Welcome back, everyone! Hope you all had a fun but safe New Year’s Eve!
I took the last couple of weeks of 2020 off to rest and recharge my creative batteries a little, and think about the year ahead for me as a writer, and one of my goals is to ease off the throttle a little. I tend to push myself when working on a project and try to cram in as much writing as possible, and this year that led me to burn out a bit.
It also led me to neglect an important part of indie authorship, and that’s the business end of things. While sales this year were up overall, especially on the entire Action Figures series, I really didn’t do as much as I should have to promote my work, so I want to focus more there in 2021.
I’d also like to find time to work on some other ideas I’ve had knocking around in my head, but I’m not going to force that for the sake of my creative health.
And to get that particular ball rolling, let me first remind everyone that my short story Action Figures – An Adventure in Babysitting is part of The Superhero Mega Anthology, a massive collection of superhero short stories and comics now available for free! And each contributor is offering up additional bonuses, perks, and free giveaways, so download it now and check it out.
If that’s not enough, in a few months Beneath the Mask – A Superhero Romance Anthology will be available. That one will feature Like a Knife in the Heart, a new original pulp hero-style short story featuring my new character, the Sapphire Silhouette. Check back for release date announcements there!
WRITING PROJECTS
Action Figures – Secret Origins: Audiobook on hold until 2021.
Action Figures – Issue Ten: Unintended Consequences: Third draft is complete. Tentatively set for a winter/spring 2021 release.
Action Figures – Issue Eleven: Draft one underway. Scheduled for a winter/spring 2022 release.
The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Sworded Affairs: Audiobook recording is underway. Tentatively set for a winter/spring 2021 release.
The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Elfish Motives: Third draft of book five is finished. Tentatively scheduled for a spring/summer 2021 release.
APPEARANCES & EVENTS
- Arisia 2021 – January 15 – 18, 2021: This year’s convention will be a virtual event, and I’ll be part of the event’s virtual dealers room, which is active now! And I’ll be appearing on the Muppets: Most Wanted! virtual panel on Monday, January 18 at 11:30 AM.
MISC.
The New England Speculative Writers group has a new preview book for newsletter subscribers. Pick it up and read the opening chapters to Well-Behaved Women – Awakening and other stories.
If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a weekly newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.
InnsmouthLook.com 
I have a question for you. I usually do buy the omnibuses (omnibi?) of most series that I read if there is something in them that I don’t already have. Since I already have all 9 issues of Action Figures that have been released, should I buy the Omnibus that was just released for Action Figures (Volume 1: Stepping Up)?
LikeLike
In terms of new material, the omnibus has a foreward by my fellow indie author Patrick Hodges and a new introduction by me. The stories themselves are largely what you’ve read before, IF you have versions of books one through three printed in 2019 or earlier. My regular editor Julie, who joined my team with book four, went through the first three books to give them a fresh edit, so the text is slightly revised from the original editions. The stories are substantially the same, and any changes are fairly minor and mostly cosmetic.
LikeLike