Progress Report 2026 Week 30

The Real Life Family Events (RLFEs) floodgate opened this week. I haven’t recovered yet, primarily because one of the events is ongoing. It’ll likely wrap up this week — and just as likely not in a good way. I also got the first two ratings for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners. One of them was a four. One of them wasn’t. Before talking about either of those, let’s look at the key performance indicators.

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

I’m shocked I hit 10,000 words this week. The chapter count? I didn’t exactly cheat, but two of the chapters were shorter!

I didn’t have a high word count on Tuesday, because I had to go back and seed events to make Trent Raven’s arc end up right. Also, I changed one character’s name from Frank Anderson to Frank Moreno. That’s because a character who started in Dreams of Deucalion, Gary Johnson, played a prominent role in this book and had a name that was too close. I found myself confusing the two, so I wanted to make it easier for the readers.

More than that, though, the RLFE that’s still open hit me. I don’t want to go into any detail, but I’ll just say this: I’ve been against privatizing services for the disabled because the profit motive does not mix well with an operation that’s supposed to help the disadvantaged or disabled. I now have more evidence to support that position.

That RLFE weighed so heavily on me that I couldn’t write on Sunday. But it was received a boost of negative weight by another event — the second rating on Duty of Prisoners.

Duty of Prisoners and a 1 Star Rating

The first rating Duty of Prisoners was a 4. I can live with that! The second was a 1. Now, before I comment further, I want to make something clear: anyone can leave any rating they want. I bear no ill will to the reader who I obviously disappointed. My issue’s not the rater or the rating, per se. But that rating came at a bad time.

There are three reasons a reader might grant a single star:

1. The writing is profoundly bad
2. The contents triggered a severe reaction based on politics
3. The reader expected one thing and got another

Yes, I think my writing sucks. But even I know the writing is not profoundly bad. The story craftsmanship might not be a 5; but it’s not a 1. So I’m going to set number 1 aside. Besides, if I can’t write by now, it’s over.

It’s tempting to declare this 1 rating is because of politics. The story is clearly anti-Nazi, and there’s a major political party in the United States that has openly embraced many of the talking points of that regime from the late 1930s in Germany. A representative of that party even has a pictures of the German battleship Bismarck hanging in his office.

But that’s a cop out. I have no idea what the rater’s politics are, so I’m not going to assume anything. As a matter of policy, I’m going to assume positive intent. That means number 2 is off the list. That leaves number 3.

A one star review among many isn’t a problem. But when it’s one of two ratings, I worry it’ll impact sales of both the first book and second, the latter of which comes out in early August.

I’d been marketing Duty of Prisoners to readers of John Scalzi and James S.A. Corey. I had clear reasons for doing that — clear in my mind, anyway! But if I eliminate 1 and 2, that leaves 3. I asked Google Gemini if it knew about the book Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners. It did; in more detail than I actually liked, but it did. I asked it if those two authors were good comps.

They were not. And it explained why.

I asked Gemini what a better comp would be. It made several suggestions, but I’ve only read the works of one of them: Marko Kloos. He writes military science fiction with a strong emphasis on internal character development. I agree it’s a better fit than the other two choices.

Is changing the blurb to mention Marko Kloos enough to attract readers with a higher chance of liking the book? I have no idea. Clearly, this is not an area in which I knew what I thought I knew. Basically, among other things, I’m not understanding how to identify comps. I need to do better, or I’m not going to succeed.

When all’s said and done, I’m angry with myself for screwing up the blurb, where I promised readers something that would remind them of two authors who weren’t the appropriate comp. That set the wrong expectations. I hope the change I just filed for the blurb will correct that.

Progress Against Last Week’s Goals

Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:

1. Write four new chapters in The Fissure Kings Book 1: Semele’s Lament: Done! Two of the chapters were shorter, because I needed to rapidly change POVs.
2. Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone: Done! She’s making great progress.
3. Monitor the sales numbers for the Duty of Prisoners during the promotion period: Ongoing! Sales are down because I’m in between promotions.
4. Re-record the first chapter of Duty of Prisoners and confirm that I can engineer it to meet ACX’s requirements: Not done! This week sucked too much.
5. Keep experimenting with Amazon ads and try to have a profitable week: Ongoing! I still have a long way to go; and since this depends heavily on comps, my renewed emphasis on properly identifying them will help.

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 30

Here’s what I want to accomplish this week:

1. Write four new chapters in The Fissure Kings Book 1: Semele’s Lament (and potentially finish the second draft)
2. Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone
3. Re-record the first chapter of Duty of Prisoners and confirm that I can engineer it to meet ACX’s requirements
4. Keep experimenting with Amazon ads and try to have a profitable week
5. Begin reading new potential comps for Wayland’s Hammer

What Do You Think?

How to you identify comps? What criteria do you use? Do you have a checklist? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!