Update: The Winds of Change

 It’s official: Extasy Books will no longer be selling directly from their site. This change was implemented on January 1, 2025, and is due to rising costs of publication and more. It was decided after a long and difficult deliberation by the owner, Tina.

Please note that Extasy Books is not going out of business. They are changing their business model to something closer to what we see at Decadent Publishing, where Eternity’s Gamble is published. We’re just not going to have our books published directly on Extasy’s site, only third party sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indigo for example. We’re still able to get the print versions of our books if they’re over a certain word count, and in pretty much every format in ebooks.

The amount of new releases will be a lot less than they have been in the past, so it may be a while before some of the authors have sequels and new releases hit the shelves. So please do not get upset if your favorite Ex author doesn’t have a new release for a bit. Edits, revisions, cover art and more take time.

All of the books I have published via Extasy Books will remain under their banner indefinitely. I don’t know when I’ll be submitting another story, due to how slow I write as a rule, and other variables hitting me between the eyes this last year. More on that later.

You can still see the new releases, and find our books via Extasy Books’ site. We’re all submitting our Books2Read or Amazon profiles to be included on the main site so it’s easy to find us and our books on the third party retailers.

Honestly, I’m not really upset about the change in format for Extasy publishing their books. Most of my sales came from third party sellers like Amazon as it is, and I’m used to not seeing a book for sale directly from the publisher, due to being with Decadent Publishing for the last three years (already?!???). I’m determined to strut along as usual, just posting my Books2Read link instead of the Extasy Books one for the six books I have out with them. It’s not a big change.

Upcoming Books… And a New Venture!

In lieu of Extasy Books’ change in publishing, I’ve decided to take a huge leap and do something really crazy…

I’m going to be publishing at least one novel as an Indie author. His Reasons to Fight, the finale of the Feathered Tartan series, will be coming out sometime in 2028 or 2029. It depends on how fast I can write it, edit it, have my friend/editor Jon edit it, and more.

I’m working on the cover now, and I will be doing a cover reveal about a month or so before the release date. This is the happy ever after to my latest book, Could Have Been, which was published in May 2024. I’ve decided to take it Indie so I can publish it when I want to, on my own schedule, and so fans can partake in it being on Kindle Unlimited for a while before it goes wide – to places like Smashwords, Indigo and more.

©2025 V.J. Allison Art. No downloading or sharing without my written permission.

I also have another book in the works, a love story called Thorns of the Rose. I’m not giving away any details other than I have the cover completed, and this has been in the works for a couple of years, but with Could Have Been taking up a lot of my time, and more, it was on the back burner. Now that I have a bit of direction with His Reasons to Fight, I’m working on this one when I hit a roadblock with the other book. It’s slow going but both are starting to come along nicely too.

Again, I’m looking at a 2028 or 2029 release for this one. I’m not sure if this one will be going Indie or not. I have to see how things go with His Reasons to Fight and a third idea I’m working on with my friend Xek. (More on that shortly!).

I did do a promo for it… Have a gander.

©2025 V.J. Allison Art. NO downloading or sharing without my written permission.

The cover reveal – if this goes Indie – will probably be in November of 2027 at the earliest. Otherwise, it may be sooner or later than that. So many variables…

I’m also in the extremely early planning stages of another paranormal-horror romance that was prompted by a chat with an extremely good friend of mine. No, not sharing yet. Let’s call it “Super Secret Project the Second”.

And I have another series in its ultra-early planning stages, one that I hope to get on the go as soon as I’m done the three I’m working on now, including the crime drama one I’m working on with Xek. Again, not sharing details because nothing is set in concrete. I don’t share details with anyone outside of a few people like my editor/friend Jon, a few of the people at Extasy Books, and a few extremely close friends. I’ve always been a bit cautious about sharing things about my WIPs, and I’m even more so now. I’ll update as needed, like on my author areas and in my Facebook group, etc.

Computer Woes

A month ago, my computer started acting strangely, and when I stood up to check something, I accidentally knocked the plug out of the socket, which turned it off. It would not start after that, creating the loud whine of death.

Thankfully I still had the computer that my former Business Tech instructor gave me in 2023, not long before the semester ended. After trying to get the old computer started for two days, I got the newer system, set it up and installed the old computer’s disk in it.

The dratted thing decided it was going to repair the disk. Two days of fighting with it. I finally gave up and decided to skip the repair… Only to have Windows do a forced update, and then I saw it…

The dreaded Blue Screen of Death…

Three times.

It took a lot of thinking, quadruple checking, and more, but after forcing a system restore, I managed to get it up and running again.

If you know me at all, you probably just saw me in your mind, cursing a blue streak so long that it hit the Oort Cloud and returned something like 20 times over that weekend. There was a lot more cuss words bouncing off the Oort Cloud again, after the forced updates f**ked up the computer for a while.

Finally, things were setting up nicely. Then I tried accessing my User Folder on my old drive.

Access denied.

I cried. All of my manuscripts were in that folder, and I had forgotten to back them up in recent months, not since Could Have Been was published. Thorns of the Rose was there, as was what little I had for His Reasons to Fight.

I kept trying to get access for two whole weeks. I was ready to give up then tried right clicking on the dang thing and hitting “open” when the menu came up as a last resort.

Boom! Access granted!

I screamed in victory and almost fainted in relief. I had my graphics, my manuscripts, and everything else again.

I immediately backed everything up on the external drive as well as my Google drive to be extra safe. The incarnations of those stories and others that were there when the old system croaked will stay there, and I’ll be putting backups on that drive too. Triple backups, not double, to be extra safe.

Remind me to never be that negligent again…

*Note: If you laugh about anything you think is “bad” or “karma” for me, you are one of the worst people on this planet. It shows the world the kind of person you are, not who I am. Keep that in mind before you think it’s only fitting I’ve had a few issues, your karma may wind up biting you in ways you’re not realizing, or you’re blaming on others.*

Other News…

Son is still at his transition school but this is his last year. He’ll be graduating from there in June, and we’ll be sad to say goodbye to his friends and teachers there. He had a good two and a half year run with them, and he’s come a long way since he started there in 2023. He’s become so much more independent, from cooking his own meals in the microwave or the toaster oven, to purchasing his own groceries and more. I’m so proud of him. He’ll probably be living here for the rest of my life, and I’m okay with that. He’s great company and such a good person. The best out there.

He’s also participating in a work placement that teaches him skills like stocking shelves, shredding papers, using various things like cash registers and so much more. They also have a lot of recreation like trips to museums and more included in the program so he’s always on the go with them too. He’s there three days a week at the moment, while he’s at his transition school only twice per week until graduation. This is a year round thing, and we started doing the work placement over the summer, so I’m able to work more during July and August instead of taking those two months off like I had been during his full time tenure as a student. Bonus!

My art has picked up a bit, notably after hitting Michaels’ crafts for the first time this summer. To say I can spend hours in the art area alone is an understatement. It is so relaxing to walk the aisle of art supplies, from acrylics to watercolors and pastels, to the pretty wooden cutouts and the beautifully huge canvases they have in stock, and so much more. I always wind up going somewhat broke after hitting that store, and it’s become a running joke here. Don’t go to Bayer’s Lake Shopping Park without stopping into Michaels’, or else V.J. will lose it. Since I get my occipital nerve blocks in another part that park, there’s always time to make a short – read two hour – stop into the store… And to their location of my favorite national thrift store chain. I’m always looking for a bargain, and I’ve found a lot – from a leather fall/spring coat to art supplies, and from a full length (read down to my ankles) leather winter coat with a hood to a designer purse I didn’t realize was one until I got it home. I only picked it up because it has purple roses on it, my signature as an author, and its colors are my signatures too – black, purple, white and silver. It’s a Betsey Johnson original, and it’s so pretty! I love it.

Inside of the Betsey Johnson purse. So pretty!

Outside of the purse. Purple roses!

I do have a lot more on the go, but I’ve rambled on too much as it is. I’ll drop another update when I remember to… Hopefully before summer rolls around in six months!

Happy 2025, everyone. May this year be gentle for all of us.

I leave you with “What About Love” by one of my favorite bands, Heart. Nancy Wilson is my favorite female guitarist of all time, and she rocks circles around most of her male counterparts in my opinion… Anyway, enjoy the song! Have a great first weekend of 2025, everyone.