The Avatar’s Flames is currently sitting at just over 77,500 words, and I hope to finish the rough draft this week. I’m not certain I will, but it has even odds, though those odds are reduced if the week goes like the last one. I’m recovering from having a tooth extracted, and the side effects have impacted my ability to focus. I’m hoping to get back to normal, though.

I have a couple of things to share this week, so I figure I’ll lead with the news that’s mixed, rather than the good news.

I try not to let everyone know when I see issues affecting authors because it’s not really about my books. It’s about other stuff that doesn’t usually matter or affect me. However, recent decisions by Amazon have made me uncomfortable with publishing exclusively through them, so this does affect my books. To make a long story short, several authors were banned for ‘manipulating page reads’ in Kindle Unlimited, and a very large number had their page reads cut in half. In some cases this amounted to thousands of dollars of income that was removed without the author having done anything wrong at all. I was fortunate enough not to be caught up in this, but it’s made me re-evaluate my plans.

I’m not pulling out of Amazon. I just want to make that clear. What I’m doing is starting to publish my books on other storefronts, starting with Born a Queen and Down with the Queen. This means that the books will no longer be available in Kindle Unlimited as their 90-day enrollments end, and I’ll start publishing them on other platforms in mid-July. Ancient Ruins is currently available via Prime Reading in Australia, and will be until December, which requires me to stay in Kindle Unlimited, so I’m leaving the trilogy in KU until that’s finished, then I’m going to start publishing it on other storefronts.

You might wonder what this means for my new series. Well, for the next year at a minimum, unless Amazon changes things to be more punitive, all my new releases will still be released in Kindle Unlimited for 90 days, then I’m going to start publishing it in other storefronts. If you borrow a book during that period, I believe it stays borrowed until you return it, so it shouldn’t impact your ability to finish it. Next June I’m going to re-evaluate what to do based on the current publishing climate.

That’s everything on the mixed news.

Now that that’s out of the way, on to better news. I commissioned artwork of a major antagonist of Through the Fire from June Jenssen, Essryl Demara. This was finished this past week, and it may end up being the cover of the last book of the trilogy, currently tentatively titled The Obsidian Palace. I ordered two versions, both of which are below. I think they’re lovely, so wanted to share. I hope everyone has a great week!