Benedict Jacka

Busy editing Risen.  It’s the last time I’ll be doing this for an Alex Verus novel.  Strange feeling.

Book should be heading off to my publishers by Monday.

Happy 2021 to everyone!  Hope it goes well!

I’m just in the middle of writing the last pages of the epilogue to Book #12.  It should all be done and sent off by next week’s post – I’ll go into more detail then.

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I know 2020 hasn’t been the best year for a lot of you, but hopefully things will get better.  

Alex Verus #12, otherwise known as Risen, is very close to done.  I finished the last chapter and wrote ‘THE END’ a couple of days ago.  Just need to do the epilogue and give it one last edit.

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.