Update: Well, this is unexpected

Welcome to June! The cicadas are tapering off, we’ve had a run of truly splendid weather, and early summer is off to a good start. Friday afternoon, I took the dogs out to the arboretum — a fenced acre and a half where I’ve planted a good many trees and shrubs — and I thought you might like to try your eye at spotting an unusual addition to the day. Take a look:

See it? Look past the puppy and on the other side of the fence.

Yeah, I didn’t think you would be able to see it. Let’s try that again:

This fawn is indeed visible in the other photo, but you have to blow it up and look carefully. I coaxed the dogs to stay away from this area and then I was extra careful they did not poke their noses over in that direction as we left the arboretum. You can sure tell fawns have no scent, because the dogs had no clue. Pretty neat!

Okay, so also on Friday, I loaded the final version of RIHASI at Patreon and set the post to go live Sunday morning. Therefore, if you are a patron and haven’t picked it up, you might want to drop over there and download it. I’m SO looking forward to everyone getting a chance to read it! Those of you who read an earlier version will see that I’ve tweaked it in many small but imo important ways. Proofing really did turn a bit obsessive, but I expect that as always, there are just a couple typos in there somewhere. If you spot any, by all means let me know and I will correct the epub file and replace it at my Patreon.

That part of the weekend was expected. Here’s the first unexpected part:

You know the Death’s Lady BookBub promo ran on May 26th, and that I surrounded it with other promotions to help the sales build and then buffer the decline. This strategy, leading up to and away from BookBub promotions, is supposed to be useful in getting Amazon’s algorithms to continue to show the on-sale book to potential buyers. Well, I think that worked, because the omnibus continued to sell about a hundred copies per day for some days after all promotion stopped. It’s tapering off now, so I’m going to raise the prices. But not all the way. I’m making a stern mental note to raise the prices all the way later, but I’m going to leave the price pretty low for a week or two just to see how that works. Regardless, I can now say that this promotion definitely yielded a (small) direct profit and hopefully will lead to better sales moving forward, hopefully of everything.

Meanwhile, here’s the second unexpected part:

So, I was thinking about what story to write next for my newsletter. Several of you have made good suggestions about that, but because of the Death’s Lady promotion, that series was on my mind. Therefore, I’ve started a story from Taranah’s pov, set during the midwinter that follows the events of the trilogy and Shines Now. You remember Taranah? This is Taranah Beringilan-sa, the king’s aunt and also the the woman who — it is hinted — may be interested in more than friendship with Daniel.

This coming midwinter is rather fraught, I realized. For several different reasons. Lord Death will be walking abroad, in person. Tenai is likely to find memories of the past crowding her newfound peace. Besides that, midwinter is the time when the veil between the worlds thins to the point that Tenai could take Daniel back to our world … if he chooses to return. I wonder if he has quite made up his mind? Or whether, when faced with the option, he might change his mind? I bet Taranah wonders that as well.

I think this story may go long, but I do think I’m going to write it and bring it out, in installments, in my newsletter. Then, depending on how long it is, we’ll see.

I’m going to be putting more of my attention toward SILVER CIRCLE, which I have started re-reading, in preparation for writing the rest of it. But I will probably be continuing to work on this other DL’s story at the same time.

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