Do you like shiny objects?
Hey, it’s Ran, Sarn’s son from the Curse Breaker series. But I’m not the little boy from the series. Actually, I am him or I was when I was little. But I grew up a bit and you’ll see what I mean when you read the three books in the Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series.
(Melinda says it’s not finished yet, but I told her she should fix that and go write it! Melinda also says hello.)
So yes, this is Future Ran, but I’m just going to call myself Ran since that is my name.
Thank you for taking the poll last week. I think the next step is to set up an interest form where we can ask questions about what sort of adventure we should go on and what you might like to do at a fan event. So we can gather more info and I can make lists of things to pester the scribe for. So that will come in a future newsletter because a shiny object distracted me this week.
Do shiny you like shiny objects too?
I hope so because I need to talk about a shiny object this week. I promise it relates to books!
In between jumping through portals, dodging digital dragons, and helping my younger self with an important time-sensitive quest that you can read all about in Book Battles, book 2 of the Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series, I discovered holographic foil.
Did you know that was a thing?
I didn’t know foil could shine different colors. I didn’t know it was an option. It might be a new option though. I can’t rule that out since I don’t normally help the scribe order books.
(She was placing orders for the His Angelic Keeper Kickstarter and part of the process involved uploading new files for the printer with the pretty backer thank you 2-page spread, and that was when I saw it. But I digress.)
Help might be too strong of a word for what I was doing since I was also bugging Melinda for page time as usual until I saw it, and it was love at first sight.
Obviously, I had to know what this magic was. Melinda kindly moused over the example video so I could see the preview of a book with holographic foil.
And it was so pretty. It shimmered gold, silver, hints of red, and I saw flashes of other colors but they moved too quickly so I couldn’t identify them. It was pure light magic in book form!
And I wanted that holographic foil on my books right now.
Melinda, being Melinda (bless her Scribe heart, she worries about things like "budgets" and "printing costs"), pointed out that the books in our Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series aren't super long. If we made individual hardcover books with this amazing holographic foil, and someone wanted all three, it might be expensive.
What about an omnibus? Then all three books could be gathered into a single, beautiful, holographic-foiled hardcover and there’d only be one upcharge for holographic foil instead of one charge per book. That makes it more cost-effective.
Melinda just reminded me that the second book is not done yet and she hasn’t even started the third one yet. But that’s her job, so she’ll be a good scribe and sort that out. It’s never to early to think about holographic foil. Am I right?
Melinda grumbled something that sounded like an excuse, but I grabbed her phone and did some searching. And do you know what?
I couldn’t find any pictures or videos of any books that used the holographic foil from this printer. We could be the first. I might have daydreamed about that for a while Melinda ordered books.
So, I convinced her we should be the first that we know of to use the option. (It wasn't that hard, actually. I think she liked the idea too, but she needed a little push.) She’s agreed to at least mock something up.
We couldn't quite figure out how to get the true holographic effect in a digital mock-up, since that preview moved so fast, but I'm confident when she finally holds that shimmering book, it will be amazing.
She reminded me again that she still has to finish writing the trilogy. (She says she's wrestling with the closing chapters of Book 2, Book Battles, so I told her to write faster!). And then she has to format the omnibus and actually order a copy to see this holographic magic in person.
So, no pressure. (Okay, maybe just a little pressure. Don't tell her I said that.)
In the meantime, you don't have to wait for the super shiny omnibus to catch up on our adventures! You can read the first book, Catch the Scribe, and the second, Book Battles, right now on Patreon. And Book Battles is also live on Substack.
Read Ahead
Chapters 1-35 from Book Battles.
Chapters 36-40 for Book Battles will publish this week!
Don’t miss out. All paid subscribers who have been subscribed to either Patreon or Substack for at least one month will get an early ebook copy of Book Battles when it’s done and edited. (Estimated delivery: July 2025)
Melinda says the third book, Rogue Characters, will be posted soon on both platforms too. So get ready!
That's it for now! I'm off to find another great idea for Melinda to implement!
Until then, keep reading, keep dreaming, and maybe one day this shiny holographic omnibus will sit on your bookshelf. I can dream, right?
Have an awesome week! See you next Monday.
This is Future Ran, signing off!
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Get the brand new Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series which transforms our early newsletter adventures into 3 brand new novels! Follow the campaign for details. (Estimated launch date is early September 2025 but this is dependent on Ran not going off on too many side quests in book 3.)