Jonathan Moeller vs. release dates!

A reader asked why I never announce exact release dates for my books, and instead usually say what month they’ll be released. So instead of saying that FROSTBORN: EXCALIBUR will be released on January 13th, 2017 (like it actually was), I tend to say instead that the book will come out in January or February of 2017.

I do actually have good reasons for that! They’re reasons that I all learned the hard way, too. 🙂

To quote the heading of Chapter 1 of GHOST IN THE INFERNO, Something Always Goes Wrong.

Usually, it’s something technical that goes wrong. Like, in the example of FROSTBORN: EXCALIBUR, the book would have come out on January 12th, but it took Barnes & Noble a long time to process the file, which also happened for GHOST IN THE ASHES back in 2013. For FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING, Google Play had an internal problem over the 4th of July weekend of 2016 when I uploaded the book, so it didn’t show up on Google Play until a week had passed. When I did CLOAK GAMES: REBEL FIST at the end of 2015, it had a big delay on Amazon because of holiday-related processing.

It’s also possible for something to go wrong in Real Life, too – car problems and bills and blizzards and all the usual problems of life. If a problem lands at the wrong time, it can soak up a couple of days’ worth of writing-related work.

Because of all this, I’ve found it’s better to have a target month instead of a target date. If you set a hard date and miss it, it’s hard to get that trust back. Better to admit that something will probably go wrong and plan for it than to set up for failure.

In that vein, if all goes well, CLOAK GAMES: TRUTH CHAIN should come out in February 2017. 🙂

-JM