October 11 Update (Patreon)

On Tuesday, DH4 comes out in ebook and audiobook, so feel free to grab either one if you like! This series now has four out of five books released, with the concluding book coming out in early 2027.

Normally release days are a mix of exciting and draining, because on one hand it's a major project coming out, but on the other it means a lot of promotional work. All of it feels weird in a case like this, where the series is somewhat dead.

It'll still make a decent amount of money from the ebook, but the audiobook goes into the Audible advance void. Audible itself has definitely written off the series, though it's not like they ever did much to promote it in the first place. Even the considerable amount they paid for the rights is just pocket change to a corporation like that, so they gamble on authors like me and just drop them if they don't perform well.

I can understand that from a business perspective, but I want to make clear that none of my projects are money-making vehicles to me. Part of the reason I negotiated the way I did was so that readers could get a complete experience even in audio format. Same reason I went back and did a novella for The Brightest Shadow, even though that wasn't going to make much of anything. I'm passionate about my work and it's a privilege to be able to spend my time on things like this.

At the same time, I do need to eat and have enough money left over to pay a lot of artists. There's no danger of that not being the case right now, but as I look at all the different numbers bouncing around, I wish I could find a way to get through this stage of my career faster. Unfortunately, making a good first impression with a new project requires a lot of spending on production values, and so far I haven't ever succeeded in speeding up this part of the process.

(All this reminds me that I need to bundle up all the content on the Cognosticon account so that it isn't lost when I close that. I've been meaning to do this, since I know some fans will want it, but it never feels like it should be a priority when there are other things to do.)

Anyway, thank you all for supporting me in this. I hope I can continue putting out things that you think are worth it, and please rest assured that even if a given project doesn't take off, I'll do the best I can with it.