R.J. Blain's Blog, page 4

Bonus Assignment: Map Making #150Daysto100K

While everyone is germinating on where their novels are going, here is a bonus assignment for those of you who are going to be writing and creating their own world for their project.

Draw a very rough map with your climate zones, kingdom boundaries, and the names of the particularly important kingdoms/regions.

I will be creating maps for the interior of the books for fun, but I happen to own the software and tools, although I did get a replacement basic Wacom tablet to simplify some of the...

Assignment 2: Decide Your Novel’s End Goal (150 Days to 100k; #150Daysto100k)

Yesterday, in Assignment #1, I spent more time showing my tools than giving you a task, which boiled down to ‘known your genre, know your vibe’ before you start writing. I know that pacing is slow for those who want to dive in and start making the magic happen, but I’m of the opinion that faster isn’t always better, and setting up for success is important to make it through a project like this.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and I’m hoping that if I can distill the process into bite-sized mor...

Assignment 1: Basic Conceptualizing of a Novel. (150 Days to a 100,000 Word Novel Challenge) #150Daysto100k

To those of you who don’t like receiving numerous blog posts a day, I’m sorry! I’m starting a project, and I want to invite everyone who has ever wanted to take a stab at writing a book to join me.

The 150 Days to a 100,000 Word Novel Challenge is just that; it’s 150 days of plotting, writing, and editing challenges to help you write a full-length novel! Note: some of you may finish sooner, some of you may need longer. I honestly don’t know if I’ll need more or less than 150 days to do this p...

More on Changes to Print Editions (Plus an Expanded ROI chart with a nicer legend)

I’m moving ahead with discontinuing the 4.25×7 trim size (And I genuinely apologize to the 10-15 of you who were buying that size over the period of a year; I wish I could keep maintaining the trim size, but the reality is, with the price hikes, the 10-15 has dwindled closer to 5-10, and 5-10 purchases simply don’t cover expenses.)

To make limit the risk of people continuing to purchase that trim size (for significantly higher expense) than the 6×9, I’ve put in a distribution removal order wi...

The Economics of Writing Books (with practical numbers)

Hey, folks!

So, I am preparing to schedule my writing activities for the rest of the year and figure out what I will be publishing in 2026. As such, I needed to figure out what my profitable series/books are.

So, I made a spreadsheet. And I was pretty cruel about it, I’m not going to lie. I calculated how long it takes me to write a 100,000 word book, and then I did some fancy math so I knew exactly how much, per word, I needed to be paid from that book to cover my living expenses from the...

Susan Copperfield Books (Signed) for Charity Collection

For the Susan Copperfield fans out there… there is a set of fourteen signed books up for grabs in the charity auction as well. Sorry for the second post. The auction organizers did not communicate with me regarding how they separated the books I donated, so… I had to go snoop around to see what was going on. So, yeah. Here’s an auction for the Susan Copperfield fans!

Signed Collection of Books for Charity Auction!

This is one of the few times you can get a SIGNED collection of my books! At the time this was shipped to the charity organizer, it was every single mass market version of my books I had available. So, it’s like 5 dozen books or something like that. … at least, I think it’s mass market sized. Honestly, I have no freaking clue in hell at this point. It happened right at the start of the moving process, and that part of my brain is fried.

This was organized before the mass markets were to be di...

I will be discontinuing 4.25×7 Print Size (with a caveat)

Greetings, folks.

The day I really didn’t want to come has. Ingram has essentially priced everybody out of certain formats of books, and in my case, the 4.25×7 ones are the victims.

Here’s the reality of the situation: the 4.25×7 costs $10-20 more per title to purchase than the 6×9 edition.

People, and rightfully so, just do not want to buy books that expensive without them being a hardback.

So, I will gradually be phasing out the 4.25×7 editions. Series that are already printed in 4...

A Light in the Dark (Audrey Greene) is out in Audiobook Format on Patreon!

A Light in the Dark is narrated by Keira Grace.

Please click here to purchase in the Patreon Store. Cindercorns and Spicy Ponies with Bite receive a copy of the book. (Joining these tiers will allow you access to the mp3s, as they are not delivered by BookFunnel.)

The yearly floods in Stonecreek inevitably claim lives, but when Valerie pulls a refugee from the turbulent waters, she uncovers a dark secret about her home.

For most, there is sanctuary to be had in their high-walled hom...

Happy Book Birthday, the Prince of New York! (Plus answering Faith Hunter’s short story challenge and other news!)

The Prince of New York has hit ereaders for those who have preordered, and it is rolling out to everybody as this is posting! (It is 10:30 on May 15, and yes, I’m posting my new release post early. I am getting up early in the morning to go on my ADVENTURE. HOORAY!!!!)

His Royal Highness Prince Ian Ambrose of New York longed to fade into the background and vanish following the supposed deaths of his parents and the rise of his sister to Queen of New York. While serving as his sister’s adv...