For those of you who have been waiting for the next book in the Earthfleet saga, aka Empire Rising, I want to let you know that yes, it is still coming.  But as for when it will be out, that's anyone's guess at this point.  It seems like this particular book is being the most difficult of all four so far.  To date we've had the initial manuscript file get corrupted, not once, but twice: Once during editing, and once during layout.

That in turn has caused other delays.  Then, to add to those delays, my publisher has been so swamped that he hasn't been able to devote enough attention to this book to get the last of the issues resolved, so we've been delayed further that way.  Most of that lack of time is due to work piling up because he got delayed in certain areas.  It's like with anything, if you're on a tight schedule and one thing throws you off, you either have to set it aside and keep going until a break is found where you can work on it, or you risk having everything else get behind more and more until you end up with a complete train wreck.  So guess who's been getting set aside. Yup, me.

But that's not all the things that have been conspiring against this book as far as getting it published and out there.  But that does give you a little sample of what I'm dealing with right now.  Thankfully I'm now down to final approval on both manuscripts.  As soon as my publisher can get me the recently fixed Empire Rising manuscript, I'll read it through, approve the proof, and get it down the road for printing.  Once that's done, the rest is easy and the first printing of books should come shortly after.

Now there is going to be one upside to all this.  Due to how long Empire Rising has been delayed, it means that I'll be releasing books 4 and 5 at the same time.  So not only will you get book 4 here soon, but you'll also get book 5!  So hang in there everyone.  Book 4 is coming, and I will do everything I can to ensure that it's released soon.