Hey everyone. There's some bad news in the Powder Mage universe today. As some of you may have noticed when Amazon changed the release date yesterday, The Crimson Campaign has been delayed. It has been pushed back from February 18th, 2014 to May 6th, 2014; a delay of about two and a half months. Let me assure you that I'm just as disappointed as you are. Release dates have quickly become the major milestones in my life (this being my full time job) and changing one of them has a pretty huge effect on me psychologically.

That being said, my publisher has decided that a May release would be so much better in order to put The Crimson Campaign into has many hands as possible. I completely trust their decision in this matter. They've done such an awesome job with my books so far, I don't think they're going to let me down now. You may be grumbling that it sounds like a marketing decision and wondering why this matters to you. It is, and it does: the better The Crimson Campaign (and subsequent books) does in the bookstores, the better I will do as an author, which will allow me to focus on writing and not, say, go find a full time job doing something else. This means that you'll continue getting a Powder Mage book every year for the next four years after this one, rather than me having to spread out the release dates because I don't have as much time to write.

This also effects the release of the Promise of Blood trade paperback. Orbit will push that release back to April 8th in the US. The UK release will stay the same (January 18th). Yes, the trade paperbacks are already printed. They are pushing this back so that the TP of Promise of Blood and the hardcover of The Crimson Campaign are in the bookstore at the same time (new releases generally only spend 3-4 months in the bookstore).

I know this all amounts to a big pile of having to wait for all of you guys. I'm sorry about that. To help ease the waiting a bit, I'm going to fast track a couple of story ideas I have and put out more Powder Mage short stories this winter. The first of these will introduce us to Erika, the wife of Field Marshal Tamas.

Sorry to let you down, and I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season!