Paksworld

Echoes of Betrayal has a new cover for the paperback edition coming early next year.    I liked the hardcover art, but this is a very strong cover that will show up better on the smaller format.

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Limits of Power passed Editor’s approval (my reworking of her comments)  and heads for the copy editor on Monday.   I don’t know what the CE’s schedule is.   Since Editor did a line edit,  and has approved the variations, one would hope CE keeps sticky fingers off the dialogue, but you never know.   At any rate, I should have the copy edited pages to review sometime between the convention I’m going to on the last weekend in July (ArmadilloCon, for those of you in the Austin area), and WorldCon at the end of August.

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It looks like Limits of Power will be a summer book, not a spring book, next year.   My new editor took on the heroic task of reading the entire Paksworld corpus before leaping into the new book–and I was delighted that she did so.   But that was eight previous books–none of them skinny–and she had other duties besides working on my book; she wants to do one more read of that before giving me her revision requests, which I won’t get until the end of the month.     So instead of trying to rush the production schedule, which is a good way to introduce accidental errors,  the planned release date has been pushed back.     It’s not set in stone yet, but it’s “fairly firm” for June.

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Book IV now has a title:  Limits of Power.    That’s the US title; I’m hoping that my UK Editor will go with that as well, since books with different titles in the two markets cause problems…no matter how often I say that N1 is the same book as N2, someone will buy the other one thinking they’re getting a different book and then be angry.

In other news, there’s some disturbing stuff going on that we’re not ready to talk about, but which will result in gaps in posting.   Sometimes life just sucks in various ways, several of them simultaneous.

My agent just called to let me know that according to BookScan (does not cover all sales points, but enough to be useful)  the hardcover sales of Echoes in its first week in the marketplace were 180 higher than Kings last year.   The actual hardcover sales will be some higher (and this is only for US sales, as far as I know.)    He also said it was unusual to have any sales figures run higher than last year’s.    No word yet on e-sales.

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Terie Garrison sent me this image of Echoes of Betrayal alongside its siblings on a shelf in Waterstones, Arndale Centre, Manchester City Centre, UK.

That crossbow looks like it’s coming right out of the cover, doesn’t it?

For those in easy distance of 6th and Lamar, in Austin, TX, I’ll be doing a reading from Echoes of Betrayal, chat, and signing at BookPeople tonight at 7 pm.    Knitters–bring your  yarn & needles along–it’s fine with me, and I’ll be bringing my socks-in-progress (though not knitting while reading or talking…not able to handle that yet.)  I’ll feel less silly about that if someone else has their needlework project along.

But come if you can–would love to see you.

Editor emailed this morning to let me know Echoes has gone back to print another 3000 copies.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a hardcover sent back to print that fast before.   Very happy dance of writer.   Wowza and all that.

And it’s you folks–the readers–who have made the book popular enough for this to be needed.  THANK YOU.    Read the rest of this entry »

Am I still excited on Launch Days?   You bet!   Excited and worried all at once.    I always worry.    Part of the game.

Here, the sun is shining, high clouds diluting its warmth, and spring is springing out of the ground thanks to the rain Friday night and Saturday.     I hope those of you who ordered the e-book are finding it on your readers this morning, and those of you who have it in transit by mail or waiting for you at the store have good weather for the pickup or delivery.   And time to read.

I’ve got stuff stacked up to do today (including stay by the phone so the people from the hotel can reach me…idiot writer left her traveling music in the hotel room)  and I will get to comments (answering them, that is) as other things allow.

I got back from San Antonio in good shape–the weather going down qualified as Interesting, and the weather coming back easily made the category Delightful.  The Toe is much better.    The FYE Conference was fascinating, and I met a lot of people from colleges and universities all over the country.  Random House sends a big team promoting its “common read” and “FYE read” books.    A small group of writers are given exposure to the faculty and staff who choose the books for freshmen to read, or the whole college to read.   Since The Speed of Dark has been used that way, I’m now on their radar.  I was the only fiction writer (of five) and the only woman.   Felt kind of odd, and very unlike an SF convention (where were the Klingons??   Well…there were Romulans on Star Trek on TV last night) but I had fun.

And tomorrow is the Big Day.  My Silver Book Anniversary (so to speak.)    Among the other writers were National Book Award winners  (wow!) but I had them outnumbered, if not surrounded.     Tired now, and waiting to hear back from the hotel if they found what I left in the room (and I haven’t left anything in a hotel room in…um…I can’t think when was the last time.)   Worst is that it was my favorite writing-on-a-trip collection of music–all classical.  Bach, Stanford, Mozart, Beethoven, Elgar, etc.