Kyle West

These past three weeks have been a huge blur. Lots of getting up in the middle of the night, diaper changes, and all those things that come with raising a newborn. And in those rare moments of quiet, when I’m not sleeping, I’m working.

Despite everything going on – and it’s a lot – Book 1 of my new series is getting the final touches. My own edits are done. Right now, I’m just proofreading and catching the obvious stuff before sending it off to another editor give it another pass. That should be done in the next few days, hopefully.

After that’s done, hopefully I can get those edits back in a timely manner (probably late October or early November). After that, beta readers will get the advance version to catch whatever the editor missed.

In early November, the cover art should be finalized. One of the main hold ups is I’m terrible at titles. I’ve experimented with a lot of different things. Titles are hard because they can literally make or break your book. They have to communicate what the book is about while still being somewhat original. That, and I’m blending two genres (sci-fi and fantasy), so the title has to communicate those two things quite clearly, along with cover art.

So, this is by no means conclusive. But name of my new series, I’m thinking, will be called The Oracles of Starsea. It sounds very fantasy-ish, with an element of space sci-fi with Starsea – a concept of my own creation that fits into the series (which will be revealed in later books). I’m somewhat happy with it, and if I don’t think of something better, it will probably be the working title.

I haven’t come up with a great name for book one, honestly. What’s funny is I’ve written titles for up to 12 books in this series but still haven’t found one for the first book. Possible titles include Fate of Mages, The Way of Mages, Passage of Mages, Stellar Mage. That last one sounds cheesy to me, but at least it’s pretty clear what the book will be about. Could be I’m on the wrong track, because I’m not super happy with that direction. I just want a title that communicates that there are magic users in space, and it’s sort of hard to do that without blatantly stating it. Of all the titles, Passage of Mages is probably the closest thing to what the book is actually about, but it doesn’t necessarily say anything about outer space – which could be a problem.

I know for my current fans I could name my book literally anything and people would buy it. So, I’m mostly keeping in mind new readers who aren’t reading me for me, but just for the story or genre. For them, I sort of have to come up with a good title that communicates exactly what my story will be about.

Another thing I’m looking into is developing a dedicated ARC team of ten or so peeps to post reviews on Amazon the day the book goes live. Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but now’s a good time as ever. I need to figure out how to go about that. The book should be out in early December. It’s more or less done, just awaiting to go through all the filters (professional proofreading, beta reading, ARC readers, cover art, publication. And of course before all that, finding a decent title).

Sorry if this post is haphazard and rambling. Don’t have much time to edit it down or make it somewhat legible, but figured I’d let you guys know where my thoughts are and reassure you that things are moving along. If you have any ideas for titles, I’m all ears. I understand I haven’t revealed much about the series itself, but you can expect magic and mages in space, futuristic spaceships, a sprawling story line, a long dead alien race’s ruins, lots of different worlds to explore, and other things I’m sure.

I’m hoping this series turns out to be popular, because I have a lot of ideas for it. Could be more ambitious and epic than Wasteland and Xenoworld combined. Not to hype it too much :).

As I continue to work on the new series (about 20,000 words into Book 3 at the moment), Xenoworld Saga is continuing to undergo its rebrand. This new cover for Book 4, Sanctum, marks the halfway point of the series.

It shows Shanti standing in front of the the domed city of Shenshi (what used to be Los Angeles). I really like the color scheme, and you can really get a sense of the clash between Shanti’s medieval-like world and the futuristic Shen Collective.

Here’s the paperback:

As a side note, Xenoworld was placed in Kindle Unlimited some months back. Now, the entire series is available most everywhere e-books are sold. Wasteland Chronicles should be available everywhere again in a few weeks’ time.

I saved the most important news for last. I may be out of action for the next few days for a very understandable reason. My wife and I are expecting our first child to be born either tomorrow or the next day. It makes me grateful I’ve gotten so much work done these past few weeks, because I have no idea what the future is going to look like.

We’re both feeling a crazy mix of emotions right now, mostly positive. We’ve got everything ready but these next few weeks will be somewhat hectic but who knows, I might crank out some words during the naps.

I’ll be sure to update and post pictures when I get the chance!

Hey guys!

I need your help with something. If you have a minute to spare, it would be great if you (my awesome readers) could leave a review of the Wasteland Chronicles on my Amazon Wasteland Chronicles series page.

The page is an important place for authors to showcase their books. It’s one of the few places on Amazon that’s not plastered with ads, so it’s my go to place to send potential readers. Unfortunately, not too many people know about it because it’s kind of buried. I only have two reviews there, for example, while the rest of my series has hundreds on the individual book pages.

I know this in no way benefits you, but it would help me a ton.

I can’t really you offer anything in exchange for the review other than my thanks and gratitude. I don’t want to get in trouble with anybody since Amazon requires reviewers to disclose they got something in exchange for a review.

Anyway, here’s the link again. Thanks in advance!

I knew this cover would be awesome, but it came out much better than I expected!

I think it captures the spirit of the book very well. Bastion is the first point where Shanti really takes things into her own hands and fights back.

Here’s the full spread for the print version as well:

As I alluded to before, I’m refurbing the Xenoworld covers. As promised, here’s the first one:

In short, I love it. This particular scene shows Shanti in the Silverwood forest on her way to the reversion, where she discovers…well, something big.

I absolutely love the typography. It’ll be the same across all seven books. Right now, the cover artist is working on book two, which will feature Shanti, the Bastion, and a dragon :).

I’m super excited to see what she comes up with. And I’m especially excited to see the covers for later entries.

If you’ve read Wasteland but haven’t gotten into Xenoworld yet, now is the perfect time to start. The first book has been discounted to 99 cents.

As a bonus, this is the full spread of the paperback: