I last came by here on September 28th, 2011. A few weeks before publishing Stalin's Hammer: Rome, the intended sequel to my Axis of Time trilogy. And then, nothing. I wrote another novella in that series but it never saw the light of day. It has sat, quietly and a little sadly, on my hard drive ever since. (Actually it's moved around across a couple of different hard drives, before eventually ascending to the cloud).
It wasn't that readers rejected Stalin's Hammer. (Okay, some did. Some always do). A lot of people wanted more. Having invested in the start of the story they wanted to know what happened next. Me too. Go figure.
Unfortunately the realties of having rival publishing houses in different markets made that impossible. I won't go into the details. It would sound like special pleading. Bottom line was I couldn't release the book in any kind of rational way.
This has bugged me for a long, long time. (Since at least September 28th, 2011, as it turns out). Last year, for a bunch of reasons, I lost patience. I've decided to self publish the rest of the series and to give away, at least initially, the book I finished but never released; Stalin's Hammer: Cairo. I am still working with my trade publishers on other projects, but not on these Alt Hist stories.
So, the reason I'm here...
Once upon a time there were a lot of fans of Weapons of Choice and the other AoT books on the various AH boards. Some of them may have bought Rome and waited and waited and waited for the next instalment.
I can't ask readers like that to pay for the new book. I will eventually release it for sale, but first I want to give it away, quietly, to AH fans. I have a way of doing that at an online bookclub I run, but I'm not going to drop that link in here today. Some people might think ill of such skeevy, grasping behaviour.
So today, I'm just asking the question. Would anyone be interested in getting the free copy, before it goes on sale? (Probably in mid-to-late May). If enough people do, and there is no general objection, I'll provide details. On the other hand if you would like me to fuck off with my tail between my legs, I will thank you for your time and consideration.
John Birmingham
It wasn't that readers rejected Stalin's Hammer. (Okay, some did. Some always do). A lot of people wanted more. Having invested in the start of the story they wanted to know what happened next. Me too. Go figure.
Unfortunately the realties of having rival publishing houses in different markets made that impossible. I won't go into the details. It would sound like special pleading. Bottom line was I couldn't release the book in any kind of rational way.
This has bugged me for a long, long time. (Since at least September 28th, 2011, as it turns out). Last year, for a bunch of reasons, I lost patience. I've decided to self publish the rest of the series and to give away, at least initially, the book I finished but never released; Stalin's Hammer: Cairo. I am still working with my trade publishers on other projects, but not on these Alt Hist stories.
So, the reason I'm here...
Once upon a time there were a lot of fans of Weapons of Choice and the other AoT books on the various AH boards. Some of them may have bought Rome and waited and waited and waited for the next instalment.
I can't ask readers like that to pay for the new book. I will eventually release it for sale, but first I want to give it away, quietly, to AH fans. I have a way of doing that at an online bookclub I run, but I'm not going to drop that link in here today. Some people might think ill of such skeevy, grasping behaviour.
So today, I'm just asking the question. Would anyone be interested in getting the free copy, before it goes on sale? (Probably in mid-to-late May). If enough people do, and there is no general objection, I'll provide details. On the other hand if you would like me to fuck off with my tail between my legs, I will thank you for your time and consideration.
John Birmingham
