The League of Scientists #2 (…What?! The first book isn’t even out yet!)

I’m in an interesting situation.

League of Scientists #1 – “The Ghost in the Water” – will release to bookstores in early 2011. The delay is due to the requirements of traditional publishing. This isn’t an ebook we can post online. It’s not a print-on-demand publisher to whom we can just hand a text document, and they immediately print a book. Nope, traditional publishing is slow. There are the edits, drafts and revisions between the editor and me, the creation of the artwork, the ramping up of the book’s publicity campaign, figuring out warehousing and distribution, and actually printing the book, which is another back-and-forth with editors to make sure everything’s as good as we can make it before we print.

With all this in mind, I of course wish the book could come out sooner, but I understand the delay.

Here’s another thing: while we don’t even have the first book out, while we don’t know if it’ll even sell well, I’ve got to think about starting the next book!

Why? Because if I don’t, the next book will take almost as long to release. That’s no good – I want the fans to get the next one as soon as possible. I can’t say, “Hey, I’m so thrilled you loved ‘The Ghost in the Water’! …What’s that? You’d like to read another one in the series? Well, no problem! Would you mind waiting a year?”

So here’s what the publisher and I are going to do:

1) Write a quality book in a highly-competitive genre that’s engaging, intelligent, creative and unique.

2) Release it.

3) Wait about three months, and see how it sells.

4) If it sells poorly, then I shake my frustrated fist skywards, cursing my fate of living in a world that will never know my genius.

5) If it sells well, the publisher will want the text for the next book. Since a lot of prep work has already been done before, they’ll crank this one out faster.

Right now, I’m in the middle of step 1. Step 1 to step 2 takes about 1.5 years. But, at the moment we have an idea of how the first book sells, I need to have another one ready. No time to waste on drafts or revisions – it’s gotta be done, so I can Frisbee it towards the publisher and yell, “Go! Go! Go!”

You may ask, “What about a third book, Andy? Hey, did you plan that yet, smart guy?”

My answer:

Let me just finish the first book, okay? I’ll get back to you.