In case you didn’t hear the news

Progress report for June 13, 2020

Total words: 0 (haven’t started yet today)
Manuscript total: 93,408

In case you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey, Rachel? Your manuscript total hasn’t grown much since the last time you blogged, and it’s been over a week,” you would be right. The total hasn’t grown much for two reasons: First, I just haven’t been writing very much lately. Second, the work I have been doing on Empress of Dorsa has been more editing than forward momentum.

But more on that later. For this post: Some news.

(If you already read my email newsletter, all of this will be old news, so feel free to skip.)

1) Soldier of Dorsa is now available in audiobook format!

Woot-woot! Audible was surprisingly fast in approving the audio for Soldier. Usually it takes them about two weeks to approve a title, so I was anticipating an approval date somewhere between June 17th and June 21st, but they emailed me yesterday to let me know it was ready. You can get it here.

Or you can get a free copy!

There are three ways to get a free copy of the audiobook version of Soldier.

Option 1: Get it for free when you sign up for an Audible trial. This is the option to use if you are not already a member of Audible. They give you a free book to start, then a free trial. Even if you cancel your membership, you still keep the book.

I’ve been subscribing to Audible for about two years now, and I think it’s worth every single penny. I loooove listening to books while I drive, do chores, workout, fold laundry, etc. In fact, it’s how I do 90% of my reading these days.

Option 2: Get it when you become a Patreon supporter. Remember how I was telling you that I was thinking of starting a Patreon page? Well, yesterday, inspiration struck, and I finally got around to setting it up. Pretty good timing, since I had no idea that Soldier would be approved later the same day.

Everyone who becomes a Patreon supporter at the $3 or $6 level automatically gets a free copy of every audiobook I release. And that’s *in addition to* the free ebook copy of every book I release.

Option 3: Get it if you’re one of the first five Patreon supporters at the $1 level. So normally I won’t be giving audiobook copies to Patreon supporters at the $1 level, but since Patreon is new and I’m just getting my membership started, if you are one of the first five supporters to give at the $1 level, I will give you a free audiobook copy of Soldier.

Full transparency: Two people have already earned this privilege, so I only have three spots left.

2) And speaking of Patreon…

There are some other cool things happening over at my Patreon page that you might want to know about…

1. I just posted the first two (beta) chapters of Empress of Dorsa as an exclusive sneak peek for Patreon members of all levels.
   
2. I also posted a video of me writing Empress in real-time, along with narration to explain my process. Kind of like the director’s commentary that used to be available as a special feature on a DVD.
   
   I don’t honestly know if that’s going to be interesting for people or not. When I got into watercolors for a while, I also got into watching people paint. I found it instructive but also soothing. Is it interesting to watch someone write? I don’t know! Maybe it’s like watching paint dry. Maybe it’s arrogant to think anyone would want to watch me write. But maybe there are people who would be interested, either because they are writers, aspiring writers, or simply curious to watch the sausage getting made.
   
3. I’m going to start writing micro / short fiction! * Gulp * I wanted to do something extra special for my Gold level Patreon supporters, so I’m pledging a micro- or short story once per month. I am totally taking a leap of faith there because I’m intimidated by short fiction and have a belief that I’m bad at it. Well, no way to get better except through practice… right??
   
4. Last but not least, also for my Gold level supporters, I commissioned some original artwork recently of our lovely Joslyn of Terinto. I had to work with two different artists to get a final product I was happy with, but I’m excited to be shipping copies of Gold supporters after they’ve been members for four months.
   
   “Why four months?” you might be asking. Because it will take them being supporters for about that long in order for me to not lose money to ship the artwork to them.
   
   If people like what they see, I will totally be commissioning more artwork and sharing it with Gold supporters.

3) If you want to get a full color, 11 x 17 copy of Joslyn without joining Patreon, I can do that, too.

For $20, I’ll ship Joslyn out to you anywhere in North America. I arrived at that price because I’m including the cost of shipping. Fill out this form and we will take it from there.