The 2024 ANNUAL COLLECTION is LIVE on Amazon!
All of Last Year's Electrifying Stories in One Place & A Brief Update on How
365 INFANTRY: THE 2024 ANNUAL COLLECTION is alive and screaming in the electric wilds of Amazon. All of last year’s sensational tales of future warfare, lawless gangs, mysterious gladiators, and good old-fashioned hellraising, plus our 100th-ever story “The 10-Ton Runaway,” and our bonus story “Road to Renewal,” regaling a simple tale of family bonds & the kindness of strangers in the early days of life returning to the Wastelands.
This book marks several milestones, from our first book featuring the new, half-page comic format from our magnificent illustrator Kevin John Jacob to our new set of sleek typefaces to our LARGEST BOOK EVER at a whopping 155 pages. Everything about The 2024 Annual is a step-up from past years and I can’t wait to see it on your shelves.
Now the elephant in the room: why it took so long?
I’m not talking about getting the art done or the email I sent last week explaining my fussing about with the bonus story, but why it took this week to get it out at all. And the answer is simple: KDP and bleed.
Pro-tip for anyone going into self-publishing who is using Amazon and assembles their book in a word processor rather than software like InDesign is to add 0.125” to the width of the page size and 0.25” to the height. This is because, for the first time I’ve ever dealt with this, I kept getting my book kicked back because of our expanded image presentation.
I have gotten away with not fussing about this trim size bleed stuff with the Quarterlies, and I’ve seen nicely printed runs for my trouble. But Amazon HATED the fact I did not account for this bleed even though it has never kicked this much of a fuss about it before. Long story short, once I realized how to solve the problem (and after spending an hour or so rebuilding my columns across the entire document), I finally got the changes to take.
It also took roughly 12-24 hours between each revision attempt.
Hence why this is coming out when it is coming out. Fortunately for you and me, not only is out, but it is one of my favorite books I have ever put together. I love how next-level Kevin’s art has become, I am proud of the risks we took and the characters we created last year (In Professor Smith We STAN), and I am just grateful that so many more people are joining us day-in, day-out, and that this little exercise in creative freedom has grown and blossomed in the way it has.
I’m gonna be honest. Been thinking a lot about college lately. My regrets, my misgivings, how depressing it was to live through it all at the worst possible time. Knowing that this project, which was partly born of that misery, has persisted and brought so much joy to readers is what keeps me going. Thank you all so much for sticking with me and showing me that, yes, there is a market for something as wild as 365 INFANTRY.
To get some major updates out of the way, I am suspending the Red Light Bytes stories from now until April to focus on getting Issue 12 over the finish line. We’ve got a lot fun stories in store, and I am truly excited for this next chapter of the series. Work continues on other side projects, and I am going to remain active through March to get us prepped and ready for the Kickstarter in April. But if you want to support the Force right here and now, grab yourself a copy of this kickass tome. As always:
May God Bless You & This Force. Be seeing you!
