Caina Amalas will return in GHOST DAGGER
Before I start revising SOUL OF SORCERY, I need a mental refresher (142,000 words in 48 days is a bit of cognitive effort, let me tell you), so first I’m going to write a short 20,000 word novella in THE GHOSTS setting. Called GHOST DAGGER, it will be set between GHOST IN THE FLAMES and GHOST IN THE BLOOD, and will come out a few weeks after SOUL OF SORCERY – late October, most likely.
Why do this? Four reasons.
First, I had a cool idea for a Caina story that wouldn’t work as either a novel or a short story, so I wanted to write it.
Second, like I said, I want to give SOUL OF SORCERY a chance to cool off before I start editing it, and a few days spent writing GHOST DAGGER would fit the bill nicely.
Third, I have several different series in progress (DEMONSOULED, THE GHOSTS, and THE THIRD SOUL) and I thought it might be a good idea to put out a novella in a different series after I finish a book, to tide people over until the next book in the series.
Fourth, I used to love writing novellas – when I was much younger, it was my favorite format. Eventually, I stopped, because in old-style publishing there wasn’t much of a market for novellas.
So this is a fun experiment. Meanwhile, I’m already 2,500 words into the rough draft of GHOST DAGGER, and it shouldn’t take too long too finish. Then it’s on to the edits of SOUL OF SORCERY!
-JM
Nice! Looks like I have another thing to purchase on my kindle…
Two questions related to your novella:
1. Length-I know it is a novella, but some are alot shorter than others, what are you aiming for page wise?
2. Price-I don’t mean to be petty here, your books are dirt cheap as is, I’m just curious
1.) About 25,000 words or so, which comes to about 100 pages, approximately.
2.) I’m planning on $1.99, though the price might go up if sales taxes for ebooks gets passed.
“about 100 pages”
That’s good! I thought it would be half that, many of the novellas I have read were very short, around or below 50 pages.
“if sales taxes for ebooks gets passed”
Ugh. I heard about that. Why oh why does the government feel it needs ruin everything.
Eventually, I want to do an omnibus edition of the first three GHOSTS novels, and a novella would help round it out, as well.