I appreciate your patience with the lack of stories and updates during the past few weeks. This has been a hectic year, filled with more blessings than I can count. Good busy, you could call it.
In the past few months I’ve gotten married, won an Emmy—
—and most recently, moved into a new home with my wife! Now that the chaos has died down somewhat, I finally have breathing room to share a progress report.
“Kronomund” Status Report
It’s in the editor’s hands now. I feel a bit like I just dropped my kid off at summer camp, and now I’ve got a little bit of time to myself before the final push to publication.
Big thanks to everyone who signed up for the beta program, and took the time to give such thoughtful feedback on my work. I am planning ahead for a release before the end of 2026—tentatively in November.
Part of this means gathering reviews for launch day. Having a good number of reviews on the books helps tell the Amazon algorithm that this is a real book that real people are reading. So, I’m offering access to advance review copies (or ARCs, if you like) of “Kronomund.” If you’re a good fit, you’ll get a free copy.
There’s no obligation to leave a positive review—or any review at all. Amazon is very strict about quid-pro-quo reviews. It would be my hope that you’d leave your honest thoughts on the book, come launch day.
Behind the Scenes
Having this newsletter also gives me the opportunity to share a ton of additional content from the book, including a behind-the-scenes look at the development process, original art, and even bonus chapters that were cut from the manuscript. All of this and more will be available to paid newsletter subscribers in the weeks and months ahead.
Sidebar: for the past four years, my writing space has been a rickety kitchen table I bought at target when I graduated college. I am thrilled to finally make the upgrade to an actual desk… even if it’s one that was built into a spare closet!
The important thing is: the desk is strong enough to hold my camera without falling over, and there’s a nice backdrop for shooting video. I plan to start going live soon, and making more videos and podcast recordings with other authors.
And because my main goal here is actually selling books, not running a paid newsletter, I have decided that purchasing a copy of Kronomund—whether that be a hard copy, Ebook, or audio book—will come with a comp subscription to Cole’s Chapters.* In addition to all of the Kronomund bonus content, this will include access to my extensive short story and novella archive.
*I’m still working out the exact logistics, including how long the comp subscription will last, how long the offer will be good for from the time of publication, and how the offer can be redeemed. It will probably look like sending me a picture of your receipt or something—more details to come.
By the way: yes there will be an audio book as well.
Gideon Gale Status Report
This project has predictably moved to the back burner. I hoped to finish writing it before the Kronomund release, but I will probably have to shelve it until then.
If you haven’t started reading yet, it’s an experimental story about a town whose residents are collectively hallucinating a feature reporter on the local news. This entity—Gideon Gale—seems to be exerting some kind of sinister influence over its viewers, particularly those who can see through it. If you like, you can read the first six chapters here:
There's No Such Thing as Gideon Gale
A Strange Phenomenon has Overtaken the Airwaves in Calder Thorson’s Tiny Town
I have a clear outline for the last 2-3 installments. There’s still just so much to do in order to get Kronomund out the door and onto shelves. It simply needs to be the priority. I hate doing this, especially for those of you invested in the story, but the reality is for whatever reason, serial content never seems to perform well for me, and Gideon Gale is no exception.
As I said before, for this reason, this will probably be my last piece of serialized fiction I publish for a while on here. It just competes too much for my time, with very little benefit for me or—so it would seem—my readers.
This doesn’t mean I won’t share short fiction anymore, but these stories will probably be one-offs so I can focus on my actual goals here. Thank you all for your continued support!