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Beyond the Graves

When the @#$% is the fourth Matty Graves book coming out?

Sometime between now and never. I wrote a first draft of it, in which Matty goes off to North Africa, meets an old friend, has a fight, goes home, sees a play about himself that's interrupted by a tomato fight, goes back to Tripoli in time to get captured in the Philadelphia (or maybe not; I hadn't decided yet), meets up with an old flame in a whorehouse, and goes with Presley O'Bannon to the shores of Tripoli.

But, frankly, sales of the series have been, how should we put this ... crap. The first two earned out, but Peter Wicked is still about 500 copies shy of making back my advance. As my editor cheerfully points out, I could help myself by getting back on the campaign trail and doing things like updating this blog more than every six months. Also I could point out that I HAVE COPIES FOR CHEAP! REALLY!! HALF THE COVER PRICE, SIGNED!!! Which won't help my sales against royalties statement, but hey. I need the dough.

And I'm really glad that people are picking up my books at libraries. I love libraries. Both of my parents were librarians (true!) and my first job was at a library (also true). And if your library doesn't have one of my books, please ask. Even if they won't buy it, times being what they are, chances are they'll order it for you through interlibrary loan. I love libraries.

But library copies are single sales with multiple readers. They're loss leaders. They don't finance the next book. So until I find a job (anybody need an experienced editor, proofreader and copywriter?), the fiction's on hold.

I really did like that tomato fight, though. Maybe it's time to fish that manuscript out of the ol' desk drawer...

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