New Year, New ‘you forgot to do something important again!’
February 6, 2026 / K.I.S.
So: 2025. Now: 2026.
I am so pleased my aim of sending monthly newsletters has been this wildly successful—it’s been three months since my last author update… (make of the tone of this what you will). Also, I’m late to the “Happy New Year” spiel by roughly 5 weeks, but let’s do the denial thing we all did over the holidays (while visiting our families and eating too much) and ignore the elephant in the room. Pretend everything is going exactly as planned and promised. No deviations, and no regrets whatsoever.
Great.
Here are some product pics my sister took this past month (she is, unequivocally, awesome), and I feel a genuine sense of accomplishment when I notice them as a scroll through my photos (hence my insistence you should view them now):
So, back to my author update for the month of January 2026: I’m going to try a “rapid-fire”, bullet-point structure to try and streamline the process (although I make no promises about not going on my usual tangents and segues I went back and added quotation marks to rapid-fire—I think you know why).
- I am considering republishing The Assays of Ata, an action necessitated by the fact that I would like to launch an extensive (more traditional) marketing campaign in the US, and to do this, shifting to hybrid publishing has been suggested as the perfect marriage between indie publishing (and my having full creative control of my writing) and traditional publishing (with all its encumbent structure and connections in the publishing industry).
- For the above to officially happen (if I do decide to go with that option—decision coming soon!), I would have to remove Assays from circulation, go through the build-up of a pre-release marketing campaign, and then have Assays released at the end of 2027. Even taking the time to consider this has meant a delay in finalising and publishing The Trials of Ata, as there would be no point (at this point) if I take the hybrid publishing route for The Chronicles of Áitarbith as a whole.
- I have managed to get the independent book sellers (who had been selling illegal paperback copies of Assays) removed from Amazon. They had been selling old version of Assays (which were, technically, never paperbacks to begin with, but were sent out as review e-copies) and their selling options were placed BEFORE my own selling option (with the legal version) on Amazon for months. It literally took 5 months of navigating Amazon’s ridiculously opaque systems to have them removed (they’ve subsequently appealed my claim against them, but don’t seem to have taken the opportunity to try and peddle their ill-gotten wares again—yet). My thanks go to Omair, my former student, who ordered a copy of my book to support me, but had the misfortune of doing so from these sellers; seeing an actual, illegal hard copy of my book motivated me beyond anything else to sort out this issue once and for all.
- I had a gorgeous cover designed for The Trials of Ata by Lizbe Coetzee (find her on IG @bookcoversbylizbe), who also re-designed the covers for Assays and Briin (they are in a whole new league because of her skills). Unfortunately, due to the current uncertainty of the fate of Assays (and consequently Trials), sharing said cover is also on ice…
- I have been working closely with Gaia Rubini (find her on IG @gaiarart) on the character art for Assays. (She’s the one actually working, while I receive options and have the role of picking and choosing whichever tickles my fancy the most. It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.) I cannot emphasise this enough: receiving every update has been such a wonderful, even magical, experience, and seeing the characters take shape through her extensive artistic skills has been a privilege (and quite a humbling experience, all told). I cannot WAIT to start sharing the final versions once they are completed!
- I made work of getting a quote for an audiobook version of Assays—again: this is pending my decision on whether to re-release Assays. If I decide to re-release it, then the audiobook version would obviously be on the backburner; if I decide not to, then the audiobook moves to the front of the queue (just before finalising Trials, in fact).
- I am awaiting the examples/mockups of my new author website (which is being done by Deon at Iguana Media), and I’m hoping the new site will go live by the end of February. This is something I’ve wanted for a while, because the current site is my own, patched-together version of what I envision, but I shudder to think if anyone who knows their stuff looks behind the curtain (like Dorothy does, in The Wizard of Oz) and sees how many things are propped up by some seriously dodgy workarounds. Also: I will be able to sell my books and some merchandise on the site, for which I’m genuinely excited!
- Assays received an honourable mention in the 2025 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards for both the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category and New Author category. Yay! Here’s a pic of the post that appeared in the Story Monster Ink magazine for January:
I think that’s everything I need to share at this point. My next, most important thing to do is to finally decide on a path forward for Assays. A lot hinges on this particular decision, as it would rearrange my writing plan for the next three years (at least), and I would be able to move up two other projects I have been keen to start/finish in place of Trials… Thus, I shall leave you to your own thoughts and I hope to share some more solid information and projections in the next update (which will DEFINITELY be at the end of February—no question!)
May the new year still feel new to you after the 3125 days of January we’ve experienced 
K.I.S.
