Hey all!!
I hope you all have a marvellous and amazing holiday and a great new year to come.
I’ve been dealing with health issues, both physical and mental on top of tech issues with my laptop. It’s in the shop for the third time this month, and honestly, at this point I’m not even sure if it can be repaired at all. I can’t afford a new one just yet, however. Guess I better write and sell a lot more books before I can buy another laptop.
I am going to be focussing on some of my series for the coming year. I have a few series that are almost done, so I’ll be working to get them out in the wild in 2024.
I have a few free books planned towards teasers for wider worlds as well. I have a lot of covers and projects, so I have to get them all out there. I am also planning to publish some of my free books as wide and free because right now, they’re available only for my newsletter subscribers, and I think that it’s restricting a lot of readers from getting those books.
Amazon doesn’t allow free books, so I have to publish them wide, then publish for $0.99 through Amazon and then ask their customer support for a price match. It’s a regular pain, but it’s the only way with Amazon.
I am also contemplating bringing my books in audio format. However, I don’t have the funds for that just yet. At a conservative estimate, one of my shorter books will cost around $600 and a longer one would be close to $2k. I would need to sell a lot of books to be able to afford that.
It’s inconvenient working without a laptop. Spreadsheets are so much a pain on the phone, and I love using them so much! Also, I format all my books in word, and that would again be impossible without a laptop.
I’m also thinking of bringing out a few box sets for my series, works with some common theme etc. Let’s see how all that pans out. All these are still vague ideas as of now.
Both my knees are showing signs of osteoarthritis and I am on an almost forced bed rest for the time being. Hopefully once the swelling on the knees have gone down, I’ll be able to be back on my feet and do things that won’t put strain on my knees. Cooking is one of the things I love to do, and it sucks that I am not able to stand by a stove right now.
At present I am working on a couple of new WIPs that I can see are going to consume me. I want to say more, but don’t want to spoil anything. I will try and post a few teasers soon!
Don’t forget to check out the Books on Pre-order page. It has all the books I will be bringing out in 2023. I’m excited for many of them. Colliding Forces is a Scifantasy novella that came out of nowhere. There are soulmates and aliens and tech and magic side by side. The Soul of Magic started off as a very short novella, and grew to be this book. There are magical penguins, and soulmates. It’s more in the line of mediaeval fantasy.
Changes in the Wind was born from a dream. A lot of my books started that way. From really vivid dreams that literally took over my mind. Changes in the Wind changed a lot during its writing and even more during editing. There is a new prologue now, and a lot more foreshadowing than there was before. It’s still with my editor, but since it’s due to release only in May, I’m not too worried.
The Flame of the Dragon’s Oath too started as a dream, but it changed completely in the writing and bears no resemblance now to the original idea that spawned it. Well, the original had no dragons, and was more a love story. I am going to write that as a separate book now. Somehow once the Dragons came, they took over everything!
Stolen From a Dream, ironically enough, didn’t start from a dream. It was started as an idea from a writing prompt that I saw in FB a few years back. I forgot the original prompt and it’s not saved anywhere, but I love how this book has evolved. It’s still being written, because the edits have turned to a rewrite. But again, since it’s due to publish only in September, I am confident everything would be ready by then.
Aujjwallya is the third book of Jaya! which started with Pradyutita. Pradyutita is free, so if any of you want to try out a new series in a culture different from the West, you can give that one a go. It’s actually a very dark and gritty retelling of the Hindu epic of Mahabharata, and I’m working on the last book, titled Astamite right now.
I have vague plans to release one more book during December, but again, that’s a vague plan. Depends on how quickly I finish everything else and if my mental health will allow me to take on one more release. 2022 was wild since I was releasing a book a month, and I am still recovering, to be honest.
Once again happy holidays and don’t forget to check out the Books For Sale as well. Quite a few of them are on sale right now, plus the big Smashwords one.
The Deathless Ones is at only $0.99 now. It too was a book that started with a dream, but it evolved a lot in its writing. Syamin and Aadron were not in the original dream, and neither was Myra. There were only the elementals, Semil, Madh and Sadjah. It’s not large as fantasy books go, but for me, it’s fairly large.
Whispers in the Dark was not a dream. It was an idea I had of a vampire and a hunter and it kind of grew from a single scene that was the kernel. That scene is still in the book. I am sort of proud of how this one turned out. Ray is a very human character with a lot of flaws and Alistair, the vampire LI is the perfect counterpoint to Ray.
Life Remains too was not a dream. It’s one of those books that you write for yourself and then share with the world with all fingers and toes crossed that someone out there will love it too. Frederick is extremely morally grey, and when I started writing I wasn’t even sure how his character might evolve. He’s one of my favourite characters, not just in this book but overall. I am also working on another book in the same universe, a sequel of sorts, but centred around Mabel this time.
Bleeding Gold started with a dream idea. It changed so much in the writing and Alvin became a character who became very dear to me. It too has some cool tech, vampires and werewolves and a civil rights movement as well, but for the supernaturals.
The other two books on sale are The Final Conflict and Prajwalita. The reason I don’t talk of them much is because The Final Conflict is the fifth and final book of The Elite and the Rogues, so unless you’ve already read the first four, it’s only going to spoil things for me to talk of it. Prajwalita is the second book of Jaya!, the sequel to Pradyutita and the one preceding Aujjwallya and I’ve already talked enough about the series earlier and any more would be spoilers.
And if you check the Smashwords site, all of my books are 50% off there as well.
This turned out to be longer than I expected! Guess that’s why I’m a writer!
