So, I have great news! Sons of the Starfarers, Book III: Strangers in Flight will be coming out in just a couple of days. Everything is squared away for the release–all I need to do is finish approving the edits, write a teaser for the next book, and put the ebook together!
This will probably be the last time that I publish a book without putting it on pre-order first. From now on, I want to have the next book out on pre-order before the last one is released, so that my readers can pre-order the next book while it’s still fresh in their minds. Also, this will give each book a firm release date, so that readers know when the next book is going to come out.
Until now, there’s been no advantage in holding a book until it’s ready to be published. Smashwords and the iBookstore started allowing pre-orders about a year ago, but since most of my sales are on Amazon at this point, I held off from taking advantage of that option. Perhaps that was a mistake.
In any case, now that Amazon allows pre-orders, I plan to retool my publishing process in order to make that a part of how I do things. However, since I’m still writing Book IV: Friends in Command, that means that it probably won’t be until Christmas when that book comes out. I don’t want to upload anything less than a finished product for pre-order, so I need to build up a queue in order to get things going.
However, the first Sons of the Starfarers omnibus should be available for pre-order in just a couple of weeks. All I really need is the cover, and my cover designer is already working on it. So if you haven’t bought the first book yet, or don’t mind waiting until October, the omnibus should be a few bucks cheaper than buying all three books individually.
In other news, I’m back in Utah, getting into the swing of things after a lengthy family vacation. I’ve got a bunch of short stories on submission now, which should be interesting if/when they get picked up by the magazines, but that’s more of a long-term thing (and besides, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to writing short stories–it’s much harder in some ways than writing novels!). There’s a couple of other side projects that I have simmering on the back burner, but right now, Sons of the Starfarers is definitely taking most of my focus.
That just about does it for now. I’ve got some chili cooking on the stove, so I’d better get back to that and then finish those edits. Later!
