Good News!

Back again, and my first subscriber. (W00t!)

Hi everyone -

First up, an apology for things being quiet here lately. I’ve had some Life happen and then I had Covid (again) but I’m finding my rhythm again. When things went sideways, I decided the one thing that had to defended every day was my writing time, and I managed that. Pretty much everything else fell by the wayside, but we’ll get that straightened out in the coming weeks.

The exciting news is that I have my first paid subscriber here at Substack, which is pretty cool. It also changes things here. Right now, there’s nothing behind the paywall, but in future, I’ll be slipping posts and parts of posts back there. The power of one is at work here, and maybe there will soon be more than one subscriber.

My plan was a general update on the first of the month, which is a post for everyone. The second post of the month, often around the 20th, has been about making pretty books but is intended to be a more behind-the-scenes publishing post. That one will slip behind the paywall, although everyone will be able to read the start of it.

I have been making pretty books - my first print run is happening right now and I can’t wait to see the result.

You can see the current state of progress on this new hardcover edition in my video comparing the editions of Kiss of Enchantment right here. For that video, I had the proof of the hardcover, which doesn’t have the silver foil that will be on the real books. (That’s a YouTube link. It’s a 5 minute video so I’m not going to embed it here.) The printed edges are gorgeous and I’m so excited to see the finished book.

I had launched a Kickstarter campaign for this new edition and a similar edition for book two in The Darkfire Chronicles series. Kiss of Twilight isn’t written yet, though, and with things going awry, I wasn’t sure how it could be finished before the spring. Remember that I talked about firm deadlines for campaign fulfillment in my last post about my followers’ expectations? Well, this uncertainty gave me stress, so I cancelled that campaign (after it funded, before it ended). I’ve rescheduled it for next summer, after Kiss of Twilight is done, and you can follow it right here.

In the meantime, I’d paid for the print run of Kiss of Enchantment to get the proof copy, so I gave the project a green light and those books are being printed now. I’ll make a video of the book when the copies arrive, then put them up for sale in my online store. If we run out before/during the KS campaign for Kiss of Twilight, I’ll just order more. :-) The other upside of this plan is that I’ll know exactly what the landed cost of the books is, with shipping and any other tariffs or duties, which also makes me feel better about pricing out the Kiss of Twilight campaign.

I seem to be at a point that a lot of my list needs to be repackaged. Right now, there are new covers for The Dragonfire Novels in the works - and there will be a Kickstarter campaign for those new editions in 2026, too. That campaign is right here, awaiting cover reveals for pretty graphics.

I have a new medieval romance coming in December, and will tell you more about that at the beginning of next month. One Knight’s Bride is book four of the Rogues & Angels series. This series follows a company of knights on their way home from Outremer - they met on crusade and have become friends. The series is about their respective homecomings and marriages, and it ties together my various medieval series, bringing them into one world. The first two books are revisions of titles originally published by Harlequin (books one and two of the Sayerne series), while this is the second completely new title. There are two more new titles planned, then a revision of the last book I wrote for Harlequin in a new edition to finish out this series. I’ll talk more about the revisions to the series next month, as well.

I’ve been doing some bookfairs this year, and my publishing post this month will be a bit about that. I’ll get it posted later this week.

Thanks for reading! And thank you, First Subscriber, for your support!

All my best -
Deborah
DeborahCooke.com
Delacroix.net