So hey! Ally is up for pre-order. That's the third and last book of On the Bones of Gods, the follow-up to Enemy and Outlaw, and the end of the trilogy, in which, well, things happen to Snow and Veiko and Dekklis.
Some of you may think...hm. That's odd. Why only the e-version on preorder?
Well. See.
Ally had a long, strange journey. I sold Enemy and Outlaw in a 2-book deal, with an option for the third. So the first two came out, I wrote the third, we sent it off...and for reasons unbeknownst to me (but which I suspect have to do purely with numbers and business, because that is what publishing is), the publisher declined that option.
So there I was, with the third book finished, and no publisher, and a rejection I had not expected.
So that sucked. I despaired. I thought my career was over before it had really gotten started. And mostly I was seriously heartbroken, because, well, these characters are near and dear, you know? They live in your head for years, you get them out into the world, and then...their story isn't done but it suddenly is. Even when you know the decision not to publish isn't personal, it feels like it is.
But, you know. This is writing. Rejection(shit) happen(s).
I started the next project (and ended up throwing it out, 93K words into it, and starting over).
I polished up the manuscript I'd worked on after Ally, and unrelated and totally different project, and sent it to my agent, Lisa Rodgers.
She was sad about Ally, too, and we commiserated. She said, These things happen, yeah, and they suck, but there are options.
Yeah, I said. I can put Ally up on my blog in installments.
Or, she said, You can self-publish.
Oh no, I said. I cannot. I do not know the first thing about it.
Pshaw, she said. (Well, she might not have said pshaw, exactly, but you get the idea). The agency publishes its authors sometimes. We've got resources. We can help.
And here's where Ally's odyssey finally turned around. Lisa, like, knows people, man. She coordinated the cover art and found a copyeditor and dealt with distribution and epub formatting and all that stuff that looks like magic but is really hard work. I hired an editor and worked on revisions. All the pieces came together, and now...
Ally is here.
