We finally have a date for the release of Death of a Mad Dragon. Initially planned for a June release, personal circumstances forced me to delay the release. To break it down, I got hit by health issues in March which affected my abilities to get any work done. Therefore the last rounds of edits, in between the professional edit done by Sarah Chorn and the proofread done by Dominish Books, took me four months to complete. The novel is ready now and has been since July and could have been published already but I want to give ARC readers enough time to read it and review it. Three months seems a fair amount of time for a 65k words novel. If you have missed out on the ARC and would like to read and review it before the 15th of October, you can still register below. I am happy to send out eARCS until the release date.
There is another reason for the delay in releasing this novel which links to my next topic. I am changing my ways of working and marketing. I will be diving into the topic in depth in future blog posts and newsletters. The short story is that my publishing career so far has been based on the Ryan Cahill model which, I find, is financially expensive and mentally unhealthy. It’s a (desperate) sprint race where those who don’t finish first crash and burn. That system is not me. It took me 27 years to see my first novel published. I have 40+ novels planned in the Raoke Gang series. To me, this publishing journey is a marathon, not a sprint. Financially, I cannot afford to sink in huge amounts of money into the production, marketing and release of every book and then run ads at a loss for months. Health-wise, I cannot dedicate this much time on social media like I did prior to the release of A Wolf in Space. I need to prioritize my family and my writing time. Creatively, I haven’t got the skills yet to write my magnum opus. Although… the novel I am currently developing is an effort to reach those highs.
Down the line, the ultimate goal for me is to create a series as rich and dense as the great ones: Realm of the Elderlings, Malazan, A Song of Fire and Ice. I can’t do that right now, because I do not have the skills, the experiences and the resources to write such deep, intricate and long books. But… with this next novel and series within the Raoke Gang series, I’m trying to achieve this on a much smaller scale: smaller cast of characters, narrower focus.
Which leads me to my last topic: an update of Gotthaus, the Raoke Gang origin stories.
For clarity purposes I’m going to write this in bullet points:
What is done and (90%) sure:
- This sub-series will be titled The Fall of Gotthaus
- The overall arch will focus on two characters: Raoke, as the future gunmaster of Gotthaus and Bori (not a Raoke Gang member) as the new Lordess of Gotthaus
- The theme for book 1 is anger and inexperience.
- The setting is high fantasy with the inclusion of (rare) gunblasters. Think Krull but with a better script and dialogues.
- The references to my favorite film Big Trouble in Little China, present in A Wolf in Space, will continue with the inclusion of the Three Storms. They’re not verbatim the same ones but an inspiration, the same way John Carpenter was inspired by the three ronins known as the Gods of Death in the second Lone Wolf and Cub film: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972, Japan). The Three Storms are an important plot device and an ominous presence throughout the series.
- The closest depiction of this series I can give is this: think A Song of Fire and Ice but only focusing on the Starks.
What is unsure:
- The actual creation of the gang will not be depicted in this sub-series
- Raoke will be the only gang member represented in this sub-series
- The number of books in this sub-series. It will be a minimum of 3 books and a maximum of 5.
- The length of the books. I have a lot of content but do not want to write chunkers (yet). So the planned range is 140k to 180k words, at least for book 1. I have a lot of content to depict before the Three Storms make their fatal entry.
Raoke Gang trivia
Raoke, the gang leader, is a woman of Native American and Japanese ancestry. Her name is pronounced Ra – O – Ké
Going forward, the plan is to be more transparent and communicative about the creative process. I will keep updating on the progress of Gotthaus.
Alex Valdiers 