Ask em if you’ve got em!

Christine asks: Can you tell us some of the other books you are working on or works in progress that not metioned in the Coming Soon on your website. Not mentioned? Hm (I had to go check to see what was up there already, LOL) The last Bound By Magick book, which was called Torn and Frayed but I have to change it so I don’t know what it’ll be called yet, will be out in November of next year and it features Helena (Lark’s sister) and Faine (Simon’s brother, you’ll meet him in Going Under). The world is a far darker place in the aftermath of the Magister and things are breaking down as war between humans and Others becomes more of a certainty.

At some point there’ll be the next Goddess With a Blade book – where Rowan goes to the Keep and deals with some major political stuff with the Vampire Nation. It’s due in August so I don’t know exactly when it’ll be out, probably early 2014.

And Megan Hart and I sold a futuristic duology to Berkley Heat – my story is called Land’s End and it’s sort of a mix of Mad Max/the Gunslinger/Firefly with a super taciturn hero 🙂

That’s it for all the books not listed on my Coming Soon page! Heat has a proposal for a new series and I’m waiting to hear back. More on that one when I know anything.

Coco asks: Who, if any, were the inspiration for the Chase brothers? I didn’t really have any. Just big, strapping handsome men. For Nathan though, it’s Alex O’Loughlin and for Joe Harris (Lost in You) it’s Garrett Headlund.

Mary asks: What takes so long for your finished book to be ready for me to purchase? It seems like you have everthing ready, but the publishers hold the publication back. It drives me crazy!

Well, as I’ve had book releases out April, May, June, August, September, October and November – I’d disagree that it takes long. I’ve pretty much got 6 or 7 books a year out. There’s only so much I can write at a time 🙂

The process is more than me writing a book and turning it in. Once it gets turned in, my editor reads it and makes substantive edits (sometimes it’s nothing much, other times I need to do a revision that can range from a few hours’ work to a week or two, depending on the book), then it goes to a copy editor, then back to me, then it goes to final stages with formatting and final pass pages and then back to me, and then back to them. In the midst of all that, there are other books from other authors in all those various lines that need to go through the same process and all those books need to be scheduled for release. Each book scheduled for release has to be done on the individual schedules of the author, the editors, formatting people, the marketing and sales staff, the production, getting it distributed, etc. There are many, many people involved in the process and only so many slots for releases. So really, it happens a lot faster than you might imagine.

For instance, I’m writing a book now that will release in November of next year with Berkley Sensation. This book was contracted in February of this year, along with Going Under. When these two were contracted, Chaos Burning hadn’t even released yet. The last book is due in January and then it will go through the process I talk about above. Along with dozens of other Sensation books out next year, edited by multiple editors, written by multiple authors. It’s a HUGE process 🙂 So they’re not holding anything back, it’s just that there are lots of people and books involved and the book goes into a slot sometimes over a year in advance.

Also can you recommend other authors that write similar to you and write books that make me feel part of their family?

Let’s see, I love Lisa Kleypas’ historicals – she’s got some great family/friend sagas. Nora Roberts has many as well (I love her Born in Series and her Chesapeake Bay series just to name two, but there are so many), Shannon Stacey’s contemporaries are awesome as well. I know there are others and they’re slipping my mind!