Forbidden Magic update

I would love to give you an update for Forbidden Magic. After all, the contract for it was signed in September 2014. By now I should have had cover art (I'll get to what you see here in a minute), edits, and a release date and I don't.

The publisher recently came under new management, so to say, so there is a lot of cleaning house going on. I have discovered that I am not the only author waiting for what feels like forever. I don't blame my publisher's current owner for this. I have been with this publisher since 2009 and they have always been awesome to me. I look forward to sending them more of my work in the future.

In the mean time, I've gotten to work on a lot of new manuscripts and even worked on perfecting an old one. National Novel Writing Month begins on Sunday and I have a great idea (my NaNoWriMo handle is dadewrites; please feel free to follow my progress. I believe there is a NaNoWriMo icon on the right side of this blog that will take you there too.). I've also found that I prefer Twitter's short format rather than a blog, so ramblings on here will be few.

Now for the delicious piece of art on this post. You can thank Ian Hill for it (follow him on Twitter @IanSHill1). I explained to him what I was looking for and BOOM! He made it. I don't think this will end up being the final art for the book (wouldn't that be cool if it was, though?) but it's something for me to look at rather than the black "Coming Soon" box I had before.

I hope 2016 will be the year of Forbidden Magic. It's a story that I am dying to share with you.
Forbidden Magic blurb:
When witches need their dirty work done, they call one person; their Enforcer Tabitha Drake. She is lethal and powerful with a dangerous secret. All magic comes at a cost, but she never has to pay. If the Conclave of witches ever found out, they’d experiment on her until there was nothing left. When a witch in South Carolina starts consolidating magic, the Conclave sends Tabitha to take care of it. There she runs into Dez, a born vampire with a secret of his own. It’s hard to work with someone you can’t trust, but it’s even harder when emotions start to get in the way. When secrets are revealed, Tabitha has to put her trust in a vampire shrouded in secrets. Will Tabitha’s heart get broken or is this the first step to a normal life?

Reaction to Kim Harrison's blog

I've been pretty busy over the past year. Writing has been slow going, and I have been developing a new project that isn't set in any world that I have had books published in. So lots and LOTS of world building and researching. Forbidden Magic, my next release, is in a sort of limbo, as Eternal Press has a new CEO and they are working on making things more awesome. Of Wolf and Man, my young adult baby, is no long available for purchase. I'm a little broken hearted, but also excited because I had an idea for a grittier version of that story that could span over two or three books. Now that I have the rights back, I can dive back into Juliet and Jenson's world and find out what happens when friends are not what they seem.

Today I came across a blog post by Kim Harrison. I love her books and am very much looking forward to reading her newest release The Drafter. It's not paranormal, like her Hollows series, but from what I read in the short prequel titled Sideswiped, I want to read more about Peri's world. Apparently, it isn't doing as good as Kim's publishers had hoped. This is from her blog, located at www.KimHarrison.net:

Unfortunately, this is the dark side of the publishing industry. She's right; there are no second chances if a book flops. Especially if the publisher put a lot of money into promoting it, like her's did for The Drafter. They were expecting the audience that put the Hollows series on the NY Times Bestselling list to do the same for this title. If a book fails, it will make publishers think twice about your future work. They don't care about how great sales were, they care about how great they're going to be. She may have to reinvent herself again; for those of you who don't know, she originally published books under her real name, Dawn Cook, but those didn't gain popularity. A new name, a new look (the wig!), and it was a clean slate for readers. Now, because of The Drafter's failure, she may have to go through the trouble of reinventing herself for a new series.

This, right here, makes me so nervous about writing and publishing. How one year you can be at the top of your game, everyone will love you and can't get enough, and the next year no one will want to touch you. It's heartbreaking. But it's reality if becoming an author is the path you take.