Major Announcement

So, yesterday I mentioned that I had something to announce today, and I've mentioned over the past few weeks that I was working on business-type stuff for a project. Well, drum roll please …

 Book 5 in the Enchanted, Inc. series will be coming to electronic bookstores this summer.

Is that big enough for you? I actually wrote this book a few years ago. My Japanese publisher wanted to continue the series, even though the American publisher didn't, so that book has been available in Japanese for a year or so. I had some qualms about e-publishing and self-publishing, but then earlier this year I started noticing a distinct shift toward e-books in my royalty statements for the first four books. Meanwhile, my agent has put a program in place to make it easy for her clients to digitally publish. I'd worried about self-publishing the fifth book while the first four books were controlled by another publisher, which meant they have much higher prices, but then I re-read this book and while it isn't necessarily an ideal entry point for the series, I think someone could start there without being totally lost. You might miss some character nuance, but the story stands pretty well on its own. Then my agent beat me about the head and shoulders with the clue stick and mentioned how much some of her other clients were making from publishing this way, and I thought, well, the book is just sitting on my hard drive, and lots of people want to read it, so I might as well go for it.

The cool thing is that we managed to keep the Dream Team together. The copy edit is being done by the same copy editor who edited the previous books in the series. The same artist is doing the cover (and I've seen the preliminary sketches -- the frog is back!). This means that it will be the same quality you'd get from a major publisher, only at a lower price and with me making more money per book. All the specific details, like price, exact release date, etc., are still being worked out, but it should be available via all the major e-book outlets, like Amazon, B&N, the iBookstore, Smashwords and possibly even OverDrive for libraries, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be global instead of just US, so if you can read English, you're set. There may be the possibility of print versions, but I don't know about that yet. There is even a precedent for major publishers picking up the print rights for highly successful e-published books, so if my legions of fans swarm to this book and if new readers give it a try and it becomes a best seller and I get to do the Dance of I Told You So (I'm already working on the choreography), I may get to live out my fantasy of the publisher begging for this book after all. I like to dream big.

Of course, if all that happens, I'm sure my agent and a lot of fans will be giving me the Dance of I Told You So, but I can live with that. I want all of you to be right. There's actually more good news beyond this, but I want to save it for later because I like to spread out good things. I'll also announce details as I get them, but I wanted to start getting the word out so maybe I'll get fewer "you should totally self-publish it" e-mails. Feel free to spread the word to other fans of the series you know or to throw virtual confetti.

 I'll share the title and some info on the plot later. Again, stringing things out is fun! (And it will force you to keep checking up on the blog to make sure you don't miss anything. I'm evil that way.)