Praetorian Rising was published in July 2019 and before the ink dried on my newly printed copies I was diving into the second book of the series. Book 2 is coming….

My goal with the Praetorian Rising series is to write a quadrilogy with a strong character arch and a finality to the characters stories. Think Harry Potter and Hunger Games; I want to provide a strong story with an ending that fits the characters goals. I hope you enjoy what is to come in this series because I promise you it will be intense.

Book 2 is on the horizon, as is the beginning of marketing the new book, the imagery, the story itself, and the adventure the characters will be embarking on. With PR under my belt for marketing chops I really want to push this second book past what I was able to achieve before. One of my goals will be to catalog my progress, my ups and downs, and what I feel works and doesn’t work. It’s not easy being an Indie Author and harder still to market my own work while I work a full time day job. Hard, but not impossible.

My goal is to hit my stride this November during NANOWRIMO2020 with my final push of second round edits from my editor. It’s a LOT of work let me tell you, but so worth it. I feel I am really able to dive into the process and push myself on my writing abilities to pull out the BEST story I possibly can. My first deadline is February 2021 to get my second round edits back to my editor for the deep dive edit. This one is always the hardest in that it really digs into the details of the story, the why, the how, the when. It’s a focus on the main point of my story as well as the believability of my characters. It’s hard, but it’s so good to do before you push toward a final product. I tend to go through three total rounds of edits prior to publishing, and this one will be my second.

From there I edit, and edit and edit and edit. I read, and reread and then I read again. By July 2021 I want to have a polished manuscript to send back to my editor for a copy edit and a fix on all things grammatical. This is where the fun begins. I will be able to start creating my book cover and working on the visual marketing items. A lot of creativity can be thrown into this, but having a great cover artist on hand is PRICELESS I’m telling you.

The end goal is to publish by October/November 2021. Now that is in a little over a year and I think it’s doable but of course a very challenging deadline. Let’s see how this one goes my Rogue Rebels. #Jointheroguerebellion

In between the editing, writing, and marketing I have some ideas on things I also want to accomplish prior to publishing:

• I want to create a map of Aspera and the Kingdoms surrounding it
• I want to create character portraits of all the main characters in PR
• I want to team up with a couple of candle companies and create some bookish candles to go along with book 1 and book 2 settings and moods.

This is going to be hard work, but also fun. Writing isn’t easy and neither is being an Indie, but when I hold the published book in my hands I can’t even begin to tell you how incredibly wonderful it feels. I hope you join me on this wild adventure and tumble through self publishing!

~ Cheers!
J. McSpadden