Again, thanks

So it's out, and the response is great, and I wanted to come on to thank you all for all your support. Again.

Blackjack has been a gift, a surprise and a cathartic journey. You've all seen my ramblings here, so I won't go into it except to say I couldn't have done without all your help and ideas and comments. And now on Amazon I'm getting more and more feedback. Go see the reviews and look at how detailed people are getting with their "pro/con" stuff. I love it. I can't believe the effort some of you guys are putting to these reviews. They give me strength.

And I love the criticism. Of course it's not a perfect book. What is, War and Peace? Nope. Ulysses? Come on, three pages about a bowel movement? But hearing your problems with the story, the character, the pacing, etc., only goes to help me moving forward.

Forward...what's next? Well, I've been rudderless the past few weeks. I drifted off IO to another short project and finally to another. Some of you might be worried that I'm moving on from Blackjack. This book has a sense of finality, doesn't it? There's no major cliffhanger (Haha?) and one could look at it as a completed trilogy. Where we find Blackjack at the end of the book is kind of a nice place to be, right? Well, don't worry. We're already talking, thinking about Blackjack 4, tentatively called Messiah, though were aren't going to get hot and heavy with it until the beginning of next year. The thing about the next book is that we've got part of it ready, the plot well defined - it's ready to go. So I'm not going to let it linger, like I did with B3, and I'm not going to get sidetracked with another monster project.

IO is near completion of the first book. Right now, I'd say it's going to be a two book story, with one book coming out sometime in 2016 and the other in 2017 or 2018-ish. If you guys have had followed the development of the story here, or bought one of the "episodes" in the cancelled series, then you know it's going to be an interesting romp into a new and different world. I'm as excited about that as I've been about anything.

I know, you guys want Blackjack, I feel your rage as you see me drifting from him. Don't despair, don't freak. We're on it, and there won't be another 2.5 year gap between Blackjack stories. The great thing about IO is that book one is almost done, then I can hand it off to the other writer/editors and work on Blackjack while they slave away.

One last word about my co-writer on this, Joshua Hoade. This time his name goes on the cover, right next to mine, and that's for a reason; he made B3 so much better. Not only was he involved with the plotting and editing, he did a fair bit of first draft writing and was responsible for all the edits. Josh also kept my head in the game (as he's doing now with IO), and was a constant advocate for the piece. B3 exists in no small part because of his efforts, and I will forever be thankful of his participation. Moving forward, we've enjoyed our new process so much that we've decided to keep it going in the future. He'll be a co- in B4 and in everything else we do from here on out.

To recap our plans: it's IO, or maybe a small project to finish the year, then back to Blackjack, and in the meantime, another humble thanks to everyone for all your support.

Blackjack Dead or Alive is now available on Amazon

Hope you guys enjoy! By the way "Pitty" is what the dude wrote in the excoriating review. Not my problem!!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Blackjack-Dead-Alive-Book-ebook/dp/B016FJNZDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444510409&sr=8-1&keywords=blackjack+dead+or+alive

IO on hold...for a good reason

I'm putting IO down for about a week...wanna know why?

Cause of Blackjack. Yeah, big guy's a bully and he throws his weight around here too. He's done with Josh (the editor) and now he wants a piece of me. I got it yesterday morning and I'm through half of it already. Guys, I love this book. I know, I'm biased, but I love what we're doing here

So timing-wise, I should have Blackjack: Dead or Alive done in the next few days and ready for upload. Amazon takes a day to approve everything, then it should be yours. Only a year and six months late. Let's make sure that the next Blackjack book doesn't take so long.

I have to admit, the last book left me a bit gunshy. It left me a bit spent. I went through a strange ordeal in writing it and you can tell in the finished product - in particular the finale. My mind wasn't right. B3 has left me the opposite, uplifted and positive. I can't wait to get back to IO, to finish it, and to start on the next B4 book.

This morning I was driving around, letting scenes play out in my head and I thought, "wait, that's B4 stuff. Stop that. Concentrate on 3." That's a good thing. Finishing 2 I couldn't have said the same thing. It was a harder book to write than this one and the aftermath wasn't as pretty.

Anyway, I have to check it, format it for epub publish, do the new cover...YES, NEW COVER! I love you Erik Lehmann. Then upload the sucker and let you guys have at it. I want to put together the formatted versions for Createspace's print on demand, too. I know, most people read on their Kindles/Nooks/smartphones/computers, but I want to give you guys the option of buying it on print as well. It's tricky since it's such a long book. The more pages you have, the higher the prices go, and at a certain point, I don't want to seem like I'm gouging you guys, or appear like a greedy bastard. The truth is that the print versions will be like 15-18 bucks per book. I know, it sucks. Don't buy it if you can go epub. It's just a couple of bucks for the epub.

Okay, so IO on hold a week or so, Blackjack in between, then back to IO, then...I forget.