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Freelancers

Newsletter Archive

FREELANCERS #17 - 11/03/23

Hello!

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Hope you enjoyed the fun short story. Felt like a missed opportunity if I didn't do something Halloween related.

 

Today, I have a progress update, animated cover reveal for Inglorious Resurrection, and a WIP cover reveal for Lost Souls. Also a recommendation for another unique author I admire.

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Progress Update

Several bits of fun cover-related news today. First, the animated cover for Book 1 came in. The talented Morgan Wright did a fantastic job, and I'm looking forward to using these in promotional materials.

I've been a one-man-show up to this point, but I'm happy with how they turned out. Maybe one day I'll learn how to animate myself. For now, I've got enough on my plate, hahaha. I'd love to do more epic trailers with music, sound effects and narration in the future. One step at a time, though.

 

As promised, here's what I've got so far for the cover of Lost Souls!

How does it look? Am looking forward to people meeting the lady on the cover, Fhenriss. She's a lot of fun to write. Will be seeing more of her popping in and out of various adventures across Aesteria. I really dig how the starry image blended with water to make a striking nebula. I want to experiment with making the space around her distort like waves parting as she floats by. Will see how it turns out. Art is still a lot of exploration for me.

 

Lost Souls is on track to be released before the end of the year. Likely close to the holidays in December. Manuscript is ready, cover is well on the way, just need final formatting and the blurb/synopsis/description for stores. 

 

I'm very excited for y'all to read it.

 

Otherwise, November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. This is my tenth go at it, which is wild to type out. I'm much better primed for a good burst of writing this year compared to last year when I was in marketing and learning mode to promote Book 1 after its release. I prepped several stories to dive into last month. It's looking like I'll be swapping between Phoenix Company Book 2 and a new series about a team of Vigilant Shadows like Artoria from the newsletter stories featuring the Spectres. Will be more of an intrigue and investigation-heavy espionage story. Think Spectres from Mass Effect with some 007 or Mission Impossible mixed in.

 

I was squinting my brain real hard the past few weeks trying to decide what to focus on. The artistic side of my brain frequently wrestles with everything I'm learning about treating publishing like a business with products to market to consumers. I know that's how it is if you want better chances at financial success, but my sensibilities badly just want to create what I love and feel a little corrupted by the need to make money. 

 

I think I'm just gonna keep writing what I'm excited to write, hope the passion comes across in my writing, and see what sticks. Lawd knows I have no shortage of ideas I want to get out there.

Shoutout to fellow author, Suyi Davies Okungbawa, for a Bluesky invite he gifted me on his Discord channel. I found him a few years ago on Instagram when he posted frequently about social issues in an eloquent and informed manner.

 

I picked up his book, David Mogo: Godhunter, shortly after. It's very interesting, unique and oozes style. Is always great to get out of the usual bubble of North American or generally Western-rooted stories and experience something from a different perspective (Suyi is Nigerian).

 

He has a newer fantasy series with a second book releasing very soon. Definitely worth checking out.

 

If anyone knows of neat authors writing outside the sphere of what most in the West would consider standard, I'd love to hear about them.

I highly recommend signing up for his newsletter too. He's a teacher as well as a writer and has some excellent insight on the craft, on top of observations about life and the world.

If you have any questions or comments for me, go ahead and reply to this newsletter, email me at aesteriaworld@gmail.com, message me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GCCamacho27, or on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/gccamacho.bsky.social.

 

If you've read my books or others, please leave a rating or review on appropriate sites like distributors, Goodreads, Bookbub, etc. I'd very much appreciate it.

 

Thanks very much for reading. I'll be sharing the opening chapter of the next book in the Phoenix Company series, Lost Souls, on the 15th. Have a good one.

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