This last week has been a pretty good one creatively, resulting in a few bits of Seasons of Truth news.

First up, a few weeks ago, I boldly announced that I’d be posting annotated videos of myself reading from the book.

That clearly didn’t happen, due to a variety of reasons that are boring and mostly make me seem like a giant slacker. to sum it all up, the project didn’t go the way I’d planned. However, I know a number of people who read fiction aloud for a living, and the fantastic Folly Blaine had previously mentioned Audacity as an easy-ish way to get started in that direction.

Well, a few days ago I finally took her advice. And easy-ish is the kindest way she could have put the process. A more accurate term might have been, “You will sweat blood as you realize what an idiot you sound like online,” or “You know those words you wrote, the small ones? Good luck with those.”

I may in fact have spent an hour and a half recording one chapter of Winter, and another hour massaging the file itself into a wonderful representation of my dulcet tones. However, I feel that the 11 minutes and 15 seconds of audio that resulted from these labors were a fantastic learning experience, and I can only get better at it from here on out.

Given the size of the file, and on advice from my podcasting friend Joe Fulgham, I’ve decided to host the files at the Internet Archive.

Of course, you can listen right here if you want. I don’t mind.

Second, after a great deal of thought (and some not-so-subtle hints/threats/suggestions from the Editing McKennas), I’ve decided to continue with serial release. This means several things are going to happen in fairly short order. Spring is now available for pre-order on Smashwords, with a tentative release date of August 5th.

Summer is in editing now, and Fall is…well, falling.

Amazon.com, however, would like me to make the book available today. And there’s a part of me that agrees with them. I’d love for y’all to read this next installment, but I’d also like to build a little buzz for this release, rather than just springing it on you like the last one. I want to book a few sales in advance, get some people talking about it, and see some more reviews of Winter.

In case you missed it, that was a not-so-subtle hint/suggestion of my own. Winter is available free online (except for Amazon, because why would things be easy?). It’s a good read, and those folks who’ve posted reviews seem to like it. Every review posted raises the book’s profile, and when I see downloads on my author dashboard it makes me feel better.

Then again, so do sales. So what say you, internet? Are you ready to spend your coffee money on a new book today? It’s just a few keystrokes away from my end, and I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say. But more importantly,

Buy My Book(s)!