Delays to the Know Circuit and the next Bridge novel

By now, I had hoped to be announcing the release in paperback of The Know Circuit, as well as the release of the newest Bridge Chronicles novel. Unfortunately, things don't always go according to plan. After further consideration, though, I've decided to delay the release of both until at least mid-March.

The Know Circuit is almost ready. I've proofed the main book, the exclusive short story and the introduction, though I'd like to take another look at the short story. The front cover is done, while the back cover is not too far off. But I'd like to give a little more time for Under the Amoral Bridge to generate some more readers who hopefully like it enough that they becomes fans willing to buy a second novel. Trying to promote two books, as well as writing a third novel - well, there's not enough hours in the day to do all that, work full-time for actual money and enjoy life.

The third novel is proceeding apace, and like The Know Circuit, I could start publishing the beginning of the novel while writing the rest of it. But for this one, I'd like to be closer to being finished when I release the first chapters. I've been considering a change in the way I publish the Bridge Chronicles as well. Do I continue to give the entire novel away for free while trying to get people to pay for a collected version? Ad revenue on a site with as few hits as I have is nothing. In fact, I've made no money from ad revenue at all in the three years I've been running my three blogs because I've never hit the threshold for a payout.

With that in mind, I'm not sure that giving away the whole cow is doing me any good. I've got some thoughts and ruminations on pricing that has been brewing for a few months that I'll be putting down in a blog post sometime in the next month. The "freemium" model would seem to work well for authors with enough of a name that the mere mention of a new release makes people want to buy their books whether they can get it free or not. For an author with little to no name recognition like myself, I may be merely tossing money out the door. At the very least, I will be putting the first 3 or 4 chapters of the third novel online for free as a promotional tool. After that, I've considered setting up some form of donation through PayPal - I've always been averse to asking for donations over the Web but that may change.

So the long and short of it is that The Know Circuit paperback and eBook will be delayed until at least mid-March. The good thing about self-publishing is that I don't have any deadlines I don't impose on myself. Continue to check back with me on this site and on my Twitter feed for more details.