Author Q&A: When Are You Planning to Publish Book V?

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It’s not unusual for me to have readers asking about the next book in the series… sometimes even DAYS after releasing my current book. Which, don’t get me wrong, is really exciting to know that people loved the book and are eager for the next one right away! But when that happens, I remind readers that I’m not done with the current book just because the hardcover has been published. I still have to work on the other two versions (paperback and ebook) before I can even begin to focus on the next novel in the series.

Well… Lab Rat is finally done. The hardcover, paperback, and ebook are all available for purchase through a wide variety of retailers with the other novels in the Chronicles of Avilésor series, and I sell autographed copies of the print versions in my booth and on my website.

So… when will Book V: The Demikan be published?

The short answer is I have absolutely no idea.

But that’s not a very satisfying answer, is it? So, let’s dive in a little deeper about WHY I don’t have a target date or even a loose game plan yet.

It’s perfectly normal for me to need some down time after publishing a book. It’s a huge accomplishment worth celebrating, but to be honest, it’s also insanely stressful. I feel exhausted and burned out.

In the past, I’ve bounced back fairly quickly after a brief respite, but in the case of publishing Lab Rat, I had an extensive list of problems with editing delays, printing issues, incorrect information from my distributor, post-publication redesigns, lack of communication with a freelancer I hired, formatting problems, incorrect sizing/trim margins for full-bleed images, and switching ebook distributors (and then switching back again). My planned timeline for Book IV ended up getting pushed back, which made the brunt of the work overlap with the peak of my event season and kept me going all the way through my off season when I’d normally be recharging.

To put it bluntly, I need a slightly longer break for my mental health this time before I can start seriously working on Book V and then get a better idea of how much time and work needs to go into the next novel. So, I’m taking a few minutes to share what went wrong with the last publication and why I’m not rushing to throw myself into the next novel before I’m ready.

Book IV Setbacks

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Lab Rat‘s publication had more problems than any of the three books before it. I can’t even blame one specific part of the process; it was a frustrating cascade of issues and delays every step of the way for all three versions of the book.

It started with several delays from the line editor, although that wasn’t completely unexpected. With this being my fourth book, I knew to factor in a few extra weeks from the original estimate, just in case.

However, that delay pushed my revision schedule back on the calendar, which meant that instead of doing revisions in the spring when I had more time off between events, I was trying to squeeze that work in during peak event season when I was booked every weekend.

(If you’ve never been a vendor before, trust me when I say it’s A LOT of work. Sales at my booth generate the majority of my income, so I couldn’t afford to stop doing events just to focus on publishing the next book.)

I spend a lot of time prepping for events in between events. Putting together the envelopes and wax-sealing them, making products by hand, placing orders to restock the products I don’t make myself, entering that inventory into Square… not to mention the usual tasks of posting on social media, writing posts for Patreon and my blog, putting together the monthly newsletter, planning my event schedule, filling out event applications… the list goes on and on.

From there, Book IV’s final formatting became a nightmare every step of the way.

Hardcover

The hardcover version of Lab Rat came first before the ebook and paperback. This order of publishing has been the best way for me to release books. It’s the way I did it for A Fallen Hero, and then I tried to release all three versions of Phantom’s Mask at the same time, and it was too much. I ended up having to pay my ebook formatter twice because of all the changes that happened. After learning that lesson the hard way, I went back to releasing the hardcover first for Blood of the Enemy and Lab Rat, followed by the ebook and paperback (usually around the same time).

The print version of Book IV had a new challenge none of the other novels had; it features full-bleed images, which meant I needed to add an extra margin that would be trimmed off at the production facility. That meant adjusting the size of the book so the dimensions were larger than the actual book would be. Factoring in the extra trim margin seems simple in theory but ended up being a little more challenging than I realized to adjust the page size while making sure everything still matched the previous books after the cuts. The ratio wasn’t as easy as simply adding a margin all the way around each page; only three sides of each page had the trim margin. The interior edge that would be bound didn’t have the extra margin.

For Lab Rat, I also had another new feature—inverted title pages with white text on a black background. While it looked great on the computer screen, I had no idea how it would print. Below are images from the batch of proof copies:

In addition to the white bar at the top of the page from the margins not being quite right for the full bleed (you can see it on the Lab Rat title page in the image on the far left), there were noticeable streaks from the printer on all of the title pages.

I contacted my distributor to find out if this was a misprint due to a printer head needing to be changed or a problem that would require me to redesign the title pages so they weren’t solid black. I was nearing my anticipated release date, and the distributor confidently assured me that it was a misprint. So, I proceeded on schedule with the release.

However, it wasn’t a misprint. The first print run had the same streaks. When I contacted the distributor again, they asked for more photos, then reversed course and said the pages were oversaturated with ink and I’d have to upgrade the paper thickness… but I would have to update the paper for the whole book, not just those individual pages. (This was a hard NO for many reasons—the book would be thicker, heavier, and more expensive, which would mean I’d have to redesign the dust jacket to account for the thickness, I wouldn’t be able to fit as many copies in a box for shipping, and I’d likely have to raise the price… all for four title pages.)

I ended up having to redesign these pages, which wouldn’t have been a hassle at all if the distributor had told me upfront that the paper couldn’t handle that much ink. But it took at least three weeks of back-and-forth email communication to get a straight answer from them. Because of that, I had no choice but to release a “second edition” less than a month after publication.

(I put “second edition” in quotes because it’s not technically a second edition. Any online product listings will say it’s still a first edition because the changes were minor. But, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a second edition.)

I ended up redesigning the pages with a gradient so less ink would be needed and I could still have the effect of white text on a dark background. I also added faint images that were already being used on the back side of the page, which ended up creating a neat (albeit accidental) shadow effect. Knowing the direction any residual printing streaks would face, I intentionally planned for that so the gradient would help to hide them if they persisted.

Ebook

The ebook should have been easy because I send the manuscript off to a formatter who does most of the legwork for me. I was in contact with the same formatter who did my other three ebooks. I sent the payment, and he gave me a surprisingly quick estimated delivery date… and then seemed to drop off the face of the earth.

He was unreachable for about two months. If I hadn’t worked with him on other projects before, I would have thought for sure that I’d been scammed. I was concerned that something had happened. Just as I was about to throw in the towel and find another ebook formatter (and eat the cost on that original investment), my regular formatter finally reconnected with me. A family emergency had forced him to drop everything and travel suddenly.

FINALLY, I had the epub file. My knowledge of html is extremely limited, but with the edited file, I was able to make some follow-up revisions on my own without having to send it back to him for additional updates.

I published the ebook with IngramSpark, which also manages my hardcover and paperback. (KDP, Amazon’s publishing company, manages the Kindle version of my ebook.)

However, after doing some research and skimming indie author forums, I decided to switch the ebook over to Draft2Digital instead, which would give me slightly higher royalties while also providing a listing on books2read.com with convenient links to all of the places where readers can buy the book. If it went well, I fully intended to transfer the other three novels in the Chronicles of Avilésor over to D2D as well.

The transfer went smoothly. I unpublished Lab Rat from IngramSpark and uploaded it to D2D. The links were all set up, and I was really happy with the convenience of having a landing page to easily direct readers. And then… D2D announced a sudden policy change with new annual maintenance fees for accounts that didn’t meet a minimum threshold, allegedly to “avoid AI slop.”

I call BS. Essentially, they’re punishing small-scale indie authors like me and many others. Yes, it’s a small annual fee, but it’s the principle of the matter for me. There are other ways to combat AI that don’t involve casting such a wide net that you sweep up small indie authors in it, too.

Most of my ebook sales come from Amazon, which means they go through KDP. When I say most of my ebook sales, I mean over 92% of my ebook downloads last year. My wide distributor—whether that’s IngramSpark or D2D—controls all of the other sales, but honestly, there aren’t many of those. And that’s okay. I chose to go wide because I wanted my books to be accessible for libraries and other digital retailers so readers don’t have to use Amazon if they don’t want to.

My Kindle numbers are strong enough that I could very easily meet D2D’s new minimum threshold on Amazon. But on the other platforms? Nope. I would have to quintuple those ebook sales. (Keep in mind that with or without an annual fee, distributing an ebook isn’t free; D2D also takes a percentage of each purchase, and you have to meet the threshold after their cut has been already been taken out. So it’s not like they aren’t making any money.)

Their announcement of the policy change came without any warning, and it caught the indie author community by surprise. Some authors shrugged it off because they’re well established enough that the fees wouldn’t impact them. Others decided the fee was small enough that they didn’t care too much. But for me, the whole situation was a red flag. If D2D is going to blindside their existing authors with new fees out of the blue, what’s to stop them from suddenly jacking up that fee without any warning in the future? When I emailed them to express my concerns, their attitude was very “okay, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

With those new fees, I would be earning fewer royalties than if I’d stayed with IngramSpark… which meant I had to take extra time to switch distributors yet again by republishing the ebook through Ingram and delisting it through D2D. It ended up being a complete waste of my time just to end up right back where I started.

Is Ingram the best platform for ebook distribution? I don’t know. The rule of thumb (up until now) has generally been that KDP is best for Amazon books, Ingram is best for wide print books, and D2D is best for wide ebooks. But for now, it looks like I’m sticking with Ingram unless something better comes along.

Paperback

Theoretically, the paperback should have been a piece of cake after working through the printing issues with the hardcover… right?

Unfortunately not. I ended up having to format the paperback three times. When the first proof arrived, I realized that the new ratio to account for the bleed margins wasn’t correct, so I changed the paper size of the document. Doing so resulted in what I call a domino effect with editing—that small shift was just enough to impact the margins, which meant I had to meticulously check hyphens, ellipses, section breaks, chapter breaks, and line spacing. Basically… do the manual formatting all over again to make sure it looked good.

But, of course, something went wrong, and somehow, the change to the document size didn’t save. Which meant I had to format it all over AGAIN. (I worked about 15 hours straight to knock it out as fast as I could.)

I didn’t have any options to change the size of the book myself, so I had to contact the distributor (who, as you might have guessed from the issues with the hardcover, doesn’t always have the best customer service team). They told me I couldn’t change the size once the book had been enabled for global distribution because the metadata had already been broadcast to retailers. I would have to use a different ISBN (international standard book number) to create a brand-new listing and cancel the old one, effectively rendering that original ISBN useless.

Obviously, that would have been a pain for many reasons. I already had that ISBN assigned to the paperback and listed on the copyright pages of the hardcover and ebook, so changing that information would require updates to those other two versions.

As a rookie, I probably would have said, “shoot, that sucks” and done exactly what my distributor said. But as an experienced indie author, I knew that policy didn’t make any sense. First, these are not free ISBNs provided and owned by IngramSpark. I am the publisher; I own my ISBNs. (And I made some mistakes with my first book that caused me to accidentally burn two of them that are now unusable, so I’m no stranger to that kind of blunder.) A single ISBN costs $125, although I purchase them in bulk to bring that price per ISBN down quite a bit. Throwing them away for a fixable mistake is a complete waste, and not something I’m going to do lightly.

Second, the rationale behind the policy didn’t add up. I’m able to make other edits to a book that’s already been published and is actively being distributed. I’ve changed my covers to update them when the novels won the Literary Titan book award. I’ve even made edits to the interior file that ended up adding or reducing the total page count. If that those kinds of changes can be updated with retailers, there’s absolutely no reason a 0.25″ height change can’t be rebroadcast to the retailers’ metadata they have for the book to update the product listing on their websites.

So, I pushed back. Surprisingly, I didn’t actually have to push all that hard for the distributor to yield and let me make the update while keeping my same ISBN and product listing, but it was still an unnecessary delay and extra headache.

I had to jump through a lot of hoops, but I finally managed to get the paperback sized correctly with the proper ratio and trim for the full-bleed images. I’m hoping that future books will be MUCH easier now that I have these files to use as a base next time.

Burnout & Mental Health

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Even if a publication goes relatively smoothly, there’s still a stressful, frantic rush leading up to publication day. I struggle a lot with time blindness, so I have difficulty meeting deadlines and planning how long tasks will take. I’m always scrambling to get everything submitted with enough time to account for potential delays.

But there’s more stress than simply getting the book out on time. While readers eagerly await the book, authors often feel anxious about how fans will receive it.

I was very nervous about Lab Rat‘s release. Personally, it’s my favorite book so far in the series with the way it delves into character psychology, relationships, backstories, worldbuilding, and some major development for some of my favorite characters… not to mention laboratory experiments and both physical and psychological torture, if that’s your thing. (Don’t judge!) But it deviates from the structure of the first three novels in a major way, and I wasn’t sure how readers would respond to that narrative shift.

Luckily, for the most part, readers also loved the book, and it went on to receive a Literary Titan Gold Book Award with a stellar five-star review!

Even so, the intense pressure, stress, and anxiety, followed by problem after problem after problem for every single version of the novel, resulted in a monumental burnout.

I try to be conscious of my mental health because burnout is a constant struggle for me. Rotating my focus between art, writing, editing, marketing, events, and business tasks (usually) helps me reduce the chance of burnout. Normally, the winter is my off season when I have a chance to recuperate after doing events almost every weekend from early February through mid-December. But with all the trouble publishing Book IV, that time wasn’t spent relaxing and recharging. I was frantically trying to reach my ebook formatter, email back and forth with my distributor, and do multiple rounds of formatting for the print versions trying to fix issues that just kept coming back to bite me no matter how many times I made adjustments that I thought would solve the problem. I didn’t feel well-rested at all when the first events of the year started because I never really had time off.

Some writers say if you’re burned out and feeling blocked, you should just “push through” if you’re a serious writer. I disagree. Honestly, I think that’s a very American hustle-culture way of thinking, to work yourself into the ground until you have nothing left to give. That’s never worked well me for me. I think my writing suffers when my heart isn’t in it, and I would rather take my time so I can give the story justice.

Some impatient readers might disagree with that process, but there’s a reason I’m not a rapid-release author. I spend a lot of time with my characters exploring the details of the world I’m building, tying so many pieces together. If I wanted to quickly churn out fantasy books, I would have leaned into generic tropes that would have been easy to write while feeling like a thousand other stories.

There’s merit to the question “Do you want it done quickly, or do you want it done well?” I prioritize quality over speed. My characters absolutely guide the story. If I’m too burned out to hear them, the book isn’t going to be worth reading.

The long answer is, I don’t know when Book V will be released. I need to step away from the series for a little while to get a clear head before I dive back in. Now that event season is in full swing, I have my hands full with marketing, selling, and connecting with new readers. Multi-day events take a lot out of me, and I’ve been traveling more to expand my reach.

I don’t know how long it will take me to recover from the burnout. The spark will return. I just need some time.

Book V is essentially the second half of Book IV. However, it wasn’t an even split down the middle. The Demikan is currently about 90,600 words. Lab Rat ended up being just over 163k (177k when you add in the supplemental material published in the back). Book I is still the smallest book of the series at 154k for comparison.

The main pieces of Book V have been written, but I have some big holes to fill and pieces to stitch together, plus a lot more room now for potential character development now that I don’t have to worry about a high word count like I did before deciding to split Lab Rat into two books.

My goal is resume writing this summer and fall, hopefully moving into the self-editing phase in the winter. But I won’t be able to provide a rough release timeline until I have a much clearer picture of how big this book is going to be when more of the pieces are filled in.

Another positive: I spent a lot of time working on the supplemental material for Book IV, including a new hand-drawn map, glossary, character list, and pronunciation guide. Now that the lists and definitions have been created, I’ll be able to add to them moving forward with future books, which will be much easier. (I had expected the glossary to be about 100 terms, but it ended up being over 530!)

Book V Sneak Peeks on Patreon

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Although I haven’t done much with Book V yet, patrons have already had some teasers and gotten involved behind the scenes.

In April, I shared a scene from The Demikan for the first time. Last week, I invited my Alpha-level subscribers to submit possible character names for Ero’s former students to be used in upcoming books, and I recently revealed which character is most likely to be featured on the next book cover.

As I resume work on Book V, patrons will get more opportunities to read sneak peeks, vote in polls, name characters, and have their own names incorporated into the story (if they haven’t already been featured in a past book).

Patreon is the best way to get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, but for other (free) updates, follow me on social media and make sure you’re subscribed to my monthly newsletter.

Thank you for being part of my community! It means a lot to me that so many people have connected with my stories and characters almost as deeply as I have. I’m eager to reconnect with my characters once I’ve had a chance to clear my head and rekindle the spark.