The Second Edition of The Journals of Bob Drifter is In Review!

Greetings all,

It feels like a huge weight has been lifted. After some careful editing, careful design, and some rather comedic fights with Pages and page-number formatting, I’ve just turned in the PDF of the 2nd Edition of The Journals of Bob Drifter.

I can’t make this more clear. This is not a sequel! One of my readers thought that, and I don’t want to mislead anyone. I had some editorial issues with Bob that I wanted to hash out. More importantly, I needed more control over pricing, sales, and distribution. When I realized I was going to re-release Bob, I made a few decisions.

1. Get the price down: The original price for the soft-cover of Bob Drifter was $28. Which is almost more than a hard cover for some larger books. That’s never sat well with me. Doing this let me bring the cover price way down (12.99). There won’t be a hard cover for the book, but hard cover books just don’t sell, at least not for me.
2. Make each part available. I’ve already shown you the covers for each individual part of Bob Drifter. This lets readers try each part out with out the price commitment of the whole story. An Unusual Occupation (Part One of the story) should come out about three months after the full version. Yes, it also puts more books on my shelf, but the main reason is to let people pay for what they want and read what they want. Buying the full version up front will probably be more cost effective, but people like paying for only what they want.
3. Change the category. There is a magic system for Bob. I promise! But people just don’t see it as an urban fantasy novel. Putting it in the Supernatural and Paranormal categories is simply a better fit from a marketing point of view. Here’s hoping that leads to more sales.

The other good news is this means I’ll have new copies of Bob available when my convention tour begins in 2018.

I don’t have a release date. I also need to contact Archway to cancel the contract with the first edition. I’m a little worried about how that might go, but it shouldn’t be a big deal. (What worries me is if it’s made into a big deal.)  Once I get a release date, I’ll update you all.  The Ebook will be relatively close behind the paperback edition, and I’ll keep you all updated on that when I have news to offer.

In other news, I’ve heard back from three Alpha readers. All thought the Repressed was good. I’ve identified a few things I want to emphasis before I send it to Sara for editing, but so far, it feels like this was a very solid first draft.

This was a big benchmark for me. It lets me focus my attention on the future, which means Betrayed (Oneiros Book Two) isn’t too far from getting started.  If you liked the psychic military action in Caught, you’ll love Betrayed. Dom has a much larger role in that novel, as does Kira and Kaitlyn. The team will have to face a lot of tension on a lot of different battlegrounds. I look forward to getting on that. I’ll finish Repressed and Worth of Words.  I’m still not remotely sure how many entries I’ll get for that anthology, but I have heard from at least three people who said they’re going to submit.  That’s encouraging.  Big things are on the horizon in my neck of the woods. I’ll always keep you posted. I still can’t thank you all enough for your interest and support. I hope to keep delivering you stories you enjoy.

Thanks for reading,

Matt