Mike Shepherd's Blog, page 13

What's happening in Kris's world

Saturday, May 15, Kris Longknife Daring was finished. At least the first draft. This is the book for October '11.

The copy edits for KL-Redoubtable were sent back today, Monday May 17. You can look for it this October '10. The copy editor thought it was a fun read.

All you folks in e-book land. I e-mailed my editor again about Defiant. I'm discovering just how little impact I have at ACE, but I'm not the only one. My editor thought she'd asked for the e-book after my agent raised the...

Redoubtable's e-copy edits are here!

And I've got two whole weeks to read them and get them back. I've spent the last two days reading the book all the way through. It's great. It had me laughing and in tears . . . and I wrote it!

I'll post the cover on my facebook page as soon as I get it and get it up here as quickly as I can. I expect to have the first couple of chapters up by September.

Fun to come.

Kris is going to Spain!

Today my e-mail had a request from La Factoria de Ideas to begin negotiations to bring Kris out in Spanish! I'm delighted, and passed it immediately along to my agent.

They have worked with this Spanish publisher before and are looking forward to doing the contract work.

I'm looking forward to more amigos.

Kris is going to Spain

Today my e-mail had a request from La Factoria de Ideas to begin negotiations to bring Kris out in Spanish! I'm delighted, and passed it immediately along to my agent.

They have worked with this Spanish publisher before and are looking forward to doing the contract work.

I'm looking forward to more amigos.

How did you come to be a writer?

I received this question from a fan and thought the reply might be interesting to more than just the writer.  Here goes.

"You make some reference to enrolling in a community college writing class and riffing from there. It sounds like a starting point. Could you tell me something more about how you made your way from less-than-concrete ideas in your head to a dialogue-less story about the demise of the Second Coming to writing up successful treatments? Practice and having somebody to tear...

Lasers on Kris's ships

Kris got this question from someone with a hotmail account that we couldn't reply to because of some sort of security thing.

"I've found references to Pulse Lasers, Burst Lasers, and some form of Laser referred to as a "long pop gun" in the various books. What are the differences between the various forms of laser other then pulse lasers usually being a lot bigger then the other. (14 to 24 inch pulse lasers with the others usually around 5 or 6 inches.) Also how do Pulse Lasers work? Mutineer ...

Kris is heading for Japan!

I received more nice mail this week. My agent sent me the signed contract from Hayakawa Publishing for bringing Kris's Mutineer out in Japanese.

My daughter-in-law is studying Japanese. Finally, I'll have something for her to read!

Thank you Audible listeners.

I recently got in the mail the quarterly statement from www.audible.com for the sales of Kris's mp3's for the last quarter of 09. Over 1450 copies of her stories were sold in mp3 format.

Kris has only been available to listen to for 6 months now, but you listeners have been a great bunch, earning Audible back over 3/4 of the money they invested in Kris.

The Audible folks are pretty heroic risk takers in these time. They no only gave me an advance for the copyrights to record the story, but...

Redoubtable Accepted!

Yesterday I got a very nice e-mail from my editor, Ginjer Buchanan. She had read Redoubtable and liked it. That means two things.

First, she's putting Redoubtable into production for the late October, early November release date.

Second, she's asked the check people to cut me a check. (That I have to like.)

I'm heading out to the coast to put another couple of days writing into Daring. I'll also be keeping my eyes out for the copy edited manuscript coming back to me with a likely deadline ...

Redoubtable is in the Works.

Friday my editor sent me the proposed cover copy for Redoubtable.  They literally needed my comments by Thursday.  Not next Thursday, last Thursday.

(And you think things are wild at your job!)

I spent Saturday and Sunday tossing around ideas and bouncing them off of my wife and a few friends.  Before I went to bed Sunday, I sent thoughts on a second draft to Ginger, my editor.

Monday, she e-mailed back thanks.

Note the order here.  The cover and cover copy are in the later stages of...