The Dreadnaught Sails At Last

A while back, my collaborator Reaves and I wrote a doorstop-fantasy. The final version came in at over 150,000 words, cut down from 175,000 or so, and we thought it was the cat's pajamas and the bee's knees. 


Timing wasn't so hot, because of the recession, but there wasn't anything we could do about that. My agent shopped it around, and they liked it well enough in New York City that we got a couple of offers from traditional publishers on it.


We didn't think the offers were so hot, and one of them was contingent on producing a second book, which we weren't interested in doing for the money they were offering. Not that we were being greedy, nor against the notion of another book or books set on our world of Eilandia; we just didn't want to be tied to a second book for a lowball offer. 


The economy was down, and the publishers were among the first to jump on that wagon as an excuse to buy cheap. (Book sales didn't fade that much overall–in hard times, a book is a good deal–you can read it, you can pass it around, and later, you can swap it for another book or even cash. I think they were off 1.8% overall in '09, though ebook sales started climbing. But like gasoline, if a sheik sneezes, they raise the price, just, you know, in case.


So we passed on the offers. 


But we liked the novel, we thought it was good, and since the ebook market has begun to come on strong–I'm actually making enough there now to pay for dinner out more than once a month now–we thought the time might be right to take a shot at it.


So we have. The Chronicles of Eilandia: The Dreadnaught, is going up. It will be available at the usual outlets, FS&, Amazon.com, B&N, AppleBooks, Smashwords in–we hope–short order. It's a good read, and if we can get the word out, might have a chance to do some decent business, since it will only be available as an ebook–unless, of course, it sells like ice water in Hell and the treeware folks come knocking. Stranger things have happened.

You should buy a copy. Get all your friends to buy a copy. Tell everybody you've ever met to buy a copy. Get introduced to somebody at a party? Tell them to buy a copy ...


Or not. See how it goes ...