In a word: editing. I’m currently on the fifth (and probably final) edit of Exodus, the third and final book in the Navigator trilogy. I find editing quite difficult, but have been glad to actually enjoy re-reading Exodus so many times in a row!
I’m also heartened that there haven’t been a lot of glaring issues; it’s mostly been tightening sentences for clarity, removing unnecessary commas and so on. The number of actual proper typos, or continuity errors etc has been (hopefully) relatively low.
So, what happens next? Once I’ve finished the final edit, there’s still a fair amount to do, including:
- I’m keen to release second editions of both Parasites and Dusk, with very minor tweaking, so these need to be re-set and released
- The cover art for Exodus needs to be created, along with the maps for each book. I wasn’t happy with how the map looked in Dusk, so I’m going to re-commission an artist to have another go
- Exodus also needs to be laid out for both print and kindle, and fitted into the right template
- We’ll also have a book tour! Most book tours don’t do tours for second or third books in a trilogy, so I’m hoping we can celebrate all three books at once, with some kind of giveaway
All of this takes time, so it will be a fair bit longer before Exodus hits the shelves. Because of other commitments, each edit of Exodus has been taking about three weeks, so we definitely won’t be ready until at least the early New Year. However, in the meantime, I’ll just be waiting for people to get stuff done – and as such, can start working on either Grace and Vengeance, The Slow and Gentle Wyrd or even The Witch Lord’s Apprentice, which I’ve been looking forward to writing for some time.
Thank you for your patience, and I hope you (eventually) enjoy Exodus as much as I do.