(Well, probably non-writing.  I still might end up trying to get started on the last section if I find the time.  Would be really nice to get it done by mid-October or so!)

I’m off on holiday for a couple of weeks now, but I’ll try to get a little work done while I’m gone, and I’ll aim to finish the manuscript in October once I’m back.  See you in a fortnight!

I’m currently hoping to get section 5 of book 5 done before I go.  Then I can do some planning while I’m gone, and complete the sixth and final section of the new book over September/October.  Fingers crossed!

This delay is the decision of my publisher.  I sent in the first draft of Book #4 around the beginning of November 2025, which would have given them 12 months to handle editing, copy-editing, and the rest of the publication process.  Unfortunately they didn’t get started on this process until almost halfway through said 12-month window.  The full story is long and not particularly interesting, but the short version is that they sat on the manuscript for the first 5 months, finally (in response to my increasingly irate emails) began work on the edits in May, and then decided that since they now only had 7 months left, they’d have to push the release date back to compensate.  Even with these delays, the book could still be made ready for publication this autumn – it’s currently at the proofreading stage and I’ll be sending the proof back this month – but they’ve decided not to.

Needless to say, I’m really annoyed by all this.  I don’t always hit my deadlines for my books, but I usually get pretty close, and I work really hard to stay as near to them as possible so that the books can keep coming out on a once-per-year schedule.  Working flat-out to finish a book, sending it off, waiting for months and months with no communication, then finally having my publisher essentially tell me “oh yeah, we just didn’t get around to it” is infuriating, particularly since they didn’t even bother to tell me about the changed publication date (in fact, I only became aware of it because some of you guys noticed the changed release date on Amazon).  The longer the wait between books in a series, then the harder it becomes for readers to remember what happened in the last one, and the more likely it becomes that they’ll drift away and forget about it.  So this sort of delay hurts my sales and readership.

Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about it, so I’m just going to have to put up with it.  I’m still working on Book #5 in the meantime, which (I suppose) is now going to be finished months and months before the publication of Book #4.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get them to publish it in November, so you guys will get two books next year.  If not, we’ll just have to see.

More details on its publication next week.

The price drop hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it’s scheduled for the 26th, so if anyone you know doesn’t have the book but is interested, maybe it might count for something!

Don’t worry, the books are still getting published, and you’ll still get to read them!  However, I can’t really explain all the details just yet since I’m currently still trying to sort things out and would rather not go into the details until I do.  Once I have things finalised on my end I’ll make a full announcement and explain everything properly, at which point things will hopefully make a bit more sense.

Still going to try to get the first draft finished by the end of the summer, though that’s starting to look optimistic.  On the whole, though, I’m happy with how it’s going.  Progress on this book has been quite a lot faster than the last one.