Welcome to Ani-May! Spring is in full swing and while I have been hard at work, I only have a couple of updates to touch upon so let’s hop right into it!
From Ashe Vol. 10
As you can tell from the previous post, the book is done, all artwork is in, and it’s available on Amazon right now to pre-order in Paperback, Kindle, and Hardcover. It’s not active on any other platform since I haven’t seen a pre-order option on any of them so I will be sure to upload those a day or two ahead of the May 13 release date to ensure it’s all live and ready to go. The epub file is created, though, so it’s just a matter of uploading it when the time comes.
The book ended up being 340 pages which is just 2 pages shy of From Ashe Vol. 7’s 342 pages aka the longest book I’ve written. Needless to say, this one has a lot of content inside as we are heading to the halfway point of the second story arc which, as of now, looks to end around Vol. 13. I’ve been going back and forth to make the third arc the final one or do something else. I have some ideas but it’s just a matter of seeing if they fit/work/are necessary when the time comes to wrap up the second arc. We’ll see.
My Regularly Scheduled Life
Well… in the last progress update, I hadn’t received word if the book made it to the second round of the J-Novel Club contest. I did; however, receive word a day or two after that report went up and unfortunately, it did not pass to the next round.
To be honest, I’m not all that disappointed as the story didn’t quite turn out like I wanted it to. I took a gamble on some touchy subjects in there and it’s possible that I didn’t portray things correctly or the way they should have been rather than just going for a straight-forward SoL drama much like I went for a straight-forward SoL romcom with MyGF. I didn’t play to my strengths with that title and the start of it didn’t hook some people in the feedback I got.
However, that means that it’s released from the contest, I can re-write the book, make it better, and publish it on my own which is what I am going to do with it… but not anytime soon. I have goals with From Ashe in where I would like to get to Vol. 12 by the end of the year so I will be hard at work pushing from that. Next year, I might revisit this or push From Ashe through to either its conclusion or arc 3. I’ll play it by ear but I will promise this. Either when Arc 2 is finished or when the series is finished, re-writing that will be on the list to do.
Until then, it will remain as a free book on my website so grab it while you can because the paid version will be vastly different.
Merchandise
As promised, with the release of a new book will come new merchandise. As I have alluded to before, the next collection is going to be the “What They Say” collection. It will feature five new shirts with quotes from my characters. As a preview, the quotes I’ve chosen are:
“It Was All Like KABLOOMIE!” – Jessi Hammons, A.R. Dragonfly
“For every tear you shed, I have a thousand ways to make you shed another” – Kaiza Shirazou, A.R. Dragonfly
“I’m Nyan-stoppable!” – Cora McKenna/Nekohime, From Ashe
“What good is a big heart if I can’t give it to someone?” – Daiki Kenjimaru, MyGF
“Don’t you know? I’m from the future” – Mikomi Saigo, Final Hope
In addition to that, a Nekohime logo shirt will also be coming with this collection! I hope you’re looking forward to checking them out when they launch in a couple of weeks!
Until Next Time
As I said.. a small update this month. Next month there may not be an update as I don’t look to start writing Vol. 11 until June. Typically when I release a book, my writing ability is on cooldown. I’ll still be working on things like the shirts and doing the full outline for Vol. 11. Speaking of which, the major bullet points are already done. I just need to flesh them out into chapters.
So, I won’t be completely relaxing. Then again, when do I ever? If I do anything significant other than releasing shirts and outlining the book, I’ll let you know. Until then, look forward to Vol. 10 on the 13th and the new shirts around that time!
Until next time,
Ja ne!