Hello everybody!
I sit here, tapping away at the keyboard in a rare moment of quiet, pondering the speed with which the year is disappearing. It will shortly become June, and some would argue that means the year is going, and we are all losing time to get things done. I say bring it on! In June, my latest novel, Longarm Severed, will come out of the Kindle Select program, which means I can finally release it to Kobo, so all my non-kindle fans can finally enjoy it, and see what all my talk has been about up till now!
Honestly, kindle select has not impressed me at all. So I will not be releasing any future novels on such a restrictive, exclusive deal. This is a firm, unflinching “never again.” Amazon, you have to do better than this. So for the next few books, you can expect the plan to return to that I used in the past. Kindle, kobo, and paper back simultaneous releases. As you can see elsewhere on this site, kobo ebooks can be purchased for use on pretty much any other ereading device on the market. However, given how the industry has moved, I am considering a launch of my books to other avenues as well. No decision has been made, whether I sign on with one of the cross platform stores, like D2D or smashwords, who can then post releases to apple etc, or I go direct myself, and try to track them all myself. But in the coming months, I will do some research into how the sales seem to flow for SF on the various market places, and from that information, and the terms on offer, decide what expansion I will make into these other digital market places. I recognise that readers being able to transfer from kobo to their device, is not an incentive when their native market puts a book a simple click away.
Meanwhile, in the brief moments available in recent time, I continue work on not one, but two novels. Two novels so different from one another, as to render any possible confused blending comical in my mind. Children of Nevermind progresses smoothly, and I feel confident is going to be enjoyed by fans of that planet. Meanwhile, a new franchise continues to grow with Naradhan the Silent, the first in the Naradhan trilogy, bringing to life a savage and terrifying villain, against who our hero, Ian “Iron” Johnstone, from the short story Failing Calamity, must pit all his resolve in a deadly personal war.
On the side, my unpublished short ‘Luddite Says’ has received some tinkering notes, and will be expanded at some point following those two novels being completed.
It’s a lot to do, and the months to do it in are passing fast! No problem though, please be patient and they will be with you soon!