It's been a challenging first few months of the year! All kinds of computer issues hit in January, with all kinds of things suddenly declaring themselves too-old-to-function. And my oldest programs are not even three years old! So, I've been slowly getting everything back in working order. My computer had to spend some time in the hospital. I still have an Internet connectivity issue, but it's not as bad as it was. One more repair, and everything should be back on track.

Speaking of getting back on track, the "Release Schedule" returned to my Web site today, updated through July. More may be added to this list as things develop. So keep your eyes peeled for new announcements. :) Right now, it just relflects the Kindle conversion/paperback re-release schedule, but does not include projects like The Great Debate, which is coming back out as well, as soon as we get the distributor issues worked out. Should only be a matter of weeks now, though I am reminded of my pet name for the project back when I was first trying to get it out, "The Great Delay." lol

And speaking of The Great Debate, iUniverse has released the first edition for the Kindle. I was not involved in that. They didn't even tell me it had happened, so I'm not sure exactly when it did. The irony of this particular development is that the event that led me down the road that has culminated in taking control of all of my publications and re-releasing them for Kindle and in other formats through Clark Ink, LLC was that I went to iUniverse with the idea of releasing an e-book of The Great Debate, and they told me no. They said it wasn't possible, not unless I wanted to help finance an entire second edition, because they "no longer had the files" to work from. First of all, I knew that I was either dealing with incompitent people or being lied to outright, because the book was still in print, and print-on-demand, which meant that they must have had access to the files, otherwise how would they have been able to print it? Second, if a second edition was going to be forced on me, I was going to do it my way, since I'd always wanted to do a second edition of that particular book anyway. I decided it was time to cut out the middle man as much as I possibly could. Then...frustration! The e-book market had exploded while I'd been turned away, the formats had changed, PDFs were no longer the way to go! I researched, learned, dreamed a conversation with Benjamin Franklin that finally led me to embrace the new format wholeheartedly, and thus began the process of converting everything I'd ever written into updated e-book formats! Now that I'm at the tail end of finalizing the release details for the book that started this whole thing by the very "impossibility" of iUniverse putting out an e-book of the existing edition...they've done just that; they release a Kindle e-book of the existig edition, to which they allegedly no longer had any usable files. Good for them; better for me, to have left them behind. I'm looking forward to anouncing the release of the second edition of The Great Debate. Right now, were just trying to get the price where we want it. :)

Relating to the updated "Release Schedule," several older e-books that had been "un-linked" from the official site due to their converted editions supposedly coming out soon have been "re-linked," until we have a better idea when they'll be converted on the new schedule. Otherwise, these titles may have been missing for several more months! These stories are "Music of the Metrognomes," "Metrognomes: Worse than a Gremlin," and "The Escapist," and I believe they are even still free to download until they are removed again when their Kindle conversions are officially announced. The link to "Haikus Are Stupid" has also been restored until the collected hardback finds its way back onto the official release schedule. Enjoy! :D