As the title says, approximately half an hour ago, I finished the rough draft of Halls of Power. At this point the process becomes easier in many ways, assuming I didn’t screw up by the numbers (always a possibility).
First I go through the book and correct obvious errors, like continuity errors. I’m already aware of one, and plan to fix it at a particular spot that requires almost no other adjustments. Once I’ve gone through the book, I’m going to hand it off to my Alpha Readers who will read it, and judge me accordingly. I’m somewhat terrified, due to how many people have read Ancient Ruins and Spells of Old.
After that I’ll revise problems. Then it goes out for another read, and I revise again. Then I send it to the editor. When I get the book back, I look through changes, and we’re pretty much done. I’m not going to guarantee an early release. At present I’m still planning on September 1st. However, if it’s done quickly enough, I’ll try to release it earlier.
That said, for the rest of the day I’m relaxing and celebrating having that much done.
Ancient Dreams 
Good job! Go rest and celebrate. We’ll be waiting.
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By ‘celebrate’, you mean stare at random pictures and pointless web pages, right? >_>
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Is there any other way?
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Hehe. I tried to game, couldn’t do that. Tried to read, couldn’t manage that, so for now I’m just relaxing. Tomorrow I’ll go through the opening chapters, then go up to see family. Hopefully will have it in the hands of the Alpha Readers by the end of the week.
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I am fairly sure that I should already know the answer but, at the risk of sounding ignorant…what is an alpha reader?
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It isn’t a problem! An Alpha Reader looks at my first draft material and points out flaws and mistakes. In a traditional publishing company, this is the role of one of their editing teams. Indies like me have to rely on friends and fans.
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Congratulations ;)
September is a good month for novels. August is way too hot to read much. Well, around here anyway.
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Hehe. I believe you. I live in Utah, and while we don’t get as hot as oh, Phoenix or other cities in the United States, we get plenty hot as well. I’m glad the rough draft is done, now to get it to the next stage as quick as is reasonable.
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Wooo! One step closer to more dungeon-y goodness! Congrats :D
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I’m curious, Ben. How do you know how much people read your books?
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A tiny bit of dungeon stuff… sadly, it had much less to do with this book than most. More focusing on the war and the mess that’s there. But hope you like it anyway.
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In all honesty? I’m guessing. An educated guess, but just a guess. It’s based on the numbers Amazon reports to me. For instance, I’m going to explain the numbers of what Ancient Ruins reported in June, from the Amazon.com store.
In June I had 157 sales, after a couple of returns, and 152,398 KENP. KENP stands for Kinde Edition Normalized Pages, or their odd standard of how long a ‘page’ is, considering some people read on phones, and others read on other devices. Anyway.
KENP only come from people who read via Kindle Unlimited, and it only counts each person once for reading. Now, Ancient Ruins is 706 KENP in length, so that means that approximately 217.09 copies of the book were read. I’m sure some of those were read about a chapter in, then abandoned, but I have no way of knowing. Add to that the 157 copies sold, and I can estimate about 374 people read Ancient Ruins in June.
Is this scientific? No. But it is a reasonable estimate, as a whole. I hope it answers your question!
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I have zero doubts that I will derive great enjoyment from reading this one when it comes out.
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Hey Ben, I think there are more.
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I feel the need to point out, that was just new readers in June, of Ancient Ruins. June has been the worst month for Ancient Ruins since January, and no one had even heard of me at that point. I had over 1,500 direct purchases in February. I could work out closer numbers if I really want to, but I’m focusing on editing the book for the moment.
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The end of spells of old had a feeling of transition from a dungeon book to more of a empire building with battles, since Kelvanis won’t be able to tolerate the new city. Also if you are in need of another Alpha reader I am a fan, also retired so I have the time and an eye for errors.
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So, when I write a story, I don’t go into it with a determination that the way I intend for it to end is the only way it can end. The seed of Ancient Ruins was the idea of, if I did a dungeon-based main character, how would I write it?
Things snowballed. Lily and Phynis were supposed to end up together, but didn’t. Plotlines changed. Kelvanis turned from a minor side-note (my original intention), to the major villain of the piece. Sistina went from completely amoral to somewhat benevolent. The number of changes that occurred over the course of the books are innumerable, and are happening even now (like me fixing a continuity error that I introduced in book 3, and barely noticed in time).
For Alpha Readers, I’m currently selecting them from those people who reviewed my ARCs and who were particularly helpful, as well as friends. I’ll do this each time, so if you’re on my mailing list, keep an eye out for my call for ARC readers. ^_^
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Is that a position we can apply for?
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Right now, and for a bit in the future, I select ARC readers from my mailing list. When I’m preparing the book for publication, I put up a form with a series of questions so people understand what I expect, then send a link to the form to everyone on my mailing list. I don’t select everyone, because one of my criteria is that I have to get a review on the new book after launch, and to decide I look at the review profile of the applicants and a review on my books.
That being said, I only rejected people for Spells of Old when their accounts didn’t link to their review, so they could’ve been linking anyone’s review and their account showed no reviews, and when they only put up 1 and 2 star reviews, or when the review is something like “It was great.”. I have absolutely no issue with someone posting negative reviews.
On the other hand, Alpha Readers are invitation only, as they see the earliest drafts of my work. There are two chapters in Halls of Power that may need to be curtailed drastically, because I’m not sure they add properly to the story, and I’m going to be asking the reviewers to look at it with a critical eye.
TL/DR: If you join the mailing list, you can apply to be an ARC reader. If you give really good feedback, I’m likely to offer an alpha reader position to you.
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