New Alex Verus Novella

Well, we’re finally done with the ending commentaries!  Now that that’s over, I think this is a good time for a general update.

My new novel in my new series is (still) with my publishers – it’s been with them for 3 months at this point.  The good news is that contracts are signed and we’ve got a publication date.  The bad news is that the publication date isn’t until Autumn 2023, and my publishers also seem to feel that since the publication date’s so far off in the future, there’s no need for them to rush, so I’ve yet to hear anything back from them.  This is annoying, since I really need for the first book to be finalised before I can write the second, which means that until I at least get the first-round edits back and can agree with my publishers on what the book’s content will be, I can’t properly start work on book 2.  This delays the series as a whole, and unfortunately there isn’t much I can do to speed this up.

On the positive side, this does mean I have a bit of spare time, so I’ve started work on a new Alex Verus novella!  This is the one that I was hoping to do back in the spring but which got pushed back by the rewrite – as it turns out, it’s getting written after all.

While the previous novella, Favours, took place in the middle of the series (between books 6 and 7), this novella will be a sort of “mini-sequel”, more like an extra epilogue, and will take place about 4-5 months after the end of Risen.  It features three existing characters from the main series – Alex, Anne, and Talisid – though one of those three has a much bigger role than the other two.  At first I was expecting the novella to be a similar length to Favours, which came in at about 20,000 words, but this one seems to be turning into something much longer – at the time that I’m writing this post (18 September) it’s up to 21,000 words already and I’m nowhere near the end.  If I had to guess it’s probably going to land in the 30,000 to 35,000 range, so about 1/3rd as long as a full Alex Verus novel.  I’m hoping to finish in a couple of weeks or so.

Once the novella’s done I’ll send it out to my beta readers and give it a proper edit and polish, then I’ll package it and make it available in the same way that I did Favours.  Though looking at the relative number of copies of Favours that I sold on my website versus Amazon, this time I might just use Amazon (they have a special program that gives you some bonuses if you sell a book only on their platform).  But I’ll decide that nearer the time.

Anyway, I think that covers everything for now.  More news on the novella next week, at which point I should have a better idea of likely length.  At the moment I’m aiming to release the finished version sometime around late October.  Publishing is harder work when you have to do everything yourself, but it’s also a lot faster!