...not as I do.
I've had a lot of emails recently with people asking when Fire Along the Sky will be out in paperback. I wish I had a definitive answer, but the best I can do is this: sometime between August and December of this year. Publishers set their schedules according to a bigger picture, and I have no voice in that process. I wish I could give more reliable information, but that's all I have.
You should know that as an author, I am both pleased and distressed by questions like this. Somebody wants to buy my book: that's great. That's encouraging. That same person is impatient, and wants the next book or the next edition right now: that's also encouraging, in a way, but it's also distressing. I think Robin Williams once said the life of a comic was hard because people were always pointing at you and demanding: be funny!
The writer's equivalent, of course, is that every day I should be putting out a solid chapter. If I could do that, I'd have a novel in 30-50 days. But I can't.
You should also know that when I am on the other side of the equation, I am also impatient and less than understanding. Just today I was wondering about Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Stephen Hunter, GM Ford, John Sandford. What are these guys doing, playing poker someplace instead of working on their next novels? Because I'm ready to read them: right now.
They can't be funny on cue, either, and that's something I have to live with. But it does occur to me: why don't I get invited to the poker game? Except for the obvious reason that (1) I don't know any of these guys and (2) I don't play poker. In fact, I'm terrible at card games -- at all games -- pretty much without exception. And I really stink at Scrabble. All the pressure, all those tiny squares looking at me, demanding that I arrange them into a word that will knock out the competition, demanding that I produce, right now, right now, right now. Can't do it. Never could.