The first big box of books arrived yesterday! All of the character cards are in and the new stickers. So I’ll be putting orders together starting today and through this weekend. Expect the first packages to go out shortly.
Some of the books were damaged (grrrr, thanks, Amazon) but I’ve got backups ordered, and backups for the backups. It just may take another week or longer to get the rest of the stock in.
But the first orders of Queen’s Purge are going out!
A huge thank you to everyone who’s placed an order! It means the world to me!
Most of the physical orders are waiting on my shipment of character cards and Queen’s Purge paperbacks and hardbacks to come in. But I was able to get two orders pulled together today that aren’t waiting on Purge. They’ll go into the mail today.
Long live House Isador!
You bought a book from me–THANK YOU! Here’s how the process works, with specific notes about getting the files to your Kindle to read.
First let me say: I’m grateful you’re reading my books, however you choose to read.
(Unless you’re reading a pirated copy–and then I hope you downloaded some viruses along with those stolen books.)
If you’re borrowing from a library or picking up a used copy at a bookstore, great. If you’re reading in KU, great. If you grabbed it when it was free, great. That’s why I run those free days every quarter!
But if you’re in a position to buy direct from any author or artist, we make more money AND receive it faster. It’s that simple.
For example, if you read Queen’s Purge by using Kindle Unlimited, I’ll make about $2.00. I’ll receive that money in two months.
If you buy it from Amazon at $5.99, I’ll make about $4.00. In two months.
If you buy it from me at $5.00, I’ll make… $5.00 and I’ll receive those funds in 2 DAYS.
Okay, not exactly, because I have to pay for my website, shop, distribution through BookFunnel, etc. but still that’s money in my pocket. AND I don’t have to wait 60 days to receive the royalties. I pay for my website and shop anyway, and I use BookFunnel for other things as well (ARC team, Patreon downloads).
PLUS, if you buy paperback or hardcover books, not only are they SIGNED but I ALWAYS add goodies, depending on what I have in stock and which series it is. Stickers. Bookmarks. I also include a handwritten note.
For larger orders, I try to throw in a free book, again depending on what I have and which series you bought. Maybe it’s the first in a different series. Or Queen Takes Blood or Game of Queens, both containing prequel stories. If I have them for the books you buy, I also include the character cards at no extra cost.
So thank you for any orders you make here. Read more books!
Long live House Isador!
This is the first time in at least twenty years that I’m not dreading January.
This is my first January without the Evil Day Job–and all the support that entailed. If you’ve ever worked in the financial sector, you know January’s brutal, especially on the IT side. Everything is urgent. Files didn’t arrive in time, or something failed to move the file to xyz. Reporting and annual statements need to be done. Books need to be closed. Jobs that only run once a year fail and no one remembers how to fix it. Everyone who ever supported the xyz report is gone and now it’s incorrect. Naturally this is the perfect time for servers to go down too.
It’s always a clusterfuck.
This year, I don’t have to live in dread of my phone ringing in the middle of the night. I don’t have to brace myself to read the pinging messages in Teams, or hop on an urgent call to figure out how to recover from a failure.
I’m so excited to see how much I can accomplish in 2026!
Last year, even working the Evil Day Job through 6/1, I managed to write over 300k. That’s the most I’ve written in a year since I started tracking in my spreadsheet in 2021. I could go back through old journals or blog posts too, but I doubt I ever wrote that much except maybe early in my career.
My goal for 2026 is at least 500k.
I’m working on books that I started four plus years ago. And I’m finishing them.
Blizzard Bound is already done, and I have a clear plan for the rest of Darby’s story. Queen Takes Darkness2 is almost finished. I’m in the final scenes, and should be able to publish it this month. Then I’m returning to Darby’s story to crank out the rest of her trilogy.
While building Monstrous Revolt and Queen’s Purge at the same time.
Let’s see how far I can get this quarter!
I’ve been doing the writing gig for a few years now (cough, since 2003) but the only thing that stays the same is getting words on the page. Everything else is always changing. How I write a book. How I get an idea. How I finish. How I track.
Now that I don’t have the Evil Day Job sucking up 40+ hours a week, I have even MORE time to experiment!
Partly from necessity. I can’t just move from 40+ hours of corporate work and 20+ hours of creative/publishing work a week to 60+ hours of creative/publishing work. I wish I could! But my brain needs time to build the framework and characters and dialogue in the background, which is why I was able to write as much as I did while still working.
Now I need to convince my brain to do more of that background work in the foreground. While still being creative. While still finding ways to keep the well filled and primed.
One thing I’m trying is working on multiple projects at the same time. It does not come naturally to me. I keep wanting to hyper-focus on one thing and just grind day and night until it’s done. But what I’ve found over the past few months is that there is a natural set-point I have each day in a given project. Getting beyond that baseline is possible–but those words are harder and slower to get. I’m doing all the foreground and background work at the same time.
Now in the EDJ world, I never got to work on just one thing at a time. We always had multiple projects going on. Meetings every day on a variety of things, from team ceremonies to individual projects to corporate requirements, training, etc. Yet I still somehow always managed to get stuff done. Yeah, it was a struggle sometimes. I learned to block off time on my calendar for deep work a couple of times a week so I could focus on one thing at a time. But then I had to switch to the next project out of necessity.
Same here. I need to switch projects out of necessity–because I’ve written through as far as I can “see” at this time, and my subconscious needs time to percolate on what happens next. If I keep going, I’m going to struggle and slow down while I try to adjust the headlights on my car so I can see further in the fog.
But you know what they say about headlights in the fog. Sometimes you can see better with dim lights than brights.
I keep turning on those brights and then fuming when I’m crawling down the road because I still can’t see.
Since I finished Monstrous Rampage, I’ve been trying to switch back and forth between Queen Takes Darkness2 and Blizzard Bound. Some days are easier to switch than others. If I’m in the middle of a really complicated sex scene, for example, I’m scared to set it aside unless I’m just literally tapped out. I don’t want the scene to go too cold for fear I’ll lose the vibes.
I’ve also been tracking my daily schedule. What’s a natural time for me to start work? When do I tend to get the most interruptions from phone calls or visits from Dad? If I can mitigate the frustration of interruptions – by deliberately using that break – then that helps my mood all day. For example, Dad tends to visit me between 9-11AM most days on his morning walk, weather permitting. If I’m in the middle of a two-hour time blocked sprint, I get a little frustrated when I lose time. It can be hard to make myself start up again. But if I’m doing admin, it’s no big deal.
Or… here’s a thought. Instead of trying to get 4 sprints in a two-hour block before lunch, how about I only schedule myself two sprints before lunch and fill with admin. Because I know I’ll be interrupted. That way I’m not failing every day, which is not good for my mental health.
In the afternoon, I tend to not get as many calls until after 4. That’s the perfect time to shoot for 4 sprints in a two-hour block – in a second project.
After I break for dinner, Molly and I zoom almost every week night. If the second project is still rolling, then I can get 2 more sprints in. But if the last one before dinner was a struggle, I’m going back to the first project to see if I’ve had time to think about what comes next.
Then tomorrow I can choose which one to start the day with depending on how I ended the day.
We’ll see how that works as I finish these next two books. I think at some point one of them will “win out.” They’re both past the 50% mark. We’re on the rollercoaster, slowly clicking up higher and higher, making that climb toward the peak. At some point, one of them is going to tip over the cliff and shoot down toward the finish line. I don’t expect them both to tip at the same time – but that would be a crazy fun ride to try!
Of course the big question mark in November is finding time to get the holiday cards done. I’m hoping I can work on them during longer phone calls because they don’t take as much focus. I’m going to get the November and December birthday cards done ASAP, and then be ready to work on the holiday cards during football games or phone calls.
That’s the plan at least.
Any bets on which book is going to be finished first in November?
Just following up on last week’s post about the four-year-old incomplete sex scene.
I worked on ONLY this book since that post instead of my two-wip pronged approach I’ve been trying to build. My theory was if I set Helayna aside again, it might be another four years. I can’t do that to you, me, or her. I need her story figured out. So every time I sat down to write, it was Queen Takes Darkness.
Even when I could only get 200 words. Even when it felt like stripping my own skin off as I crawled over shattered ice crystals. I kept going. Even if it felt like I wasn’t making any progress at all. I re-read the scenes, over and over, trying to get momentum built. I referred back several times to the Sept 2021 notes, cursing myself for not writing more down. I knew Svar had backstory that was super important. But what was it? Whatever vague idea I had was gone into the ether. I hadn’t left myself a single clue outside of a few hints in the books themselves.
I inputted (my #2 strength). Going over the dark alfar lore again. Refreshing the vibes I was going for. The Darkness playlist has been playing nonstop in my house. In the car. (Okay, I did play Taylor’s Life of a Showgirl too but it was primarily Helayna’s playlist!)
Part of what made this particular set of scenes so hard is that I was introducing two new characters and moving straight into sex. I needed their backstories. Their hangups and personalities. They had to be people, real, interesting, and most importantly, distinct from all the other Blood I’ve created.
Then when I got through them… I still had Svar’s backstory to figure out. I kept wanting to flinch away and do something easier. Lighter. But I had to see. So I knew where to go.
And then even after we made it through that Darkness, I still had one more Blood to go. Because when a vampire queen is working her way through her Blood, no one gets left out.
I think I broke my personal longest sex scene record. If I start with the first disrobing and go all the way through to the end of the last scene, it’s over 16k (edited – forgot to include the last scene!). Not all of that is actual sex but it’s all part of the journey. Learning these new characters. Finding new powers. Building relationships. That’s why, when people say they skip the sex scenes, it just does not compute for me.
If you skip one of these scenes, you’ll never know Svar’s backstory. Why he is the way he is. Who Dörr is as a person at his core. I may complain about how many sex scenes I end up writing in these books, but it’s always transformative and powerful. Which is why they’re hard to write–but hopefully that’s what makes them memorable.
This week, I’m planning to move back into my two projects a day schedule so I can get Blizzard Bound moving again. I don’t want it to go too cold. (Haha) Though now that I’m over the hump in Helayna’s story, it may all be downhill from here and she may win out. We’ll see.
Gee, that’d be terrible if I could finish BOTH of them before December….
If you’re reading one of my books in your book club, I’d love to send you some goodies. Send an email to joely AT joelysueburkhart.com with how many people are in your group and which book. I have stickers, etc. for almost every series.
An Advent Box – for Paranormal Romance Lovers!
I’ll be contributing a new-to-print book from the Their Vampire Queen world.
30 authors. 30 days. Special editions or New/ new in print.
Some authors you will know and love.
Some authors will become your new favorites.
View on Kickstarter.
I’m still in temporary housing and most of my stock is in storage. However, I do have quite a haul that I brought home from Savannah (LLS) in July. I updated all the inventory for what I can immediately ship.
For books, I changed the setting to allow you to backorder when it’s out of stock. KDP can take a few weeks to ship books, but I’ll do my best to get stock in as quickly as possible!
