Greetings wonderful followers,
I have some good news. I have received the final approval for the full cover and now Beyond the Code is finally going to the printers. It’s been a long road and now we are closer then ever to making Beyond the Code a real book. Thank you all for sticking with me on the journey. I hope you all love the finished product.
Kelsey Rae Barthel
Supporters of Crow’s Gambit I really need your help.
I’m sitting at my desk this lovely morning, watching the snow fall out the window of my mountainside home and feeling very grateful for all of you. This update is coming a little later than usual, and for that, I apologize. I was waiting to hear back on a few points so that this update could be a bit more substantial than the last few. And, it will be!
I have multiple exciting updates to share with you!
1) Developmental Edit Progress
Since my update at the end of October, I have concluded another round of developmental edit rewrites. The book is now back in the hands of my editor. He is going through one more time (he estimates this will take about two weeks), and then he plans to send the book to a beta-reader to get some third-party, objective feedback. We will then use that feedback to do one more pass before forwarding the book to a copy-editor.
2) Title change
While I like The Walls are Closing In (and we may still use it as a tagline for the book), we have decided that a different title is more marketable, provides a bit of mystery, and is catchier for the future selling of property rights (fingers crossed).
So, without further ado, the new title is:
The Seclusion
3) Genre Change
We are making a few changes to the plot and market the book as YA(Young Adult). This will only marginally change the story but will double the audience. It allows us to not only market the book to fans of books such as 1984, Fahrenheit 541, and The Handmaid’s Tale, but also to fans of books such as The Hunger Games and Divergent.
3) Release Date!
The book has been assigned a tentative release date and an ISBN number (this second part is probably not exciting to anyone but me).
The Seclusion is currently set to publish on:
October 2, 2018!
This is a bit later than I had hoped, but I am beyond thrilled that there is an official trajectory. Between now and then I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that the launch is a success.
One last note - the first two chapters on the book’s page have been updated to reflect the changes that we have been making. Feel free to check them out!
Until next time,
-Jacqui
Hello friends and supporters.
Well, NaNoWriMo has come and gone. It was not an altogether unprofitable month, though it was not as profitable as it should have been. I’m not sure who got the idea that the national novel writing month should be smack in the middle of the holiday season, but it’s not the most conducive of times for reaching lofty goals.
As I said, though, it was not unprofitable. I managed to write two full, reasonably sizeable chapters in Proteus, for one. As far as Tantalus Depths goes, I’d say I’m approximately 50% done with the current draft’s revisions. By that, I mean about 50% done with the changes I plan to make before turning the whole thing back over to my editor to see what he thinks of it. It’s possible he’ll want me to make additional changes at that point before we move to the next stage in the production process, but this draft is the one where the biggest changes will happen.
My current goal is to have this draft 100% finished by the end of the year. I doubt my editor will want to work on it during the holidays, but if I have work left to do at that point, I’m going to do it anyway. I am so ready to move ahead in this process it’s not funny. I really want to get through the monotony and frustration of editing so I can get back to the excitement of actual writing, but one thing at a time.
Hopefully my next update will signal the triumphant wrapping-up of my current draft and the next phase of the process. Stay tuned!