fantasy – Jennifer Kropf

I recently realized that the last time I sent any sort of update was five days before A Soul as Cold as Frost was launched. So, I’m shooting you a message to let you know all that’s happened since then, and what’s coming, and boy oh boy. Being a published author has been a real hoot!

The book launch of A Soul as Cold as Frost was phenomenal, so much better than I expected. My book became available worldwide, hitting the #1 spot on TWO best seller lists within hours of each other. Since then, it was nominated for the 2020 Indie Fantasy Book of the Year with Caffeinated Fantasy, has gotten 43 reviews on Goodreads with 83% of those reviews being 4/5 or 5/5 stars. I’m so proud of this book! Thank you to everyone who bought a copy and has supported me on this journey, and to all you churchy-folk who always boosted my confidence over the years by all your uplifting words. It’s truly remarkable to see how far this book has come from those early stages of plotting out this crazy novel idea I had about a girl discovering a Christmas-themed realm that carried all kinds of hidden gems about the Truth.

After being nominated for the 2020 Indie Fantasy Book of the Year, A Soul as Cold as Frost made it into the top ten and is now in the finals! (The winner will be determined by the number of votes, so if you’d like to vote for me, I would greatly appreciate it! Vote Here)

In other news, I’ve been avidly working on book #2 of The Winter Souls Series, called A Heart as Red as Paint. I’ve finally finished the revisions, and have just sent it off to six beta readers to get their feedback. From there, I’ll be rewriting it (again!) before I send it to my editor. (To see the synopsis of A Heart as Red as Paint, visit my “Books” page.)

In addition to starting the writing process of Book #2 of the Winter Souls Series back in December, I was also asked to participate in a collaboration project called Enchanted Waters, which is a collection of short stories by a handful of different authors, featuring mythical sea creatures. All profits of this project are going to Oceana to help support the health of our oceans and sea life. In this collection will be a short story that I wrote called Merrily, Merrily, featuring Zane from A Soul as Cold as Frost, during his life before he joined the Patrols when he was a pirate on the snowseas. Merrily, Merrily will also be available in a book of short stories I plan to publish in 2020, all of which take place in the realm of Winter. But for this year, the only place to get this story is in Enchanted Waters as part of our effort to raise support for Oceana. The ebook of Enchanted Waters is available for preorder for only $1.99! The price will be going up in March, so if you read ebooks, order your copy now. Pre-order Enchanted Waters on Amazon.com The paperback will be available the day of the book launch (I will keep you notified of when that is!)

In home life, I was pretty thrilled to learn that my son Chase was able to go back to school Monday (today.) I had his lunch packed, his clothes set out, his water bottle filled, and everything else imaginable. I even made a big “To-Do” list for today of everything I’ve been putting off for weeks since lockdown started, as my clingiest kid was finally going to be occupied elsewhere. But then, of course, we missed the bus this morning, because that’s just how we do things. My husband was gone with our vehicle, and my son’s first day of school turned into an hour-long scramble of me trying to figure out how I was going to get him there when I was home alone with no vehicle and three kids, one of which was supposed to be napping. So, to make a long story short, Chase was very late for school today, but he got there. Unfortunately, my youngest son, Austin (or “Austin-Mischief” as we call him at home) was pretty ticked that he missed his nap deadline, so after throwing plenty of snacks at my face and crushing a lob of playdough into the carpet, I spent my morning trying to get him to sleep and finally got him to go to bed about an hour ago at 1pm–thus why I’m able to write this blog post now.

Kids.

Anyway, I hope everyone is well and safe, and I’m sending out all kinds of prayers for random little blessings to fall on your lap today. You are so loved beyond measure, and the Lord has not forgotten your name or where you are.

Peace.

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A Soul as Cold as Frost

Who has two thumbs and is almost ready to publish a book?

That joke would work a lot better if you could see me.

What a whirlwind 2020 has turned out to be so far! Can anyone relate? Oh wait, yes, of course you can, because we’ve ALL been trapped at home for months. So, this begs the question: how many of us glided through this quarantine with grace, and how many have transformed into crazy behemoths? If you’re like me, you’ve learned to plaster a wide (too wide?) smile on the outside, because your mind’s spool has already unravelled down to the core on the inside.

Let’s sing! *Ahem*

If you’re crazy and you know it shake your meds! *clink, clink*

On the book front, I realize I’ve owed you an update for a while, especially since I’m SO CLOSE to being finished the preparation process, but, well… kids. So. Yeah.

By the grace of God, who loves me a heck of a lot more than I deserve considering I haven’t particularly been a “graceful glider” through quarantine, I have spent these last months working through my manuscript that I got back from my amazing editor (Suzanne Carson – I highly recommend!), I’ve started a publishing company called Winter Publishing House (I have big plans for this *sneaky eyebrow dance*,) and BOOM, I just finished formatting my book today. Now I’m trying to amp myself up to do the book cover.

Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe next week. Or maybe never.

Probably tomorrow.

My goal, God willing, is to have my book uploaded on both Amazon and IngramSpark and available for pre-orders worldwide by August! Wahoo! It’s ambitious, but every single thing about trying to publish a book in 2020 is ridiculously ambitious. And on that note, I’d like to personally give a shout out to all the authors out there that are riding the same crazy train and have managed to do it anyway. And you know what? Anyone else who has managed to do literally anything at all in these last months, good for you. You deserve a pat on the back.

If you don’t follow my author page on Facebook (facebook.com/authorjenniferkropf) or Instagram (@authorjenniferkropf) well get on that because now that most of the gruelling work is done, I’m going to finally get my head on straight and focus on posting some consistent updates about my book as things happen. This is when all the exciting stuff begins.

Before I go, let’s just have a good old-fashioned prayer exchange, yes? I’ll pray for you (sending them out to everyone who has received this blog post) and you pray for me. I could sure use it to get through this homestretch.

Thanks for all the support, I know I’m blessed to have any at all. I’m beyond excited for you all to read A Soul As Cold As Frost, coming this summer!

Kropf out

Tag: fantasy

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