Latest word from Wildside is that a limited run of The Unwelcome Warlock should be out in September or October, so that copies can be sent to donors, but the regular edition is being pushed back to allow time for a new distribution deal. The new target date for the generally-available edition is February.

Cover price will probably be under $15, despite the novel’s length — ebooks have put some serious downward pressure on book prices — so I’m thinking of including a chapbook of “The Frog Wizard” with each donor copy.

Never heard of “The Frog Wizard”? Or if you did read it and remember it, you don’t see what it has to do with Ethshar? Well, that’s because I originally wrote no fewer than six variants of the same story, and only one of the six is an Ethshar story. One of the non-Ethshar versions was published in the January 1993 issue of Science Fiction Age, but the Ethshar version has never been published before.

This does not mean, however, that only donors to the serial of The Unwelcome Warlock will see it. It’s included in an upcoming collection of short Ethshar stories. Wildside has sent a contract for this collection; we’re fine-tuning the contract, but it should be signed soon. The collection will include all the short Ethshar stories — well, unless I forgot any; I only remembered to include “The Frog Wizard” at the last minute. Chapter One of The Unwanted Wardrobe will be there, with a few notes on some of the references.

And here’s where I’d like some feedback. I submitted the book as Tales of Ethshar, but Wildside accidentally sent the contract for The Book of Ethshar — which is a pretty good title. Now we’re trying to decide which title to use. Got an opinion?

Publication of The Unwelcome Warlock is tentatively scheduled for September. Wildside is moving offices, though, and running into unexpected difficulties, so I would not be at all surprised to see it delayed until October or even November.

Still no word on cover art.

Incidentally, Chapter One will also be included as “The Warlock’s Refuge” in Tales of Ethshar, the eleven-story collection that Wildside has just accepted. (Contracts are reportedly in the works.)

No firm plans yet on future serials or further Ethshar stories.

Just a quick note to let you all know that I got the page proofs for The Unwelcome Warlock Friday evening, and should have them corrected and ready to go by some time next week.

No word on cover art yet, and no definite publication date, but we’re making progress.

I finished the final draft last night, and sent it off to Wildside Press; they acknowledged receipt this morning. I’ve received the promised advance. Everything’s pretty much on track. I don’t have a publication date yet; from here on, the scheduling is entirely up to Wildside. No idea what they’ll do for cover art, or what the list price will be, or any of that other stuff.

I’ve got at least two other projects I want to deal with before I even think about another Ethshar serial.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, and I hope you feel you got your money’s worth.

The contracts with Wildside are signed and counter-signed, payment is on the way, and the publisher has asked me to please remove the free version — we want people to pay for the official e-book when it’s released.

Therefore, I’ll be taking down the Epilogue and Chapters Three through Forty; they’ll be gone no later than Monday, possibly much sooner. If there was anything you wanted to re-read, either get it now or wait for the finished book. (Chapters One and Two will remain, as advertising.)

I haven’t finished the revised version; Wildside wants it ASAP, and the contract has a deadline in late May, so I need to get to work on that.

We still don’t have a specific release date for the finished book, but Wildside likes to get stuff out to market and earning money quickly.

There will be a trade paperback (probably print-on-demand), and an e-book. Don’t know about a hardcover yet. A mass-market paperback edition is very unlikely. No word yet on details like cover art or price.

Thanks to all who contributed!

Chapter Forty and the Epilogue are now online. The serial is concluded and complete. My sincere gratitude to everyone who contributed!

Wildside Press has sent my agent a contract, but it’s not signed yet, so I have no information about the eventual publication date, cover price, or much of anything else. I do know that once the contracts are signed I’ll be taking down the serial version, so read it while you can.

I have only made the most tentative of starts on the second draft at this point. Given the time needed for revisions, editing, copy-editing, cover design, and so forth, it will still be several months before the finished book sees print.

When it does see print, I’ll be sending copies to everyone who donated $25 or more (in the U.S.; Canada the minimum is $30, and overseas it’s $35). I’ll post updates about that here when the time comes, as well as e-mailing information. I’ll be verifying addresses as best I can before anything actually ships.

I’m fairly sure there will be e-book editions for the Kindle and for other e-readers, as Wildside is enthusiastic about those, but again, I have no information at this point.

As long as the serial is online, I’ll accept donations/advance orders. (You can look at them either way, now that we know the book will appear.) Once it’s down, you’ll have to wait until you can order from Wildside, Amazon, B&N, or whatever your preferred source is; I won’t continue taking orders after that.

If you donated more than the minimum, we can discuss in e-mail what extras, if any, you might want — but please, don’t do that now; wait until I announce that the book’s ready and I’m verifying addresses.

In the past, I’ve always included extras of some sort with everyone’s books, but this novel is much longer than any of my previous serials, so I’m not sure whether I’ll be doing that this time. We’ll see.

As for future serials, right now I have no definite plans. I’ll want to see how the writing and publishing business develop over the next year or so — e-books and other developments are drastically changing the market. I will say, though, that this is definitely not the last Ethshar novel; I’ve started writing the next, a “young adult” novel with the working title Ishta’s Playmate (formerly A Stranger in the Forest) that I hope will move the series back to traditional publishing. We’ll see how that works out.

Thanks again for your support!

Chapter Thirty-Nine is finally online. One more chapter to go! My thanks to everyone who’s supported this project.

As you can see, this chapter wraps up Hanner’s part in the story, but Chapter Forty and the epilogue will tie up several other loose ends.

As of right now, there’s $235 to go to finish the serial. (The e-mail I sent to contributors said $215; that was a typo. Sorry.)

I haven’t really gotten serious about the second draft yet; I’ve been focused on a couple of other projects that I hope will bring in money. One of them, which is really just getting started, is another Ethshar novel, untitled as yet (working title was originally A Stranger in the Forest, but that’s not going to stay), aimed at the “young adult” market, which I’m hoping will move the series back to traditional publishing.

Whether it succeeds or not, I more or less expect to do at least one more serial eventually — probably The Sorcerer’s Widow — but not any time soon. It’s possible, depending on how the market develops, that I may just start self-publishing these as e-books, rather than running serials.

Meanwhile, Wildside does plan to publish The Unwelcome Warlock eventually, but there’s still a lot to be done before that happens, so I won’t be sending out the finished books for several months yet.

Chapter Thirty-Eight is now online. I’m back from Chicago, and trying to catch up on tons of stuff, but since it was actually paid for by Saturday I gave this priority.

This is a relatively low-key chapter, but I hope you’ll be pleased to see a little more of these relatively minor characters. The remaining two chapters after this return to the main storyline.

Chapter Thirty-Nine is something like 20% paid for — I don’t have exact numbers yet.

Happy Valentine’s Day!