Taking a few minutes to share current efforts to publish this series.
Council's End (Volume 6) - Lulu returned the cover and interior designs for me to review. Overall, the cover looks beautiful, but for some reason they mocked up the spine using specifications for a 200 page book. As a result the spine fonts are smaller and rotated incorrectly. I've sent back my comments to Lulu clearly indicating that the book is 484 pages and should match the design for other books. I'm sure they'll correct it, but there initial response is that that was just standard for the design, but in actual print the spine would match the actual page count. I told them that was unacceptable and I won't sign off until I see a mock up for a 484 page book. Word of caution to other prospective authors. Do not approve something until it matches your expectation. Lulu is great to work with, but I've been burned once before when I missed something I expected to be obvious to them.
Anyway, I expect the cover corrections to be made next week and I'm diving into the interior design. This involves my rereading the book with care and looking for any typos/corrections I may have missed in earlier edits. At this stage, no matter how tempting, I do not rewrite anything larger than a sentence or two. I've learned that more often than not, major changes at this point are as likely to make things worse as they are to make things better. Also, I only get 50 corrections for free and need to pay for anything after that. So basically, the story is what it is at this point. Not to worry, this approach has worked out pretty well for me thus far.
The bottom line is that I expect to send interior corrections in a couple of weeks and should have final approvals in about three weeks. A week or two after that the book should be available to purchase on Lulu.
Out of Time (Volume 7) - Ready to go. Once I complete the interior review for Volume 6, I will be submitting Volume 7 for publication. Given the current pace of Lulu's efforts it will likely not be until early next year that it is published.
Blood and Magic (Volume 8) - Just got the final illustration back from Amy. It looks beautiful.
This volume will be submitted for publication in early 2017.
The Fourth Age (Volume 1)
Still working with Lulu to get this offered through Goodreads. They sent a draft advertisement for me to review and sadly pulled all the info for Heroes of Bardoom (Volume 3). Yikes! That's exactly how I responded. I love my readers too much to ask them to start the series with Volume 3. The story is woven in a way that you really want to start with Volume 1. I'm sure they'll make the necessary corrections.
Ok, so if you've read all of the above, you've probably noticed that I'm dealing with a couple of issues with Lulu. Some may ask, why are you still publishing with them? My answer is twofold. First, yes, I've had to deal with a few issues, but overall I find the quality of their work, the ease of working with their staff and the breadth of options they offer to be top notch. I do recommend them. Second, which is not really a ringing endorsement is that I stick with them because they've published the first five books. I don't want to switch now and have the remainder of the series "look" different from the first five. I guess what it comes down to is that their mistakes have not been major enough to push me to switch. But if anyone is considering starting their publishing journey, you may want to explore all available options.
So take care. If you're in the US, make you sure you vote. Otherwise, I hope you continue to read, whether its the Verdan Chronicles or not.