Callie's Heroes

Greetings readers!

I recently realized it's been over eight months since I've posted an update, so with this chapter coming to a close, it provides for a good opportunity to touch base, before the next round of shenanigans and emotions that will be Chapter 72.

I'd like to think it's been an exciting period, story-wise, even though we haven't moved forward in time very much. A lot can happen, and a lot has happened, in a short amount of time, despite there not being a lot of big action. Jesca and Artemis accidentally discovered teleporting while Lhawni was promoted to sub-captain and an unexpected future lies before her. We were shared a flashback to the formative years of young Prince Vanis, and the camp received its name, Camp Utora. Young Nevikk met his great-great-grandfather while Callie rocked the fashion world, despite her dress being quite black, also rocking the music world and birthing a new drummer at the same time. Reynard revealed he knows Callie's secret, and Callie avenged herself quite properly in return. Music, emotion, love and, of course, Gnome shenanigans. As it should be.

METRICS:

As of the time of this note, approximately 715,000 words of the main story have been posted, with another 50,000 or so from various supplemental postings, such as character and skill lists. Royal Road recently sent me the 750k badge, as a result.

In the eight months since the last update, approximately 110,000 words of story have been posted, which is itself considered a small novel in some circles.

At this point, I have just completed writing the first half of Chapter 77, and that marks roughly 825,000 words total in the story, and 404,000 words in Book Two. This provides a backlog in the neighborhood of 110,000 words, which is quite an improvement over the 50,000 I was at last time I updated all of you. This is good for some reasons I'll get into below.

I anticipate I need to write approximately six more chapters to complete Book Two, and I hope to keep them reasonable in length so that the whole of the book clocks in at under 500k.

COVERS:

You all may have noticed that there are two new and absolutely fantastic covers, and that the story has been broken up into two volumes. Book One has a scene from the bogwump battle, and I so love some of the little details hidden in the background. Book Two's cover is inspired by the elemental fight. The artist, Nerva1, did an amazing job on both covers, and I am in awe of how well they ultimately turned out (and in awe that they were willing to put up with so many of my comments, changes and requests for edits).

PUBLISHING UPDATES:

With new covers, I am now starting to more-seriously look at options for publishing. My next planned step is to do a big editing pass of Book One (chapters 1-45) as soon as I finish writing Book Two. I think as a whole it is in good shape, but it needs a solid line edit, as well as some consistency cleaned up (what is capitalized and not, for example), and a few other mechanics. There are also one or two minor retcons I need to put in, but none of them change the story any - just some things needed for further consistency with how the story fleshed out from early ideas.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

This means I'll be taking a break from actual story-writing for probably a month or two, before starting on Book Three. As a result, I am going to continue the 1x/week schedule, so that there's no hiatus in new materials for all of you during that period.

Due to its length, I don't think there is any way Callie's Heroes will ever be viable for traditional publishing. To do so, it would need to be much shorter, and there are simply no great spots to break Book One into smaller pieces that would provide enough of a hook or cliffhanger to get the person to continue on to the next. The only two options I can see for breaking it up might be:

Just after Pixyl's defeat of the demon that Duni summoned, but there's not really a lot of "hook" there, since that's only day 2 of the story (Chapter 21 or 22 - which is around 150,000 words) and not much has really happened besides Callie arriving and getting her symbiote, and the main team members being introduced.

The other option would be just after Callie and Vanis go to the officers with her story, and they agree to keep her secret, but it's not at all an actiony/cliffhangery ending (Chapter 29 - ~250,000 words).

This point does have the benefit of including the dinner and party to get to know the characters more, as well as the first training day, which gives us some power reveals along with the fun of Tazrok's animal forms. This does mean the second part would only be about 170,000 words (ie

much

shorter in comparison, which can be frowned upon by some).

Since it's otherwise far too long to be viable as a printed book, the only likely version would be as an ebook format. That then puts me in a position of either doing a self-publish, or maybe finding a publisher that is comfortable with an ebook-only publish. Whether or not that requires me to stub the story here on Royal Road depends on what comes of these options, and what form the ebook may take.

My ultimate dream, of course, is an audiobook, but that would certainly require some kind of publisher sponsor simply due to the up front narrator costs.

The absolute best way all of you can help is to follow and favorite the story, and provide positive reviews and ratings. The more of an audience I can show, and the more excitement among that audience, the more interest any possible publisher may take. For those that have done so, thank you so very much.

As a final statement on this topic, if there is anyone out there in reader-land that has advice or knowledge of the industry, especially for a somewhat non-traditional approach and LitRPG publishing, please reach out to me via direct messenger. I would welcome advice.

BOOK 3+:

As mentioned in the last update, Book Three will encompass the entirety of the extended 4 week session, and I've made an effort to more-tightly plot this one out, in order to keep it from meandering so much. No promises, of course, because … it's me. But I'm as eager as I think everyone else is to get to the Demons and the mayhem Callie will bring there. Later books have been loosely plotted, with the total number likely to be six, depending on how quickly some plot lines are worked through. There is an opening for a spin-off, too, although that would be a long ways off and I've given it little real thought.

PERSONAL UPDATES:

Few updates or changes in my personal life. I've largely been focusing on writing because, let's face it, this timeline pretty much sucks, at least here in the U.S. I'll just leave it at that. For those that may be affected directly, stay strong and, above all, stay safe.

Q&A:

Like previous updates, I'm happy to take any questions any of you may have about the story. Just add them as a comment below.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I want to conclude once again with just an overwhelming thank you to all of you. Without you readers and your comments and feedback, there's no way I could keep moving this story along, and some days, no way I could keep myself moving along, too. I do hope you are enjoying what you're reading. I think you'll love what's coming next, and hope that you're excited for the future of the story.

Thank you again,

RAH