 is the best plan of action right now, and that would be my second book release for 2025.

Two books in a year feels really slow after the rate I’ve been going for the past few years, but it’s also the most reasonable, considering I’ll need a lot more time to finish it, having so much less writing time open to me. But it also presents the best opportunity for growth, and I definitely look forward to that.

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