Big Projects, Artwork, Writing, and Travel...

Hi there everyone!

I apologize for going quiet for a while again - much, much longer than I intended, that’s for sure, even with everything I knew I had going on. It was a combination of writing deadlines, personal stuff, travel, a massive Kickstarter learning curve, and just me trying to avoid burnout, so trying to not freak out when all of those things converged.

I also think I was waiting because I wanted to give everyone SOLID news, and a bunch of things changed over the past few weeks (multiple times, lol/cries), and I kept waiting for things to stabilize before I tried to tell people what was going on.

In the future, I might not do that... I’m realizing it probably would have been better to give people more of a head’s up while all of those things were swirling around, but at the time it felt sort of overwhelming so I didn’t.

But the good news is, I think the really big things are mostly straightened out now!

First the travel - I spent a week in Southern California with family right after Bones and Blood Spells got finished and released. Then immediately after that (and I mean IMMEDIATELY), I got on a plane to NYC to visit friends there and to house-sit their cat for nine days while they were in Portugal. That back-to-back travel thing was kind of an accident / poor planning on my part. I thought I had a full day between when I got back from my 5-6 hour drive from Southern California back to the Bay Area before I had to leave for the East Coast, but instead I literally had a few hours, even with getting up ridiculously early in Southern California to get back so I could make my flight.

Both trips were a lot of fun, but neither was particularly relaxing, lol. I also got pretty sick in NYC while I was there, so I didn’t get much writing done, which was a bummer.

On the plus side, I did manage to get a lot done over that period of time, despite all of the craziness. So I can now tell you some concrete things about where I’m at and my schedule and so on.

First off, some of you might have noticed that I postponed the release of the last book in my Bones and Shadow series by one month. This was for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one was the Kickstarter fulfillment. I really didn’t budget enough time for all of that, and my learning curve was/is BIG for this first one.

For a while there I was working with a printer in China for the ART DECO version of the hardback books for Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1) and Malevolent Bones (Bones and Shadow #2). I got (by far) the most orders for the ART DECO version, so many that I thought it might be worth it to do a big print run with a company that could handle that economically. It took weeks to sort all of that out, partly due to a big learning curve on my end (and my designer’s end, as well), and we FINALLY got to the finish line, when I realized the ACTUAL timelines involved with shipping / printing (they send everything by boat), and it was so far out, I decided to pivot to a closer printer in the end anyway, given how far behind we’d fallen with figuring out the formatting they needed and so on.

So after spending weeks on that, I’m now using a printer based in Europe/United States instead, since they can facilitate delivery much (MUCH) faster. I still hope to use the China-based printer for the next one, but for this one, given how slow I was to figure all of this out, it just made sense to spend a little more to get them done faster.

Because of the switch, everything SHOULD get to me in time to mail everything out by the end of July (it would have been more than a month later, at minimum, for the Chinese printer, and likely closer to 2 months). There is still a chance for delays, of course, but, fingers crossed, if the print runs come out okay and there’s no damage in packing, shipping, etc., I should just squeak in under the line of what I’d initially estimated, which was sometime in July for fulfillment. I already have all of the art for the Art Packs and goodies and art for the Swag Packs, plus boxes and packing supplies, pens for signing, and so on. I’ve started assembling Art Packs between writing stints, so I’ll have all of that ready to go well before any of the books arrive.

So yes! Progress! Everything is coming together, and really, I’m just mostly waiting for the books and a few other things now, in terms of being able to close out this first Kickstarter!

There are still a few more items I need to submit for printing, but those will only affect a much smaller number of people. The designer is putting the final touches on the cover art for the Deluxe Retail Hardbacks and the Deluxe Retail Paperbacks, so that order will be submitted later this week (fingers crossed). There are also a few bonus hardcovers that were Add-Ons offered to fans of JC Andrijeski. One of those is a brand new hardcover for BLACK IN WHITE (Quentin Black Mystery #1), which will be on sale shortly afterwards, so that’s exciting! :)

Because of the smaller numbers involved, those last few orders should go through much faster, and I suspect the printing company will ship everything together, just because it’s likely cheaper / easier for them to do it that way.

The only thing that worries me SLIGHTLY at this point is gas prices, and how that might affect mailing / postage costs over the next few months. Mailing prices have already jumped here in the United States a lot, unfortunately, but I’m hoping it’s not so crazy that it makes it difficult for me to send everything. Since I’m signing everything by hand, there’s no way to get a jump on that or do it differently - everything needs to come to me first before I can mail it.

Oh! And I’m definitely doing a 2nd Kickstarter this autumn that will include the next 2 books in the series! I can’t put up a pre-launch until the first one is fulfilled, but I’ve got some amazing new art for the new books already and even more in the pipeline for the Art Packs and for inside the books! :)

Here’s a little peek, below (if you have any opinion on which one would make the better banner for the Kickstarter, let me know!)

(Did I mention these next 2 books are a bit emotional / darker than the first two? You can probably tell from the artwork, lol)

A lot more coming on both the fourth book, and on the 2nd Kickstarter once everything is out the door for this one! 🖤

Right now, in terms of my writing life, I’m focused on finishing the (hopefully!) last book of this series, which is Serpent and Shadow (Bones and Shadow #4). It’s a pretty heavy / dark book, as stated above, which is part of why I wanted to give myself plenty of emotional and time room to finish it without feeling rushed.

In personal news, it’s been a busy few weeks! My nephew (the youngest out of all of them) graduated high school last week, so we went to the ceremony and then hosted a party at our house, which was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Coming up, I have a garage sale I’m helping my brother and his wife with on Saturday, and then one more graduation on Sunday, for my niece who happens to be the oldest of all of them (she is graduating from dental school!), but as of next week, I should be able to devote the vast majority of my time to finishing that book and other writing work.

In the meantime, I really hope you’re having a great end of Spring / beginning of Summer so far! I admit, in addition to having much more writing time, I’m looking forward to finally making it to the beach when all of this family craziness and printing craziness is finished. ⛱️ 🌊 🐚

Best wishes to everyone, and I’ll update more soon! I’ll also be sharing an excerpt of the new book for the paid folks on here, probably by the end of next week!

Thanks so much for all of your patience and support! I appreciate it so much!

Jules / JC