Hello, all!

Release day for Curio Citizen is fast approaching! So fast, in fact, that I forgot to update you about a slight delay. The original release date was February 11th, but due to a delay in the proofreading process, the new release date is February 25th. Thank you for your patience!

The manuscript and cover are off to the printer! Here is the final cover spread, featuring some sweet advanced reviews, that you all will get to see in PERSON on February 25th!!

Please remember to update your address on the Inkshares website if you haven’t already done so! Thank you!

Best wishes,

Katherine

Happy birthday, Tantalus Depths!

Can you believe it? My firstborn book child is officially one year old today! It feels so surreal. On the one hand, it’s hard to believe the more than a dozen conventions, book fairs, and author events I’ve been to have all happened in just a year. But on the other hand, the excitement I feel when I think about the fact that I’m a real, fully-published author now is just as fresh as it was the day I stepped up onto that auditorium stage at Kent Trumbull at my launch event to read excerpts to all my friends and supporters.

We’ve come so far since then, selling hundreds of copies (possibly thousands, counting the audiobook), gathering so many glowing reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, making connections with amazingly talented authors from all over the country, and sharing my love of books and writing with crowds of people at convention panels and on podcasts.

I wanted to celebrate Tantalus Depths’s one year anniversary with something special, and it just so happens I’ve been holding on to something for just such an occasion. A year ago, I recorded a one-on-one interview with Andi Arndt, the incredibly talented narrator who recorded the beautiful audiobook of Tantalus Depths. I originally meant to release this during launch week, but due to some technical difficulties (and me being generally way overcommitted with other launch week projects), I wasn’t able to get it out on time. It’s too big of a thing to share just any time, so I’ve been waiting for a special occasion to release it. And what’s more special than my one-year anniversary as a published author?

You can listen to our interview right here:

Thank you all so much for sticking with me through this first year. I promise there’s plenty more to come. October has a lot of spooky fun in store, kicking off with the insane four-day extravaganza of Con on the Cob on the 5th-8th, my return to the wonderful Pan Yan bookstore for their Halloween Spooktacular on the 14th, and the Ohio Author’s Kickback on the 21st.

Here’s to the next year! I promise you, I’m just getting started.

Hi, everyone! A quick update as to next steps: Inkshares has my manuscript and will be reviewing it within the next two months. After that, it goes into editing, proofreading, copyediting, etc. These steps take a considerable amount of time and also depend upon how many manuscripts are ahead of mine in the queue. Once those steps are complete, we will do the cover design, layout, back cover, and all the other fine tuning. The process is a marathon not a sprint, despite my drive for this book to get into your hands asap. The most important thing is that we get it right, so I am trying to be patient! I will update you as things progress, but rest assured, it’s going to happen! Thank you for your patience and support!

Sonja

*Blows cloud of dust off of blog.*

Oof. Have I seriously gone four months without an update? Yikes. Big yikes. Better fix that right now. In case you were thinking no updates meant nothing was going on...yeah, no. Honestly, I’ve had so much going on in the book world I haven’t had time to write an update until now, so buckle in for a LOT of news.

The first bit of news: I have a new short story out! It’s called Neurophage, and it’s part of Writing Bloc’s new Mythos anthology. I mentioned it in prior updates here and there, but I don’t think I ever actually mentioned it had come out. Well, it’s here now, and it’s amazing, so please give it a look!

Another big bit of news: I’ve already achieved two of my major goals for this year. If you’ll remember back in January, I set some New Year’s writing resolutions. One of them was to get up to 50 ratings for Tantalus Depths on Amazon, and another was to go to at least ten promotional events this year. Well guess what? As of right now, Tantalus Depths is up to 56 ratings on Amazon, and after this weekend’s visit to Akron Geekfest, I’ve been to a total of twelve events this year! And I’m still planning for plenty more of both!

My writing goals aren’t coming along nearly as swiftly, but I have been working at that too. I’ve been making slow but steady progress writing the next book, Proteus. My goal is still to finish it by the end of the year, but I am definitely not able to promise that. I will say, though, I am feeling really good about what I’ve written. Proteus is going to be a very different novel from Tantalus Depths, but I think it’s going to be something really special that you’re all going to love.

Another big thing that happened this summer: I’ve been on two podcasts! I had a great time chatting with the wonderful people at The Worldshapers Podcast and Drinking With Authors about my book, the writing process, other books I love, and all manner of things. You can find both podcasts on all the major podcast platforms, so give them both a listen!

Other than Akron Geekfest this weekend, I took a bit of a book break last month. This was partially to give the creative portions of my brain the chance to rest so I don’t burn myself out, but it was also partially out of necessity. I had very little free time over the past several weeks because I was one of the stars in a stage musical. That was a little gift to myself. I love the theatre, even though I rarely have the time to commit to a production, and I felt like I needed to take some time to devote to another of my passions for a bit. It was a bucket list role in a bucket list play: Nostradamus in Something Rotten, and I had the great honor of performing it a few weeks ago with my friends at Curtain 440. It was a wonderful experience, and I think I made the right choice by devoting some time to that production and letting my writing take a back seat for a few weeks. It set me back a bit in my writing goals, but it also stimulated my creativity and gave me the chance to recharge and refocus. I’m getting back into writing mode now, and I’m feeling fresher than ever.

So that’s where we are now. What can we expect going forward? Well, quite a bit. I may have hit my goal for promotional events this year already, but I still have a bunch more lined up, starting up again next month. As always, you can find an updated schedule of my upcoming appearances on the "Events" page of my website, so hop over there if you want to see what I’m up to next. Obviously, I’m planning to get back to writing, and I’m aiming to make my work writing Proteus my primary focus for the rest of the year. Beyond that, who knows what’s going to happen next? I’ll try to do better about sending updates more frequently, but if you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s probably safe to assume I’m not writing an update because I’m writing a book instead. That sounds like a fair excuse to me.

We are in the home stretch! 35 days to go and just under 300 preorders still needed. That means I need ten per day to meet my goal. Thank you all for your support- I could not and cannot do this alone. These last 300 are going to be the toughest- my network is tapped. If you know anyone who enjoys a good book, is looking for something for their book club, or just likes to be cool by supporting independent artists, send them my way. At 500 preorders, Chapter 4 will be posted under the READ tab on the preorder page. At 750, production will begin! We can do this!

All my thanks,

Sonja