Eric Thomson's Blog, page 5

A Quick Note

I just finished writing On Stormy Seas (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 8) which is the penultimate adventure in her saga and sets the stage for the as of yet unnamed Book 9. It will be the final entry in the series and will cover events of Dunmoore’s era mentioned in Decker’s War, Constabulary Casefiles and Ghost Squadron. I wrote On Stormy Seas in record time – only 54 days, which is the fastest I’ve ever put out a full-length novel. Of course, as I told my editor a few times, the closer one gets to the end of a saga, the easier it is to write because there are fewer and fewer possible paths to the conclusion.

And now that which every author dreads awaits me – the many rounds of revision. September is looking good for a release date.

Stay safe and healthy, my friends.

 

Welcome to August

It’s been a while since my last post, mostly because I was busy writing On Stormy Seas (Siobhan Dunmoore 8) and I’m pleased to say that I’m almost done. One more chapter to go as of writing this blog post, which puts it in a good place for a late September release.

In other news, I’m thrilled to announce that the first Siobhan Dunmoore adventure, No Honor in Death, is part of the Stars of Sci-Fi Summer Humble Bundle along with great stories by great science fiction authors. I encourage you to take a look. There will surely be books written by some of the best in the business you haven’t yet read and you can’t beat the price.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/starsofscifisummer-books

 

It’s Live!

My 25th novel, and the fifth installment in the Ashes of Empire series, Imperial Ghosts, is now available for immediate purchase in ebook format wherever books are sold. Those of you who pre-ordered,  should see it appear on your favorite ebook reader. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

https://books2read.com/imperialghosts

It’s Almost Here!

Good news! Ashes of Empire: Imperial Ghosts is done, was blessed by my editor, and has gone through the pre-production process.  We’ve followed a more rigorous release plan this time around — as some of you may have noticed, I announced a July 5, 2022 release date last week. Well, that release date still holds, but the book is now available for pre-order pretty much everywhere ebooks are sold and will be released in a few days. Here’s the link:

https://books2read.com/imperialghosts

The Amazon paperback version can be ordered from Amazon right now as well, although the other print versions (paperback from other than Amazon retailers, hardcover and large print) won’t be made available for order from your favorite book merchants until later this coming week.

And in other good news, I’m past the one-third mark writing the next Siobhan Dunmoore adventure, On Stormy Seas. So that’s something you can look forward to in late summer or early autumn.

Stay safe and healthy, fellow humans.

And It’s Off

Ashes of Empire: Imperial Ghosts is off to my editor. Provided she doesn’t raise major issues, a mid to late July release is almost certain. I’m contemplating putting it on pre-order with Amazon, Kobo, and Google Play (the three retailers where I can do so without major problems), so stay tuned. And with that, it’s on to the eighth Siobhan Dunmoore adventure, which I know many of you are eagerly anticipating.

Stay safe and healthy, fellow humans.

Preview Sunday

The upcoming books page on my official website has finally been update (sorry about the delay).

https://www.thomsonfiction.ca/upcoming-books.php

Yes, the next Dunmoore now has a cover and a brief description as well as a projected release timeframe. So far, the outlining is proceeding apace, although come Monday, I’ll be delving back into Imperial Ghosts for the next three weeks or so to clean and polish it. Once it’s off to my editor, the actual writing will begin.

Stay safe.

It’s A Wrap

I finished writing Ashes of Empire: Imperial Ghosts earlier this afternoon, and I’m quite satisfied with the story — it comes out to around 400 print pages and there’s a lot going on. Of course, now comes the hard part: revising and cleaning it up for my editor. I figure we’re looking at a mid to late July release date. Below is what I figure will be the final cover. There may be a few tweaks, but I quite like the image.

In other news, all three Constabulary Casefiles are now available in audiobook format from Google Play and will be available in audiobook from Kobo within the next week or so. I’m rather satisfied with the results. And for those who are waiting for the next Dunmoore, I’ll be starting when Imperial Ghosts is off to my editor. I already have the high level outline ready to go, but no title as yet, let alone a book cover design.

Stay safe and healthy, fellow humans.

May Flowers

Things have been busy around here in the last two weeks or so. First, my publishing company, Sanddiver Books Inc. is entering the world of audiobook production. We’ve just signed a contract with Findaway Voices to engage a narrator who’ll turn Death Comes But Once (Decker’s War Book 1) into an audiobook, with a projected release date sometime around August. If all goes well, the rest of the series will be turned into audiobooks over the coming year or so, followed by the Ghost Squadron series. But what about the remaining Siobhan Dunmoore books you’re no doubt asking. That’s a little trickier. As you might recall, the first three, along with the four Ashes of Empire books were produced by one of the leading audiobook publishers, Tantor Media, and I still hope they’ll pick up the remaining Dunmoore novels. If it becomes clear they won’t, then we’ll go ahead and do them ourselves.

In the meantime, we’re conducting an experiment with the Constabulary Casefiles books in the audio realm. Google, never a company to let innovation escape them, has created a means of auto-generating audiobooks based on ebooks in the Google Play inventory. In other words, the audiobooks thus created are narrated by an Artificial Intelligence. And they’re remarkably good, all things considered, though in my opinion AI narration is best for novels told in the first person, because the AI cannot do different voices in a single recording, unlike a human narrator. As a result, we’re putting out all three Constabulary Casefiles in audio on Google Play and Kobo (the only places that’ll accept AI narrators). The Warrior’s Knife is already available, with A Colonial Murder to follow later this week. The price is less than half that of a human narrated audiobook. Mind you, my editor is spending at least a week per book to make sure all of the AI’s mispronunciations are corrected, so it’s not just a push the button and done deal. If you’re curious, both retailers allow you to listen to a decent sample for free so go see for yourself what this is all about. We may well have them re-done with a human narrator at a later date, now that we’re serious getting into the audiobook business.

Next, I’ve take down the forum. It wasn’t being used as I hoped and instead has been the target for bots and scammers (I’ll let you guess from which part of the world predominantly at the moment). It might return at some later date if I see a better way of using it, or it might be gone for good. Same with the Sanddiver Bookstore. We dealt with a bot-generated credit card scam in February. Fortunately, our credit card processor, Stripe, caught on quickly and the only one out of pocket, by under $20, was me. Since sales were never really phenomenal, we haven’t put it back up, though it’s still there.

Finally, I’m at the 70% completion mark for Ashes of Empire: Imperial Ghosts.

And that is all the news fit to print. Stay safe and healthy, fellow humans.

April is the Cruelest Month

As I sit here writing this blog post, snow is coming down in big fat flakes outside. The white stuff on the ground melted a few weeks back, but this is the Great White North. None of the rules say it can’t snow whenever nature feels like blessing us with the stuff. And wouldn’t you know it, the ground is still cold enough that it’s not melting right away, probably because it’s been a colder April than average. Let’s hope May isn’t a rerun of April, as sometimes happens. But enough of the favorite conversation topic among Canadians.

Progress on Ashes of Empire: Imperial Ghosts is steady, if slow. Publication will likely not happen until July at the earliest. The story is becoming a tad more complex than I first envisaged, with several threads covering both the Hegemony and Lyonesse a little under three years after events in Imperial Echoes, as the race to become the dominant force starts in earnest. I’m also beginning to outline the eighth Siobhan Dunmoore adventure, which picks up approximately two years after events in A Dark and Dirty War. I don’t have a title yet, but expect more political shenanigans from the Kathryn Kowalski and Ezekiel Holt viewpoint as this series moves towards what we know happened from reading Decker’s War, Ghost Squadron and Constabulary Casefiles.

If you haven’t notice, I’ve started experimenting with short videos called book trailers, both here (look to the right at the top of the sidebar), on Facebook, and on my official website. I also rediscovered a YouTube channel set up under my publisher’s name. If you want to check it out, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSeUMZbenabjV1UdxTosXkw

I’ll probably be doing further videos of this sort, if only because there was a time I was heavily into producing scuba diving videos as you can see from the example on the YouTube channel. I even sold a few DVDs of my work.

And that, fellow humans, is all the news that’s fit to post. Stay safe and healthy.

 

Seasons

According to the calendar, it’s Spring in the Great White North, but Old Man Winter never gives up without a fight. After a week or so of balmy weather, we’re back into the freeze with light snow drifting down on this Sunday. Tomorrow will be equally chilly, but looking at the long range forecast, this is very likely winter’s last gasp in these parts until the end of the year. But when you’re immersed in other realities, such as the Ashes of Empire saga, does the passing of the seasons truly matter? And I’ve been living in that universe daily. Progress has been steady if not always rapid, but I’m past the one-third mark and closing in on halfway there. A June publication date seems reasonably realistic.

Other things are moving along as well. All of Decker’s War, Ashes of Empire, Constabulary Casefiles, and Ghost Squadron, have been published in Large Print Editions (available through your favorite book seller), and the Siobhan Dunmoore books are well on their way — in the next few days, the first four will come out in Large Print with the rest to follow in the first week of April. Speaking of Dunmoore, in my idle moments, I’ve begun kicking around story ideas, since she’s next on my work plan, once I’ve completed Imperial Ghosts. I have a particular goal in mind for the culmination of that series, and it just remains to be determined how I’ll get there, but that culmination will set the scene for Decker, Caelin Morrow, and Ghost Squadron.

Happy Spring to those in the northern hemisphere, happy Autumn to those in the southern. Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay at peace, fellow humans.