Life – Jessie Mihalik

July 1, 2019

Deadlines and Promo, a Ramble

First of all, Polaris Rising is on sale for $1.99 at the various US ebook retailers for the next two weeks (I don’t know about international—sorry!). If you’ve been meaning to pick up a copy, now is your chance to get it on sale! :)

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play

As for deadlines, some of you may remember that book three was due on July 1, and today is July 1. So book three should be finished.

Except it’s not.

At the beginning of June, it looked like I wasn’t going to make it, for a host of reasons that are all excuses and don’t alleviate the fact that I was very likely going to miss my deadline. I hate missing deadlines. Hate. But sometimes, life gives you what it gives you.

So my agent reached out to my editor and asked for an extension. Thanks to a bit of wiggle room in the schedule (and thanks to my editor being a saint), the date is now early August and I didn’t have to try to kill myself to hit July 1. I actually played a game, and took a weekend off, and slept.

I still have a lot of work to do, so it’s going to remain pretty quiet around here for another month or so. As always, I’m most active on Twitter.

Oh, and don’t forget, The Queen’s Advantage releases next week! You still have time to get your preorder in. :)

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play

While I’m here, I might as well tell you about the good news/bad news for the print copy of TQA. The bad news is that thanks to the extra length (the final draft is ~52k, compared to ~39k for TQG), the price jumped to $10.99, which is not ideal, I know. Before I get angry emails: the ebook remains $2.99 despite the extra length.

Why is the print cost so high?

I asked my agent the same thing. There are a couple things at work here. Print on demand books are more expensive, full stop. And to put the book into Amazon’s expanded distribution (which lets libraries and other bookstore customers order it), there is a middle-man that must be paid.

At $10.99, I make about $1 when someone buys an expanded distribution copy, but about $3 when someone buys from Amazon directly, and those prices can’t be set separately (I asked). That’s compared to about $2 for the ebook. So if we set the print price any lower, then I make pennies when someone outside of Amazon buys it. :(

Now for the small piece of good news: print books don’t have a preorder option. They are either up or not, and since my agent is out of the office this week, she wanted to get it up before she left.

So if you want a print book, you can order one right now and Amazon will rush it to your door. If you prefer to buy from BN or another bookstore, it will be up whenever it trickles through the system, hopefully by release. (ISBN: 1075962099) Fingers crossed!

Now back to making words. I hope you all are doing well!

June 17, 2019

A Relaxing Weekend

I’m still desperately behind, but I decided that I needed to take a weekend off because I honestly can’t remember the last time I did nothing for a whole weekend. It’s been months, at least. I might have worked for a bit on Saturday morning, but I mostly relaxed this weekend.

On Saturday afternoon, Dustin and I dove back into Fallout76. We hadn’t played since December and they’ve made a fair number of changes since then. I was somewhat worried the influx of new players thanks to the Battle Royale mode they added would cause more griefing, but everyone we saw in-game was cool. And it was fun to see a lot of low-level players on the server.

The game is still a little on the buggy side, but it was a lot of fun to wander the wasteland. We prefer co-op games where we can be a team and play together. And Fallout76 is the right amount of “massively-multiplayer” for me. There are some events where a big group gets together to defeat a boss, but for the most part, Dustin and I chill out together with no one else around.

And you can build a camp.

April 29, 2019

Aurora Blazing Chapter One

TL;DR: The first chapter of Aurora Blazing. Happy reading! :)

This weekend was a busy one. We saw Endgame on Saturday and it was awesome. I highly recommend it. We’ll have to chat about it in a few weeks after everyone has a chance to see it, so DO NOT SPOILER IT.

If you drop spoilers in the comments, I’ll remove them and put you in moderation until you prove you can be trusted. I managed to see it spoiler-free and everyone should have that chance. If you want spoilers, I’m sure you can find them elsewhere. :)

I also made it through the first pass on my copyedits for Aurora Blazing this weekend. Yesterday was a marathon of over twenty chapters. My brain is mush.

If you mosey over to the book page, you’ll find the first chapter and preorder links. It comes out in October, and I would love for you to preorder it if you are able. Preorder numbers are super helpful!

It always surprises me just how many mistakes are in my manuscripts. I feel like I turn out fairly clean drafts, but there’s nothing like a copyeditor to take your ego down a peg or seventy.

Last night we watched Game of Thrones, and this season has decided to bring it. I can’t believe it’s going to be wrapped up in just three more episodes. I’m still waiting for the Red-Wedding-esque other shoe to drop. If anything, this show has taught me not to care for anyone too deeply, but I did cheer when [SPOILER] [SPOILERED]. :)

This week, I have edits for The Queen’s Advantage on deck. I also need to be adding words to book three at a high velocity. Once book three is done, I’m taking a month off to binge books, play video games, and lie on the sofa. Or so I tell myself. :)

April 5, 2019

The Spider and Other News

Every few months, a giant spider appears in our living room. Giant is a relative term, and in this case it’s about the size of a quarter, which isn’t exactly a tarantula, but it’s big enough compared to the teensy spiders we usually get.

This spider almost always appears in the same place, right in the middle of our wooden floor, and never, not once, have I ever caught it walking to or from that location. I have no idea where it comes from, how it gets in, or how it crosses five feet of open floor without me noticing.

I also have no idea why it always picks the same place to lie in wait.

I think I’m being hunted by a ninja spider and all of its descendants, bent on revenge.

And now I’ve typed spider enough times that it no longer looks like a real word, so enough of that. :)

In other news, I wrote a little blog post on science fiction romance for Fantasy Cafe’s Women in SF&F Month, so you can mosey over there if you want to read my ramble about why people should be reading cross-genre books.

I also did a back alley book trade with Kit Rocha, where I sent Bree Aurora Blazing and she sent me Deal With The Devil, their first Mercenary Librarians book.

January 1, 2019January 1, 2019

Happy New Year! (Plus Publisher Giveaway!)

I hope your 2019 is off to an excellent start today! My day involved sleeping in after ringing in the new year with friends last night, so I feel like I’m starting off on the right foot. :)

Last week we had an awesome Christmas with our family. My husband and I grew up in the same small town and our parents still live there, so the holidays are pretty easy for us because we can see both sets of parents at the same time.

My brother was in town, too, so I got to spend time with my nephews. At 3 and 5 they are utterly adorable (and inexhaustible). We spent a day at an amusement park and their tiny little legs held out for longer than mine. :)

Mr. Mihalik and Nephew 1
Nephew 2 and the Abominable Snowman

The week went by so fast, I can’t believe we’re already to New Year’s Day. And just a tiny bit over a month away from the release date of Polaris Rising. Cue panicked running and screaming.

I’m still planning to give away another set of ARCs in a week or two, but my publisher, Harper Voyager, is currently giving away 15 copies over on their Facebook page.

You don’t need a Facebook account (it links to a non-FB page), but it’s US only and ends 1/7 at noon EST. Head over to check it out and read the rest of the rules. If you do have a FB account, you might drop a like or follow on Harper Voyager’s page in thanks. :)

How was your holiday/new year?