Tim Karney's Blog

It sounds wonderful in theory. But what happens when your life includes not just one career, but two demanding creative and professional pursuits running on parallel tracks?

Lately, I’ve realized that traditional work/life balance isn’t the puzzle I’m trying to solve. My daily reality looks a lot more like Work/Work/Life balance—and let me tell you, it’s a whole different level of juggling.

For over twenty-five years, I’ve built and run my freelance content development practice. It’s challenging, strategic, and intellectually engaging work. I genuinely enjoy diving into complex topics, crafting clear narratives, and helping clients solve communication problems.

Beyond personal satisfaction, there’s an important practical side to it: Work #1 funds the dream.

Being an independent author isn’t just about sitting in a quiet room with a cup of tea, letting inspiration strike. It’s running a small publishing business. Cover design, professional editing, audio production, advertising campaigns, website maintenance—they all require capital. My freelance work provides the financial engine that allows me to invest properly in my fiction without cutting corners.

Then comes the second “Work.”

If you ask people outside the publishing world what an author does, they’ll picture someone drafting chapters. But in reality, drafting is only half the battle. The other half is the relentless, multifaceted grind of book marketing.

Right now, that marketing plate is overflowing. On any given day, I’m:

Promoting my debut novel, The Kill of the Hunt: Testing ad copy, building newsletter outreach, engaging with readers, and keeping momentum alive post-launch.

Prepping the Audiobook Release: Working through the production pipeline to bring The Kill of the Hunt to life in audio, lining up reviewers, and planning the promotional push for ACX/Audible.

Laying the Groundwork for Book Two: Planning launch timelines, email sequences, and promotional strategies for the next installment in the series.

Marketing a book is demanding. It requires switching from a narrative mindset to an analytical, promotional one—crunching numbers, tweaking designs, and constantly finding ways to connect with mystery lovers in a crowded market.

And tucked inside Work #2 is the reason I got into this in the first place: the writing itself.

Currently, I’m deep in the weeds researching and drafting the sequel, The Trials of the Hunt.

Writing a mystery requires real headspace. You can’t just phone in a plot twist or rush through intricate equestrian and investigative details. It takes hours of focused research, meticulous scene plotting, and quiet drafting time to ensure the pacing, clues, and character arcs hit just right.

Finding the creative energy to write murder, motives, and mayhem after spending a full workday crafting client deliverables—and another two hours fiddling with ad dashboards—is where the real test of endurance happens.

Somewhere between client deadlines, marketing spreadsheets, and chasing down plot holes, there has to be room for life.

Life is stepping away from the keyboard to spend time with family. It’s getting outside, following a bike race, enjoying an afternoon watching equestrian sports, or taking the time to cook a proper meal from scratch without checking email while the pan heats up.

If you let Work #1 and Work #2 consume every waking hour, burnout isn’t a possibility—it’s an inevitability. Life is what recharges the well so there’s something left to put on the page.

I won’t pretend to have it completely figured out, but a few rules of thumb keep the wheels on the wagon:

Strict Time Blocking: When it’s client time, clients get 100% of my focus. When it’s drafting time, Slack is muted, and social media is closed. Context-switching is the enemy of quality.

Treating Author Life Like a Business: Scheduling marketing tasks just like client deliverables ensures they don't get pushed aside or bleed endlessly into personal time.

Protecting Sacred Downtime: Leaving room for non-work passions isn't a luxury; it’s maintenance for the brain.

Remembering the Why: On the days when the schedule feels overwhelming, I remind myself how fortunate I am to do client work I enjoy and bring mystery stories to life that readers love.

Work/Work/Life balance is messy, exhausting, and constantly shifting. But when the drafts come together, the readers reach out, and the books find their audience, every bit of the balancing act is worth it.

Over to you: If you're balancing a day job with a creative pursuit or a side business, how do you keep all the plates spinning? Let me know in the comments below!

Join me on a special Zoom call where I'll be gathering your thoughts on the book and sharing insights about my upcoming novel, *The Trials of the Hunt*. Your feedback means the world to me as I craft my next story!

Not a newsletter subscriber yet? Sign up now at www.timkarney.com. to secure your spot and be part of the creative journey!

As an independent author, you wear every hat in the business. On Monday, you're the writer lost in the Virginia countryside with your characters. By Wednesday, you’re the editor, cover designer, formatting tech, and marketing director.

When I first set out to bring Grady and Sinjin to life in The Kill of the Hunt, I knew I had a great story—a snarky D.C. humor columnist and a tight-lipped British intelligence interrogator taking on elite society corruption. What I didn't fully realize was how much strategy goes into standing out in today's crowded market—from finding the right price points to juggling launch schedules and audio production.

There are days when price elasticity and algorithm tweaks make your head spin. But then a reader leaves a brilliant review, or reaches out to say they can't wait for the next book, and every single late night becomes worth it.

Self-publishing gives me complete freedom to bring you these stories on my own terms—and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Thank you to every single one of you who has read, reviewed, or recommended the series so far. You aren't just readers—you’re the reason these books exist!

Haven't joined the hunt yet? Grab your copy of The Kill of the Hunt today to catch up before the sequel, The Trials of the Hunt, drops this Fall!

There is nothing quite like the crisp air of autumn in Virginia Hunt Country—the scent of turning leaves, the thud of hooves on turf, and, of course, a chilling new mystery whispering through the stables.

If you’ve been waiting to fully immerse yourself in the high-stakes, elite world of Grady Gallagher and Elena Verity, we have some thrilling news to share. This Fall 2026, your favorite equestrian mystery is leaping from the page straight to your headphones!

We are officially launching the audiobook edition of The Trials of the Hunt!

To bring the atmospheric tension, sharp-witted humor, and dark secrets of our characters to life, we knew we needed an extraordinary storyteller. That is why we are absolutely thrilled to announce that expert voice actor Mark Silence will be narrating the audiobook.

Known for his incredible vocal range and commanding presence, Mark perfectly captures:

The dry, Scotch-fueled cynicism of our favorite Washington Post humor columnist, Grady Gallagher.

The steely, razor-sharp focus of former British interrogator Sinjin Ravenshire.

The fierce, protective bravery of champion equestrian Elena Verity.

Whether you are commuting, relaxing, or spending time at the stables, Mark’s narration will make you feel like you are riding right alongside them as they unravel a web of wealth, power, and deception.

Production is already underway, and the audiobook is set to officially drop in Fall 2026. We will be sharing exclusive behind-the-scenes snippets, narrator Q&As, and audio previews as we get closer to the release date.

It was also nice to introduce so many people to the book and let them know of the upcoming sequel, “The Trials of the Hunt,” which I plan to release this fall.

I love writing, but it’s such a solitary activity, and as a writer, it’s hard to know if people will connect with the mystery, humor, and romance in my books.

As I told the audience, it was at Grace in the Plains where I developed my love of the unique region that is the Hunt Country of Virginia. From the billionaire equestrian estates, the vineyards, the working farms, the artists’ studios, and the quaint communities, the region is a never-ending source of characters, settings, and stories.

I want to give special thanks to the Reverend Santiago Rodriguez for making this event possible, and all the people at Grace who share their fellowship and support all the artists, musicians, actors, and authors who call this region their home.

“How hard can a sequel be?” I asked myself, laughing a hearty, sophisticated author's laugh. “I’ve done this once. I’ll just do it again.”

Cut to forty-eight hours later: I am staring at a blank document, whispering curses at my monitor, and seriously wondering if it’s too late to learn a trade.

It turns out that writing a second book is a completely different experience from writing the first one. When I was writing The Kill of the Hunt, nobody knew who Grady Gallagher and Sinjin Ravenshire were. If I got stuck, I could walk away for three weeks. If a plot point didn't work, I could just rewrite the entire universe, and no one would care because the universe only existed to me.

 Now? Now I have expectations. I have deadlines. And worst of all, I have readers who remember what happened in Book One much better than I do.

 If you’ve ever wondered what the glamorous process of writing a sequel looks like, here are the primary pains of knocking out Book Two:

1.    The Fact-Checking Tyranny of My Own Universe: When you write Book One, you are a benevolent god creating a world. When you write Book Two, you are a low-level bureaucrat being audited by your past self. I spent two hours yesterday trying to remember if I explicitly stated which side of the stable block a specific tack room was on. Did Grady drink Scotch or whiskey in Chapter 4? Does Sinjin take his tea with milk or is he a purist? I’m living in constant terror of receiving an email from a reader saying, "Excuse me, Tim, but on page 112 of the sequel you said Grady drives a 2020 Honda Accord, but in Book One you clearly implied he treats it like an average car, so why does he suddenly know how to check the transmission fluid?"

2.    The Odd-Couple Conundrum : Everyone loved the dynamic between Grady—the witty, slightly unathletic D.C. society columnist—and Sinjin, the hyper-disciplined British intelligence analyst. It’s a great dynamic. The problem is, keeping them together requires a ridiculous amount of narrative gymnastics.

3.    The Plot-Twist Arms Race In The Kill of the Hunt, I got to weave together the high-society drama of the Virginia Hunt Country, equestrian elite secrets, and a puzzling murder. It was a lot of moving parts. For Book Two, my brain keeps telling me everything has to be bigger, darker, and twistier. But there is a very fine line between "gripping mystery" and "I have accidentally written a plot so complicated that even I don't know who the killer is anymore." I'm pretty sure the murderer is either a champion show jumper or the librarian who processed my book last month.

4.    The Sharpie Anxiety Remember how I mentioned I have my first book signing scheduled at Grace in the Plains Episcopal Church? (By the way, please still come—I need the human interaction). Every time I try to write a scene for Book Two and it goes poorly, my brain whispers: "What if you show up to The Plains and someone asks how Book Two is coming, and you have to admit you've spent the last three weeks writing and deleting the same paragraph about a horse?" The pressure to have a good answer to "When is the next one coming out?" is a highly effective, deeply stressful motivator.

So, if you need me over the next few weeks, I’ll be the guy huddled over a laptop at a local coffee shop, frantically flipping through a dog-eared copy of my own debut novel to make sure I didn't accidentally change a main character's backstory, while trying to figure out how to make a locked-room puzzle work in a stable.

 Wish me luck. The hunt for Book Two is officially on—and right now, the book is winning.

For a long time, the word “author” felt like a title reserved for people who wear heavy tweed jackets, smoke pipes in wood-paneled libraries, and look out of rain-streaked windows while contemplating the tragic duality of man.

Meanwhile, my writing routine has traditionally involved sitting in front of a computer, staring blankly at a blinking cursor, and trying to convince myself that eating a sleeve of cookies counts as “plot development.” Even after launching The Kill of the Hunt, I still halfway expected the Literary Police to knock on my door and demand I return my keyboard for practicing storytelling without a license.

But lately, some weird things have been happening. Things that look suspiciously like… evidence.

If you, like me, are keeping score at home to see if I’m actually a real author now, here are the latest exhibits for the prosecution:

Exhibit A: Several hundred of you actually bought it. When you publish a book, your baseline fear is that your wife will buy one copy, your cousin will accidentally click “Buy Now” on Amazon and try to return it, and that’ll be the end of your literary empire. Instead, The Kill of the Hunt has officially sold several hundred copies. To actual human beings. Who aren’t related to me. If you are one of those beautiful, brilliant readers, thank you. You have single-handedly kept my imposter syndrome at bay (or at least pushed it to the back burner).

Exhibit B: The Arrival of the Treasury. A few days ago, I received my very first royalty check. I won’t tell you the exact amount, but let’s just say that J.K. Rowling isn’t losing any sleep over my competitive market share just yet. Still, there is an unparalleled, dizzying thrill to looking at a piece of paper that says someone paid you actual legal tender for the voices inside your head. I’m thinking of framing it, or at least using it to buy a very fancy, author-appropriate cup of coffee.

Exhibit C: I am officially a public resource. If you wander into the Prince William County Library system, you will no longer just find me lurking in the back trying to find a quiet place to read. The Kill of the Hunt is now officially available in the library catalog! There is nothing more surreal than knowing my book has a barcode, a spine label, and can be checked out by anyone with a library card. (Please don’t return it late; I can’t afford the fines on my own book).

Exhibit D: Real shelf space. If you happen to be in Warrenton, VA, stop by Horse Country. Why? Because they are officially my very first retail outlet! Seeing The Kill of the Hunt sitting on an actual store shelf alongside gorgeous equestrian gear and Hunt Country staples is an incredible feeling. It turns out that when you write a mystery set against the backdrop of the Virginia horse elite, the local horse country crowd might actually want to read it. Who knew?

Exhibit E: The Signing of the Pages. The ultimate test of authorhood is, of course, the book signing. It’s the moment you sit at a table with a stack of books and a fresh pack of Sharpies, praying that at least one person stops by so you don’t look like you’re pulling a solo shift at a very sad bake sale.

My very first book signing is officially on the calendar! I’ll be at Grace in the Plains Episcopal Church in The Plains, VA on July 12 at 10:30am. If you want a signed copy, want to talk about Grady and Sinjin, or just want to make sure I don’t sit there completely alone with my Sharpies, I would love to see you there.

So, am I really an author now? The data points are skewing toward “yes.” But just to be safe, I’m going to keep writing, keep checking the library shelves, and maybe—just maybe—start looking into where a guy can buy a decent tweed jacket.

Thanks for joining me on this wild ride. See you in The Plains!

This time, the pristine fences and elite estates of Fauquier County become the backdrop for a cold-blooded murder right in the middle of a high-stakes, three-day equestrian event. D.C. humor columnist Grady Gallagher, Viscount Sinjin Ravenshire, and Elena Verity are forced back into action.

I’ll be sharing exclusive character diaries, cover reveals, and sneak-peek snippets with my newsletter family first—so stay tuned!

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http://www.timkarney.com

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Thank you for making 'The Kill of the Hunt' a hit! Your support and thoughtful reviews on Amazon and GoodReads mean the world to me.

It took me almost two years to bring the book to life. All that time, you wonder if anyone will read it and whether or not they will enjoy it. The book has sold much better than I expected, and so far, all the reviews have been very positive.

I’m now hard at work writing the sequel, “The Trials of the Hunt,” which will thrust our trio of amateur sleuths into a deadly crime at a prestigious, three-day equestrian event.

If you haven’t yet, grab your copy of “The Kill of the Hunt” or read a free sample on Amazon today.

Let’s keep the excitement alive!

But from the moment it launched, it started to find an audience.

Some were intrigued by the idea of a mystery series like Midsomer Murders set in the wealthy enclaves of the Virginia Hunt Country. Others downloaded the free sample from the eBook Amazon page and were hooked in the first two chapters. Several readers had followed my social media posts or visited my website.

No matter the motivation, their enthusiasm has pushed sales beyond my wildest expectations! I had more than double the orders I had expected for the first week in just two days!

If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, now’s the time! Get it today for only 99 cents—this special sale won’t last long. Let’s keep the momentum going!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNJPLZVH