Newsletters

Well, we're here, the most exciting Christmas news I've ever given! I finally did it, I launched a story, and have more on the way. "To Face a Lion" as of this morning should be available on basically any major retailer that sells ebooks, and a print copy will be available come February (on the seventh). More details and links can be found on the short stories page of my website, gdkhuffman.com, if you're interested in a quick read!

While this was just a short story, it helped me figure out the ins and outs of self publishing in a lower stress environment, now I have the tools necessary to feel confident moving forward with my larger projects. A theme you might note from me is that "larger" is still small for pieces of writing, but I am expecting my novella of an undetermined title back from my editor in the next month or so, and hopefully will be publishing it this spring or summer! I enjoy the shorter pieces of work, as a slower reader and writer it helps me actually finish a project. Though that doesn't mean I do not have larger projects that need attention either.

As being advertised on the website, my main project is the series originally titled "All 'round the King's Throne", though I may be renaming it to "Ode to Blood". This is a three book epic fantasy trilogy that I've spent the past decade writing, and am now working into a more manageable nine book novella series for me to work with. I intend to start working on this conversion process with the new year, and more details will come as I figure out my new writing schedule and immediate plans.

In non-writing news, one of the steps towards finishing my upcoming novella will be finishing my map. Pretty much all the stories I plan to publish all take place in the same world building project, and thus having a central map of said world on my website might prove useful to readers. So expect that within the next couple of months as well, probably with my next newsletter!

Exciting news today! The paperback version of "To Face a Lion" has launched for all you people who have been waiting for a copy you can hold in your hands! I even managed to place it at a reasonable price, however in doing so I could not sell it through Amazon. Every other major book retailer should be selling it though, and if one is not, let me know and I can see what can be done about that! More details can be found on my my website, gdkhuffman.com, along with links to retailers.

In other news, I also got back my upcoming Novella from my editor! I've done an overview of the revisions and plan to start working intensely on that next week. If I'm able to do edits at the same rate as my previous short story, I'd expect to finish sometime in April, with the book being published in May if all goes well. This is an estimate, not a promise, but I'm hoping to try and move at a little faster rate now that I'm doing this professionally, so we'll see!

Unfortunately, I'm still having troubles making the world map legible, so it was not ready with the release of this newsletter. It's covering so much information and ground, some of which is poorly understood by myself, that I'm having troubles getting it together properly. What might help me though, is not including the map of the whole world in my upcoming novella, and simply including a map of the important places directly pertaining to that story.

I still intend to launch my world map, but only on my website where I can keep it up to date, only including information I have fleshed out. With that said, I've been thinking of using that and my website to add a more interactive side to my writing. To be frank, I hate marketing, I don't want you to read my book because I manipulated you into doing so but because you have genuine interest in what I have to say.

The annoying thing is, you have to know about my work before you can know if you're interested! So to try and spread the word and exercise other forms of creative interest I have, I'm thinking of potentially launching a YouTube channel or similar discussing my world building and adding extra context for these stories, which my website can help host some of those materials, such as maps or diagrams (I even have parts of in universe recipes written if I want to take a cooking angle)!

All this would be entirely supplementary, but I know there are audiences for these things, and I feel much less bad telling you about my thought child than trying to convince you this was worth your money! I digress, however, these all are a lot of plans that take lots of time I do not have, so we'll see how I end up deciding to share my writing with the rest of the world.

In the meantime, thank you all my early followers, friends and family, for supporting me thus far! Hopefully in another month or two I'll have another announcement ready for you all, but until then!