Dear #MarkedbyOdin, it is time for the first letter from the author of 2021, to catch up on the start of the year that, as you have seen, has been the craziest. At this rate the only thing missing is that before the end of the month we have a zombie pandemic, the vampire uprising, the gates of hell open and… Even a real invasion of the Hekkars!
Well, let’s hope that at least all these things continue to remain in the realm of science fiction, that enough we are having to endure now between the damn virus and our lovely humanity, sometimes so incredible, sometimes so deplorable.
LET’S GO TO THE END OF TIME
No, I’m not going to be ashen again that things are going to be worse for us. I told you in December that I could possibly get started with the final production of Ragnarok… And I’m happy to confirm that this is going to be the case. In February I hope to have a horizon of several months in which I can focus almost exclusively on this long-awaited task.
In mid-February I will have finished teaching my classes at the University of Seville and my latest video game, Haxity, will become completely free on Steam. And although we are already working on new projects, as far as my part is concerned, I can “evade” for a season until their development is no further advanced. That means that, if all goes well, I will be able to have time to rest a bit, clear my head and get on with the production of Ragnarok.
Before that, as I already mentioned, I will try again to enjoy everything written so far as one normal reader, in order to take the continuation with more enthusiasm.
MORE THAN ONE LIGHT
On the other hand, these weeks we have made great progress Milena Brody and myself to advance in one of the great surprises of Ragnarok: the composition and production of a musical theme within the fictional universe of Mark of Odin. I can tell you in advance that its title will be ‘More than one light’ and it will be the work of a new character, the singer Åsa, who will become famous after sharing it with the world as a way to overcome her trauma of the #SevillaDisaster. In the third book you will be able to enjoy the narration of a concert of her and, at the same time if you want, listen (or who knows if you should also watch…) Åsa for real.
This character will be introduced in a new extended story, which has already been written and which I will share soon. In addition, the publication of Harlequin: The Fruit of Eden is still pending, in the absence of having his illustration ready. I am also preparing a new one in the form of a chronicle of our friends at Noticias Directo WebTV, dedicated to the deniers of the #SevilleDisaster, two years later. Yes, in the fiction of Mark of Odin we also have those too. There are some more content in pre-production that I would like to release if there were media, but as I already told you, the priority this year is going to be the third book.
AUDIOBOOKS
In this month I have continued working on the production of audiobooks. In this sense, the first one in English is already being published gradually on all platforms. Although there are some that are taking a long time or that, directly, are giving us a thousand problems with the requirements, such as Audible. So we may end up discarding them, since it does not compensate the time spent for so many problems.
I already have the voices recorded for the three bonus chapters in English, so they will be available for download on our website very soon. Then we will surely give priority to the Spanish versions of the books. In this way we would leave the sound versions of the Odinpedia stories for last. The idea is that these can be reproduced directly from the page of each content, instead of just for download. So, we are looking at the best system to implement it.
DARK TIMES FOR MARKETING
This 2020 with the Covid has been a very bad year, with a drop in everything, as you will have experienced in your own skin. 2021 has not started better. All of this has been made worse by a wild increase in costs on the main advertising platforms. This has been due, on the one hand, to the fact that everyone has focused exclusively on online advertising and changes in algorithms. We have always focused our payment ads strategy on Facebook and Instagram. But it is currently unsustainable trying to compete with the big advertisers.
That is why my idea right now is to minimize the investment in marketing in the next months. That does not mean that I will continue to test to see if I find more efficient options. The idea is to save as much as possible to be able to dedicate the maximum of resources in marketing when the third book is ready and we launch its crowdfunding campaign to be able to publish it.
As I already told you, my hope is to use this system again so that, if I get enough support, I can offer you not only the third book, but more extras to be able to reward you for your fidelity and courage for believing in this impossible dream.
DISCORD COMMUNITY BOOST
We have recently carried out a restructuring in our Discord community in order to empower it. We want it to be our main link with the community, where you can share your thoughts and discuss everything related to the saga.
We have enabled an option so that you can indicate when you have finished a reading. This way you will be able to access the respective channels of each book where you can comment on everything you want about the story without fear of spoiling those who have not yet read them. I encourage you to join if you are not yet, I love being able to share impressions with you.
I also encourage you to continue sharing your impressions of the books, not only in the Opinions section, but also on external platforms such as Amazon, Google Play, Apple, Kobo, Lektu or Goodreads. Having a good evaluation and opinions there helps us a lot to attract new readers.
I end by sending much strength and encouragement to all of us so that we can survive these dark times. I hope that soon we will enjoy life as we would like. We all have to be tough like Valkyries and brave like Einherjars.
Remember, everything is connected.
Xavier Marcé
