I have recorded and submitted the audio files for A Buried Body and Barkery Bites as well as A Missing Mom and Mutt Munchies. (If you click on those universal links and scroll to the bottom you’ll see the links for some of the audio retailers.)
At this point I don’t have control over when they’ll make it to any specific retailer. Buried Body I submitted about a week ago so it’s made it to most of the major sites at this point except Hoopla and Google. I know a lot of you like to use Hoopla so it may be worth a nudge from your end if you aren’t seeing it. I know with ebooks they seem to prioritize processing books that have been requested. Not sure how it works with audio, though. Missing Mom I only submitted yesterday so that’ll probably be a week or so before it gets approved and starts to trickle through the system.
It was fun to revisit Maggie May, Fancy, and crew. And, of course, the end of Missing Mom is where Maggie and Matt first kiss, so that was a warm fuzzy moment to narrate.
It was also interesting to narrate these books because when I was writing them some choices I made seemed to have inevitable consequences. Like the fact that when Janice Fletcher died she left those parcels of land for sale that could jeopardize the barkery. And Ted Little being so scary and taking an interest in Maggie.
I happen to be a pantser as a writer, meaning it’s sort of coming to me as I write it. So the story adjusts as the events occur. And with those two items that I introduced I felt I had to follow them up. Which is why we get that one paragraph about Ted Little in the next book and also why the barkery has to be torn down.
But reading it back I realized I could’ve maybe just ignored both of those things and been okay to continue the story without incorporating them. In one sense, I’m happy I did follow those consequences through because I think the pet resort will let Maggie build an entire community around herself instead of just a business with her friend. So I like where that went. But I could’ve spared Jamie the Ted Little experience. (And also the reference to Ruby. She’s a character I want to write about someday who has a ghost dog companion but I could’ve kept her out of this series.)
Anyway. Sorry I don’t have news on a next book. It might be a while. I love this little world I’ve created, but money-wise if I want to keep writing I need to put some time in on a few other series that have far higher sales numbers and haven’t had releases in (six) years. Yikes! Although I may do a collaboration between two of my pen names which would mean the next book is the first in a contemporary paranormal romance mystery series. (Haha. My problem as an author is that I have too many ideas to every write them all.)
Also, my own Miss Fancypants is now 9 years and almost 9 months old and my vet said that statistically she doesn’t see dogs of her size/breed make it to 10 often. (I know some Newfs make it to 15 or 16 and a decent number make it to 12, but we are now up to eight pills every morning, pot drops with each of her meals, and another five pills each night. That includes three different types of pain medicines on top of lupus and thyroid meds. So as much as I can hope she’s with me forever, realistically I don’t think she will make it that far.) That makes it a little hard to write about Fancy right now.
Plus, I am happily spending as much time as she wants outside at lunchtime laying in the snow while I read a book. We only have our pups for so long, gotta spend that time with them while we have them.
Here’s my girl out on the patio clearly wanting me to put the computer away and pay her some attention:
(And, yes, there are two dog beds in that picture that she’s ignoring. Along with one more around the corner and two more inside…Spoiled? Nah.)
Hope you and yours are well. Take care.
Aleksa Baxter 