Blog

News: Preorder Delay (and last chance to grab Seeds of Chaos in Kindle Unlimited)

by

Hey guys,

I have two pieces of news for you today.

The first is much lighter: My Seeds of Chaos series will be leaving Kindle Unlimited on Friday, September 8.

If you’d like to read those books in the program, you can borrow them now and read them at any point in the future, even once they’re no longer actively in KU.

Once they’re gone, I’m not sure that I’ll ever be putting them back in, so this could be your last chance to borrow them from Amazon.

(In the future, you’ll be able to borrow them from libraries instead.)

The second piece of news: I am pushing the preorder/release date for A Practical Guide to Sorcery Book IV: A Foreboding of Woe out until February 20th. This is 60 days after the initial planned release date. I’ve already spoken to Amazon and gotten their “okay.”

I’ve had to do this due to three different reasons. Some of you who read my emails may remember that at the beginning of the year, I went through a period of a few months of super low energy. During that time I only did about half the work that I normally get done. Enough to maintain, but no more.

Except, it’s probably no surprise that I actually needed to be working at full capacity during those months. Approximately 6-8 weeks of lost productivity is not so easy to make up.

I’ve been working really, really hard to catch up on everything. I’m GOOD at working hard. I have been getting a ton done.

I’m on track for this to be my highest-wordcount year ever.

Buuut… A Foreboding of Woe is turning out to be really long. Longer than anticipated.

When I set 2023’s preorders at the end of 2022, I built leeway into the schedule for something to go wrong, but really only ONE thing.

So I’ve been really feeling the squeeze. I could still probably get everything done on time, but it would need to be “full speed ahead, no stumbling, no detours.”

And then yesterday, my father died.


So I’m stepping back and making some adjustments to the plan, because there’s no way I won’t be slowing down, stumbling, taking some time away from writing.

I’m sure many of you will be worried for me when you read this, so let me say thank you in advance for your concern. I appreciate all of your support.

I am doing okay, and I will be okay. Truly.

In addition to the preorder delay, it’s possible I’ll miss posting the weekly chapter of one or both of my stories a couple times this month.

If you’ve preordered A Foreboding of Woe on Amazon, you might get a couple of emails from them mentioning multiple different preorder dates, because it can only be adjusted 30 days at a time.

And it’s pretty frequent for adjustments to cause mysterious glitches, so let’s cross our fingers that things don’t all fall through at the last minute and get all the preorders dropped. (It’s happened before.)

(The Catastrophe Collector Book 1: Larva is still coming out on October 25th, though the audiobook may be delayed a bit longer.)

And that’s all for today.

Thank you for supporting me (metaphorically and literally!) and the stories I write. 🙂

Azalea

Slight Delay due to sickness

by

Hey guys,

Writing this to you very slowly while lying in bed. Please excuse any typos. I know people get anxious if there’s any delay in the regular posting schedule, so I want to update you.

I’m sick again. Some of you may know I was sick about 3 weeks out of November, relapsing 2 times when I thought I was better already. I worked really hard in December to catch up, like 260 hours.

So I was going to take the first week of January off posting. But then my partner got sock, and gave it to me. He didn’t get super sick, but I have for some reason. Like over 103 degree fever, deep and never ending chills, weird numbness in my hands.

Anyway, I’m not dying. I’m pretty sure I’m already on the downswing of all this. Buut I wanated to let you know the weekly chapter is going to be postponed for at least one more week. Very unlikely that it would be more than that.

I’m really hoping not to relapse and get fully better this time in one go.

Anyway, i’ll try to link to this post at various reader spots so everyone knows what’s going on.

Thanks guys,

Azalea

A Sacrifice of Light Published in Bookstores Everywhere!

by

Hey guys,

As you may know, I serialize a chapter of my story A Practical Guide to Sorcery every Thursday here on my website. You can read along with me. When I reach the end of a book, the chapters stay up, but the book also becomes available for purchase in bookstores around the world.

A Sacrifice of Light, Book 3, is now live! (Blurb below)

Get it on Amazon
All other Bookstores

The audiobook has been scheduled and should come out in May.

Recently, I was thinking that I wished I could clone myself so I could read my own stories fresh.

Because I definitely write the things I want to read (and in some cases, can’t find elsewhere.) In this story, that’s the ultra-hard magic system, intelligent and thoughtful characters, hilarious misunderstandings, and a huge world full of mystery and opportunity.

Blurb:

Magic requires knowledge…

It requires precision…

But most of all, it requires a sheer force of will strong enough to break reality.

Siobhan still dreams of becoming the world’s most powerful sorcerer. But she has once again been forced to face the horrifyingly dark side of their world. When a mis-cast spell can turn you into a city-killing monster out of nightmares, nowhere and nothing is truly safe.

As the Verdant Stag gang grows more powerful, the fearsome reputation of her alter ego, the Raven Queen, blooms with them until it seems to gain a life of its own.

As Sebastien, her magically transformed alternate identity, she has to deal with the fallout of her other self’s actions. She needs to keep her two lives separate, but they are melting perilously close together, and she worries that she will lose herself entirely.

Worse, she might not even realize it until she wakes up and sees a stranger in the mirror.

That has happened before, after all.

As Siobhan’s grandfather once told her, “Magic always has its price. Beware that you do not sacrifice more than you can bear to lose.”

You’ll love A Sacrifice of Light because of the compelling characters, detailed magic system, and layer upon layer of mystery.

Get it now.

Happy reading, guys.

Azalea

Patreon 250 Goal Reached – Bonus Chapters and Omake Story

by

Hey guys! 

It looks like we have reached the 250-patron goal, which means various rewards are in order. I know many of you have been looking forward to this, so I hope you’re excited! 

To start with, I’ll be posting 6 bonus chapters for patrons, enough for 7 days of daily posts. You can expect the first bonus chapter tomorrow evening (11/30), around 5:30pm MT. All non-patrons will get 5 bonus chapters, ending the week with the Patreon 5 chapters ahead instead of 4, which will be the state of things going forward. 

With this, the Patreon will be quickly approaching the end of Book 3!

Secondly, I now also owe you guys an omake chapter/short story. We’re going to hold a vote on what I will write about.

If you have any fun ideas, or anything you would particularly like to see, please make mention of it in the comments section below. If you come up with an idea that I have inspiration for, think I could write in the frame of a short story, and which doesn’t otherwise derail my plot by spoiling something important, I’ll add it to the poll for everyone to vote on. I’ve already got a few ideas but I want to write what people want to see most.

Specificity helps. “Thaddeus’s POV of the [faculty meeting to discuss student performance] and it would be extra funny if one of the other professors was coming on to him. Bonus points if that other professor is Pecanty,” is great and easy to draw inspiration from. “Something from Thaddeus’s POV” is less useful. 

The poll will go up on Thursday, 12/1, and will stay up for about a week so all patrons have a chance to contribute.

Happy reading guys,

Azalea

A Binding of Blood Audiobook In Production

by

I know many of my audiobook lovers have been looking forward to getting A Practical Guide to Sorcery Book 2. It is in production!

The talented and skilled Gabrielle de Cuir is again working on this book, and tells me she should be finished with the initial recording in early July.

What does this mean? Well I still have to review the audio, they have to make any necessary tweaks or changes, and then after it is submitted for publication it has to go through the back-end QC review before finally being available for sale. That whole process generally takes about a month, so you can expect the audiobook to be available in stores (Amazon, iBooks, and Audible) in late July or early August.

HOWEVER, as a bonus to my patrons, A Binding of Blood’s pre-release version is going to go up temporarily on Patreon, meaning anyone who’s interested in getting early access can get the 19-hour audiobook a few weeks to one month early.

Did I mention that includes the 1-hour short story audiobook set during A Binding of Blood, entitled Codename: Moonsable that she also just recorded? That short story is not available at all outside the Patreon, in any format.

I’ve got more bonus content planned, and if people enjoy it, I’ll keep getting it produced in audio, too.

And here’s the audio version covers:

I’ve got other stuff going on, like an upcoming re-cover of my Seeds of Chaos series with some really cool illustrations.

I’m also drawing near to the end of A Sacrifice Of Light’s first draft, which I know I’ve been mentioning here and there for a while, but I’m getting really close to the end now.

If you want to hear about the latest new before anyone else, get on that Inner Circle newsletter.

Back to the ink mines for me.

Happy Reading,

Azalea

New Grimoire Page & Schedule Announcement

by

I’ve got a new illustrated Grimoire excerpt over on Patreon. It’s Siobhan’s class schedule plus some information about sky kraken. Patrons at any level can access it.

In other news, there will be a temporary slowdown in the chapter posting schedule. (NOT a hiatus.)

I have written the first 70k words or so of Book 3, but I’m not happy with it currently and it needs some significant revision. This always happens, even though I plot out my books heavily beforehand, which is why I try to stay far enough ahead of what’s being serialized that I can go back to earlier chapters and fix stuff before it’s out in the world.

I’m not far enough ahead right now, and I am a slow writer.

So while I fix up what’s been written, add new content where necessary, and plow further into Book 3, I’m going to temporarily reduce the posting frequency of new chapters. Next week there will still be a new chapter, like normal. After that, until the end of March, there will be a 1 to 2 week break between new chapters. I’ll make the date of the next chapter clear each time.

Instead, I’ll be putting out multiple illustrated excerpts from Siobhan’s grimoire. I’ve always planned to do more of these, but I haven’t had enough time to do the illustrations. While I was reviewing the audio files for A Conjuring of Ravens, I had many hours where I couldn’t be writing or doing other text-focused tasks which I used to do a lot of little illustrations for the books. Putting together Grimoire excerpts using them won’t take me much extra time and will still let patrons get some fun new content to tide you over.

I have a Lore document with about 80k words of “non-fiction” entries about the people and the world, which I use to keep things straight so I don’t end up contradicting myself. There’s plenty of possible content.

This won’t affect any of the Patreon goal rewards. I’ve got enough chapters ready to go that I can afford some extra releases, and I’ve been slowly prepping the ideas to write that bonus short story. If/when we hit the goals, I’ll just have to put in some really long days to stay ahead/increase my lead.

In April, releases will be back to normal. As I post new chapters, I will be keeping you guys updated on what I’m up to and how much progress I’m making.

Azalea

Patreon Third Goal Reached – Bonus Chapters & Omake Story

by

We’ve reached the third Patreon goal, woot woot! Thank you very much.

This means that I’ll be posting 2 bonus chapters over the next week, as well as writing a bonus omake short story, which my patrons are voting on. 

If you would like to vote on the short story, you can do so as a patron at any level, or write-in your own ideas. Here’s the link to the poll: https://www.patreon.com/posts/third-goal-bonus-56276569

The omake will take some time to get everyone’s votes, and then for me to plot it out and write it, so I estimate it will be finished sometime around the beginning of October. It will likely be exclusive to patrons for at least a little while, as a thank you for supporting me.

I came up with some ideas for side content that are really fun; I want to write all of them! The further this story progresses, the more ideas I have for extra content that I just can’t fit into the main story.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Thanks again for supporting this story, guys.

As always, happy reading.

Azalea

Gods of Ash and Amber Audio Live + Free Codes

by

Hey guys!

After a long wait, the audio of Seeds of Chaos Book 4 is finally complete and up in stores. Many of you have been following along as audio chapters were finished and posted on a locked page of my website. 

Every patron who has contributed $15 or more is being offered a free Audible code to download their own copy. If you haven’t gotten yours already, (via Patreon PM) it should be coming soon. I can only get 25 codes at a time from Audible, and others need to redeem their codes before I can generate more. (I’ve been going in order of lifetime support amount.)

On that note, if you haven’t redeemed your code, do so quickly because codes that are not redeemed WILL be given to others, and eventually I will run out of codes completely. (If you missed redeeming your code, email or PM me as I might still have some left.)

If you want to try out the series from the beginning, you can do so here: 

Audible: http://hyperurl.co/ik2cs1

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3CrKAvZ

iBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/author/azalea-ellis/id1432984006?mt=3

My next step is to get A Practical Guide to Sorcery into audio, and I’ll be looking for a narrator for that this week. If the timing works out, and people are interested, I’m considering serializing chapters of the PGTS audio as they are completed, for patrons only. 

Thanks to all of you who have supported the production of my stories! It’s fantastic to have the whole Seeds of Chaos series in audio now, so people who prefer that format can binge-listen all the way through. 

As always, 

Happy Reading,

Azalea

 

PGTS: A Binding of Blood Release Date & Cover Reveal

by

Hey guys!

I’ve recently finished the first draft of A Binding of Blood (A Practical Guide to Sorcery Book 2)! It’s the second-longest book I’ve ever written, and was really trying to become the longest.

There are still a lot of chapters to be serialized before reaching the end, because I try to stay far enough ahead so that I have time to circle back and fix mistakes or implement tweaks as I discover the need.

I still have to send the book to my editor and do all of the publication prep, but I am tentatively hoping to publish somewhere around mid-late December. (The official pre-order date is Feb. 22, which was the latest date I could select when setting it up, because I tend to be too optimistic about how long projects will take me, and didn’t want to miss the deadline.)

I’ve put together a temporary cover, which you can see below.

I like illustrating, but going forward I’m probably going to have a professional cover designer make my covers. Keeping up with the trends and the skills of design (and not just painting) is a full time job, and I am a full time writer, not a full time cover artist.

Magic always has its price.
Beware that you do not sacrifice more than you can bear to lose.

Siobhan’s story continues in A Binding of Blood.

Preorder A Binding of Blood

I’m going to be testing out replacement covers for this series this winter, and I’m interested to see what the designer comes up with!

If you’d like to support the story and own a copy of your own, you can also get A Conjuring of Ravens as an ebook or paperback. I’m hoping to start audiobook production soon!

In a world where magic is a science, Siobhan Naught is a genius.
But even geniuses need schooling.

Buy A Conjuring of Ravens

As an update on my last blog post, the audiobook publication of Gods of Ash and Amber is in progress! All edits were completed, and the files have been submitted. They’re going through the quality review process and should be pushed through to bookstores soon.

I’m very excited.

Okay, it’s back to the ink mines for me!

Happy Reading,

Azalea

P.S. — If you want to be the first to hear about news like this, or when a new book comes out, sign up to The Inner Circle, my newsletter.

Gods of Ash and Amber Audiobook – First Draft Finished

by
Hey guys!
 
I have some good news that many have been waiting a long time for. The Gods of Ash and Amber Audiobook is finished! (Well, the first draft, anyway.)
 
It’s still in edits to fix minor errors, but this means that it should be completely finished soon, and after that up for sale on Audible, Amazon, and iBooks!
 
I can’t give an exact date, because the quality review and bookstore upload process is done by people on Audible’s back end, and it varies. However, I’m optimistic it should be available toward the end of this month or early next month.

If you are an audio lover and haven’t listened to the Seeds of Chaos series, why not check them out now!

View Book 1 on Audible

If you have an Audible subscription plan, you can get the first 2 books, which are over 31 hours combined, together for a single credit. 

View the Omnibus on Audible

I know some of you have been waiting for a long time for this. I’m sorry it took so long, and thank you for enjoying the books enough to care.
As promised, anyone who supports me on Patreon and has contributed $15 or more over the lifetime of their support will get a free Audible download code when the book goes live in the store.
 
What’s up with me: I’m toiling away in the ink mines, working on the next book in the A Practical Guide to Sorcery Series, which has received a very positive and encouraging reception. I’ve got so many ideas for this series and these characters, and the story is a joy to write.
 
My goal, as it always seems to be, is to get a little faster at this whole story-production process. I’m trying some new things to help with that, from outsourcing some things that I can, but don’t necessarily have to do myself, to a new story-planning process that might streamline some of the common obstacle points I face while writing the story.
 
We’ll see if it works. I’d love to be able to write more high-quality books in the same amount of time. I’m pretty sure you guys would like that, too. 🙂
 
Anyways, back to the mines for me. As always, Happy Reading,
 
Azalea