R.J. Blain's Blog, page 33

I went on an adventure to San Diego!

I unplugged from Friday until Monday afternoon, and it was magnificent. Here are some pictures from my adventure!

1: We stayed at the Hilton Embassy Suites Bay Downtown in San Diego. It was stupidly expensive, but it was me walking distance from the U.S.S. Midway, which was what we needed. It was also right near everything else we wanted to do.

Did I mention it was stupidly expensive?

2: The Hilton Embassy Suites was one of the best hotel experiences my husband and I have ever had. We h...

Moving away from Facebook somewhat

Due to being banned (temporarily) from posting and commenting, for something that didn’t even violate their terms and conditions (Ah, the Ballad of the Overzealous Bot), I will be moving away from facebook.

My new home for socialization will be discord. I am the owner/operator of the server being used. You may access the discord here: https://discord.gg/9wGn27EwPU

So, what does this mean?

It means if you want to see my cross-stitch projects, talk to me directly, and get more immediate n...

The Ballad of the Overzealous FB Bot.

I love when I’m banned by an overzealous facebook bot. With zero recourse. (I can’t even ask them to review the bot’s results.)

Hmm…

1: Facebook is stressful.

2: Facebook is stressful.

3: I am banned from Facebook because I made a post that mentioned that there was a neighbor who may or may not have hit occupancy cap, how much the rent was, and that they weren’t allowed to have more than $x keys for their apartment.

Yes, I was accused of human exploitation for saying those things....

Kickstarter Update: Graphic Designer Status

Greetings, folks!

The trade (and updated Mass Markets) associated with the kickstarter I ran is going along smashingly well. There has been one hiccup outside of my control: my designer has tendonitis and is on a limited work schedule while she recovers. This is not going to be changing the store window through backerkit, but it will ultimately lead to the final ship date being slightly pooched. As weight is a consideration on the boxes, I’ll be shipping in multiple packages anyway for larger...

A few clarifications, upcoming audiobooks, etc.

In what I can only describe as insanity, Booked for Kidnapping, Steel Heart, and Beneath a Blood Moon will all be releasing in audiobook format… soon. (As in as soon as I make sure I have covers for the audiobook edition. Everything fell together at roughly the same time for these three titles.

Client from Hell and Silent Stalker just went to the producer. Plaidypus has also been booked for production.

Phew.

Okay, as there has been some confusion on the new patreon, I’m going to do a qu...

Plaidypus is Coming! All you need to know about future releases, publishing schedule, etc.

Hey, folks. Today, you get me, the actual author. The cats are busy destroying everything I own in the name of play. (Oh, well. I didn’t need that stuff anyway…)

Plaidypus is releasing on May 17, 2022! It is priced at $5.99 at all vendors.

This and the Sekrit Projekt will be the last full-length novels priced at $5.99 on vendors. Due to Amazon’s insistence on being the editorial police, resulting in heightened editorial expenses, I am raising the price on all new releases to $6.99 starting...

Please don’t panic.

This is how I’ve decided to move forward with all future publications. Please read carefully.

Definition: future publications means books that do NOT currently have a preorder.

First, I will still be selling my books on Amazon. I will just be selling them on a different schedule.

Second, for those who have complained about audiobooks and print editions not releasing at same time as ebook editions… okay. You win.

Moving forward, releases will now happen in stages, with all retail vers...

What is coming out when???!

Dear humans,

It’s Zazzle. Remember me? No? Yeah, that female took over the blog for a long time. How dare she have thoughts and opinions of her own? Sooooo rude.

See? It’s my turn now.

We have been receiving a lot of questions about what books are coming out when. I have decided to answer these questions for you!

Rapid fire style.

Here we go!

Plaidypus?

May, middle of month. It’s this year’s birthday book. Patreon readers will get it earlier in May. The plan CONTINUES. A...

On Viral BookTok Theft.

Recently on BookTok (tiktok for books), someone decided to encourage people to steal books, claiming that everyone wins. Readers get to read, it doesn’t actually hurt authors… guess what? It hurts authors. It doesn’t even hurt Amazon because Amazon still gets some of the money. For basically free. Right out of the author’s pocket. So essentially, the authors are paying Amazon to let Amazon let these petty thieves ‘read for free.’

In short, if you consume a digital product for your entertainme...

Answering some questions regarding Audiobooks:

Hey, folks. I’ve had a lot of people sliding into my messages recently asking about audiobooks, so I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about them.

Q: There is no set schedule for audiobooks. Why?

A: These things are wretchedly expensive and are very slow to earn back. I can only produce them when prior audiobooks earn enough money to cover those expenses.At current, audiobooks earn me enough to contract them once every two months. I am not going to bankrupt myself or spend beyond my me...