No, my last blog entry wasn't an early April Fool's joke, just the result of my optimistic outlook. This is the real scoop on the release date of the first entry in the new Nightscape Double Feature series...
The book will now be available on December 9th--the same day the Nightscape concept album is released both digitally and on CD. The delay this time is due to Amazon's policy against Ace Double-style flip-books, which forced us to revise the layout of the cover and interior pages. While there's no technical reason why Amazon can't print this format, the company has a strict policy against books with multiple titles on its CreateSpace platform. In order to placate Amazon, we had to ensure a single title and re-orient the text. It's a disappointing change, but graphic designer Ryan Peinhardt made the most of it by incorporating key elements from the original dual cover design in the final layout.
Please know that this book will be available only in paperback as some experimental typography in the second story, The Q for Damnation, makes conversion to the Kindle format impossible. These typographical tricks aren't just superficial embellishments but an essential reflection of the chief protagonist's view of the world. The vigilante-detective Manteau sees the world through a surreal lens and we deemed it key to show that unique take on things in the story's presentation. These typographic treatments are basically the visual equivalent of onomatopoeia. They include diary entries, newspaper articles and cut-outs, retail signs, medical records, letters and line-breaks that imply various actions, among other things.
The cascading delays for this book have been personally frustrating, but I hope the final product proves entertaining. I continue to believe that this series provides a unique, easy-to-read jumping-on point for the Nightscape mythos. I had an opportunity to share the book's first story, The Thousand-Eyed Fear, with a few Beta readers and it received uniformly impressive marks, so I'm hopeful it will find its audience. And fortunately, the second entry in this series is well underway...