Another new cover to share (isn’t this fun?), this time for book #2 in the Prometheus Project. Here’s the new cover for GUARDIAN, which will be republished in a new edition this fall:
You can read the excerpt and check out a bigger version of the cover on my website, right here.
Remember I told you that the rights for my Prometheus Project had reverted to me? You might also remember that I plan to republish this trilogy plus Tupperman’s book in October of this year. These books are what’s come to be called urban fantasy romance, although that category didn’t exist when they were published. They are hybrid genre books, which makes them tough to package because there can end up being so many details on the cover that no clear message is sent. So, it’s been fun to talk about covers with both the artist Kim Killion, and my friend, astro-Jen (who is really good at this stuff).
And this week, we have eye candy. Here’s the new cover for FALLEN:
I just love this. You can see the cover larger on my site, and read the excerpt, as well – right here.
As many of you know, I was planning to publish Tupperman’s story last fall. For those of you who don’t know, this is a novella that grew into a shorter book telling the story of one of the continuing characters in my Prometheus Project who never got his happy ending. When I wrote the series initially, I didn’t know the end of Tupperman’s story so he had to wait for inspiration to strike.
I hit a snag last fall with the publication of this story – actually, there were several snags. First, it became much longer than I’d anticipated, essentially doubling in length. Secondly, writing more meant that the writing took longer, which pushed my schedule off. Thirdly, the beta reader asked a couple of really good questions, which I couldn’t immediately answer. I explained all of this to you last fall when I confessed that the story wouldn’t be published in 2012.
All of those are reasons enough, but there was another big one. I received a royalty statement from TOR for the three Prometheus Project books and discovered – to my amazement – that the conditions under which I could request a reversion of rights had been met. Because this book contract – like so many others – bases the possibility of reversion on the number of units of each book sold, I held off on publishing Tupperman’s story. Publishing a sequel might increase sales of the first books, which could ensure that they didn’t revert to me. And really, I’d much rather have the rights to my books back in my own hands.
FALLEN, GUARDIAN and REBEL have now reverted to me. This is such a good thing. It means that I can republish the books myself. It means that I can correct a couple of continuity errors that were missed and generally give the books one more editorial scrub.
The only sad thing is that I don’t have the right to use the covers that TOR commissioned from Larry Rostant. I love those covers but I’ll have to get new ones done. There’s a ton of prep work to be done for this republication, and also it would be wise to leave a little gap of time for TOR to get their digital editions down from all the portals. I want to publish Tupperman’s story at the same time as the new editions of the three books. I’m also changing Tupperman’s cover – so it will match the new trio of covers – and changing the title of his story.
I’ll update you as more details are resolved. Look for the whole suite of them – a company of angels! – in fall 2013.
A couple of years ago, I wrote my first vampire romance, a short story called Coven of Mercy. It was included in the Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance II (Love Bites is the UK edition.) I subsequently published a digital-only edition of my story alone.
I really liked this story and the questions it raised for me, also the characters it introduced. I always planned to go back to that world and explore it more, and (ta da!) that’s what I’m doing this year. So, right now, the digital-only edition is in the process of being unpublished. That story will remain available in the anthology, but will be revised to become part of the new bigger story.
Stay tuned for more news about Coven of Mercy: The Complete Story.
Deborah Cooke & Her Books 