
Good day! For all of you who so generously pre-ordered Bane of All Things those many moons ago, this update is for you. (If you did already hear from me earlier today about the sequel, The Crucible Tree, this is a whole different update.)
First, I want to again thank you for being so patient. Getting BoAT into your hands has taken far longer than I had hoped. COVID-19 is the principal culprit.
What’s happening now?
At present, BoAT is off to copy edit – its last nitpicking round of editing.
As I am writing this, Avalon Radys, Inkshares’ Director of Editorial & Publishing Operations, has emailed me a tip sheet to fill out. A tip sheet is one of the essential marketing pieces for a book. We will see how my notes compare to hers.
Cover design will be next – I can’t wait to see how this goes and who will be the cover artist! When it is ready, you will be the first to see. (That cover below which you have become so accustomed to is just a placeholder by me using an Adobe Stock image.)
So, what does this mean for you?
I had hoped by now to provide a firm release date you could mark on your calendar. I can’t yet, but I will soon – the Inkshares’ team is making that determination right now.
What I can say is that we are now aiming for a December-January release window.
I know, that seems a looong way off. Trust me when I say I feel your pain – I live it. On the other hand, that gives us plenty of time to get this done right – to ensure a jaw-dropping cover design and make sure those reviewers and bookstore buyers are suitably wooed and wowed. Build as much advance buzz and anticipation as possible.
Why the delayed release?
As I have said before, the past year has been good for established authors as people do more reading while under quarantine lockdown. For new authors who are not yet established, the disruption of the publishing industry and the impact on brick-and-mortar retail made it a not-so-good time to release a first book.
For these reasons, Inkshares choose to delay most of the titles it had planned to release through the last half of 2020 and the first half of 2021.
But the end is in sight. Inkshares is ramping up for a slew of new releases through the latter half of this year.
Inkshares’ sales and marketing team wants to avoid rushing this backlog of releases out the door too fast. They want to make sure that every new title, including mine, gets its fair share of marketing and promotion. I can’t argue with that.
Meanwhile, I continue to work away on revisions to the next book in the series, The Crucible Tree. If you haven’t yet checked it out, you can find and Follow it here.
Thank you again for making all this possible. I truly hope you will be pleased with the result and satisfied that the wait was worth it.
Stay safe and keep reading!
Cheers
Leo

Inkshares Update: January 7th, 2021
It’s been eight months since my last update and I keep clicking my heels together and still flying monkeys rain down upon us spewing their virulent exhortations. Anyway, without rehashing the obvious that we’re all living, I did want to bring to your attention that Dean Fearce hasn’t given up. MINE is at this point in time still a viable work in progress and I thank you one and all for your patience and support. If something truly remarkable changes in the manuscript’s status, you will be the first to know. But do know this: I’ve produced another one-hundred thousand words in a single document and they are far better with more amazing characteristics than any previous thousands upon thousands of words I’ve strung together, creating multitudinous documents before they went to their final resting place at the bottom of a litter box. Requiesce in pace. But, that’s just my opinion so we shall wait upon the prophecy as foretold by the man behind the curtain to reveal the true nature of such a thing. You see, writing is easy. Creating delightful characters is harder. Stringing chapters together with continuity and a plot line that serves those characters with an arc that truly delivers them somewhere over the rainbow is harder still. I won’t even bring up those wicked witch revisions. And yes I do go on. It amuses me. I do so hope it amuses you but I still have my day job in any event. Hope you are safe and healthy and I love you all. Now go follow those writers in the 2020 All-Genre Manuscript Contest. Oh-Ee-Yah! Ee-Oh-Ah!