Set To Kill is coming sooner than expected

Here's the good news: Set to Kill is going to be published!

Bad news: it's going to be published by me. And only me.

Yes, that's right. As expected, Castalia House will not be publishing my strange little book, but it is not for the reason that I expected.

When I submitted to them, I figured, "Yeah, sure. It's a thriller / murder mystery / comedy, and those are hard enough to get to click with real publishers (or real readers)." When you consider that Castalia House hasn't done one thriller ... or a murder mystery ... or a comedy ... whichever genre you want to jam it into, it would be a first for Castalia House. And would you want your company's first book in X genre with .... me?

That was my thought process on the matter. Let's face it, as Vox himself put on his blog, anyone who wants to submit to Castalia had best first look at the books they already publish. And then be equal to them. And this includes Tom Kratman and John C. Wright, and that alone means their book lineup kicks my ass. And I haven't read Peter Grant yet, but I'm told he's also quite awesome. And right now, offhand, there are few authors about whom I'm willing to say that I'm better than. Perhaps four of them -- of those, two write books that I would be embarrassed to have written. The first person to say that I write like James Patterson or Laurell K. Hamilton will be defenestrated -- I do not write paragraph-long chapters, nor do I write porn.

Who am I kidding? Even if I wrote porn, I would have more plot than Hamilton's The Harlequin.

But that WASN'T EVEN THE REASON. That's the surprising part.

The text of the reply email was...

I'm sorry, but we simply don't have the bandwidth to publish them now. We've just signed two authors with large series and our production abilities are tied up for the reasonable future.

Thanks for considering us,

Normally, I would think that this was just an extremely polite rejection from a publisher. But this is Vox and company, I don't think they were taking it easy on my feelings. They're just that successful.

So, yeah, that was interesting.

I'm happy the Castalia gave me a more than fair shot at submitting everything. Something went screwy in the initial submission, and Vox went above and beyond to fix the problem. I was seriously shocked, surprised and delighted I had the opportunity. And that's about everything I have to say about the matter.

Anyway, Set to Kill is en route. As is Murphy's Law of Vampires, as is Live and Let Bite, as is .... whatever I'm calling book number four.

And both Set to Kill AND Murphy's Law of Vampires are up for Kindle preorder. Sorry, Paperback readers, but there is no love for people like us.  All two dozen of us.

Yes, at the end of the day, the last half of this year looks like....

Murphy's Law of Vampires, November 7

Set to Kill, November 21

Live and Let Bite, February, probably.

Book four ... TBA.

Anyway, while you're waiting for that, consider Codename: UnSub

Or get Honor at Stake, if you haven't already. You might like it.