Hi!
It’s Ran here, taking over the newsletter again! Melinda had a hard week last week training someone to take over for her coworker who left on Friday. So she's a little out of sorts right now. She’s happy that he found a good job that pays more before his anticipated end date, but it also makes her worry about her own situation.
Fortunately, I have plans for her. Will she like the plan? I hope so.
I think all the books from the His Angelic Keeper series Kickstarter arrived at their new homes, but the printer's website is down so Melinda can’t confirm that. The site might have gone down when she was clicking around to check that. But of course, she didn't crash their site. Melinda would never do that.
Your Votes Counted! & A NEW Game Plan!
Thank you for taking the poll last week! The Mage option got the most votes. So the main character for that new story—where someone thinks they are playing a game when they are really wandering around my world—will be a mage!
Melinda started writing what could be the first chapter, but then she stopped because she didn't know how much video game stuff to include. Do you want stat blocks? Or can we do less of that and more magical mayhem!
That’s the title of the game the main character thinks she’s playing, Magical Mayhem Online! Because that’s what we do. Is that too on the nose?
Would you help us decide how much stats to include in the story by voting in another poll?
I fear my scribe will just keep staring at the chapter she wrote and wondering what to do without outside help. And I might have some fun cameos planned, but she can’t write them if she just stares at the document in confusion. So please help us out!
We don't know when this story will come out, but it will publish to Patreon and Substack first. The timing may depend on how much system info you want in the story, but don’t let that stop you from voting for what you want to read. If you want a lot of stats, then that may take longer to figure out but if that makes you want to read the book, then we’ll do it!
If you want less stats and more magical mayhem, then you’ll probably get the story sooner because we’re really good at that. I promise to teach the main character of this Magical Mayhem Online story how to get magical and go adventuring!
Right now, Melinda is publishing chapters from Rogue Characters on both platforms. Chapters 1-4 are up and you can read them now. Chapters 5-8 drop Thursday to Sunday this week!
If you use code BCD9D for Patreon, you can get 10% off an annual plan. Or click here to get 10% off an annual plan for Substack because they don’t do codes.
Book News! And Future Ran!
In other book news, Melinda started writing Rogue Characters, book 3 of the Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series, and you get a lot more of me!
Hi, I'm Future Ran, a lovable teenager who clashes a bit with my overprotective dad. You know him as Sarn from the Curse Breaker series, and no, he doesn't get less protective as I get bigger and more magical. But I still love him, and I wouldn't change that for the world even if it does chafe sometimes because he won't let me do things I really want to do.
When Dad says no, sometimes I can convince Uncle Miren to say yes. So I usually get my way in the end. But I digress, as I often do.
Back to book news!
Melinda has been helping another author (TJ Muir) with the special edition of Muir's book, Winter Mage, by designing the cover and doing the formatting for it. So that's exciting!
They're getting ready to order a proof copy soon. You can follow the campaign for the special edition of Winter Mage right now and get notified when it will launch.
How did Melinda get involved with that?
Well, she and TJ were talking on Discord about author stuff, and the conversation turned to Kickstarter. Then TJ said she wanted to run one, but she didn't know much about it. So Melinda offered to help.
I don't know if Melinda meant to get this involved in it, but she's having fun working with TJ, and that's all that matters. To keep me happy, she's writing as much as she can for Rogue Characters so I can't really complain.
This is not me complaining. I am just letting you know this is going on in the background because it's nice to see authors working together.
But Melinda has not started designing the special edition hardcover omnibus for Tales of a Curse Breaker in NY yet. She said she will when Rogue Characters is done because then she can order a proof copy so we can see what the holographic foil looks like. It will definitely be shiny, but that's all we can tell from the tiny preview on the printer's website. Don’t forget to follow the campaign for that!
And yes! Since the Curse Breaker's Companion series takes place right after Tales of a Curse Breaker in NY series ends, it will get a similar treatment toward the end of the year when Melinda writes Storm Spells, book 3 of that series.
She hasn't publicly stated that. But I'm confirming it because that just makes sense, and we try to do sensible things sometimes.
Audiobook News!
The last chapters of Storm the Gates, book 3 of the Rogue Gods Trilogy, published to Spotify and YouTube! So the trilogy is completely in audio now.
There are 40 videos/podcast episodes in total across all 3 books! Melinda is looking into compiling the videos for each book into a long form video, so I'll just let you know how that goes.
And that's it for this week. Wow! A lot happened. Who knew? Don’t forget to vote!
— This is Ran, writing on behalf of my scribe, Melinda, signing off!
New Podcast Episodes & Videos
Listen to our podcast in your player of choice. Or Watch it on YouTube.
Happening Now
Coming Soon
Will you catch the scribe & battle for the fate of your books with some rogue characters?
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.)