March Updates

~ andrewkrowe ~ 2 Comments

Happy March!

First off, a quick reminder that we’re still running the kickstarter campaign for Arcane Ascension 3 hardcovers. If you haven’t checked it out because you didn’t get the first two books, you can get all three of them in there! And this one is absolutely beautiful, with phenomenal internal artwork, as well as front and back covers by Daniel Kamarudin. You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wxp/aa3

Happy March!

First off, a quick reminder that we’re still running the kickstarter campaign for Arcane Ascension 3 hardcovers. If you haven’t checked it out because you didn’t get the first two books, you can get all three of them in there! And this one is absolutely beautiful, with phenomenal internal artwork, as well as front and back covers by Daniel Kamarudin. You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wxp/aa3

Next, some actual updates.

First, what most of you are probably here for — updates on my writing status.

Last month was busier than I expected with non-writing matters that were unavoidable (like medical appointments and urgent home maintenance), which slowed me down a bit, but I’m still making steady progress on W&W4. Not as much as I made in January, but I’m doing pretty well with it in terms of word count.

At present, the manuscript is at about 130,000 words, which is about mid-way between W&W1 and W&W2 in length. I’m still a decent chunk away from finishing this one, so I’m probably going to end it closer to Diamantine (or maybe a little longer?), which is my target range. Honestly, it could go even longer than that, but I probably need to start wrapping it up before it ends up Soulbrand length. I always come up with new scenes after my original outline is done, but in this case, I’ve been doing a lot more than I expected, largely due to the weirdness of what I’m exploring for the second half (well, really, the whole second and third acts) of the book.

My intention was to try to get something ready for beta readers by the end of this month. That isn’t happening. I’m going to aim for the end of April for beta readers instead, which I think is still pretty plausible, but it’ll depend on how I decide to wrap certain plot hooks up, and how much time I spend on self-editing first.

I have some concerns about this one, largely because it doesn’t spend as much time with the core cast as most of the W&W books do.

This is because I’d originally planned to do this as a split book between Keras and Reika’s perspectives (with the latter written by Mallory Reaves, the original Reika in my gaming campaigns), where you’d be going back and forth and seeing both, but their arcs were so disconnected that we settled on W&W4 being the Keras book and W&W5 being the Reika book.

What this means is that Reika and Dawn are off doing their own separate thing simultaneously throughout much of this book, so Keras is with other characters. Some of those are familiar (from previous W&W books, the War of Broken Mirrors, and [Redacted]), but some are very new.

I consider the relationship between Keras, Dawn, and Reika to be the core of the story, so having them be apart for a large part of this book is something I think is going to be difficult for some readers, even though I do think their absence actually helps shape the narrative in important ways. And, fortunately, W&W5 itself is about as far along as W&W4 is, so we’ll be likely to see them back-to-back, depending on how we handle writing interludes for each of them.

Still, this is going to be a weird one for some readers. Or maybe it won’t be? I suppose there was a lot of time apart in Soulbrand, too, but this feels a little different. I suppose we’ll see how the beta readers respond to it.

That’s basically all I’ve worked on in terms of writing over the last few months, aside taking one day off to work on my tabletop game a bit.

My schedule for future books remains about what I expected it to be, but with some notes.

After W&W4, W&W5 is still scheduled to be next. This will mostly involve editing on my part, as well as maybe writing some small Keras segments, like a prologue and epilogue for the frame story. That’ll still take time, but it’s comparatively minor.

After that, my intention is still to work on AA7 and try to wrap that up. I expect that to take close to a year, both because it’s going to be long, and because it’s probably the most important book in my career to this point and it needs to be good. That being said, I expect that there’s a good chance that I might need to delay this because of publication deals, so I may not work on it exclusively during that time. (I also often work on two books at once to avoid burnout, especially for long books.)

The next book I’m going to be working on is Edge 3. Depending on how the above goes, I may actually finish this first, because I did so much pre-writing for it while finishing Edge 2’s edits (and because I have scenes I cut out of Edge 1 and 2 that may go in there as well).

Realistically, my expectation is that my book releases this year will be W&W4 and W&W5, with AA7 and Edge 3 landing next year. I’d like to release more than that this year, but I can’t say it’s likely.

Aside from that, I have a couple other things to mention, but only briefly (for now).

I’ve recently signed two significant business deals. I’m not ready to announce them in detail, but I’m extremely excited about them both. One is AA related, one is W&W related.

I’m in the midst of discussing a third possible deal, which is for the tabletop game. I think there’s a good chance this one will actually go somewhere, but I can’t say for certain. I’m extremely excited about who I’d be working with if it goes through, but I can’t say anything more than that yet.

Either way, I’m still in talks with Storyquest, and I expect to be doing more content with them in the future. My hope is to film another game later in this year. I had a blast working with them for Ascension’s Promise, and if you haven’t already checked that out, consider taking a look! Their other campaign is absolutely fantastic, too, and if you’ve already watched Ascension’s Promise, consider checking out Supernova, too.

We haven’t settled on what we’re doing next. There are lots of options, but I’m currently leaning toward asking them to run a Weapons & Wielders game for some of the original W&W PCs, since this is a W&W release year. There are some other cool options, too, like doing a campaign in the time period of the original “Hero’s Party” mentioned in Edge of the Woods, or I might run Storyquest through a spire climb. We’ve even discussed the idea of a post-AA7 campaign, but I’d have to finish the book first, so that might be more of an option next year or the year after.

Aside from that, there’s a lot of other stuff coming in the future. I’m extremely excited about my next couple projects with the War of Broken Mirrors cast, especially the Jonan and Velas web serial.

I may also have accidentally started a Romantasy. This probably won’t ever go anywhere, but I’m find it surprisingly fun to work on, so…we’ll see.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend! More updates soon.

-Andrew

February Updates

~ andrewkrowe ~ 9 Comments

Hello, everyone!

I was holding off for a bit on doing this update because I was hoping to have some definitive news on some deals I’ve been negotiating, but they’re still pending, so I’m going to go ahead and drop a quick update with the intention of providing more information soon.

Basically, I’m in the midst of multiple different contract negotiations related to my books, all of which are extremely cool, and some of which may impact my publishing schedule depending on how they pan out.

In the meantime, I’ve been working almost exclusively on Weapons & Wielders 4. I’ve made significant progress. As of today, my current manuscript in progress is about as long as Six Sacred Swords, and it still has a long way to go. I’m currently targeting a length around the same as Diamantine, which is currently my favored book length — it feels long enough for me to get into the meat of a story in my style without spinning out into taking excessive time like some of my longest works.

I don’t know if that’s the exact length I’m going to land on, but it’s the current strategy.

This is operating under the assumption that I’m “splitting” the originally planned book, which was going to be co-authored with Mallory Reaves with Keras and Reika perspectives. I spoke about this a bit in previous updates, but that was trending toward too long of a book, and we both already had self-contained storylines, so what this means is that we’re instead probably going to have Weapons & Wielders 4 as a Keras book and Weapons & Wielders 5 as a Reika book. We may also have some Reika interludes in W&W4 and Keras interludes in W&W5, depending on timing, length of the books, and logistics.

My goal is to get both of these books out this year. This, along with the publisher stuff I’ve alluded to, may mean I don’t finish AA7 this year, but I’m not sure.

I’ve started some writing on AA7 as well, but I’m primarily focusing on getting W&W4 done as quickly as possible. My expectation is that I’ll swap to starting on AA7 as soon as I have a draft of W&W4 completed and handed off to beta readers, which I hope to be around the end of March, but that may be too aggressive.

Aside from that, I don’t have any major updates just yet. I’m hoping to have some contracts signed soon — or at least some clear updates — for another blog post before the end of the month, but we’ll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and have a good month!

-Andrew

New Year Updates

~ andrewkrowe ~ 7 Comments

Hello, everyone!

Hope your new year has been going well so far. Let’s get into the some of my early year plans and updates!

Weapons & Wielders 4

This has been my primary project recently and I’m making excellent progress on it. Possibly too much progress.

I have a natural inclination towards writing longer books. This is something I’ve attempted to curtail several times with limited degrees of success through different methods.

My intention with this book was for it to be two relatively short “half-book” arcs, one from Keras and one from Reika, which would total to approximately the same length as one of my medium-length novels like Diamantine.

I’m rapidly approaching my target word count for my half. My co-author, who is writing Reika’s perspective, is even further along. She’s been better about sticking within the target word count range and is closer to wrapping her half up, but she’s also probably going to go over what we expected.

Realistically, I’m nowhere near done with my half. I feel like I’m just warming up, really.

What’s this mean?

Basically, I’m accidentally writing a full Weapons & Wielders book myself, rather than half a book. Mallory is approaching that point, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if my segment is Diamantine-length and hers ends up being about the length of Six Sacred Swords.

Given that these are basically completely separate narrative arcs as well, I think there’s a good chance that, unless I end up finding a way to cut my story shorter, we end up making this into two books, much like how I ended up splitting Arcane Ascension 5 into 5 and 6.

This would get two books out much faster, and I think it would feel more narratively coherent. While I could intersperse chapters between Keras and Reika (ala War of Broken Mirrors), those novels generally end up converging into a single point where the characters are collaborating, and that isn’t how these are (currently) structured. I think they feel better as separate books, at least as we’ve currently got them plotted. And, while we could adjust to try to make them feel more like two parts of one book, I think that would just muddy the story flow.

So, TLDR is that there’s a good chance that we’ll end up turning W&W4 into two books rather than one.

This will take longer than just slapping them together would — I’d want to make more content for connecting tissue within the books. And, realistically, I know that fans aren’t going to want an entire W&W book without Keras, so what we’ll probably end up doing is each of us will write some Interludes for the other book, meaning we’ll have some Keras scenes in the Reika book and vice versa.

This plan isn’t a guarantee yet — it’s just what I’m personally leaning toward. As Mallory and I get further along, we’ll continue to discuss this until we land on a final approach.

My current expectation is that this would result in two book releases in W&W this year — probably one around mid-year and one toward the end. This is still very tentative.

Demon King 2

I’m still waiting for final notes from my publisher on this, which will take some time to wrap up once I get them. So, this might cause some delays for other books once I switch gears back to this. Hard to estimate without knowing the scale of their notes.

Arcane Ascension 7

This is my next project on the list after W&W4 (…and possibly W&W5, depending on how that goes).

I haven’t done any major work on this since my last major book updates. I’ve done a bit more planning for final scenes, but that’s about it. I’m still expecting to work on this heavily later this year. I’d love to get it out this year, but I don’t want to rush it. It’s the finale, and I expect that it’ll go very long.

As I’ve noted in other posts, I should make it clear that this is intended to wrap up Corin’s main story arcs, but readers shouldn’t expect it to wrap up all of the mysteries of the setting or anything like that. I’m well aware that many readers are suffering from mystery fatigue, and I’m going to try to provide some answers here, but they’re largely going to be answers that are specifically related to Arcane Ascension and Corin’s story, not things that are more clearly tied to other characters and arcs (e.g. the time stuff going on with Mythralis, the Sun Eater, etc.)

I am going to be making an effort to expedite the reveals for some of those other mysteries, but AA isn’t the place for all of them.

The Lost Edge

As I mentioned in previous updates, I’ve already done some pre-writing for The Lost Edge 3. I ended up doing a bit more with this book last month while waiting on some notes on other projects, so this is a bit further along than I’d have expected for this point in the year, but it remains a tertiary project. It’s possible I might try to wrap it up quickly during an editing cycle on something, but I don’t want to really delve into it until AA7 is at least significantly further along.

The War of Broken Mirrors

Once I have some free time, one of my major agenda items is to get back to the continent of Mythralis for a War of Broken Mirrors follow up. This is quickly climbing on my priority list because of the aforementioned mystery fatigue.

This is very likely going involve two to three new books and a revision to Forging Divinity, since Forging Divinity is much rougher than most of my books and is often a stopping point for people who are trying to get into my books.

A WOBM1 revision would probably involve some reworking existing sections and adding new sections (I’m tinkering with the idea of adding Velas perspectives). I’m not sure what the overall scale of this would end up looking like or which formats I’d release it in just yet.

The other books would be intended to show what Lydia, Jonan, and Velas are doing during Weapons & Wielders, which largely has to do with the time mystery plot that has been in the background for many years now. This may also be explored through some other books, like a novelization of my tabletop campaign (Orphans of a Forgotten Time), but this is still a ways off and too soon to say for certain.

My expectation is that I will likely switch gears to this being my main focus next year, after W&W4, W&W5, AA7, and Lost Edge 3 are out.

Carefully Worded Wishes

Wrynn’s book (or series?) is still on the agenda, but I need to focus on wrapping up some other things before I can make it a main focus. This may end up being written by someone else, like Mallory Reaves, who I’m currently co-authoring W&W4 with.

(One of Mallory’s other gaming characters — her earliest one related to my setting — is also involved in these books. The Lost Edge readers might know who I’m talking about here, since Red is a version of that character.)

The Candle and the Mirror

My Jonan and Velas web serial is also still on the agenda, but I’ve deprioritized it for the moment to focus on wrapping up AA7 and some mystery stuff.

I may still end up launching within the next year or so, but unless something gets weird, probably not before AA7 is done. I really want that wrapped up.

The Tabletop Game

I might actually have a potential publisher interested, and I’m going to wait and see how that plays out before I give away too many details. I don’t have a formal offer letter yet, so I can’t say too much, but I think there’s a good chance we’ll be able to sign something and announce it relatively early this year.

In the meantime, I’m still working on this in my free time, mostly writing up things like additional skill trees and items.

Other Stuff

I may have some more publication deals coming up which may end up requiring additional writing or adjustments to my schedule. That said, I really want to focus on wrapping up some existing series at this point, so that’s going to be my primary focus for a while. Most of my contracts I’m pursuing are for things like the tabletop game and other multimedia work, with a focus on things that I don’t need to work on directly.

I’ll talk about this more when I can.

Thanks for reading, and have a great year, everyone!

-Andrew

Demon King on Sale at Barnes & Noble!

~ andrewkrowe ~ 8 Comments

Hey everyone,

Just a very quick note that How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps is a part of a sale at Barnes & Noble right now, so if you’ve never read it — or if you’re looking for last-minute gifts — now is a great time to give it a try!

No major news aside from that. I’m still working on the next Weapons & Wielders book and the tabletop game, with hopes to get both out next year if possible. I have some other things in the works I can’t talk about quite yet, but I’m excited, and I hope to have more to say soon.

Take care, everyone, and I hope you have a good holiday season!

-Andrew

Early December Updates

~ andrewkrowe ~ 8 Comments

Hello, everyone, and happy December!

I did a lot of updates last month, including a pretty massive one talking about my upcoming books, so I don’t have a tremendous amount to talk about just yet. Much of this is going to be recapping things I’ve already discussed, but I’ll probably have another post with news either at the end of the year or early next year.

Recent Releases

The hardcover edition of How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps came out a few months ago. This is a big milestone for me, since it was my first deal with a big traditional publisher. It’s still too soon to know if it’ll be successful enough for me to get any future deals, but we’ll see. I’m expecting a paperback release for this next year.

You can find the US version here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/How-to-Defeat-a-Demon-King-in-Ten-Easy-Steps/Andrew-Rowe/9781668209424

Edge of the Dream is my most recent book release and it’s out in all formats now.

You can find the audio book here: https://www.audible.com/pd/Edge-of-the-Dream-An-Epic-Fantasy-Adventure-Audiobook/B0FCGJKSS9

And Kindle/Paperback here: https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Dream-Epic-Fantasy-Adventure/dp/1039439276

This remains one of my favorite books I’ve written and it’s for one of my personal favorites of my series.

Early ratings and reviews have been excellent, for the most part, although some readers would have preferred if I stuck with more of a similar pacing to the first book, and others feel like the story isn’t moving forward quickly enough (not in terms of pacing of events, but in terms of what is perceived as the “main plot” not progressing enough). I think these are both reasonable criticisms, and I expect for book 3 to be more of a middle ground in terms of pacing, with a little more time spent on character development. I’m also planning to move what I consider to be the main plot forward a bit further, but it’s tough to say if readers will align with my own ideas on that — this was always more of a “Edge tells the story of his life” kind of series than something with a single keystone moment to build toward.

There is an intended conclusion, and has been from the start, but it’s not necessarily what readers may be expecting. I may actually end up needing to adjust this because I have a tendency to subvert expectations so significantly that fans are often disappointed. This is a tricky one to balance; I think abandoning the original outcome of the story undermines the purpose of writing the series to some extent, but it’s also something that might make it more satisfying from a reader standpoint, so it’s a tough decision that I may need to think on for a while. Edge 3 is still a ways off, and I’m not sure if it’ll be the final book or not; that depends to some degree on how well sales go for this one in the longer run.

Arcane Ascension 6 came out this year (and Arcane Ascension 5 in audio as well), so it’s been a big year in terms of book releases for me.

Reception for both Arcane Ascension 5 and 6 has generally been excellent. There definitely have been some complaints — some people didn’t like the political focus of five, for example, or the interludes in book six — but overall, they’ve been better received than Books 3 and 4 were, and I’ve heard a number of fans citing book 6 as their favorite book (or their favorite since Book 1).

I’m excited to get into Book 7 more soon, but I’m also very aware that as the last book in the main Arcane Ascension series, some readers are going to go in with the wrong impression about what it’s going to be leading toward, and it’s going to be a real challenge to wrap it up in a way that’s satisfying without tying up what some readers will consider to be loose ends.

I expect for most of next year to be taken up by work on Arcane Ascension 7, but we’ll get more into that later.

It’s also been a big year for my tabletop game, with the first live play series, Ascension’s Promise, now available for readers to enjoy. I was extremely pleased by how this turned out and would love for more people to give it a look.

As for releasing the game itself, I’m still actively hunting for a publisher. I just had another rejection last week, unfortunately, but I’m still actively shopping it around and evaluating my possible options.

Current Status

Right now, I’m waiting to hear back from my publisher with edits for Demon King 2. In the meantime, I’m working on Weapons & Wielders 4, while continuing to refine my tabletop game based on how it played out for the tabletop show and based on other ideas and feedback.

This is pretty much the same state of affairs as I mentioned last month, so there’s nothing too crazy to write about. I’m making progress on my half of Weapons & Wielders 4, but there’s still a significant amount remaining. I don’t anticipate finishing my half of it this year, but Mallory is closer to finishing her half and may or may not get there.

That’s it for today.

I hope everyone is having a good December so far and has an enjoyable holiday season!

-Andrew

First Episode of Ascension’s Promise – Out Now!

~ andrewkrowe ~ 9 Comments

Hey, everyone!

The first episode of Ascension’s Promise, the very first tabletop live stream show in the Arcane Ascension universe (and with the beta version of the Arcane Ascension tabletop game rules), is out now! You can find it here: https://youtu.be/sM9r2sGqIcM

This show was produced by the wonderful people at Storyquest and I strongly encourage checking out the rest of their channel, too.

It stars Mayanna Berrin (as the Game Master), Luis Carazo (as Leandres Enex), Oscar Montoya (as Jam), Darby Pak (as Kyrie Lamont), Reed Sights (as Arna Ko), Jordy Martin (as Gort Ståle), and David Tilstra (as Falicity Haven).

This is a mini-series with three episodes — the second episode is out Wednesday, and the finale will be on Friday. If enough people enjoy the show, we might be doing more in the future, so if you enjoy it, leave comments, like the videos, and share them with your friends!

Best,

-Andrew