Firlefanz

Today, I finally received the cover for "Sky Falls", Book 2 in the Pillars of the Empire series. And let me tell you, it looks gorgeous.

It took me a while to gather enough energy, but I finally uploaded the ebook to Amazon, Google Play Store and Draft2Digital (which distributes to a huge bunch of other bookstores, including Apple and Kobo). Also uploaded the print files to Amazon. Right now, the book is wending its way through all the servers. I hope I can create a Books2Read link tomorrow, which is a very neat universal link where you can pick where you want to buy the book from.

I'll also share the cover here, but I will post about the release in the other thread about new books tomorrow.

I'm also quite wiped today, and very glad it's almost the weekend. Hope I can focus on writing soon.

Enjoy the cover!

No writing today, but some plotting. I know more about the second Penumbra book now, and more about Dio (the Warrior).

Biggest task was migrating my MailerLite account, so I can keep sending email through the system. It looks fairly good, but I'm still struggling a little with the new authentication thingie that Google created.

I dug deep into the DNS settings of my domain, that was scary. I'm almost there, at least, so that's something, especially considering I'm not an IT specialist.

I'm gradually working my way out of Frazzletown, and I can tell you, I'm much relieved.

Now wish me and my cover designer luck, so I can publish Sky in the next few days.

Today was definitely more productive. Took care of one other frazzling thing (which means there is one big one left, I'll tackle that tomorrow). I read through my spicy shifters, and though I already have 45k in that story, it's not even near being finished. I have to fill in a LOT of plot, probably another 20k words.

So I might just shove it back on the backburner and look at the Vampires and Sun next.

I did go and formatted Sky, because I promised that on Mastodon. Now I just have to get the cover, and I can finalize and upload. Getting rather excited about it all!

Today was mostly a recovery day after the insanity that was yesterday.

Yesterday, I did my day job, had a meeting in the afternoon, was accosted by salesguys, and finally watched a presentation on climate change and fake news by one of the most eminent climate scientists in Germany, Mojib Lativ. That was utterly fascinating.

Writer Brain then proceeded to make my life hell with worst-case scenarios about the sales thing, keeping me awake for a large part of the night. I made phone calls this morning and got it sorted.

Tiny bit of editing done for the spicy shifters. I'm still really liking the story, but next is a bed scene, and right now I just can't... Maybe I'll just leave the reminder there for now.

But! I can share the three covers for the Vampire series that I'm currently (not) writing. They are so awesome, they motivate me.

(If you read this on Mastodon, I hope you can click through to Lemmy to see it.)

Another rather frazzling day, including a visit from a Telekom press gan... information team. They almost managed to make me sign up for a provider change. Remembered just in time to ask for a break so I could think it through.

Nice guys, though, and they totally lost it when they saw my sword and dagger, and took my author business cards. With a bit of luck, I'll end up selling books to them.

In much nicer news, I have received the first three covers for Penumbra, and they look awesome. I just need to put them into a good thing to share here.

Also, saw the first draft of the new Sky cover, and it's just awesome and perfect and beautiful. Will also share asap.

Oh, and I wrote 700 words for my spicy shifters this morning. Yay.

For now, I'll curl up with a comfort book and hope I can actually sleep this night...

Tired today, so it'll be an early bedtime again.

However! I bought three covers for my vampire series Penumbra (premades, so I can't show them off just yet). And my designer showed me a preview of the cover for Sky and I totally love it!

So there will be cover reveals quite soon, and that makes me rather happy.

Also did some proofreading, will finish that tomorrow. Fascinating read.

It's been a good day.

Not really focusing on what I should be doing. Instead, I ran the first two Zell books through Atticus and gave them a new interior look. Will do the rest soon, as well. (The Franssisi Four Chronicles, Zell is the name of the MC.)

I also added some words of warning to Decoy, so people know what they are getting into...

Most of all, however, I fixed the sketchy layout of the backmatter and updated the graphics with the new Wolf book. That was very satisfying.

Have a screenshot of the new Zell look.

The Indie Ink Awards have declared the finalists for this year. And well, Dragon Prey is out of the running.

Even so, I want to thank everyone who voted for my book. You believed in me and that tale, and that means a lot to me.

If you can, spread the word about my books, help me find more fans - and I promise, I'll write more tales. Of dragons, mages, shifters... all of them feel-good stories.

Yesterday, my sister came for a very short visit, on her way back from Aarhus in Denmark.

I cleaned, and then I spent a wonderful afternoon with her walking town, and a chilled evening watching Mando and Boba Fett. It was great and I totally enjoyed it.

This morning, I was wiped. Which turned today into a recovery day, at least after I went to the train station with her to send her off. (She got home well.)

I wrote all of 50 words, but I wrote! (For the spicy shifters.) Played Titan Quest, read a comfort book, spent quite some time snuggled in a blanket. Tonight, the brain fog finally lifted.

So I plan to format Sky tomorrow, which involves creating the actual chapter graphic and then dumping it all into Atticus. Then I'll be able to tell my cover designer how many pages the book has.

We'll see how that works out.

Finished the fixing for Sky (shoot, just remembered a plot hole that needs a couple of sentences to fix), think I can format the book tomorrow. Cover has been commissioned, waiting for a response from the designer. Hope we can finalize that by the end of the month. So looking forward to publishing Sky.

No writing. Just don't have the brainspace.

Struggled with my Kindle for a while, until a website suggested rebooting it. That finally made it possible to download the book I wanted to read tonight - and then didn't.

See you all tomorrow!

No writing today, either.

Ran my Author Mastermind group (love my friends), edited Sky some more and updated the backmatter for one of my Dragon books. That matters, as I added my new books (just remembered I missed one or two), and created a page to point readers to the next series in the same world. With a bit of luck, I'll get more read-through that way. It's often the simple things that matter in marketing.

Other than that, I survived five hours of massive honking and rumbling as another farmers' protest ran back and forth along the street where I live. Disgusting. (That does me in because I'm autistic, and all that noise just upsets my brain. I can't cut it out either, though, because not knowing what is going on makes me feel unsafe.)

Anyway, it passed, and I have recovered, mostly. More chores tomorrow. It's also Newsletter Day, so if you want to learn more about my writing, grab some free books and read a cute little tale about my red dragon familiar, you can sign up here:

https://www.hannah-steenbock.de/newsletter-signup/

Thank you. I just don't want to disappoint anyone - and I know some people worry if I don't say anything for a while. 🧡