THIS is the announcement I’ve been waiting to make to the world. It goes out to you FIRST, loyal and (mostly) uncomplaining newsletter readers.

All three of the books in the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series are being republished, with AMAZING new covers by Kwasi Amankwah (Kwasi81). Here’s the shiny new cover for Blood Ex Libris

And, since I know people will be demanding it, HERE IS THE PRESALE EBOOK LINK. Next week I’ll be getting out the presale link for print books! Publication date is SEPTEMBER 19th!

I will be talking unceasingly in newsletters to come about the challenges of starting up your own company to self-publish your books (and if people want to know why I decided on that direction, it’s a long story but I can share that as well), but first I wanted to talk about the final stage I’ve been in before I could make this announcement. (Which, SQUEEE, I’m finally making!)

This time, I can do things right.

I had caught Covid coming home from vacation, but my first thing I had to do upon returning home was the task of reading the proof of BXL with a very hard edit. Scheduling-wise, it couldn’t wait. So with both the virus and the Paxlovid buzzing through my system, I jumped in, a feverish experience in every way.

At first, I was just so focused on catching typos and ignoring symptoms that I didn’t really take in the profoundly meaningful moment I was in. But, reading some lines I first wrote about a decade ago, now, suddenly it all hit me.

These words came out of me pretty much the way you see them now. Lots of the book has been reworked, cut and rewritten, and some sentences have had the same punctuation moved around so many times as to redefine either “obsessive-compulsive” or “tragic-comic” or both. But I remember the first time I wrote those lines, sitting on the sofa in my apartment in San Francisco, my marriage falling apart but me being years from being able to admit or do anything about it, and my now elderly dog still a high-energy, disruptive puppy. I remember those words just flowing out of me, and that moments like those gave me hope that this crazy idea I was having that I could finish a novel and then perhaps get it published was not actually delusional.

(I had no concept about the fact that writing a good novel was very different from getting an agent or publisher to recognize it as such. All those lessons were to come after typing “the end.”)

After that moment of place (“Oh! That’s where I have been. Here is where I am now. Time is so very surreal.”) the rest of the editing had more profound moments for me. I had seen this as “just an edit that needs to be done,” but this final edit became so much more than that.

I had really wanted to get a good proofread before printing up the Advance Review Copies/proof. That didn’t work out, and I was pretty horrified (being my perfectionistic self) at how much stuff that needed work still existed in the document, in a book which had already been in print. (Albeit always with more typos than I was comfortable with.)

The reason for the amount of “unfinishedness” was because, after I got the rights back from the first publisher, I finally got a Turkish/Arabic sensitivity edit which should have been done before the book saw print. Before I got published, though, I always said to myself, “Oh, there is plenty of time, and you need to focus on just getting published.” And finding potential agents and publishers, jumping through the flaming hoops of their submission requirements, and then rinsing and repeating for years certainly was exhausting and completely burnt through focus and energy. When I finally did find the publisher, though, suddenly things were moving fast, and it was too late for me to get that sensitivity edit, and then BOOM the book was out in the world, which is what I had been fighting for, for so long.

And always in the back of my mind was the regret that I hadn’t managed to get the sensitivity edit done. I hadn’t realized there were services for such things (all the other expert reviews of my book, the biologist and the archivist, the Romanian reader for language and history, those had all been friends willing to share their time and expertise with me) and honestly, it would have been very hard to afford it, at that time.

But when I got my rights back, I was finally all set up for such things (my writing now being an actual business), and I was more than ready for this to finally happen. I found a perfect editor (specializing in the Turkish and Arabic languages and history and religious philosophies!) through a service, and sent over the manuscript, fingers crossed I hadn’t fucked up too egregiously, all this time.

She found … more than I’d hoped. For example, one section of the story had Noosh spending time in the hammam with the female “jinn,” getting to know the world of her enemies through a very female lens. I had written it with the intent to be supportive of women who cover, giving Noosh a more nuanced and complex and conflicting view, so that the “bad guys” were more than just “bad guys.”

But. But. It never occurred to me that putting Noosh into the hammam (which I did because the am’r are all very fastidious about regular bathing) and also having her see that the women were wearing colorful lingerie under their outer modest garments (I’d seen a special on how Arabic women are very individualistic and chose to express themselves in the clothing choices most people never see, and I wanted to work that into the story) could be perceived as me embracing the stereotype that Middle Eastern women are “exotic,” and all the Orientalist male fantasies that go along with that ?

That one hit like a kick to the stomach. I’d thought I’d done such a great job showing how multilayered and complex these characters were … and in the end I’d accidentally turned it into the most stereotyped trope.

Once I’d overcome the hit to my self-esteem, it actually took very little rewriting to sort it out, but it was a very important lesson, which I hope has made me a better writer, in that regard.

In other regards, I am already a vastly better writer. Going through BXL line by line made that clear. There were so many sentences that it was so easy to tighten up, to tweak to a much better way of expressing the thought. It was a profound relief to get the opportunity to take what I’ve learned writing all the am’r stories since and lavish it upon the first book. I love BXL. But after writing Blood Ad Infinitum, I was painfully aware how I’ve grown as a writer. Being able to go back and take what I’ve learned and give a kind of “spa day” to my first novel, the one that went through the fire with me, was a true gift.

I hope Blood Ex Libris, Version X with Upgrades, is as improved as I think it is. I hope you all love it even more than the first. (And that you think it’s worth paying for the second version, if you already own the first!) I hope it makes it even easier for you to slip into Noosh’s journey from bored, underchallenged small-town librarian toward the am’r-ass-kickin’, globe-trottin’, take-no-shit archivist she will become. I hope the flow of my writing now just floats you along, or crashes you through rapids, or otherwise utterly subsumes you until you come out the other end of the story.

Thank you all for coming along with me on MY journey, as well. As a perfectionist, I would really rather no one see my art until it is in a shiny, glorious final state. It’s kinda possible to do that with my photography—I can just work and rework images in Photoshop until I decide they are DONE. But, I have learned, I simply do not get to have that with writing. Various layers of editors and reviewers need to catch my errors. Fans want to see works in progress. Advance Review Copies must be sent out. Writing demands I not just share my soul (that’s OK, I’m an artist, I gotta do that anyway), but also my imperfections (still NOT OK. This will always be a painful challenge for me.) So thank you all for making it clear that you like my writing even when it has not be polished to its most perfect high-gloss, that I can get things a bit wrong and still have space to evolve them and myself. It is deeply valued and appreciated.

If you are still reading at this point, here is the link again for pre-ordering Blood Ex Libris in ebook format. The print link comes next week. The rest of the series will be rolled out over the next couple months. ?

OK, so when I last wrote to you lot, I was fighting to make my pre-sales of the paperback books go live on my website, and all I could give you was the ebook pre-sales link.

Since then has been one of those time periods where I really regret knowing enough web design that I just can’t hire someone else to do it, because I’ve already invested so much time in learning all that stuff, that I’m bloody well NOT going to pay someone else to make me a website. If I just honestly didn’t know, I could pay for it to be someone else’s headache. But nooooooo. I must keep this headache all for myself ?

I use Square for direct sales of the books. So I wanted to find a way to connect Square with my site (a WordPress site) so that the sales could be directly through my site. Square does not directly integrate with WP, so I needed a plugin. I dully found one that was well-rated, paid for the pro version, installed it … and thus began two weeks of increasing frustration. Finally, I gave up on the plugin, and made a separate webstore, as Square offers that service for free. At the end of a day of setting that up, Square offered me a button-builder for each product … and I realized that if I had known about the button-builder from the start, I wouldn’t have needed to go through ANY of the above kabuki ?‍♀️

But, anyways, it is done, and has been tested, and you can now go pre-order a signed paperback of Blood Ex Libris from me HERE.

Why order the signed paperback, you ask? Well, it’s a win-win. If you buy through Amazon or another webshop, they take 40% of the money. And it’s not lovingly dedicated to you. If you buy through my website, I get 100% of the profit (minus what I pay dear old USPS to ship it to you, but yay media mail for keeping it affordable!) and then, as I’m packing it up, I take the time to dedicate the book to you, and maybe even slip in a surprise swag item… ?‍?

So that’s that, and we are here. And this goes out on the 15th , so pre-ordering from me is practically the same as regular old ordering from me, but let’s all cheer ? for me resolving the problem before launch day! (Special shout-out here to a fellow fan of yours, who is a web-person, and who helped me both with technical stuff and in keeping me from imploding—you know who you are, and you are so appreciated! ?)

Also, huge thanks to the two fans of the series who jumped up to test the sales button on the website, and helped me find an issue that it was really good to get resolved before orders started pouring in ?

At this point, the amount of help I’ve had from friends is just bonkers. This is really a joint effort, here, and you lot are what’s making this thing happen. The learning curve on this has been sooooo steep, that I cannot express how much that has kept me moving forward in hope. I’m not a person who gives up easily, but the process of getting my books back from the publisher through relaunching them into the world would honest daunt pretty much anyone. I’m a much more knowledgeable person, these days, but almost none of that learning has been taking notes in a nice comfy classroom; it’s been done in the self-publishing trenches, which are as muddy and bloody as wartime trenches can be expected to be (in a metaphorical sense of course, but I still may need therapy…)

Tonight I Upload Final Things to Amazon, and then they have a Good Think About It, and then hopefully Amazon sales go live on the 19th , and then This Shit Gets Real ?

If you have extra good vibes to send, spiritually cross your fingers for me for in this coming time. You’d be amazed how many things that look easy in the description turn out to be much more complicated and/or have unforeseen issues as one tries to actually accomplish them ?

Meanwhile, things progress in the background for Books II and III, and I will hopefully be getting you pub dates in the next email. The both still need final proofing, but I have the actual printed proofs in hand, and that is how I will be keeping myself out of trouble once BXL is out in the world again.

Apparently, when people see my partner out at events now, with me nowhere to be seen, they ask, “Is Raven still working too hard on her books to be here today?” And, yeah, I’m back home dealing with one thing or another. So I do look forward to a day when I have enough “spoons” to do this AND to have a social life. (Of course that social life will probably immediately get subsumed by going to an endless round of conventions to sell the books in person, and being on panels talking about vampires and worldbuilding in fantasy, but hey, that’s still better than just being at home on the computer, learning everything I don’t know about indie publishing. At least I’ll get to wear my bat and dragon and hedgehog kigurumis and be nerdy with people!)

OK, I need to go off and do things, and you are to be commended for reading my always too-long newsletters. I’ll drop a quick newsletter — promise! — once BXL is finally fully out there in the world!

Yes, I know how belated this newsletter is… ?

I wrote 90% of a newsletter weeks ago, on my phone, and the document got lost and I didn’t have the heart or energy to redo it until now.

However, this is a very different newsletter than that one. Most of you know that my books are dedicated to my coauthor, my beloved dog Cairngorm McWomble the Terrible.

On November 19th he crossed the rainbow bridge.

His seizures started in early October. After that first terrible day, I spent most of October either in the emergency veterinary hospital, or holding Cairngorm through long nights of seizures which were happening every fifteen minutes. After ultrasounds and an MRI and a thousand other tests, they still had no idea what was actually causing the “neurologic events” but put him on an anti-seizure medication. The dosage had to be upped after a week, but for a couple weeks, it seemed like everything was stable. Then it wasn’t, and the meds needed to be upped again.

But by this time my poor little five pound boy was on just a massive amount of medications, including the anti-seizure ones, and what probably happened at this point was that his liver (which had been dodgy all his life) couldn’t cope with all of it. He stopped wanting to go for walks, which had been his absolute favorite thing all his life. About a week later, he told me he was ready to be done with the six-times-a-day medication schedule and leave his failing little body behind.

A wonderful vet who specializes in at-home euthanasia came to us, and his passing was less a death and more a floating away in a painless ocean of love and adoration.

I, the one remaining, am not OK. You could charitably call me a “complete and total wreck.”

Anyway, I’m supposed to be continuing on with life, and that involves heading into the season in which most indie writers sell most of their books and make the most profit for the year. Indie writers count on Black Friday and the rest of the holiday season to ensure their businesses make a profit, or at least break even.

And I can barely focus on marketing or promotional plans. So that’s all very optimal.

To that end, if you have friends or family who would enjoy the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series, I have a deal going on the website, where you can get all three of the freshly re-released books for a handsome discount, with free shipping and all! If you leave a note requesting it, I will also wrap all the books for you by hand! So you could just order the books to be delivered directly to your loved one, and be done and dusted with that item on your do-to list!

This is basically the best offer for anything you’ll see, this holiday season. So let me help you get your holiday shopping list crossed off! (And you won’t just be helping my lil indie business in return, but I actually really enjoy wrapping gifts, so you’ll be giving me healthy grief-displacement activities, as well.)

Right. Well, I had to try and do some promotional stuff, so that’s done, and I hope the offer is useful to you. But I know you’re also here for updates on upcoming books, and happily I have news for you ?

My little co-author took his job very seriously, and I had one novella unfinished. So on his penultimate day, he lay beside me and helped me hit “The End” on that story. He basically let me know I had to get it done on his schedule.

So that means the third story is done for the collection of three novellas that will be published in … drumroll please… Blood Triad in May 2024. It’s a simple name, but I’m pretty pleased with how perfect it is. ? It still needs to get out to the editor, of course, but I love this part of the process, editing the story up to a high gloss. I’ll be trying out a new cover artist for this book, and am waiting with much anticipation to see the rough draft for that.

A reminder, Blood Triad will be comprised of the story about Astryiah (Abyssinia), Zoraida (Teeth Are Bones), and the glorious bromance of Dubhghall and Wulfhram (the just-completed Blood Brothers). I’m pretty happy about the spread of characters through time and the world: Astryiah is from Roman-era Judea and the story is set in the 1930s in Philadelphia, Zoraida is from Haiti in the early 1900s, telling the story of how she became am’r to Noosh in current times, and Dubhghall & Wulfhram became am’r in the 900s and are also telling their origin stories (which include ending up in the Khazar Khaganate, like you do) to our favorite archivist for the am’r. (Both of those stories set after the end of Blood Ad Infinitum.) Having diverse am’r is really important to me, and I think this collection demonstrates that my am’r will never be a boringly homogenous buncha bloodsuckers.

Once that gets into production, that will leave me free to finally get back to writing Book IV in the series, the vampire pirates, which is what everyone wants most of all, I know! I never thought it would take so long to get to this place, but I’m so glad that I can get back to being a writer-who-writes, and not a writer-who-is-just-trying-to-build-a-small-business.

I think that’s enough from me, today. I will try to actually hit the “every two weeks” mark from now on. I never wrote about the new covers, and I really want to talk about those in the next newsletter, because they are amazing.

I hope your holiday season goes smoothly and unstressfully!