Good Book News You Can Share!
Get updates on Rogue Characters, Storm Spells, the upcoming launches of both and everything else going on behind the scenes.
Hi! Welcome back for more magical mayhem! (Also known as our weekly newsletter. :)
I’m Ran, son of the nicest mage you’ll ever meet. But he’s also the quietest mage you’ll ever meet, so if he doesn’t talk to you, don’t get mad. I have to pull words out of him too. Papa thinks a lot of things, but we can get inside his head in the Curse Breaker Series.
Most of the time, he’s thinking about how to keep me safe, so that’s okay. I need lots of protection, especially in my latest adventures when we face off against an evil version of our scribe who’s an black hat hacker and a self-styled evil queen with disturbing powers of her own.
If you read Dragon Spells or Rogue Spells, then you know I’m talking about Dysteria. Although in those books, I didn’t know she was a hacker. I found that out in the prequel series, Tales of a Curse Breaker in NY, which includes the following books:
Catch the Scribe - 100% done
Book Battles - 100% done
Rogue Characters - 98% done!
Yes, you read that right!
Rogue Characters is almost done. That 2% left is the final editing and formatting. The last 4 chapters will publish this week to Substack and Patreon, and that’s exciting.
Did I get a side quest?
Kind of. I'm in the side quest chapters, but I'm not the main character or the point of view character for them. Who is?
I'd tell you but that would spoil the surprise. So I'll let you find out when you read the book. If you’re a paid subscriber, then you’ll find out on Thursday. But I’m pretty sure you can guess.
And no, Papa is not the main character or the point of view character for the side quest. He had enough adventuring in the real world and he rushed through the portal to go back to our world.
Am I mad about not being the hero of the side quest? No because something cool and totally unexpected happened in it. Well, it was unexpected for me. You'll have to let me know if you guessed that would happen because I didn’t see it coming. I know my scribe didn’t either. She told me so.
Do you know what else this means?
Chapters from Storm Spells will publish to paid subscribers on Patreon and Substack starting on Thursday Sept. 4!
(Storm Spells is the 3rd book in the Curse Breaker’s Companion Series, which includes Dragon Spells and Rogue Spells.)
📬 Want Early Access?
Paid subscribers get:
4 chapters per week of Melinda’s current WIP (Rogue Characters, book #3 of the Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series)
New ebooks months before the public release
Behind-the-scenes updates just like this
🔓 Subscribe here:
Will I get a side quest at the end of Storm Spells?
I don't know. Melinda only has about 8 chapters that she feels are set and won’t change much except for edits for typos and things. So we’re nowhere near the end of the book yet. We still need to reconnect with our fellow adventurers since we’re still scattered about at this point in the story and pursuing our own quests.
But I'll lookout for opportunities. If I don’t get a side quest at the end of Storm Spells then I'll get more opportunities next year since there are more Curse Breaker books coming!
Plus, there will be some fun books that branch off from these newsletter adventures. So possibilities for side quests abound!
I don’t have concrete details yet to share for them because Storm Spells needs to end in a way to make them possible. So keep opening my weekly newsletter to check for details! You know I’ll share them as soon as I know they will happen.
What about that poll?
Thanks for taking another poll last week. The results were pretty close:
58% prefer 2-book omnibuses
42% prefer 3-book omnibuses
So we need to think about how to manage that. I’ll have more questions soon, but not today.
It’s confusing putting this campaign together since Dragon Spells published in 2020 and Rogue Spells published in 2021 and at the time, we just had vague plans and lots of vibes for other books in that series but no concrete plans.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I had plans, but Melinda didn’t know about them. I didn’t tell her my plan because that would have spoiled the surprise.
Don’t worry. There’s a note at the end of Rogue Characters that will answer all the questions that just popped into your mind. I’m still writing that, but it’ll be in the final version of the book.
So you can read about how exactly we ended up here with two trilogies and and six books telling on massive but very epic story about how we found out we had a scribe and how we saved our world by publishing our books and finding you, wonderful readers. Every time you read our books or talk about us, you make us even more real!
Thank you for that! I like existing. It’s a lot of fun.
But Dragon Spells and Rogue Spells are right in the middle of the new books Melinda wrote/is writing. So it didn’t make sense to do two kickstarters when the 6 books tell one big story arc. And we want to get the books into your hands as quickly as possible. So that makes things complicated. But we’re up to the challenge!
Behind the Scenes News
Melinda doesn't want to admit that the Kickstarter campaign will probably launch in November. But I just don't see how it can run sooner. She needs to finish writing Storm Spells before we can even think of locking in a launch date.
There are also some things happening behind the scenes with her day job. Since that job pays all the bills, that’s kind of important. Back in April, Melinda found out she will be let go early next year due to a buyout.
So she was very stressed about that and threw herself into writing a lot about me. So I can’t complain. I got lots of page time, and that’s always my goal. I’m happy about that but not the reason for it.
We don’t have any details to share yet but something is happening on the job front and it could mean big changes for Melinda which could impact her writing time. As soon as we know what's going on, we’ll tell you.
Right now, we’re just hoping these changes will be good ones. All our fingers and toes are crossed! Hopefully, we’ll find out this week.
Tariff News
The new tariffs go into effect on Friday, and we're starting to see articles about it. Some claim that gifts under $100 are exempt. But the books we order from the printer wouldn't be considered gifts. So that doesn't help us.
(The printer who does the fancy foil editions is in the UK, so that’s why we’re watching this situation as closely as we can.)
I've also seen articles mention printed materials could still be exempt from tariffs. No one knows if that buried code will be honored though. Royal Mail and other carriers are working on adding new fields for assessing tariffs. But the UK printer doesn’t seem to use that. They have a shipping agent that might operate in a gray area since it takes the printed books from the UK to the US and then drops them into the US Postal Service.
So we still don't know what's going on or how the tariffs will affect the Kickstarter campaign yet.
But I'm watching them. I've got both eyes on these tariffs, and I'll report back when there's some clarity on the situation. We think it may take a few weeks for things to shake out.
That’s all I have for you this week. It was a packed week full of good news! Have an awesome week.
—Ran, son of Sarn!
Other Bookish Things
Don’t forget to follow the campaign so you get notified when it launches:
