R.J. Blain's Blog, page 2

The Prince of New York is now available in paperback on Amazon! Plus Audiobook News!

You can purchase a copy here.

So, moving forward, the Amazon editions (which will be linked to as such on this website) will be blank edges. When the fancy edge versions are done, they’ll be available through bookshop and Barnes & Noble, and I’ll have a page on the website linking to them.

If you purchase through used book markets, what you get is what you get, as I cannot control the used book market. If you want fancy edges, I highly recommend you wait for when I provide links by series....

Four New Paperbacks on Amazon (Plus other Print Updates)

Steel Heart, Dawn of Dae, Unawakened, and Blood Diamond are now available for purchase over at Amazon in paperback format.

Please note that I will be doing fancy fun edges on the more expensive IngramSpark books, but this will be an ongoing work in progress. (Read: this is something I’m doing for the hardback editions, and the IngramSpark paperbacks, which are like $5+ more expensive than the Amazon editions, will be the tests for look, feel, appearance, etc.)

Edges are the flat bit of the...

Booked for Theft and Grave Affairs Paperbacks, Grave Affairs, A Light in the Dark Audiobook Editions

Booked for Theft and Grave Affairs are available in Paperback format over at Amazon. In case you missed it, Grave Affairs is available at all major retailers in audiobook edition. (Some did, so it bears mentioning again.)

A Light in the Dark (Audrey Greene) is currently processing at the audiobook distributors. This process can take 1-5 weeks depending on the mood of the server squirrels. You can currently acquire A Light in the Dark over at Kobo. The other vendors are pending.

As a remin...

It has come to my attention… Re: Reviews

Greetings, folks.

It has come to my attention there is something I need to address (as I don’t check reviews because they aren’t for me, they’re for other customers…) regarding some content within some reviews.

I strongly dislike anything political in my writing platform, but I need to address this.

Dear people who are claiming I am showcasing Democrats OR Republicans in the Vigilante Magical Librarians Series:

You are all wrong.

All of you. The fact you are trying to associate me, as the...

#150Daysto100k – Assignment #9: Show Vs Tell, Passive Voice, and Other Tricks of the Trade

Today is one part editorial assignment, one part drafting assignment, and one part teaching moment.

For those of you who are comfortable with show vs tell, passive voice, and controlling tone, vibe, and mood, you can skip on to the actual assignment:

Write your second chapter.

I know authors who write 1,000 word chapters. I know authors who write 10,000 chapters. I know plenty of authors who are somewhere in between. (Personally, I like between 4,000 to 6,000 words, but I’ve done 1,000 ...

#150Daysto100k – Assignment #8: Write your Next Scene

Today is the first day in almost a week I haven’t been completely plagued with a headache (or migraine.) Bleh. As such, I’m a big bad 500 words into Rise of the Rift King, but that’s 500 more words than I had before, which is great. (I am still on Assignment #6, in case it isn’t obvious. Hah!) But this is the nature of books. Sometimes, it takes you x5 times longer than someone else to progress.

The real lesson here is sticking with it even when you’re slow. Slow and steady gets the job done....

Upcoming Publication Schedule (2025 – 2026)

A few things before I present the list:

1: This is tentative unless the book is available for preorder. Life happens. Should life happen and what you want doesn’t show up when you want, keep it a you problem.

I’m human, and I absolutely will prioritize my health, family, and happiness over books. Being creative is hard. (Please, let’s not make it any harder.) (This is where I say ‘If you don’t like how I write my books or when I publish them, go write your own with your own ideas, your own...

#150Daysto100k – Assignment #7: Reflect On Your Opener

Writing a book is hard. Let’s just get that truth out of the way. The people who make it look easy are either really good at their sales pitch, are lying, or have zero care about their final quality. (Even the skilled and talented have to work hard to make a good book come to life.)

Today, we’re dipping our toes into facing off (and ultimately conquering) the challenges of writing.

Step 1: Read what you wrote.

Step 2: Pat yourself on the back. You have written something, and the first s...

#150Daysto100K – Assignment #6: Write Your Opener!

I meant to do this yesterday, but it turns out yesterday and day were sick days. (I was sick with some unknown aliment yesterday, and I am having a chronic pain episode involving a very old knee injury, which is bad enough it has disrupted my ability to do anything.)

I got the right type of knee brace/sleeve, so hopefully that will be tolerable by tomorrow… or tolerable in the sense that I’ve adapted to the pain and can function through it.

Anyway, today is all about starting to write your...

#150Daysto100k Assignment #5: Identify Your Starting Place!

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Photographed: the moment before the tortie decided the calico (A cat weighing five pounds more than her, mind you) needed to be attacked most viciously.

This is the visual form of where to start a story, because in the next few moments, this happened, and the story of a viciously cute kitty on kitty battle began.

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This is the last assignment before we dive in an begin actually writing the book. Hooray!

Today, I want you to think about where your book begins. A good beginning for ...