May 2007 Progress Report

With so much going on behind the scenes right now, I thought I'd give everyone a little detour from the monthly Q&A. Though the release of book two is over six months away, the book itself is on the verge of completion. Here's a rundown of where things stand as of now:

- Outlaw Trigger (OT) has gone in and out of my editor's (Arlene Prunkl's) hands. Almost all of the changes have been implemented, and hopefully by the end of this month, all of them will be.

- Fiona Raven, my designer, has completed her task of laying out the cover concept. As soon as the aforementioned edits are taken care of, Fiona and I will move our focus to both the back cover, and the interior page design.

- The cover concept has already been handed over to the Epic artist, Francois Cannels, who has begun fleshing it into life in the form of an actual image. This also could be done relatively soon, pending a few last-minute adjustments that have been made.

- I will be scheduling a meeting with the director of a regional hospital to go over various medical scenarios. As I've said before, I'm exceedingly picky about getting details right. That includes battle wounds. I'm definitely not prepared to take shortcuts.

- Pending all of the above, OT could be a completed book within a two-month span, which means technically, it could be ready to sell then. It won't be for sale, however, until Q4 of this year, or Q1 of next year. The decision between those two has not been made.

- As it stands, OT is approximately 87,000 words in length. For reference purposes, DOD was 99,000. Considering the in-depth content of OT, 87,000 is a perfect number. It will likely be the shortest book in the series, which is good news, considering 87,000 words is nothing to laugh at. Look for most books that follow to challenge 100,000.

- There are twenty-one chapters in OT.

- Chapter Zero begins on Sunday, July 31st, 0011NE, approximately three months after the Assault on Novosibirsk.

- A random Becan quote from the novel: "If I can’t stop it, yeh can’t bloody use it!"

- Don't look for any updates to the Epic Universe website just yet, but they will begin appearing as the official release date is announced. That includes the articles in "News from the Battlefront," so be sure and read those if you haven't already. They won't last forever.

- Book three in the series is well underway, already at 20,000 words. The insanely early release date for book three is, you guessed it, Q1 2009.

Those should hold you guys over for a while. Look for us to get back to standard Q&A next month, and remember to send those questions in!