Benedict Jacka's Blog

Okay, I’ve had a brief holiday and recharged the batteries a bit.  Here’s some news on how things are going and the outlook for the Inheritance of Magic series in general.

Inheritance of Magic #4 is now with my publishers.  It’s now at the “Waiting for Edits” stage that I wrote about in my “The Process” series (that was written back when I was still writing the Alex Verus series, but the basic pattern hasn’t changed).  I’ll probably hear back from my editors somewhere around the beginning of the New Year, at which point I’ll find out what changes they’re asking for and how much work they’ll be.

According to my UK editor, they have Inheritance of Magic #4 pencilled in to be released on 3rd November 2026.  So assuming there aren’t any massive delays or issues with the edits (which there weren’t for book #2 or book #3) it’s pretty likely that you can expect book #4 to come out around then.  So we’re still keeping to a 1-per-year schedule . . .

. . . at the moment.  Unfortunately, this is where the problems start to come in.

In the case of book #3 (A Judgement of Powers), I started it around the beginning of 2024, and sent the finished manuscript in to my editors around the beginning of September (so, about 8 months from beginning to end).  I got the edits back mid-late October (so about 1.5 months later) and sent off what would be the final edited version around beginning of December (so about another 1.5 months).  Then it took me another month-and-a-half to do the preliminary planning for book 4, which I started about halfway through January 2025.

For this book (book #4) I sent the finished version off to my editors two weeks ago, roughly halfway through November.  If we’re using book #3 as a model, I can expect the edits back in 1.5 months (New Year), the finished version to go back to my publishers midway through February 2026, and for me to start book #5 around 1.5 months later (beginning of April).

Now, these numbers might not match exactly.  It’s possible that it might go a little quicker.  If my editors take only 1 month to get back to me then I might be able to get the edits done over Christmas break, in which case starting the new book around February-March is possible.  Also, Inheritance of Magic #4 turned out to be unusually long – I usually aim for around 90,000 words per book, but this time my final draft came in at a bit under 110,000.  So it’s possible that future ones might be a bit shorter/quicker.

But no matter how optimistic my projections for how many months each part of the book will take, and no matter how I add them up, it seems clear that the final sum is going to be greater than 12.  In other words, at the speed I’m currently going with the Inheritance of Magic series, it doesn’t look as though I can keep up the rate of one book a year.

I’m not happy about this, for a variety of reasons.  The first is purely mercenary;  I only get paid for books I sell, and I can only sell books once I’ve written them.  So each extra month that it takes me to write a book means a hit to my income.  There’s also the concern with retaining readers;  a year is already a long time, and after waiting 12 months for a sequel, there’s a good chance a reader will have forgotten a lot of what’s happened in the book before.  The more that gap stretches out, the harder it becomes for readers to keep track of the story.

The final reason I don’t like this is more personal.  Fantasy authors these days have kind of a bad reputation for not finishing their series.  It’s a bit unfair since the majority of fantasy writers do finish their series, but there are a small handful who don’t, and they’ve done a lot to reduce goodwill towards the others.  So partly as a result of this, I’ve tried to be consistent/reliable with my own writing, so that if someone finishes book #X in one of my series, they can be pretty confident that there’ll be an #X+1.  Dropping below the 1-per-year rate feels like it’s going to harm that.

Unfortunately there’s not that much I can do about it.  While I’m not 100% sure why I take longer to finish a book than I used to, I think it’s probably a couple of reasons.  First, my books are just more complicated these days, with more moving parts and a more involved ongoing storyline (this started back in the second half of Alex Verus and hasn’t gotten any simpler with Inheritance of Magic).  This isn’t something I can change easily and I’m not sure I would even if I wanted to, since I quite like big long involved stories.  The second reason is that my personal life is a lot fuller these days:  in the early days of the Alex Verus series I was single, whereas nowadays I’m married with several small children (which unsurprisingly is also not something that I’m looking to change).  So I simply don’t have as much time as I used to!

So if current trends persist, while Inheritance of Magic #4 will be coming out in November 2026, it feels very unlikely that Inheritance of Magic #5 will be coming out in November 2027.  Or in 2027 at all, for that matter.  Spring 2028 is probably more realistic.

On the positive, side, I can pretty much promise you that it will still be coming out, just a few months later than I’d like.  I’ve got no plans to stop writing the Inheritance of Magic series any time soon and fortunately it seems to be selling well enough that there’s nothing forcing me to do so.  So the way things are going, I should be able to write it all the way to its conclusion.

Maybe I’ll just make the series a little bit shorter.  If I make the series 1o or 11 books instead of the Alex Verus series’s 12, that would be kind of like giving myself an extra few months per volume, right?  (Well, maybe not.)

Anyway, this has gone on for a while at this point, so I’ll bring it to a close here.  Just to reiterate, none of this is going to affect the release date for book #4;  it should be coming out in around a year, in November 2026.  This is more a matter for far-future plans.  But, if you’re writing a series that’s projected to last 10+ years, that’s kind of what you have to plan for!

In any case, I hope everyone enjoyed book #3, and as always I’ll let you know of any new developments.  Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers!

Reddit AMA is finished and so is Inheritance of Magic #4.  I’ve sent it off to my publishers and now I get a brief break while I wait for the edits.

Next week I’ll write a bit about the projected timeline for Book #4, when to expect its release, and the future of the series.  For now though, I’m taking a break.  Last month has been pretty exhausting!

is just finishing up now.  I’ll probably try to answer any late questions if you guys have any, but the bulk of the thread should now be finished.  Thanks to everyone for coming, it was fun!

Link is here!  I’ll be answering questions for the next 24 hours or so.

As the title says.  The AMA starts in 24 hours, and will run for 24 more.  Hope to see you then!

First draft of Book #4 is done!  I’m still busy editing it, but I should be sending it off to my publishers next week.

Next week will also be my Reddit AMA, on Thursday 13th.  I’ll start at noon or so GMT, as usual.  For those of you who are new to this, here are the links for the last couple of AMAs I did for the Inheritance of Magic series:

AMA for An Inheritance of Magic (2023)
AMA for An Instruction in Shadow (2024)

AMA stands for “Ask Me Anything”, and it’s just a question-and-answer session.  I usually time these for about 1-2 weeks after a book’s release, the idea being that the more enthusiastic readers will have time to read the book so that they can ask me questions on it.

I’ll put up a post once the AMA goes lives, and then answer questions for 24 hours or so.  Hope to see some of you then!

A Judgement of Powers, the third book in the Inheritance of Magic series, releases today!

Usually I gather a few reviews and stuff for these release days, but for the past couple of weeks I’ve been working flat out on Inheritance of Magic #4.  It’s now basically finished and I’ve just got to give it a quick edit before sending it off.  I’m pretty exhausted though and don’t have the energy to write much, so I’ll just say that I hope you enjoy book #3.  It’s been a long time!

My Reddit AMA will be next week, on Thursday 13th.  For now, here are the purchase links for A Judgement of Powers:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

Hope to talk to you all on the 13th!

Well, it’s been a long time, but we’re almost there!  A Judgement of Powers, the third book in the Inheritance of Magic series, releases this coming week, on Tuesday 4th November!

As usual, the book will release in paper, ebook, and audio formats.  All should be available at about the same time, though I don’t know for sure what the details are on the audio edition.  The following week, I’ll be doing my usual Reddit AMA, this one on 13th November.

Book #4 is also very very close to completion;  I’m hoping to have it done by next week.  Fingers crossed!

Today’s news is that with its release now only a couple of weeks away, Goodreads is running a giveaway of A Judgement of Powers.  There are 50 e-copies available and the giveaway is open between the 24th of October and the 2nd of November.  (It’s U.S. only, though, so sorry to my European readers!)

In other news, I’ve finished the signings for the Broken Binding printing of the UK edition of A Judgement of Powers, and I’ll be sending the signed pages off this coming week.  Not sure exactly when the signed hardbacks will go on sale, but I’ll let you know once I find out!

Book #3 of the Inheritance of Magic series, A Judgement of Powers, is nearly here!

Just as a reminder, the book will be released on the 4th of November.  Paper, audio and ebook versions should all be released at the same time (though the UK version will be getting its hardback release first – the paperback version will be coming later).  Then once that’s done, I’ll be doing a Reddit AMA on the 13th of November.  Hopefully that’ll be long enough for those who want to have read the book before the AMA to have finished it!