So I took sort of an informal poll to get a sense of how readers felt about the notion of me putting Incarnation up for pre-order. Looks like readers generally prefer not to have the book put up pre-order (which ultimately results in it being available for purchase sooner).
Personally, I’m one of those get-there-firstest-with-the-mostest kind of guys. I’d rather release as soon as possible, but I enjoyed letting readers have a say in this one. Plus, I’ll probably post regularly about how things are going, so everyone should have a solid idea of when I hit “publish” at Amazon.
And speaking of how things are going, my artist is almost done with the cover for this one. (I asked for one last change, so I’m waiting to see how it turns out.) I’ll probably do a cover reveal soon, but sometimes I feel that those are a little redundant – mostly because of the timing. I know that lots of authors will get a cover done 6 months before the book’s release, but I typically don’t have that done until the novel is finished. Thus, if I do a cover reveal, it’s usually just weeks before the novel itself is released, making me feel like I’m posting the same image back-to-back, so to speak (because I usually post the cover again when announcing publication). Simply put, I just don’t know which character I’m going to want on the cover until I’m done with the novel.
For instance, with Incarnation, there’s kind of a steampunk character in the story that I was tempted to put on the cover (a la the image to the left). However, after discussing it with my cover artist, I decided to go in a different direction. Ultimately, I think fans will be pleased.
As to the next book, everyone will be pleased to hear that I’m already working on Kid Sensation #8 (working title: Isolation). As usual, I don’t want to estimate when it will be done, but I think readers won’t have many complaints in that regard.