Getting closer

You may have noticed a small change on the sidebar there. Rowena is completing the cover for “THE WRATH OF ANGELS” next week and so the Original Cyberpunk will soon be taking preorders for it at his online bookstore. This will be the only place anyone will be able to buy the book in the USA, as I don’t intend to sign again with an American publisher.

If I have to deal with a “pub board” I’m not interested, not after my latest experience with one. I’m done with having editors contact me out of the blue, telling me how much they love my stuff, requesting proposals and getting publicly enthusiastic about them, then finding out that someone on the “pub board” has shot down the project over a completely nonsensical reason that has nothing to do with me. In the most recent case, a proposed mystery trilogy, it was because an in-house power struggle inspired a consultant to assert “murder mysteries don’t sell”, the current New York Times bestseller lists notwithstanding.

I simply can’t bear dealing with incompetent people and the publishing houses are chock full of clueless English majors who are terrified of making decisions. It was amazing to witness how Pocket Books operated by blundering from one stupid and easily avoided mistake to another. Since I primarily write for fun and the technology has arrived, I’m going to stick with self-publishing unless the initial contact from a publisher consists of a contract offered by the ultimate decision-maker.

(And no, editors, I’m not interested in hearing how much pull you have and how your boss pretty much does everything you recommend and how it’s a slam dunk, etc. I didn’t buy it from IT dorks back when I worked in computer sales and I shouldn’t have bought it from you. Go away.)

UK versions of all three books will likely come out sometime next year, possibly in an omnibus version.