Updates: the Winter Solstice Edition

I actually started writing this yesterday but got bogged down by chores to get the whole thing done. Anyway...

Hello, winter! I love me some longer dark hours, so I'm going to milk what's left of this weekend for all its worth. It's all going to be lighter and lighter from here on, so yep -- enjoy the moody season while I can.

image taken from Pinterest, no artist's name given

I've already set up the calendar for the first "Backlist Bonanza" 50% off sale for January, 2025. I plan to do this every month throughout the year (in addition to the normal release schedule I have set up already) and will be making this a yearly cycle. 

There'll be two books per month that I'll be discounting, and that'll include all the books in the Curiosities, Arcana Europa, and Miscellaneous Books collections. That totals 24 books all in all, which will give me a tidy schedule of two discounted books per month. Easy peasy!

Since I'm only dedicating my gallery pages to my Grotesqueries collection and the sequels to Ghosts and Tea, these monthly sales will allow me to talk up my backlist (most of it) for the benefit of new readers or those who've yet to try books they haven't read. So, yeah -- each month-long sale promo will take the place of what would have been the books' gallery pages in a way, and I'm even considering spreading the information throughout the month and not just limit the write-ups to one day per book. 

The past couple or so months gave me the time and space (sort of on the space thing) to reflect on what I've accomplished so far and where I hope to go. What also helped me turn down that path was my rereading of Nightshade's Emporium, a book that deviated from my original plan because I was in the process of writing the book when my youngest nephew died. 

I dedicated that book to him if you've read it and spotted his name in the dedication page. His loss was a massive blow to the family because of the circumstances surrounding his death as well as his age at 17. So the book turned into me dealing with grief, which affected the book's trajectory, and I ended up dumping all the notes I initially wrote for the book. I'm very happy with the results even if the journey from start to finish was quite heavy on philosophical ruminations on mortality. 

Anyway, I'm hoping to settle back down to a more straightforward way of telling a story even if the plot involves complicated issues that I want to explore in a book. This year ends with Voices in the Briars, which is also pretty heavy on issues that mean a lot to me, and that'll carry over though hopefully with a lighter touch next year with the new books in the pipeline. 

And speaking of losses, it looks like my forays into the Nightshade world are shadowed by grief. For The Perfect Rochester, it's my oldest sister who succumbed to brain cancer back in June, and it's to her I'm dedicating this book. Appropriately enough -- just like it was when Kai passed away -- this book fits her since it's more outwardly a rom-com, and she was the romantic of the family. 

I mentioned before that I'm tempted to dive back into the Nightshade world down the line with future adventures. Hopefully with no more heavy losses on my end. But the urge to follow through is real, and it'll mean some rescheduling of other books in the pipeline since it appears my dips into the Nightshade world happen once a year. Huh.