Fallen City Difficulties

Fair warning: contains a lot of whine. Grab some cheese and crackers to enjoy while you read, or skip this post entirely if that doesn’t interest you.

Soooo… I published the second edition of Fallen City on July 11. The paperback edition, that is. The ebook version is proving to be… complicated. And I’m not entirely happy with the print version, either.

My first mistake was trying to use MS Word as a typeset program. Never again. It’s horrible. I’m going back to the tried and true, dedicated programs like Affinity Publisher. Those at least make sense to me. In my opinion, Word is great for one thing alone: shared editing projects. Dassit.

The print edition is mostly fine, after a lot of swearing and repeated uploads and two test copies. The backmatter all came out on the left instead of the right pages, which irritates me deeply but isn’t really worth spending more time and stress to fix. I do like the new version a lot! I’m very interested in feedback on the extra material I added, and how it improves the overall book.

The ebook version… argh.

I originally published Fallen City, as well as two shorter stories, through Smashwords (now Draft2Digital). It was easy. It was simple.

It has since been “fixed” by the new company. With predicable results. I can’t get the mobi or ePub files to pull up in anything but Sigil, which is itself a major PITA to deal with and makes no sense to me at all. (For instance, Sigil says there’s a new version out. In trying to update, I keep getting an error message that Windows is blocking it because it’s flagging as hazardous. So I’ve set that issue aside for a day when I have more patience.)

I won’t bore you with the tedium of what I’ve tried. At the moment, I’m debating whether to find another ebook self-publisher, or just releasing it as a PDF and the hell with distribution. (Anyone who’s actually good at publishing ebooks is more than welcome to contact me, because I’m pretty sure I’m missing something simple from not having done this in a while. The software changes so fast….)

Short version: there’s no ebook version of the second edition yet. Anyone who mistakenly bought the ebook recently, thinking it was the 2nd edition — please contact me. I’ll send you an updated version as soon as I can, even if it has to be a PDF, no charge.

It’s been a whole thing, republishing this book. I’m glad I did it. I learned a lot and refreshed my memory on even more, all of which I’ll be using on the next book. Speaking of which….

I have two projects in the queue. One, a collection of previously published short stories, should be out late this year. It’s currently in the hands of the wonderful Monica Marier, cover artist and creative collaborator, along with two new mug design projects. I’m super excited about this collection! (No title just yet — that’s one of the things I’m brainstorming with Monica.) And the mugs are going to be fun.

(Update Sept 7, 2026: I decided that one of the mug designs would make a great bag. So keep an eye out for that!)

The second one started out as a collection of intersectional stories from the world of Kingdom of Salt; tiny slices of what happened around the edges and in the background as Tank and company made their way north. It’s all important to understanding events in book two, but there was no way to include it in Lies of Stone, which had already clocked in at “way too long”. So that’s all going in a 1.5 book.

Except that yet again, as he did in Secrets of the Sands, Idisio has jumped in and run away with the damn story. His part of the collection is a novella all its own. All very, very relevant and necessary information, but damn he doesn’t let go once he’s on the page. Bloody ha’ra’hain….

I’m almost done with his section of the book, in any case. I’m estimating… end of August at latest, for that. (8/30/26 update): I just realized that I have at least one more important scene to write, one that will almost certainly unknot the problems I’ve been having with book 2. So call it end of September, at this point. Maybe another month to pull all the other pieces together properly. Then it’s off to editing, then the typeset battle begins, along with reaching out to reviewers and promotion in general. I’m eyeing early 2027 as a possible release slot, but some of the local cons have been running into various issues with scheduling changes and location shifts, so planning around that is a challenge.

(8/30/26 update): I am going to be at the Big Gay Market and at BurgQuest in September.

I have a few ideas to explore, so I’m not entirely upset with the situation. I also have an odd feeling that something will turn up when I least expect it! We’ll see if I’m right.

In the meanwhile, there’s plenty of writing ahead of me, from book 1.5 to book 2 to blog posts and more. I’m having a lot of fun with all of it, and I’m pretty sure y’all will like the results too.

Till next time — keep dancing, keep laughing, and keep punching/standing up to the nazis/bullies!