Anisian Convergence Rights Reversion - Reissue Update
A Little Backstory
In early February, I went to the Superstars Writing Seminar with one intention: figure out why folks aren’t getting into FALLEN HUNTER and, from there, the rest of the series.
And I did.
In fact, I found many reasons why folks weren’t reading through. Here’s the short list as to why folks didn’t keep reading the Anisian Convergence after LAST BID FOR A DYING EARTH:
LAST BID is a Prequel, NOT Book One. Folks were expecting more from Sayre and instead they got a 300 year jump and weird demon magic. That was a stupid choice I made. Fixing this.
There are typos throughout the first four chapters (after three editors read it. screams forever) Fixing that now. It’s just taking longer than I want.
The core story is a TRILOGY. Yep. FALLEN HUNTER is Book One, FUTILITY OF INTENT is Book Two, and INTO THE ÆTHER is the finale. So yeah. If folks started with FOCUS or LAST BID, the main story is jarring. Sorry. Renumbering should fix that.
And lastly… this is a queer sci-fi series. Every major POV character in the book carries one of the LGBTQIA+ letters in their pocket. Dave: romantic, sex neutral asexual. Sayre: ace. Dee: lesbian. Hira: pansexual. Ceriat: gay. Eleni: demisexual.
That said, it’s rarely a plot point and I tend not to write sex scenes, so I didn’t think it would be a problem if I didn’t advertise that up front.
I won’t make that mistake when I reissue. I was wrong.
The Anisian Convergence is Queer Sci-Fi (with little to no sex). Period.
For those wondering why this apparent cis-het dude is writing queer SF: Dave is based on me. I’m a romantic, sex neutral asexual. And in my normal life, I’m surrounded by other queer folks. It’s weirder for me when I run into a hardcore heterosexual nowadays than not. So, I write queer sci-fi until such a time as that definition doesn’t need to be applied.
It’s Getting Fixed?!
Yep. By me. After discussing these changes with my publisher, we have decided to amicably part ways. CKP has dumped a bunch of money into covers, editing, and advertising on four books and haven’t gotten close to earning their investment back. Chris agreed that everything I said should be done, but he also had to take a hard financial look to see it didn’t make sense for him to keep publishing the books.
I ran a business for a hot second; I get it. When something is a money sink, it doesn’t matter if you “really like it,” you have to move on.
So, we agreed. He’s keeping the books up until I’m ready to replace them with my own versions. After I send him the email, he’s officially returning my rights and delisting. And I still have an open invitation to write in their other worlds.
It’s about as good as it gets in this situation, I think.
What Next? What about book five?!
First: book “five” is written. Every book in the Anisian Convergence is written. No need to worry about that. :)
However, “book five” will now be “book three” due to the new numbering order. It’s still the series finale, so no worries there. I’ll talk more about that as we get closer.
As for everything else, I have work to do. Thanks to Amy, I have a publishing company setup (Falstar Publishing, LLC.) and am working on a proper marketing plan now (and a possible pre-order for the last book).
I’m in the process of editing the entire series as a whole (and fixing typos that shouldn’t be in there) as well as putting together covers for all five books plus some short stories and another non-AC release I had planned to release this year.
So far, it’s going rather well. I’m using AI generated art as my starting point for these covers, then photobashing additional generated works into them before adding my own custom art to the overall presentation. It’s kind of like what cover artists have been doing with stock images for over a decade, but I end up owning the rights instead of some contractor.
At some point, I’ll write about how Midjourney got me back into art and helped me find my style again (my OG art style was always hyperrealistic fantasy/SF; editing these is like editing one of my old drawings)… but that’s another post. I’m just happy the muscle memory is still there.
I'm also getting close on the FOCUS ON THE WIND cover, but for the reasons mentioned above I’ve tabled it for now. I’ll post that one later.
Anyway, that’s the update for now!
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Until next time!
For now, I have a near finished cover for FALLEN HUNTER! Here’s the sneak peak:
