Back in October, I had planned to release another book in the Rim universe sometime in January. Let's all laugh at how badly I missed that mark.
I do have a new book on the way, however. It's an epic fantasy, the first in a planned trilogy.
I'm sending it to my editor on Feb. 20th and anticipate a release date in mid-to-late April. There's a splash of adventure, a smattering of darkness and morbidity, a couple scoops of political intrigue, and a whole heaping of the fantastical, all brought together by myth and legends and things that threaten humanity. Tasty, I promise.
Neither the series nor the first book have a name. That will come soon. This is the most ambitious project I've taken on to date.
And with that glimpse into the future, let's leap back into the past.
I have published four books in the last year (The Misbegotten, The Miscreant, The Misjudgment, and Curses, Crones and Unspeakable Things). That's slightly below my ideal output of six per year, but not bad for my first full year as a full-time author. Also, had I not changed course in early November, I would have had another novel out in January.
That shift happened because Curses, Crones and Unspeakable Things didn't sell very well. The idea was to create a universe -- called Rim -- that would serve as the backdrop for many novels, each a standalone. Think Discworld or Xanth. The problem is that Curses, Crones and Unspeakable Things -- and all future books in the series -- didn't fall into a specific market.
It wasn't dark fantasy or epic. It wasn't urban fantasy or sword and sorcery. It was part comedic fantasy and part general high fantasy. Comedic fantasy is not a popular genre, exceptions notwithstanding. General fantasy is too massive to serve as a book's only genre. Simply put, Curses simply failed to gain traction.
As much as I like to view my career from an artistic standpoint, I must also consider the business implications. I'm not certain that the Rim universe can be successful at this time. Because of that I'm putting on hold future projects in that universe. Know that if Curses, Crones and Unspeakable Things had been the first book in a series, I would have written its sequels -- I'll never let a series go unfinished. But it is a standalone in every sense of the word.
For those of you who enjoyed the Rim universe, I hope to pick it back up at some point in the future. For now, I'll be focusing my efforts on this new trilogy.