So, I woke up this morning to find yet another email from a TV channel comprised of three letters. They want to talk with me this week, on the phone, about turning WOOL into a TV show.

On the inside, I’m freaking out a little. On the outside, I just wet myself.

These are my favorite days, these days when a new project is released into the wild. It’s killing me to be at work-work and not home to savor every Tweet, FB comment, review, ranking, etc. My mind is simply blown at how many of you seemed to have been waiting for this story. Ten hours after release, and two reviews are already up. Thank you so much for this, everyone. The rush of endorphins I feel right now is more than sufficient to see me through another heavy bout of writing.

Also, I’m glad I didn’t wait until February 8th to release WOOL 5. Tomorrow is my last day at the bookstore, and let me tell you: it’s a nerve-wracking venture to leave a day job and pursue a career as a writer. What if the next thing stinks? What if the sales go away immediately? I have no guarantee that I won’t be back to square one by March.

So today was important for me. I feel good about this. Thanks again for all the support and kudos; they are the very things that will help me through my next project.*

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*Which will probably suck, you’ll hate, will never sell, and I’ll be begging for my old job back.

Today’s “Fun With Numbers” is brought to you by my least ardent fans, the ones who complain about my publishing model and think I’m somehow ripping them off (the ones who don’t visit my website and who won’t see any of this).

I’ve blogged at length about the numerous benefits the Wool series brings to readers (reduced wait between reads, cheaper samples, more cover art, wider variety of POV and tone), and also the numerous costs to myself (I make less money, it requires far more work, I risk losing someone based on a limited reading sample).

Here’s the math:

[Read more →]

Props to you if you know what campy mega-hit SF film that line is from.

WOOL 5 is out. Here’s the link.

Enjoy.

WOOL 5 is damn near perfect. I’ll probably be ordering proof copies today, and nothing’s stopping me from uploading to the Kindle store and getting that process started. I’m just waiting to hear back from some additional beta readers, and then I’m good to go.

So weigh in. Should I bump the date up a week? Or is February 8th lodged in everyone’s mind as the day of reckoning?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a novel. Weighing in at over 57,000 words, this should be enough WOOL to cover you from your chin to your toes. Any hesitation with charging more is gone; I worked my butt silly on this manuscript. It’s gonna be a steal at $2.99 (and there’s a PayPal button for those of you who agree).

Rather than take a break, I’m sitting down in front of Indesign to paginate the interior. This still allows me to correct the occasional typo I stumble across, but it gets me one step closer to ordering a proof. Once I’m done, it’ll be time to format the Kindle edition. I see wrapping this up by the end of this week, seeing a proof sometime next week, then having a week of watching you squirm until she’s live on Amazon.

This is a huge day, I have to tell you. Finishing the last book in a story line is a billion times more rewarding than finishing one of the middle guys. There’s a sense of completion here that is difficult to appreciate. All of the crippling expectations I place on myself are gone. I’m thrilled with the final product. Now I just get to sit back and read the bad reviews.

And the good ones, of course. I read those as well.