ConCarolinas and new covers!

First up: This weekend (June 3 - 5) I will be at ConCarolinas along with tons of other people way more awesome than I am. Hooray! If you're in or around Charlotte, NC, tickets are cheap and the guests are awesome. Plus I will talk at you until you're sick of me :D. So stop by if you're in the area!! (To see what panels were gullible enough to let me behind the table, click here and select my name from the "Guests" drop down!)

Second, the wonderful Orbit art team will be debuting the cover for my new omnibus on the 8th! Hooray!! I've seen the final already, and I gotta say I can't wait to show you guys. Arrrgh, all this not talking makes me crazy. I'll post the cover as soon as Orbit puts it up. Eli looks very yummy, I must say!

And speaking of not talking, have I mentioned I finished book 5? Well I did! And just today I've finished the first round of edits. Now it's off to my first round readers so we can see where I dropped the ball... or if the ball even left the floor in some places... ahem, moving on. I tend to edit in many rounds, turning the story over until all the bumps are polished off. This book is definitely the most complicated I've ever written, and there are several sections that need some work, but I'm confident that anyone whose read the first three books and liked them is going to love the last two, especially the ending. Arrrgh x 2, can not wait!

Anyway, hope to see some of you at the convention, and definitely keep your eyes peeled for a sexy cover next week!

- R

I emerge from the shadows and...

... answer kindly questions at The Civilian Reader! It was a really fun interview and I drop a lot of information about the last 2 Eli books (as well as why I'm an awful blogger). So if that's your thing, go on over!

But there was 1 question I didn't get a chance to put in the interview, so I wanted to address it here. Namely, why do I continually refer to the last 2 Eli books as "Book 4" and "Book 5" rather than, I don't know, by their freaking titles? The answer, gentle reader, leads us deep into the wild and wooly world of publishing.

It all started when Orbit, my beloved publisher, decided that rather than releasing the last two books like they did the first two - as mass market paper backs with color coded face covers in 2011, they were going to instead wait until 2012 and then do a an omnibus edition of my first 3 books quickly followed by books 4 and 5. This decision was made for a lot of reasons - sales, the fact that book 4 is freaking huge and book 5 is probably going to be just as big (ie. WAY too large for a mass market paperback), wanting a new look for the series, etc. etc. All of these reasons were explained to me, and I'm totally behind the rebranding. I've already seen the omnibus cover art and I like it a LOT. I'll post it all over the web the moment I get permission.

But wait, we were talking about TITLES. Ahem.

Back when I was first signing contracts, the last 2 books of the Eli Monpress Series were titled "The Spirit War" and "Spirit's End" to go along with the Spirit naming structure. These were not my original titles, but then, none of the books have their original titles except for The Spirit Thief. But hey, part of being an author is being flexible with your titles.

(For those who are curious, the series was always going to be 5 books and the titles were as follows:
Book 1 - "The Spirit Thief" was always "The Spirit Thief"
Book 2  - "The Spirit Rebellion" used to be "The Real Monpress"
Book 3 - "The Spirit Eater" used to be "Daughter of the Dead Mountain"
Book 4 - "The Spirit War" used to be "Josef's War"
Book 5 - "Spirit's End" used to be "The Other Side of the Sky")

But with the rebranding, we're not so sure about the titles anymore. After all, since book 1 is now going to be "The Legend of Eli Monpress Vol. I, II, and III", the whole Spirit nomenclature isn't as important anymore. We'll probably keep the names we've already chosen, as The Spirit War and Spirit's End are perfectly fine, fitting names that match the rest of the series, but since I don't know 100% for sure that's what the books will be called, I'm just sticking to what I know, Book 4 and Book 5.

Now that I'm days away from finishing book 5, one thing is certain: Both of these final books are about as dark as The Spirit Eater. That said, Eli only gets mouthier the deeper into trouble he gets, so you can put any fears to rest about this turning into some sort of grim fantasy slog. It's hard to get too dark when one of your main characters is a talking ball of water. I'm very, VERY happy with how book 4 came out, and book 5 is shaping up nicely.  I can't wait for 2012 when everything will be done and I finally get to share them with you!

I hope this clears up some questions, and thank you all as always for reading!

- Rachel