Pricing

This is the bit where I give you the bad news first and the good news later. If you haven’t already guessed, I’m going to be charging more for some of my books. Basically, I’ve been charging $2.99 (or the equivalent in other currencies) since I started publishing my books. I think it’s a good price for a typical ebook, though I don’t usually argue with slightly higher prices when I’m buying. Anyway… Costs have gone up, cost of living has gone up, and I need to face the fact that I need to charge a little more.

For now, I’m sticking with $2.99 for the shorter books. Most of my recent ones have come in between 70k and 80k words. That’s likely to remain the average, so most of my books will stay at $2.99. The longer ones are going to go up to $3.99. I haven’t entirely decided where the threshold is, but over 100k is definitely over that threshold. Which means that I’ll be charging $3.99 for True Dark, but on the plus side, there’s more story to read.

In other news, I’ve started writing Liberty, which will be Ultrahumans 7. I seem to be in a super-human mode at the moment and I have no idea why. True Dark might not be called that by the time it’s released, though the darkness theme is likely to be maintained.

Hope you’re all having a good summer. I’m going to go back to melting now.

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Enter the Guardian

I have so many books with dragons in that I figure this is an appropriate title.

Guardian, the fifth Ultrahumans book, is now available.

• Smashwords
• Amazon ASIN: B07F9XHQ56
  • US
  • UK
  • DE
  • AU
  • CA

PS. There are no dragons in this book. Not even little ones.

Guardian Cover Image

Guardian will be coming out real soon now. This is the fifth Ultrahumans book and it’s kind of a pair with the sixth, True Dark, which will be out around the beginning of August.

Guardian will, perhaps unsurprisingly, reveal the truth behind the Guardians, of which Cygnus is one. I decided that the cover should feature Cygnus and feature her it does.

There will be a bunch of new concept art going up once Guardian is out the door and I have True Dark thoroughly nailed down. I’ve got a cluster of new Ultras making their first appearance in True Dark. Things they are a changing.

As for what comes after these two… Well, right now all I’ve got a good fix on is another Ultrahumans book, tentatively titled Liberty, but three in a row is pushing my limits a little. We’ll see where I’m at once True Dark is finalised.

The Iron Princess

The Iron Princess, the first in the Twilight Empress trilogy is now available.

• Smashwords
• Amazon… ASIN: B07D1PNQ6W
  • US
  • UK
  • CA
  • AU
  • DE

Friday is Relative

Okay, so this post is out of left field…

I’ve just been reading this week’s New Scientist. For those who don’t know it, it’s a weekly magazine featuring articles on science, all kind of science. I don’t get it every week, but I pick it up when I think an article has something interesting I might be able to twist into fiction and this week the cover story is “What is Time?” Interesting question and one for which there is no good answer at the moment. Plenty of theories which may or may not explain our experience of time passing. The article proposes various quantum theory elements which may explain where the time we experience comes from. Fascinating stuff.

One of the explanations involves the uncertainty inherent in quantum events. It seems our perception of time passing may have something to do with quantum uncertainty and the ‘quantum ignorance’ which results from it. I think it sounds like a good explanation since I’ve been absolutely convinced that today was Saturday since at least lunchtime. It’s nice to know that my uncertainty over the day is just a reflection of the origin of time. I think it’s a superposition thing: it was both Friday and Saturday, until I measured it and the probability equation collapsed.

Global Weirding

If anything suggests we’re seeing the effects of Global Warming, specifically a rise in unusual weather conditions, it’s the UK right about now. Last week, appropriate outdoor clothing involved a scarf. This week I am reconsidering my decision not to look into air conditioning for my office. It’s April and we have a minor heatwave. April is usually a wet, blah sort of month. It’s not really warm or cold. It just happens and we hope it’s nicer in May (and it often is because the one thing the British weather hates is being sunny when the kids are on holiday come summer!).

Not that this is really ‘extreme,’ but it is out of the ordinary. On a BBC science programme, Horizon, a few years back, the phenomenon of increasing instability in our ‘usual’ weather conditions was given the name ‘Global Weirding’ by a meteorologist working on the weather in the southern US region where long periods of drought were becoming more common. The programme was a big influence on the state of the planet in the Fox books.

Meanwhile, I’m busy writing the next Ultrahumans book (again). That’s a world where ‘Global Weirding’ takes on an entirely different meaning…

The Long Road She Took

Obscure title for a post… check!

Character art… check!

Okay, this is Ayah. Or it’s one of her incarnations. If you click on the image it should take you to an ArtStation post which contains her rather elaborate history. I created her for one project and then liked the model so much that I had to find a story for her. It’s taken me at least three tries, but I think I’ve finally cracked it and you should see the results in May.

Initially she’s getting a trilogy which, incidentally, I’ve been trying to write in one form or another for several years. It was going to be sci-fi and it’s now become fantasy and, amazingly, I think it works better that way.

So, assuming I don’t freeze to death in the current ‘spring’ weather, you’ll get to find out what’s up with Ayah sometime fairly soon.