Last night I sent my book out for its first beta read. That would be 2+ years after being originally published. Now let us never speak of it again.

After the latest round of editing, I am very excited for their feedback. For the first time I really feel like the writing has caught up to the story itself and tells it clean and true. I cut 7,000 words, most all of them useless, and brought the first 30 pages from tepid to intriguing. Now, when I hop in and read a page here or there, I just read. No fixing, editing, or shuffling in my head. Just smiles on my mouth.

As for the new cover, I just threw something together in Photoshop to differentiate between this and my previous version. I’m pretty proud of it, even if close attention exposes my shoddy work.

My beta readers are:

Dyrk Ashton – Fantasy Faction’s choice for SPFBO#2 and third place finisher, Dyrk is the author of Paternus: Rise of Gods – the novel I’m currently reading – with Paternus: Wrath of Gods coming out July 10, 2018.

James Downe – co-author with AEsc Adams of the 5+ book series Legacy of Ash, his website is constantly expanding with new information about their detailed world.

Michael Baker – author of the Thousand Scars: Counterbalance Book 1 (hey, a sister series to The Imbalance?), he’s a diligent author who gets things written.

Tom Smith – I had to Grimdark it up a little with the next two, as I do draw some inspiration from the genre. Tom writes for Grimdark Magazine and knows how to get dirty.

Femke Geisolf – is a badass blogger who connected with me over our mutual love of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. She works hard at expanding self-published fantasy in Europe.

Debdip Chakraborty – is a friendly fellow from Kolkata who is working on his own book and is much loved by the online fantasy community.

Khaled Jabar – won my seat designated for a total stranger. It’s an important role!

I’m super excited to let the book out of my hands a while so I can focus on its sequel. Last year I made some headway twice a week, but this summer I expect to have more than triple the opportunity to push it close to completion.