Benedict Jacka

Just a quick post to note that after An Instruction in Shadow is released, I’ll be doing my usual Reddit Ask Me Anything on r/fantasy.  It’ll be one week after the publication on October 15th, so hopefully that’ll give people some time to read the book first!

I’ve finished my personal edits on Book #3 and have sent off the first draft to my editors as of two days ago, meaning that for the first time in 9 months I don’t have a book to write.  Now that I’ve had a bit of a chance to rest, I’ll be spending the next few weeks catching up on my mountain of to-do tasks that have built up!

Book #3 is finally done, just in time for the end of the summer!  Now that I’ve had a week or so to take a break, here’s what’s coming up this September.

First job on my to-do list is editing Inheritance of Magic #3.  I like to give my first drafts one final edit before sending them off to my editors, and that’s what I’m doing now.  It should take a week or so, after which I can package up the files, send them to my publishers, and then put the book completely out of my mind for a month or two until I get the first-round edits back.

Next thing I’d like to do is update the website a little – the Inheritance of Magic section hasn’t been touched since last year, and I’d like to make it look a bit more like the Alex Verus section, with proper subheadings and links to the extracts and individual books, as well as the Beginner’s Guide to Drucraft series.  Speaking of Beginner’s Guide to Drucraft, it’s been a long time since I’ve done any of those articles, so I think I’ll try and put out a couple of them this coming month, focusing on Light essentia and Light sigls.

We’re also getting closer and closer to the October 15th release of An Instruction in Shadow, and I’ll be releasing Chapter 2 of the book two weeks from today, on Friday 13th September.  This’ll be the last extract – if you want to read the rest, you’ll have to wait for the full release!

And finally I’ll try to get caught up on all the jobs that I’ve let slide over the past couple of months while I’ve been exclusively focused on the book – responding to website emails, doing some worldbuilding work, etc.  September should be a busy month, but it’ll still be a lot easier than writing that book!

First draft of Inheritance of Magic #3 is done.

There are edits, signings, worldbuilding articles, and website updates to do, but right now I’m going to a take a break.  More news next week.

Chapter 1 of the second book in the Inheritance of Magic series, An Instruction in Shadow, is now online!  You can read it here.  Full release will be two months from now, on October 15.

I really do need to tidy up this website and give the Inheritance series a proper section with an index.  But right now all my attention is on finishing Book 3, so that comes first.  I’ll deal with the website once that’s done.

Still busy with the last section of Inheritance of Magic #3.  I really want the first draft finished by the end of the month, so everything else is being put on hold until it’s done.

We’re only a couple of months away from the release of An Instruction in Shadow, though, so it’s about time for some extracts!  I’ll release Chapter 1 next week, on August 16th, and Chapter 2 one month later, on September 13th.  Release date of the full book will be October 15th.

Advanced notice that An Inheritance of Magic is scheduled to be a Kindle Deal of the Day on 4th August – it should be available for only $2.99.  Not sure if this’ll apply outside of the US and Canada.  I haven’t had it confirmed that it’ll be on the 4th, but I figured I should probably post it a couple of days in advance just to be on the safe side.

First draft of Book 3 is in its final stages.  Still hoping to finish around the middle of this month.

We’re now a bit under three months away from the release of An Instruction in Shadow, the sequel to An Inheritance of Magic.  Which means it’s time for me to sign some copies!

Just as with An Inheritance of Magic, Orbit UK have arranged a signed edition deal with The Broken Binding.  There’ll be 500 signed hardback copies of An Instruction in Shadow sold via their website (orders and pre-orders aren’t available as yet, but I’ll let you know when they are).  Of course, before they can sell them, I have to actually sign them . . .

. . . which takes a surprisingly long time.  I remember thinking when I did this last year that now I understood why doctors and accountants end up with such illegible signatures.

In the meantime, I’m working away on Book 3.  It’s currently up to around 80,000 words and I’m on the last section – I’m hoping to finish in about 3 weeks.  I’ve got several more Beginner’s Guide to Drucraft posts planned, but finishing the book takes priority, so I’m unlikely to write any more worldbuilding posts until the book is done.

The UK cover for Inheritance of Magic #2, An Instruction in Shadow, is out!  Here it is:

UK release date is unchanged:  15 October 2024.

We’re about halfway through July, so here’s a quick update on how things are going!

Inheritance of Magic #3 is now up to 75,000 words and pretty close to its end.  I’m currently expecting the full manuscript to come in between 80,000 and 90,000 words, meaning that I should only have two or three chapters to go.  I’m not sure exactly how long it’ll take to finish, but I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to hit my personal deadline of getting the book done some time in August.  Once that’s done I’ll send it off and finally take a break!

An Instruction in Shadow is now only three months from release.  As usual, I’ll release some extracts early – I’ll probably release Chapter 1 in early August and Chapter 2 in early September.  We’ve also got a finished version of the UK cover ready to go.

My next project for the Beginner’s Guide to Drucraft series will be a mini-series on the branches – Light, Matter, Motion, etc.  This isn’t very ‘mini’, though – it’s an absolutely huge subject, so it’ll probably take me a while to make any major progress on it.

And that’s it for now.  Priority #1 for the next few weeks is finishing the current book, so posting on this blog is likely to be light for the next month or so.

As some of you may remember, Alex Verus #12 (Risen in the UK, Der Retter von London in its translated version) was just released in Germany.  And it seems as though it’s done very well, as it’s debuted at Number 4 on the Spiegel bestseller list!

Thanks to all of my German readers who’ve stuck with the Alex Verus series for all this time and pushed its sales ranking so high – I hope you enjoy the Inheritance of Magic series too!