An update on Shattered Honor

Since I’ve been talking about this quite a bit lately, I feel like I owe everyone an update.

Right now, Shattered Honor is basically finished on my end. It heads to the copy editor in about three weeks (!) and should be finalized by the end of May. Things are happening!

However.

I’ve been struggling with launch plans. It’s not part of the Shadows of War series, but it’s not quite standalone, either. That makes it hard to place and advertise. It’s also not a clean novel (though it’s certainly not graphic), which means I haven’t had any luck finding a blog tour organizer–marketing the launch is going to be a big problem.

Part of me wants to just throw it up on Amazon and be done with it, but part of me thinks it deserves to have people know about it. I’m not ashamed of it–and it fills in a character arc that means a lot to me–but I’m worried of the potential reception. Because the more bloggers and tour companies I see who won’t take the book for [reasons], the more I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.

The current tensions in the indie community aren’t helping. Bloggers are refusing to review indie books, readers are refusing to purchase them. I wish I could say this is limited to the romance world where the plagiarism scandal hit, but the truth is, it’s not. I can scream about writing my books and being an ethical author all I want, but it’s screaming into the wind at this point.

(I have more thoughts on the scandal, but that’s another post for another time)

Then there’s the question of content warnings. Some themes and events in Unbroken Fire upset a few readers, and that’s the last thing I ever wanted to do. Shattered Honor takes those same events but presents them from the point of view of a character who was actually there, so it’s emotional. I won’t apologize for that, but I recognize that it needs special handling.

Before this gets too long . . .

I suppose what I’m saying is that while it may look like a release is imminent, I’m not so sure it is. And I hate that. But I hope everyone can understand that with the upheaval in the indie world right now and my own fears about the book, a release just isn’t a sure thing. I hope that changes soon, because I can’t wait to give you a date!