I’m excited (and relieved) to announce that I’ve finally finished updating the first round of edits to the manuscript and sending it out to beta readers!
In fact, copies of Book IV in the Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms series are printing as I’m typing this. Half of my beta readers have already received digital files so they can start editing. The other half prefer printed copies so they can mark up the manuscript by hand, and I’m putting those together to distribute within the next couple of days.
I’m excited to move into the next phase, although I’m admittedly a little nervous to get preliminary feedback and see how early readers react to the book. I kept nitpicking and going back to a handful of scenes that have caused me some issues until I finally forced myself to save the document and close it so I could send it off to the beta readers.
Lab Rat clocks in at 157,852 words and 34 chapters. For comparison, A Fallen Hero is approximately 154k words, Phantom’s Mask is around 194k, and Blood of the Enemy is about 204k. This puts Book IV slightly above Book I’s length, but it’s still being edited, so that word count isn’t final.
Depending on how long it takes the beta readers to get through the manuscript and how many revisions I need to make, this phase will have an impact on the projected publication timeline. My goal is still to offer preorders of Book IV on my website this winter for readers who would like to secure an autographed hardcover from the very first print run.
While the beta readers are editing the manuscript, I’ll be busy working on the pronunciation guide, character list, and book cover… and possibly a new map?!
To celebrate reaching this milestone, I thought I’d share the list of chapter titles with you! This list has changed slightly since I shared it on Patreon back in March now that the first round of editing is finished.
- Prologue
- Induction
- Project Alpha
- Life of a Lab Rat
- The Arena
- Glitch
- Wires
- Welcome to Hell
- Broken
- The Death of Cato Jaxon Tarrow
- Acclimation
- Monster
- Son Without Wings
- Mirrors
- Cell Block Zero
- Medicine
- Student vs. Teacher
- Comatose
- Cats & Crows
- Mercy
- Limbo
- Somnambulism
- Fractured
- Awakening
- The Burden of Grief
- Black Birds & White Doors
- The Boy with Blue Eyes
- A Sinister Reflection
- The Mystery of Moorlins
- Finally Free
- Eclipsed
- The Power of Fear
- Memories
- The Origin
- Rise of the Seven
- Epilogue
My Patreon supporters have been getting a lot of updates this year, including sneak peeks at scenes and chapters, voting for names of new characters, and recently seeing the in-progress Book IV button designs along with a short video showing the evolution of the silver eye graphic that I’ll use on the book cover.
UPDATE: Level 2 and 3 subscribers just got the very first sneak peek at the cover art in progress!
Reminder: Patrons on all three paid tier levels will have their names in the book acknowledgments as a thank-you for their support! Even subscribing to the Level 1 tier at just $5/month helps me SO MUCH and qualifies you for this perk (and it’s not too late to join and have your name printed in the book).
Read more about I use subscriptions and donations to help cover costs of book publishing, vendor fees, and business expenses, and see all of the perks available on Patreon!
I'm an award-winning fantasy author, artist, and photographer from La Porte, Indiana. My poetry, short fiction, and memoir works have been featured in various anthologies and journals since 2005, and several of my poems are available in the Indiana Poetry Archives. The first three novels in my Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms series have received awards from Literary Titan.
After some time working as a freelance writer, I was shocked by how many website articles are actually written by paid "ghost writers" but published under the byline of a different author. It was a jolt seeing my articles presented as if they were written by a high-profile CEO or an industry expert with decades of experience. I'll be honest; it felt slimy and dishonest. I had none of the credentials readers assumed the author of the article actually had. Ghost writing is a perfectly legal, astonishingly common practice, and now, AI has entered the playing field to further muddy the waters. It's hard to trust who (or what) actually wrote the content you'll read online these days.
That's not the case here at On The Cobblestone Road. I do not and never will pay a ghost writer, then slap my name on their work as if I'd written it. This website is 100% authentic. No outsourcing. No ghost writing. No AI-generated content. It's just me... as it should be.
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