Today, the third edition of the short story "Music of the Metrognomes" was published in eBook and paperback formats and released through Lulu.com. Also, an extensive "Special Features" page went up with the new release, featuring never before seen artwork and behind the scenes info on the story. "Why," you ask? Because it's all happening on the road to Metrognomes: The Shaman's Apprentice in hardback! To help market the novel anew, we are polishing up the two preceding short stories, giving them the official Metrognomes logo and such. The entire line of short fiction is actually going to be making the move to Lulu.com, but the Metrognomes stories are going there first. I'm really happy with the new look of the eBook, and especially thrilled with the "Special Features" page. All true fans should check it out! Meanwhile, work has already begun on the re-release of "Worse than a Gremlin."

"The Briar Patch Evangelist; or, The Tale of Beater Rabbit" was published to the main site on November 18! It was uploaded for download at Lulu.com on the 20th, and the paperback version was published through Lulu.com on the 22nd! That same day, the direct link to the eBook on the site was replaced with a link to download it from Lulu.com, and the "Coming Soon!" graphic was added under advertising on the new "The Briar Patch Evangelist Special Features" page. Today, three alternate versions of the cover art and a a few trivial facts were added to the special features page as well. Now you're all caught up, so where do we go from here?

Forward! I had intended for "The Briar Patch Evangelist" to be posted last month, and I am trying to stick as close to the set release schedule as I can. The next thing that was supposed to have been released last month was the hardback of Metrognomes: The Shaman's Apprentice, which is my next project, now that Beater Rabbit is behind me. I am planning to have some merchandise related to the new short story, but have decided to wait until I get caught up completely with announced publications before getting the merchandise machine up and running again.

The bugs we had to iron out in order to get "The Briar Patch Evangelist" published in its current form, both in eBook and paperback formats, have opened the door once again for the Metrognomes hardback release. There are a number of challenges ahead here as well, since getting this one in your hands requires a number of things not necessary for a Web exclusive eBook release, but once it's done, the new system will be down, ad all future projects should move through production much more quickly! My goal, of course, is to get this project published as soon as humanly possible. I'll keep you posted as things develop.

I told you I was back! :D

Giant smile! :D I am at last satisfied with the production quality of "The Briar Patch Evangelist" eBook! It should be up tomorrow on the official site. Ideally, the print edition will be published the same day, but we are still exploring some options. We will see. As for the eBook, however, the wait ends within the day! (Assuming that I live that long! Gotta go find food and pick a friend up from Denton!)

So, I've ordered some new software that should, hopefully, get "The Briar Patch Evangelist" published withing the next couple of days...but there's no telling. I am extremely frustrated at this point. I have a lot of work ahead of me, if I want to get everything smoothed out for future projects.

Just a quick update on "The Briar Patch Evangelist." The final draft is in, the cover art is in, the eBook is designed. However, we are having some technical difficulties getting it formatted as a .pdf file. It has to do with the decision to upgrade the entire way that Clark Ink publishes eBooks, and a lot of unforeseen challenges. Even reverting back to the old way until we can work out all of the bugs in the new system is a challenge, because it requires a program on the old computer, and the eBook has been designed on the new computer. The translation between computers is imperfect. So we have some challenges to get through. I think I've decided that we are reverting back to the old way, but I don't know how long it will take to get everything worked out in order for that to work. I have a youth retreat this weekend, so the new eBook will probably be published, one way or another, on Monday or Tuesday. I'm fairly frustrated right now, and I plan to take a day or two next week to do nothing but sort out these issues with the new distributor, so that all future projects can move ahead as planned. We can get around the issues for eBooks; it's the print projects that we can't do any other way right now. More as I know it. Meanwhile, I plan to post the cover art and synopsis for you if I have time before this weekend. Peace! - Glenn