The final month of 2021 is upon us and there is a lot to talk about this month as I have been extraordinarily busy! I guess we should kick things off by talking a bit about Volume 4.
From Ashe Vol. 4
Volume 4 has officially launched and it did so… on time?
Okay… so I made a post stating that I was going to have to delay Volume 4 until January 10 because I had fallen behind on editing the book. This was due in part to me taking the time to revamp all of Final Hope and A.R. Dragonfly into proper ebooks. That ate up more time than I had anticipated and instead of writing Volume 4 in September, I started in October.
Alex was as fast as ever and ended up getting the artwork done with no problems. All that was left was for me to drag myself across the finish line and I thought, at the time, I wouldn’t make it.
And in a way… I didn’t.
Typically, I love to have author copies in hand by the time the launch date comes so I can sign them and get them to people on or before the Amazon launch date. It is just the way I like to do business. I don’t believe in people having to wait for a signed copy when they should get it the day the book launches around the world.
Honestly? That was the reason why I put out the delay, initially. With the world being the way it is today, I was confident that while I could get the book ready for the intended December 1 release, I wouldn’t have the author copies in hand and that bothered me.
But… since I’m not the kind of person that celebrates holidays, I kind of forgot about Thanksgiving and how I had a 4-day weekend.
Yeah… feel free to re-read that last sentence.
On Thanksgiving, I put my head down, and for 12 long hours, I edited, grammar-checked, formatted, and digitized Volume 4 into a PDF, a Hardcover, and two days later, an eBook. I just went to town and got it done and, to be honest, it felt really good being able to do that.
With the physical version done… I decided to apologize for announcing a delay and reneging on it offering Volume 4 for free during a Black Friday 24-hour sale if you picked up the other three books at a stacking discount. The discounts ended up being cheaper if you bought all four on Amazon and you ended up saving a total of $50 if you had bought all four normally as an autographed version.
It was a hell of a deal…
…and people jumped on it! (More on that later)
Over the weekend, everything was submitted and approved by Amazon so I said… “let’s just do it” and I pulled the trigger on launching Volume 4. Yes… I had to swallow my pride a bit because between the Black Friday sale and the From Ashe Autographed offering post-launch, it did mean that those who care about my scribbles would have to wait a bit longer, and for that, I sincerely apologize.
Very rarely do I mismanage my time like that but it just happened to end up being that way this time around.
But, in the end, the book is finally done and I’m really proud of it. It really exemplifies what I talked about on podcasts (by the way, BOOK ME!) where I wanted a connected world with many storylines happening and crossing over each other with most of the affecting Ashe and her journey to becoming a writer.
Just after four volumes, it has gotten to the point where I am needing to keep notes of what I wrote so I can properly continue stories into the next volume. I never had to do that with Final Hope or A.R. Dragonfly but this interconnectivity is really fun to flesh out and it has allowed me to explore these characters in new ways that I hadn’t done before!
You can go to the Buy Books tab and pick up Volume 4 right now and if you missed out on the Black Friday deal… you can still get that same price between now and Friday, December 3. If you’re reading this update after December 3 then I’m sorry to say you missed out! Don’t worry, more deals will come in the future!
From Ashe Vol. 5
So, after Volume 4 was released, I was on such an emotional high that I went ahead and fully outlined Volume 5!
This volume is going to have more discovery writing in it just like Volume 4 did with its third chapter. This goes back to the whole sandbox concept I talked about previously where I wanted to take some of my other light novel series ideas and flesh them out on a small scale by passing them off as Ashe’s writing. This way, I can do cross-genre writing within a slice of life meta and entertain you (hopefully) with some new stories within a story.
In addition to the writing competition, there will be more continuance of some of the stories that either were set up or continued in Volume 4.
The funny thing is… when you start a brand-new series, you can talk until you’re blue in the face because all you have to worry about is possibly spoiling stuff in that one volume. Now, here I am about to embark on the 5th volume, and I feel like I can’t say anything because it will ruin four other volumes worth of work. I would like to say stuff like “You will see [REDACTED]’s storyline continue or [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] will have more interactions that have a consequence on Ashe’s journey!
Sadly, I can’t say that anymore.
Maybe I can make a spoiler post and spill the beans and then just blame you if you click on it! Haha…
But, Volume 5’s writing will probably begin next week. I have a LOT of stuff happening in real life at work and there’s no way I’m going to be able to concentrate. I know for a fact that once this weekend hits, I’m going to enjoy just sitting around not doing a damn thing.
But… as I have said before… due to finances, Volume 5 won’t be out on March 1 as was the original intended release date. It will probably be later as I need to get rid of some debt before I can afford art again.
It does not mean I will stop writing, though. I will keep plowing through the series and getting the content created. It’ll just mean I’ll have a stockpile of stuff waiting once I’m ready to continue putting the books out again. We’ll see.
That brings me to the next part of the update…
The Shiny Donation Button
I added a donation button to the website just in case there is someone out there who wants to support me in other ways. Maybe you don’t like to read but respect what I do? Maybe you like the hard work I put into doing this want to kick a couple bucks my way?
If so, the button is there.
As I said in my Twitter post… I don’t like asking for money. I was brought up to earn my way and I still intend to do just that. I always feel guilty asking for handouts so I figured that if I put a donation button up… I will mention it in a tweet (which I did), I will mention it in my December update (which I’m doing), and then I’m not going to mention it ever again.
It’s literally right there on the front page and on any page that utilizes the sidebar widget.
It is 100% up to you to click it and donate if you feel like it.
I will never push people to donate. All I’ve done is make the button. The rest is up to you. There will be 0 hard feelings if you do or do not donate to me.
That’s all there is to it… but let’s move on to a more exciting announcement.
I’m Free and it’s Time to “Play”!
My KDP Select contract on every single book I’ve written has ended! I have painstakingly waited the 90 days, and now, I am free to publish my ebooks anywhere I desire… and publish them I did!
All of my books are now available on Google Play for $4.99 each! These are the PDF versions of the books and are perfect for tablets or larger Android devices.
I have not had time to create proper ebooks (i.e. epub or mobi files) but I will once I get more free time. I do know that I am going to have to dust off some of my HTML skills to get that done but once I do, I will be looking to distribute my books on many other platforms.
I figured that Amazon can be the Kindle version, Google Play will be the PDF version, and some other service once I get the epub and mobi files created can be that version. I think having a unique version tied to a specific platform is a bit advantageous and I like the idea of having a platform define the version of something.
If you’re worried about formatting, I previewed them and I will say that Google does a MUCH BETTER job converting PDF to ebook than Amazon does. All of the formatting remained the same as the PDf and didn’t get screwed up! That’s a plus!
If I had noticed anything amiss with the PDF conversion, I wouldn’t be doing this Google Play launch.
If you want to grab the PDF ebook version, here are the links for you!
Final Hope 1 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=I_dPEAAAQBAJ
Final Hope 2 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Joshua_Piedra_Final_Hope_Vol_2?id=J_dPEAAAQBAJ
From Ashe 1 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=r5tREAAAQBAJ
From Ashe 2 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=EZxREAAAQBAJ
From Ashe 3 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=J5xREAAAQBAJ
From Ashe 4 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=UZxREAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 1 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=Rp5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 2 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=W55REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 3 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=cp5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 4 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=hp5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 5 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=ip5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 6 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=kp5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 7 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=mp5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 8 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=op5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 9 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=zJ5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 10 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=0J5REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 11 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=EJ9REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly 12 – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=O59REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly Origins: Episode Amber – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=S59REAAAQBAJ
AR Dragonfly Origins: Episode Kaito – https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=b59REAAAQBAJ
Black Friday Results
Needless to say, I don’t usually like to talk numbers but I at least wanted to say just how surprised I was at the Black Friday sale. Typically, I get around 10-ish or slightly less orders whenever I do a pre-order for autographed copies but you guys love your sales because I was able to get THIRTY autographed copies sold!
The pack bundles were a big hit and as my reader base grows, I’m sure there may be others who will want to jump in and get my not-so-fancy scribbles all over the first page of the book.
This means I’ll probably do another sale in the future. Not sure when, though.
But I did want to say thank you to everyone who did order a book (or books). As of the time of this writing (November 30 because I am giving this update out a day early), your books are ordered and are slated for a December 11-13 arrival. I will then sign them and get those out the very next business day so that you can have your signed copies in time for Christmas!
Until Next Time
That’s going to wrap up this month’s update. January’s might be a little on the thin side because it’ll probably just be a writing update unless some cool things happen along the way.
We will see.
One quick little note is that in an attempt to market my stuff a bit more, I have From Ashe listed up on Awesome Gang! You can check out the link to that here: https://awesomegang.com/from-ashe/
Thanks, as always, for reading and remember… if you are in the press and would like a free PDF copy of ANY of my books to review, let me know by using my Contact page.
If you have a podcast and want to talk about my books, OELNs in general, or just have me on to shoot the shit about anime, manga, and other stuff weeb culture, hit me up as well!
Be sure to follow Twitter for more updates on my books or Instagram for more personal updates.
Until next time,
Ja ne!
Joshua J. Piedra 