BarryHutchison

I found out yesterday that the first book in the INVISIBLE FIENDS series – MR MUMBLES – which was due to come out on January 7th, will now be published on February 4th. The reasons are all marketing related, as the publisher, HarperCollins, believes bringing it out in early January is too close to Christmas for it to make much of an impact. By bringing it out in February there is more opportunity to promote the book in advance of publication, which should hopefully help it notch up a few more sales.

It’s disappointing that the date has been shifted, but it has been done for all the right reasons, so I have no doubt it’s for the best.

In brighter news, the first draft I submitted of book 3 in the series has been accepted pending some minor changes, so no big rewrite required. I was worried about the third book, because of all the books in the series it has the least to do.

Book 1 introduces us to the characters and the concept, book 2 sets up the larger story arc properly, while books 4 & 5 start answering some of the questions from the earlier books, leading on to the big finale in book 6. Book 3 almost felt like a fill-in story when I started writing it, but I managed to find ways to make it just as important as the others. It’s definitely the scariest of the series so far, and I was convinced I was going to be asked to tone a lot of it down, but fortunately it made it through relatively unscathed.

I’m not sure if other writers are the same, but I get very nervous submitting a draft for the first time. With book 2 I was convinced my editor was going to hate it, but he didn’t. With book 3 I was even more convinced he would hate it, and I was preparing myself for some major rewrites. But once again I was wrong. Thankfully.

Maybe the problem will come when I submit a manuscript I’m 100% confident about. That will be the one that needs a lot of work. Until then I’ll keep being a paranoid wreck, living in dread of the editorial notes telling me that every last word of the manuscript needs to be changed, or that I should never be doing this job in the first place.