Lore Forge News, September 2026 Recap
Well, progress on many fronts in September.
Health Update
By the end of October 2nd, 2026, my chemotherapy will have been completed. Yay. This last round really hit me hard. Usually, on the second day after the infusion, I start to get sick and feel awful. Well, that happened, and it was worse than ever before. The doctors chalk it up to the cumulative effect of the medicine. So I suspect that the week after October 2nd is probably going to be my worst ever, and then it'll start to get better.
The next step after this is that I'll be on an immunotherapy treatment for roughly a year. This will be administered once every three weeks, either via a shot ot an IV. The aftereffects are not supposed to be anywhere near as bad as the chemo, though it does come with some risks. Because I'm boosting my immune system, there is a chance that my body will start attacking my organs. Oh boy. This, of course, is rare. They'll also be monitoring me with scans, probably CT scans. There's no news on whether they'll be removing my mediport, though. Having something foreign under your skin gives me the creeps.
A Font of Evil Things Update
Well, I'm done with the editor's suggestions, and as of this writing, I'm going through another round of revisions to make sure everything has been caught. Given some of the things I've found in the text that needed fixing, I'll most likely do another pass before I'm ready to release. Right now I'm on the 8th revision of the manuscript. So, the 9th revision is probably going to be the final book.
With prior books, I usually did 2 rounds of edits with an editor: a line or copy edit and then a proofread. Since money is now tight, I'm down to a single round. I'm not sure if this is going to have an impact on the quality of the final book, as it's looking pretty clean right now, but you never know. The other thing is that you can have a dozen eyes looking at the manuscript - something is going to slip through the net. The goal is to allow as little to slip through into the final product. Even major publishers produce books with typos and awkward grammar.
The cover is basically done. I've shown it to a select few, and the response has been very positive. I tried to match the same sort of concept I used with The Wizard's Stone, while still having it be its own thing. I think we succeeded in that regard. Only time will tell.
I'm now eyeing release dates at this point. My intent was to release it this year, but now I'm thinking it'll be prudent to release it in early 2027. Adding another revision pass will probably push out sending the manuscript off to be formatted at the end of October. It usually takes a month or more for the manuscript to be finalized, and with two print formats, it'll probably take longer. Lots of stuff can happen trying to get a book ready for release, so I think it's only wise that I allow for enough time to handle any issues that may arise putting the book on Amazon. Trust me: getting the book set up in the seller channels is always fraught with peril.
The Wizard's Stone is Going Amazon Exclusive
That's right. I'm in the process of pulling The Wizard's Stone from my "wide" distribution channels and elevating it to a Kindle Unlimited offering. I intend to do the same with A Font of Evil Things.
While I generally dislike putting all of my eggs in one basket, "going wide" has been a bit of a disappointment. Comparatively speaking, I've sold only a handful of books through other outlets. My main sales channels have been Amazon and in-person sales. While I'll leave my Revenant books on the Draft2Digital platform, I've decided to experiment a little, move the Odo Books to Amazon, and make them exclusive.
This move dovetails with the release of the next book, as I intend to run a limited-time sale of The Wizard's Stone eBook prior to the release of A Font of Evil Things.
The Book After A Font of Evil Things
Honestly, I keep vacillating between writing a new Halsedric story or focusing on having a book I can shop around to publishers. Or, I might release the first book in my Frankie series. In the end, I'll probably focus on two of the three options I have sitting in front of me.
What I'd really like to do is produce another novella. Something quick and relatively inexpensive. I'm also considering writing a few additional chapters that I'll release as paid content. One example is an epilogue to A Font of Evil Things as well as some lore dumps for the fans. I have so many ideas and so little time to spend on them.
Updates to the Store
As of 9/27/2026, the Lore Forge Store is no longer selling eBooks. This coincides with moving The Wizard's Stone to Kindle Unlimited. At some point, I'll probably move all of my books to KU. The reason being for all of this is that a) Amazon KU is really touchy about books being sold outside of their sphere of influence, b) I'm not selling any eBooks anyway, and c) I have no good (read: inexpensive and easy to use) medium to deliver eBooks to readers.
I do, however, intend to sell audiobooks in the store. That's something I intend to work on after I'm done getting A Font of Evil Things ready to sell.
As always, you can buy books from The Lore Forge Store here. Use the coupon code BIONICHEDGE2026 at checkout to receive an additional discount (coupon code expires 12/31/2026)
Conclusion
That's pretty much it for September. Pushing off the book until next year for release wasn't my intention. However, I think it's pretty easy to see how health complications sort of screwed up my timeline.
Until next month.
Comments