Plan for Books 2 and 3 of "The Tale of Rin"

Hi Everyone,

TL;DR: New book starting September, episodes released as ready, everything free, winning lottery numbers for next week 23-15-8-9-12-4.

Thanks for keeping Rin company through Book 1: "Protege". She gets bored easily and can get a bit out of hand when she does, so in some sense you've saved the world. Not the real world, mind you, but that's probably for the best. Saving the real world would lead to peace, prosperity, awkward accolades, lots of public speaking, and all sorts of other horrors I'd best not describe for the sake of decorum. You may even get tweeted about, and we all know where that can lead.

So now, it's time to say a few words about the future. I won't tell you what it actually holds, because that's forbidden. Also, it would involve a computer the size of the universe, computing from a known initial quantum state. If you want to know what will happen, just watch the evolution of the universe over a corresponding time-scale and you'll find out. Or you *would* if the local entropic reduction which is "you" stuck around that long.

And on that happy note, two things became clear from the serialization so far:

1. Although I had thought the book ready for publication at the outset, my oracular powers proved wanting. Maybe I read the entrails incorrectly, or maybe I'm just really bad at estimation. I blame the entrails since they can't gainsay me. In any event, editing the book for serialization took a lot more time than I had anticipated. Part of this was due to the episodic format and part due to the real need for improvement. This just goes to show that no book ever is "ready". I have a single data point to demonstrate this, which is more than enough for a sociology paper. Even if it *is* true that no book ever is ready (and I'm sure it is, since I said it and if I called myself a liar it would lead to various Russellian paradoxes), an author eventually must pull the trigger or the book never will see daylight. For a vampire novel that may work (and, frankly, it probably would be for the best given the number of the darned things we see these days) --- but in general, it's not a good thing. I hope I struck the right balance, and I welcome feedback!

2. Meeting a twice-weekly deadline was highly motivational, but so are most gut-wrenching, ulcer-inducing, sleep-depriving sources of anxiety. This is how we as a species evolved, even if the process was less-pleasant for each and every individual involved. But yeah, yay species. Anyway, keeping to such a schedule proved quite challenging, especially since this isn't my only major project.

Though I would have liked to split book 1 into two volumes, there was no natural point at which to do so, and the print/ebook edition clocks in at around 160,000 words. By literary-novel standards this is long, and by fantasy-novel standards it is short. The Tale of Rin pretends to be neither, so I'm not too worried about page-count per se --- but it is a useful measure of relative work involved. And it gives me bragging rights. If anybody complains about the word-count, I can call them a Salieri to my Mozart. Yes, yes, my writing has too many words --- but that obviously is genius rather than verbal incontinence. Just ask posterity.

The first volume is the most fraught in terms of world-building and internal dialogue, and the action will begin to pick up in volumes 2 and 3. No, not that sort of action; get your mind out of the gutter. Well, okay, *some* of that kind of action --- but mostly the wholesome ultra-violent kind of action which it's safe to show kids and is as American as mom and apple-pie. Incidentally, this is why of all civilizations only America has endured for more than a single generation. We have moms and therefore children. Compete with *that*, China!

At this point, volumes 2 and 3 clock in at around 180K words total, and I expect they will end up at a combined 220-240K. I.e., each wil be much closer to ordinary novel length. There also is a natural split-point, so that too is a much easier task. And no, I won't tell you what it is or whether you'll absolutely hate my guts for the huge, gaping cliffhanger there. Rest assured, even if there is one you'll already hate my guts for many other reasons.

Volume 2 has been both written and highly-edited (albeit not as much as book 1 was prior to serialization). I expect the per-episode work to be slightly higher than for book 1, but with far more variation. Book 3 is mostly written but less-edited --- so I expect more work per episode.

From my earlier poll, the results were evenly split between (1) delaying serialization until the books are more polished and then releasing episodes regularly and (2) starting sooner and then releasing episodes as ready. Nobody seemed to vote for option (3) slam out a bunch of billionaire-werewolf-supermodel falls in love with middle-aged housewife fanfic on my phone without even spell-checking it. Frankly, I'm not sure why that wasn't more popular given that just about every online novel seems to take that approach these days.

Anyway, option (2) it is. To be clear, the quality will be the same and I won't release anything until I feel it is ready. The question just was one of timing. As it happens, the 2nd option also fits better into my travel-heavy and somewhat unpredictable lifestyle. So, sorry --- if you want unedited werewolf-billionaire-housewife fanfic you'll have to subscribe to Kindle Vella.

Here are the basic parameters:

1. I'll continue serializing on the same Substack page. Episodes will be numbered starting where I left off. I'll also add links on the main Substack page to each new book as it is started.

2. There will be no paid tier. Everything will be free for everyone. There will be a single release-schedule, and everyone can comment and participate in the community.

3. The entire archive of episodes will continue to be available to everyone.

4. I'll likely begin serializing book 2 toward September of this year, and episodes will be released as ready. This may mean some are a few days apart, while others are a couple of weeks apart (or more if I'm traveling). Ha, fooled you! I never specified a relativistic frame. If you accelerate to near the speed of light relative to me and then come back, you'll find all the episodes have been released. Unfortunately, humanity will have passed from existence so you may have a hard time locating those episodes. I'm sure Substack still will be around, though. Or maybe *I'll* accelerate into space relative to *you*, in which case you'll get them a century or two apart. Unfortunately, I'll probably be dead since we don't actually have near-relativistic rockets. Most likely, I'll experience "rapid unplanned disassembly" while being launched into space on a dissipated billionaire's rocket.

If you'd like to show your support for my efforts, please buy the books as they come out and leave a positive review on Amazon. Or you can donate via Substack. However, please do not feel obligated!

My philosophy is to write books I want to read, polished to a professional sheen. My greatest reward would be if others read and enjoy them too. Well, that and immortality, absolute power, tons of gold, and a disgustingly fancy sports car powered by a fusion reactor. But I'll settle for you enjoying my novels. I'm humble that way.

See you all in soon!

Cheers,
Ken