One of my readers had some kind advice on marketing. I did go to Shadow Valley Press and looked at the information they had. Shadow Valley Press actually had an entire tutorial and pointed to a matchmaking system for getting agents and through them publishers. I am not actually married to the idea of be an independent writer. I think most such writers do it more from the lack of options. So I was actually excited that there was an an organized forum where I could contact the agents, show them my work and get some support to work with a publisher.

That is, until I read through their guide. It seems that one of the taboos of writing... or at least submitting to an agent... is to have a manuscript that is too long. I think the number they gave was over 100k (it's power level is over 9000!). Apparently the publishers don't want to print anything that long. No profit in it or something like that. That was depressing. All my work is between 110-120k. I aimed it to that length because that is the minimum length I like to read. Any shorter and I tear through it on my bathroom break. So, I guess I stay independent.

In other news, book #4 hit 120k words. You could say it was done except for proof reading... except that it would be ending in a cliffhanger. Pretty good as cliffhangers go, but still a cliffhanger. I know I don't publish as often as I should, so it would be rather cruel to publish a cliffhanger that likely wouldn't be resolved for another two years. So I will try to get to a non-cliffhangery place in the story to wrap up the current events a bit better. Its not like the last two Dresden books where you need another 200k words to finish it. So unless anyone objects to a book about 130-140k words I'll wrap it up there, rather than cut it off.

And yes, I estimated I would be done a few months ago and yet here I am. I apologize.