Benedict Jacka

Just started the last confrontation in what’ll be the last chapter of the last Alex Verus book.  Word count is at 94,000 out of my original estimate of 90,000.  

Alex Verus #12 also now has a title and a (projected) release date!  It’ll be called Risen and if all goes well it’ll be coming out on December 2nd, 2021.  This does depend on everything going to plan with edits and publication schedules, so don’t go writing it down in your diary just yet, but that’s the target we’re shooting for.  I asked my publishers if we could put this book out no later than a year after the last one, and it seems they might be willing to do it.  My plan is to finish the first draft by the end of the year, give the book a quick edit and incorporate some suggestions from my beta readers, then send it off to my publishers in the first week of January.  

Now that the release of Forged is over and the Reddit AMA is done, everything’s quiet again. 

‘Quiet’ is a pretty good description of my working life in general.  Every now and then I’ll have a book release or an AMA or some other event, but for the remaining 95% of the time I just stay at home and write.  Some authors spend a lot of time on publicity work and conventions and tours and social media, but for various personal reasons I’m never been all that keen on those.  For the most part, I write my books and do these weekly blog posts and that’s it.  

Speaking of which, I’m still working away on Alex Verus #12.  The good news is that, by my standard baseline, it’s 97% complete.  The bad news is that in this case the baseline is wrong – it’s based on the assumption that the first draft will be 90,000 words long, which this one won’t be.  I’ve just finished the first of the four final confrontations, and it’ll definitely take at least one full chapter more to do the last three.  And after that I still need to do the epilogue.  So 100,000 words is probably more accurate.  

Still, I should be done by the end of the year.  Exact publication date from there is going to depend on my editors/publishers, but if we’re lucky they’ll be able to get it out by the end of 2021.  Fingers crossed!

Just a reminder that I’ll be doing my yearly Reddit Ask Me Anything on r/fantasy tomorrow!  I’ll start answering questions at 12 noon GMT, and I’ll keep replying on and off over the next 24 hours before wrapping things up at 12 noon on Friday 4th.  

I’ll post the link tomorrow when the AMA goes live, but in the meantime, here are some links to the AMAs I’ve done on Reddit in previous years:  

2016 AMA (done right after the release of Alex Verus #7, Burned)
2017 AMA (after release of Book #8, Bound)
2018 AMA (after release of Book #9, Marked)
2019 AMA (after release of Book #10, Fallen)

Hope to see you there!

Well, after far too many issues, it’s finally here!  Alex Verus #11, Forged, gets its release today for readers in the UK, Europe, and everywhere else that isn’t North America, and hopefully you should all be getting the right edition this time.  

As usual, the book is available in ebook format, a trade paperback edition, and an audiobook narrated by Gildart Jackson.  

Also, just as a reminder, I’m going to be doing a Reddit AMA (question and answer session) on r/fantasy two days from now, on Thursday 3rd December.  If you want to ask me questions about Forged, the rest of the Alex Verus series, or pretty much anything else, drop by and say hi!  

The problem with Forged’s UK edition on Amazon has (in theory) been fixed – the default page for Forged on Amazon UK now links to the trade paperback version.  This comes after a lot of emails to my publishers and a long exchange with Amazon Customer Support, who were exactly as frustrating to deal with as I remembered.  Hopefully it’ll work from now on!  

In the meantime, if you want the UK trade paperback and don’t want to take the risk of Amazon sending you the US edition again, you should be safe getting it from alternative sources, like Waterstones, Book Depository, or Blackwells.

I’m going to break my usual routine and publish this Friday’s post a little early, since I’ve got a warning to get out if you’re based in the UK.

The eleventh and second-to-last book in the Alex Verus series, Forged, is getting its worldwide release this week, on Tuesday December 1st.  It’ll be available in paperback, ebook, and audio version.  

IMPORTANT WARNING FOR UK READERS!  Amazon.co.uk is currently selling the paper version of Forged in the UK, but they are NOT selling the UK edition – they’re selling the US edition.  

What’s the difference?  Well, the UK and US editions have slightly different editing and formatting – the US edition uses US spelling, for instance.  More importantly, the US version is a mass market paperback, while the UK version is a trade paperback.  These look quite different – here’s a comparison between the UK and US versions of book #10, Fallen.  

 
As you can see, the US edition is quite a bit smaller, with smaller text.  The US edition also uses lower quality paper and the text is more tightly spaced, which makes it harder to read.  Finally, it won’t match with the UK covers, so if you’ve been buying the UK editions it’ll look terrible on your shelves!

Unfortunately, UK Amazon are not making this particularly clear – if you look closely at their page it does say ‘Mass Market Paperback’, but unless you read the small print you’re not going to notice.  Also, they’re (currently) not offering the UK edition for pre-order at all, which makes it look like the MMPB version is the only paper one that UK readers can buy.  So large amounts of people are clicking on Amazon.co.uk, buying what they think is the UK edition, getting the US edition, and then leaving angry one-star reviews because it’s not what they were expecting.  

I’ve contacted my publisher and Amazon, but unfortunately Amazon are not very helpful towards their authors – on past occasions that I’ve tried to get them to make corrections, I’ve received either boilerplate responses or emails in broken English that misunderstand what’s going on.  So there’s no guarantee that anything’s going to be fixed any time soon.  In the meantime, if you’re in the UK, be aware that if you’re ordering a paper edition that looks like this:  

then you’re getting the wrong one!  Once I have a link to where you can buy the trade paperback UK edition, I’ll post it.  

And it’s finally here!  Book #11 in the Alex Verus series, Forged, releases today in the US and Canada, in mass market paperback, ebook format, and an audio version narrated by Gildart Jackson.  

This is the second-to-last book in the series, so as you can probably guess, this is not a good place to start.  Books #1 through #9 in the Alex Verus series are reasonably standalone – if you skip a few books you’ll miss some things, but you’ll still have a fairly good idea of what’s going on (especially books 1-6, whose contents all get recapped).  However, the last three books of the Alex Verus series, #10, #11, and #12, are really just one big interconnected story that happens to be split into three volumes.  If you’re going to read Forged, it is REALLY REALLY important that you read book #10, Fallen, first.  Otherwise once you get into the first chapter (which you can read here) then I promise you, you will have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on, why Alex is in the position he is, or why he’s chasing the person he’s chasing.  

Anyway, enough warnings, go enjoy the book!  Readers outside North America will have to wait a week for the UK/rest of world release date, which is December 1st.  

Well, after a long, long wait, we’re nearly there!  Forged will be out in paper, ebook, and audiobook format in the US and Canada four days from now, on the 24th!

The non-US edition will be released a week later, on December 1st, and I’ll be doing a Reddit AMA two days later, on the 3rd.