Quaking Soul Update #5

Wow, it was not my intention to go this long without blogging. Sorry I’ve been away for so long!

I’m going to steer clear of commentary about our world today. You can guess the pandemic and everything else has touched my life just like it’s touched others without me saying much about it.

Since I started this blog back in 2012, the Adventure stories have turned into my bit of fun for the world, like fun-sized candy bars. I intend these stories to continue to offer a bit of escape and enjoyment amidst the crazy. Rest assured, they will return. Just not quite yet.

Likewise, Quaking Soul (Q.S.) is intended to bring some fun to readers—once I get it out into the world. Originally, I intended to publish Q.S. by this spring. Urg. Seeing as how spring ends tomorrow, that’s definitely not going to happen.

Last time I checked in, I’d just found an editor. Felicia and I have done two full editing rounds with Q.S.. It’s been intense, to say the least, but we’ve wrangled the monster into some form of submission (we’ve cut about 10k words from the manuscript). Felicia’s gone above and beyond to help make the book shine.

I’m just finishing the last bit of editing according to her comments.

Fun tip for anyone who’s looking at self-publishing:

Do not pull a cover template from the printer until after you’re positive on your page count. Cutting 10k words will change the spine width and alter your cover spacing. (Thankfully, I knew this before I started.)

What that means, however, is that Justin has just started on the cover design. His rough drafts look amazing, so hopefully I’ll have a cover reveal soon! (For those familiar with my book The Adventure, Justin did the artwork for The Temple of Night and Wind.)

And one last, small thing, I’ve also been working with an artist on images for inside the book. These are small chapter headings that I’m super excited about. One thing I didn’t think about going into the professional editing stage was that some of my chapters might change. So, I started Esther on drawing the chapter headings…and then had to have her go back and redo a bunch of them. Still learning. Always =)

Up next, formatting and ordering a proof copy. Shipment times from the printer are long right now, which means this may take a bit longer than expected.

New tentative publication: Fall 2020

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll update you again soon—erg—hopefully a lot sooner than I did the last time.

Blessings,

Jennifer