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Haven’t read Humans Don’t Have Horns yet? It’s available on KU, in paperback, and the audiobook is widely available across major platforms. All links in my Linktree.
While I did some writing on Book Three in the past month, summer has hit my productivity harder than I expected. Between driving the kids everywhere and all the little interruptions that come with having everyone home, it’s been much harder to maintain my usual writing routine.
On top of that, I’ve been deep in edits for Book Two, which has taken most of my cognitive capacity these past few weeks. So, Book Three has moved forward more slowly than I would like.
Now for Book Two. I’m hoping that edits will be fully finalized by the end of June.
Once editing is complete, I’ll move into proofreading. My plan is to have my computer read the manuscript aloud while I read along, looking for typos and extra spaces. I expect this will take me a few days.
After that comes formatting. Thankfully, after formatting Humans Don’t Have Horns, I no longer find that part intimidating. I’m expecting only a few hours of work.
The biggest factor I can’t control right now is the cover. My cover artist is still working on it, and until I have the final cover, many of the next steps remain uncertain. I’m also waiting for the character art I commissioned, which is also taking longer than expected.
Honestly, that feels like the theme of this season: everything is taking longer than planned.
I’m leaving the country on July 11 for about two weeks, so the big question is whether I’ll be able to assemble and ship the influencer boxes before my flight. The answer to that question will likely determine the entire preorder timeline.
Ideally, I want a one-month preorder period. I’m not planning on redoing the three-month pre-order period I did for Humans Don’t Have Horns . During that month, I would send influencer boxes, distribute ARC copies to subscribers here on Substack, and begin the full launch campaign.
Right now, everything is still a little too unpredictable.
It’s entirely possible that everything falls into place and the book releases in August as planned. But if a few key pieces slip, especially the cover timeline, then the release may move into September.
That’s not what I originally wanted, but sometimes that’s just how publishing works.
One of the great advantages of being an indie author is the amount of control you have over the process compared to traditional publishing. Things move much faster.
But even as an indie author, there are still critical pieces you can’t control. Unless you’re also an editor and an artist, you’re relying on other talented people to help bring the book to life.
For the paid spoiler section below, you can find the current Book Two description (including the book title).
It’s not finalized yet, and you’re the first people to see it. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback.
