Postponing THE HOWLING DARK

I said I wouldn’t set a release date for this book until I’d finished the second round of revisions (i.e., the longest, most intensive round). This was a wise rule, and one I foolishly decided to break.

Back in November, when I was maybe a little over halfway through this second pass and about to reveal my completed cover art, I thought, “Well, if I’m doing a cover reveal, it’d be smart to run preorders alongside it, and that still gives me a whole year to finish the book”—KDP lets you set it a year in advance, max—“That’s plenty of time.” And in theory, yes, that is a good marketing move. In theory, a year should’ve been plenty of time. But I didn’t anticipate how busy I’d be in the beginning of this year, or how badly burnt-out I would become over the next few months, or how much longer it’d take to revise the second half of the book as a result of both of these things.

Burnout creeps up on you. It comes and goes in waves and can be difficult to discern from regular bouts of stress because of that. Then one of those waves knocks you off your feet, and suddenly you’re treading water and struggling to stay afloat. Postponing The Howling Dark’s release date is me throwing myself a life preserver so I don’t go under and drag it down with me.

It’s entirely possible the book could still be finished in time for November 9th, but having that unknown hanging over my head is too much on top of the general life burnout I’m dealing with currently (which, in hindsight, probably actually started in September/October, and has also been impacting my day job performance). If I want this book to be the best it can be and not utterly flop upon release because I couldn’t muster the energy to market it properly, I think this is what I need to do. And better to postpone now, while preorder numbers are still low, rather than wait and see how things are going closer to release when they may be higher.

So if you’ve preordered THD, I apologize for the impending cancellation. It may go up for preorder again once I set a new release date, but I’m not resetting it until I know for absolute certain the book will be ready by then. All I’ll say is, I am loosely aiming for April since that was the month I originally hoped to release it this year before realizing there was no way I’d hit that. Maybe it was meant to be an April release after all.

I hate having to do this. I’ve never had to delay a book release previously, and I feel silly for having put myself in this position because I broke my own rule. I won’t make that same overeager mistake twice, though.

The Howling Dark will release in 2027. In the meantime, I still encourage you to add it to your Goodreads and StoryGraph to-read lists, and I hope that when this story does come out, it'll have been worth the wait. Thank you to everyone who’s shown excitement and support for this story so far. Sorry for the bummer of an update <3