Ok, now what?

Phew!  That took a minute to write.  

Now that it's had a day to settle out, I wanted to sketch out more or less what the next few months are going to look like for my schedule, so you have a good idea of what to expect.  

Print Editions and eBooks

My immediate priority is working on the manuscripts for PS.  Because it ended up being a fairly long book (615k words!) I don't think I have much of a choice but to publish in volumes.  I plan on publishing chapters 1-72 as one volume (everything from the beginning to Leire's death) and then chapters 73-132 as a second volume.  I will initially be working on the volume one manuscript with the intent of making both a paperback and ebook available by the end of November.

Volume two is something I'll put together afterwards, but I may be delayed in publishing it somewhat because I've had to commission additional cover art for it and the artist had to push back the target date by a bit; I'm thinking that book will be good to go in January sometime.  

Both paperbacks will be released via KDP, barring any unforeseen events.  This carries advantages for the publication timeline, but means that the chapter supplements will have to be crunched down to greyscale.  This and the necessity of a volume split, means that I will additionally be investigating the options for a giant hardcover coffee table version of PS that can be published in one rainforest-annihilating paper brick with full color images.

I have no idea how feasible or logical this is.  In the event that it's even workable, it will likely be hilariously expensive to print.  This is the version of PS I want to have, though, so I'll be trying to make it happen and I'll keep you all updated in case I'm not alone in wanting a big shiny doorstop.

If anyone has experience with boutique hardcover book printing that is cool with small runs, please drop a comment or DM!

What's next?

While I'm dealing with all of this necessary logistical fluff for getting PS published and printed, I'm also going to be working on planning, groundwork and initial chapters for my next project.  I can only productively work on writing one thing at a time, so for the past two years I've been dumping incoherent ramblings about story ideas for this next one into a huge notes document.  My job now is to parse, flesh out and reconcile these into a story outline, or at least a base concept.  

I will post a peek at it later when it's a little more solid, but the general idea is to write a series that is targeted to be three books long, each of them being around 400k words, for a total length that is about twice that of PS.  It will be primarily a fantasy book, centering on a young girl growing up in a slowly-dying world.  My current target is to begin posting Patreon chapters of this book at the end of January, so either Jan 31 or Feb 7 depending on how things line up.  I'll probably keep this one at four weeks/chapters ahead of RR.  

Logistics

This will mean three months of no story updates from me, although I will be laboring behind the scenes to bring you all the stuff I just detailed.  I plan on pausing Patreon's billing at the point where there are no further advance chapters hidden behind the paid tier - i.e. after Nov 15 when the last chapter drops on RR.  I intend to keep it paused for two billing cycles, resuming once more on Jan 15 or thereabouts, which will probably be when I start posting actual text peeks at the new story.  Patreon's limits force me to manually renew the pause so there may be a slight interval in the middle there, but I'll set an alarm on my calendar or something.  

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Writing PS has been a long and crazy couple of years - a bit more than that, actually.  It has been the longest, most-ambitious and best-received book I've done to date, and a large part of why I was able to run this particular marathon was because of the support, positivity, conversation and general good vibes from all of you.

Thank you, very sincerely, for being the best bunch of readers and supporters that I could have asked for.  I'm hopeful that the next couple of months will be, following Michael's example, a time to rest, to set down some weight, and to bound forward into what comes next with renewed enthusiasm.