Drum roll please.....

I’m not a big one for a lot of talk and promises, but…after a lot of talk and promises, the seventh SKINNERS book has finally been released! It took a bit longer for it to appear on Barnes & Noble, but I’m guessing that was just some weird computer holdup or something. The important thing is that Forged from Ash is out and ready to be read. So…go and download a copy! It’s also on Kindle and Smashwords.

For those of you who have read it, I’d appreciate you leaving a review at the site where you purchased it. That really does help an ebook along. Some of you have commented that this one ended with some loose ends and to that, I plead GUILTY. Now that I’m able to get my books out there again, I can continue running my series how I like. I’ve always seen this as a series that rolls along and evolves without everything wrapping up nicely at the end of each book. To accommodate this, I need to approach publication of the series in a new way. Fortunately, I can now do that. For Skinners, the plan is to write shorter books and release more of them per year. It took a while to get settled with a new cover artist, new publisher (Crossroad Press has been amazing!) and a new way of doing things. I’ve also been busy with other stuff, but now I’m rollin’ and things are looking good.

Ideally, I’d like to put out three Skinners books a year. I’ve also got other series to work on and I’d like to get them all chugging away as well. I’ll keep you updated on those. When it comes to the next Skinners book, I’m shooting for a release date somewhere around February or March of 2014. Until then, stay in touch and thanks for sticking with me. I’m doing my best to make you all glad you did!

Not just # 7 Anymore

Wow. Busy, busy! I just got finished with the third draft of Skinners #7 and thought I’d post a little progress update. My progress is…I’ve finished the third draft of Skinners #7. Guess I shouldn't have led with that, huh? Well, it’s coming along nicely. I've even got a title....Skinners Book 7: Forged from Ash. But wait, there's more! Here's a very cool thing for Show & Tell. A sneak peek of the cover!!

 

Woo hoo!! Very cool.

In other news, I’ve entered into a working partnership with Crossroad Press. When I launched into the whole ebook thing, I was very excited. It allows me to write what I want, but I also had to do other stuff like formatting for different services, trying to network with different outlets for marketing / distribution and all that kind of non-writing thing. I thought, “If only someone else could do that stuff so I could just keep writing.” Well, Crossroad Press does that stuff and they seem very capable of doing a great job of it! They’ll be able to put my books into formats that I couldn’t figure out and a few that were simply beyond my reach. There’s a much better chance for trade paperback copies and audiobook versions. Awesome! They also work very quickly. Since there are just a few more hoops to jump through, however, the release of Skinners 7 might have to be pushed back by a month or so. I know you guys are waiting for the book, but this way it gets released in a much better and much more complete fashion than me doing it completely on my own. Thought I’d let you guys know right up front. Trust me, it’ll be worth it. 

Skinners #7

Things have been crazy lately! I’ve been doing a ton of work, although a lot of it isn’t exactly easy to find. A big part of most writers’ income includes work for hire which is along the lines of ghostwriting. Hey, work is work and bills gotta get paid. The main reason I’m mentioning this is because I’ve been talking about working on the next Skinners for quite a while and this is why it’s taken so long for me to get it completed. I’ve been working on a couple different projects at once for the last few years and Skinners has always been top of my list.

Of course, I’ve got other stuff in the works, but more on that some other time. This is a Skinners post! As lots of you already know, I’m publishing the next one on my own digitally. If there’s enough demand, I can look into print copies, but for now this’ll be the way to go. As of today, I’m closing in on finishing the manuscript for Book 7!!!! Woo Hooo!!!! It took me a while to gear up for this one and then a little while more to figure out where, exactly, I wanted to go after Extinction Agenda. I’ve always had a general idea, but the “exactly” part of that last sentence is the tricky part. Trust me, that extra gestation time pays off in the end. I’m REALLY happy with how this is turning out.

Another thing I’ve always said is that I always saw Skinners as an ongoing storyline with arcs that change Cole’s world in major ways. Basically, every 3 books is an arc and #6 (despite the rather final statement at the end of that one) wasn’t meant to wrap everything up. It was the end of an arc and Book 7 is the start of a new one. And hoo boy, are there some changes! Don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but this new arc shakes everything up while fitting in very nicely with the series.

So…Book 7. Right now, it’s called Forged from Ash and I’m shooting for a release date of this summer. My personal goal is to get it out there in June, but I’ll say summer to allow for some extra editing if needed. There’s a lot to do, but it’ll get done. As for the future of the series, I’m guessing lots of you are thinking, “Cool. New Skinners! Will it take this long between EVERY freaking book in this series?”  The answer to that is NO! My goal is to put out more books per year. They’ll be a bit shorter than the last few (I’m thinking between 300 – 400 pages each) and will cost you guys a bit less. That’s another cool thing with me putting them out digitally. I can charge what I like, which will be in the neighborhood of $2.99 - $3.99 each. That may change after a while, but not for the first arc at least.

To my Facebook friends out there, I apologize for neglecting my posts lately. Truth is, I’ve been typing so much all day that the thought of typing socially hasn’t been too appealing. I check in a lot on my phone and stuff, but just get lazy and don’t post as much as I should. Honestly, I also figured I might lose a ton of you after 219 posts of, “Hey everyone! Still writing all day. Stayed up until 6am again. I miss Twinkies!”  That’s totally true, you know. I miss the HELL out of Twinkies.

2013 is gonna be the year where I really get things out there and follow through on so many of the plans I’ve been making in previous years. Hopefully this answers a lot of questions. I’ll have a lot more to say as things progress and can’t wait to see what you guys think of the next phase of Skinners! See what I did there? “phase” like phases of the moon? Werewolves? Now you see why not hearing from me all the time is a good thing.