On the schedule, it says that the book should be releasing today. Sadly, the new cover artist I hired thought that the due date for the cover was today, not that the book was planned to be released today. When I realized this, I pushed the due date back so we could release either next Saturday or the one after.

Besides the art, progress on the print and epub versions are going well. I've finished going through it with a professional editor. (Turns out that commas are hard, and near the end I seem to always lose track of how many usable arms people have.) I like the new cover artists way better than the previous one. I've set the most current WIP from the artist as the cover for this book. (It's not final, but I'm already liking it more.) Typesetting is done. Here's a screengrab of the layout program I'm using. I had no idea how important typesetting was. It's gone from a google doc to something that looks like a real book! I can't wait to see it printed!

So what are the future plans? I've got four projects in the pipeline right now:

A Follow-On Trilogy: Details

I'm about 50k words through a trilogy that takes place in the same setting as CitP (Wardens, Emissaries, rune circle magic, etc.) The first book takes places before the events of CitP, the second co-occurs, and the third is set in the aftermath. It's from the PoV of a different group of characters, but characters from this book appear occasionally. (Not just as cameos, either. They participate in the plot.) It was going smoothly for a while, but was starting to fall apart in the middle, because middles are hard. Shelved for now, but I'm still excited about where it was going.

Reverse-LitRPG: Details

I took a class from Brandon Sanderson about seven years ago. We had to write the first 50k words of a novel over the course of a semester. I wrote a RPG-Lit from the PoV of an NPC. He discovers that the super-powered god-like individuals in his world are actually gamers. Eventually he ends up breaking out of the game and interacting with people in the "Land of the Gods." Brandon Sanderson complemented my writing style on camera. It was an amazing experience.

I met Brandon Sanderson at a convention four months ago, and I told him I'd been in his class and proudly told him that I was self-publishing my first book. He gave me a high five and asked which story I'd written for his class. I started describing it to him, and he said "Oh yeah! That one! That had potential. Is that the one you're publishing?" I hedged and said that no, it was a "little paranormal romance thing," and he said "Too bad. The other one had a really interesting premise. You ought to go back and finish that one up and shop it around."

Inwardly, I freaked out. Outwordly, I politely thanked him for the compliment and the advice and told him I'd look into it.

So, uh.... yeah. That's my current project. When Brandon Sanderson remembers your book and recommends you "shop it around", that book kinda takes priority. My hope would be to traditionally publish it, but we'll see if that ends up working. The market might be supersaturated with game-lit right now.

A VRMMO Fiction: Details

Two years ago, under another pen name, I'd put up nearly 140k of words of a VRMMO fic. It had much more success ratings-wise than this fic did, and got to the top 50 of active only top fictions. Thing is, it had some serious structural problems and needed a full re-write to add another PoV character. Also, because I was publishing one chapter at a time without knowing the ending, the plot kinda meandered around. Unlike CitP, which is a disposable part of my "million words of crap" that I'm publishing to get practice with the process of self-publishing, I feel like the VRMMO fic had a lot of potential.

Thing is, it turns out most publishers won't look at a book if it's been published anywhere else first, and because I put the first draft up on Royal Road, it's "tainted" and no publisher will look at it. This is too bad, because I think it's the best thing I've ever written, even in its incomplete state.

It's still possible to salvage it and get it published traditionally. If a publisher picks up my reverse LitRPG and it does okay, they might come back and ask "Have you got anything else?" If so, I can mention this VRMMO fic and because they already know me as an author, the normal rules wouldn't apply, and they would be able to publish it anyway. Because of that, even though this is the fic I'm most excited about, it's lowest on my priority list. I need to see whether or not the Reverse LitRPG goes anywhere. If so, I can "Rescue" this one; otherwise, I'll have to self-publish it.

A Dungeoncore Fiction: Details

I read Rogues' Dungeon and felt like it wasn't doing the concept justice. I started my own near-future dungeon core story, and it was a blast. The most fun thing I'd written since the vending machine chapter. No idea where that fic's going, but I'm keeping it in the back of my mind just in case.

Long story short: I want to keep writing. Putting CitP online has been a fantastic and exciting experience for me, and I want it to continue.

I hope to see some of you there. If you're interested in being informed of what I do next, keep this fic on your follows/favorites. I'll post an announcement here when my next thing comes out, whichever it ends up being.

As I mentioned earlier, the print version will be delayed for a week or two, so I'm going to keep the entire book up for now. After the print and epub versions are available, I'm taking down everything here except the bonus chapters.

The offer for a free copy of the book is still valid. As long as you get a review written and posted here before the book comes out, you're elligible for the drawing for a free print copy. Also, I'm still willing to write bonus chapters, if we reach those goals somehow.

Thanks for reading!