Greetings folks. As you can see, something has changed in the design of my blog. There is an image and it's the cover of my upcoming novel, Fall From Grace. It's a great cover. But the truth is, I had little to do with it. If you ever get a big time book deal like me, or even a small time book deal, chances are, you will have no input on your cover. You won't be able to offer one of your great photos or drawings, and you won't be allowed to get your friend to design the cover. Most of the work is done by the publisher, and rightly so. They know what works, what stands out, what grabs the eye and in the end, what sells. Well, they don't know exactly what sells but they have a better idea than you do. Especially a publisher like mine, Forge Books. They've been in business for over 30 years, they publisher hundreds of books year. Of course they know better than me on what works as a cover. My editor asked for some ideas for possible images and I gave him some. One or two made on the cover but the actual design was done in New York by an art director at Forge. He put together the whole package and made it work. I like it, my editor likes it, my agent likes and so do a few booksellers I know. And that's good. So around March 29, 2011 and thereafter, look out for my book. Pick it up and buy.

Okay I got the galley edits done and sent those out. Did I say that already? And then I got the manuscript for novel two from my agent, check out her comments, and made changes that I thought worked. And now it's sent off to my editor. The question is, now what do I do? I mean fiction related. I have plenty of non-fiction work but I'm not sure it makes sense to start novel 3 in the series. I only have a two book deal. And it won't become a three, four, and five book deal unless sales are really good. And I won't know that for awhile. The first novel in the deal comes out March 29. And according to my agent, it will be many months before we know how sales were. So she's not sure when to ask about more books. Probably not for another year. Or more. It makes sense to be prepared, to have a novel ready if I get another contract. But what if I don't? I have ideas for novel 3 but I guess I'm not going to start writing it until I know for sure. Time to dust off other ideas.

On another note, I will be releasing the cover of my soon to be released novel in a week. It's also my birthday so I figured it would be a nice thing to do to celebrate the day.