Mike Shepherd's Blog, page 6

Tenacious is done!

The first draft of Kris Longknife – Tenacious is done! In three weeks of writing over seven weeks, I put a bit over 110,000 words into that story. For those of you wondering about the big bad aliens, here’s your book. So, Defender is turned in for 2013 and Tenacious is in draft for 2014. Lots of good fun coming.

And Furious will show up in stores on Tuesday. Have fun, folks.

What is a Novella?

I may erase this post in a few hours, but I’m writing it now and I’m writing it mad.

I’ve just come from reading some of the comments on the Amazon.con for Welcome Home/Go Away and I’m hot under the collar.

First off, a short story is anything from three words to 7,499. A novelette covers 7,500 to 14,999. Novellas start from 15,000 words and may go as high as 40,000. Most are a lot shorter.

Welcome home is 21,541 words. That’s solid novella territory. And folks think they got short changed. Some of them seem to think that for $2.99 they deserve a full book. One guy even wondered if I was late delivering the next book and this short got shipped in its place.

I guess he never drops by here.

I’ve written two of these novellas to fill in places that just didn’t fit into the books. I was thinking of filling in something that didn’t get into Furious. I can’t say what it is until you read Furious, but it will be a tough stretch for me if I do. I don’t usually write that kind of story.

Now, I’m seriously thinking of skipping out on the whole novella idea. If it’s only going to cause me grief and get me bad press from folks that don’t bother to check here and find out what’s happening before they start shooting from the hip, maybe I can just save myself the grief.

What do you think?

Mike

Kris Longknife – Tenacious

I’ve got a bit more than 2/3rds of the book done after two writing weeks at the Oregon coast. The last week in October I’ll see if I can finish it. It’s been hard work, but productive. And Kris has learned a lot about the big uglies. Finally!

Then on to Vicky Peterwald – Survivor. Is the gal educatable? How much will it hurt to find out!

A busy November,

With Furious hitting stores October 30, I’ll be busy and going places. I’m the Guest of Honor at Orycon Nov 2/4. I’ll be signing books at Powell’s City of Books the evening of Nov 4.

I’ll be in Tuscon, AZ at TusCon Nov 9-11. And in LA for LasCon Nov 23-25. with a signing at Mysterious Galaxy Nov 26.

I’m looking forward to a lot of fun.

Kris Longknife – Defender delivered.

I delivered Kris Longknife – Defender today for a pub date of 10/13. It’s a month early. It follows Vicky Peterwald – Target’s delivery in July. Now to get Hounds of War in by Christmas and I will have delivered 3 books this year.

I head to the beach Sunday to put the middle third into Kris Longknife – Tenacious for ’14. Fun reads ahead.

Early Chapters are up.

You can read the opening chapters of this year’s Kris stories now at my website. Welcome Home/Go Away is up for sale now as an e-special. You can also download it to your computer and read it there.

The opening Chapters of Kris Longknife – Furious are also up. It goes on sale October 30.

I’m trying to hit 20 or higher this year on the New York Times bestseller’s list, so buying it early (and often) would help me, thank you.

Welcome Home/Go Away is up for sale.

My second e-special went on sale today. It’s for Kindle, Nook and other e-reading formats. Enjoy a tale of Kris Longknife’s life from Grampa and Gramma Trouble’s POV as their great-granddaughter comes home, with this great big war following right behind her.

A copy of the cover is below.

Draft Publication plan for 2012-2016

Here’s what the future looks like in the Kris Longknife Universe. It’s a draft, but I’m betting it’s solid gold.

Kris Longknife: Furious (10)- October 2012

First Casualty reissue – March 2013

The Price of Peace reissue – June 2013

They Also Serve reissue – September 2013

Kris Longknife Defender (11) – October/November 2013

Hounds of War – January 2014

Vicky Peterwald: Target – June 2014

Kris Longknife – Tenacious (12) (ex-Courageous, ex-Conqueror, ex-Relentless, ex-Valiant) – October/November 2014. I swear, no more name changes for this one.

Vicky Peterwald – Survivor (2) – June 2015 (deliver Jan 14)

Kris Longknife Relentless (13) – October/November 2015

Vicky Peterwald – Rebel (3) – June 2016 (deliver Jan 15)

[Kris Longknife Ambassador (14) - October/November 2016]

The two Kris books in [ ] are part of the next contract, so their names are draft. Hopefully not as draft as poor book 12.

Enjoy the fun reads!

Chicago WorldCon Schedule.

For those of you planning on enjoying SF WorldCon at the end of this month, here’s my schedule.

Thu 8/30 6:00:pm To Indie Publish or Not to Indie

Fri 8/31 3:00:pm Military SF – Reality vs. Writing

Sat 9/1 10:30:am Autograph Session 7

Sat 9/1 1:30:pm Kaffeeklatsche

Sat 9/1 4:30:pm A Reading from Furious

Sat 9/1 6:00:pm Series, Why We Love’em. Why We Hate’em.

Sun 9/2 5:00:pm Literary Beers With: Mike Shepherd Moscoe

Mon 9/3 12:00:pm Military Members On Military SF

Some lunches and suppers are also open if anyone wants to talk Kris Longknife and got dutch.

I’m looking forward to a fun weekend.

Good News!

I came back from spending the morning with my wife at the hospital to find in my in basket an e-mail from my agent. Ace wants to buy the next three Vicky Peterwald books. So you will have some more books headed your way.

The news about Ellen is also good. She’s had a bout with Congestive Heart Failure but she seems to be getting through it with no permanent damage. That’s a relief. I’ll pass along more about both Ellen and Vicky later as things develop.