Time for some shameless self-promotion. But then, is there any other kind of self-promotion?I’ll get right down to it. A new novel by me is now available. Its title is Dossouye, and it is being published by Sword & Soul Media, through www.lulu.com. That’s right … print-on-demand. I’ll tell you the reason I went that route in a minute.The novel is based on several stories I’ve had published over the years about a black woman warrior named Dossouye. Her adventures take place in an alternate-world Africa that is not the same as the setting I developed for my other major character, Imaro. Dossouye’s tales appeared in several anthologies, including Amazons!, Sword and Sorceress and Dark Matter. I revised those stories so they would fit together as a narrative whole, and added a new novella.As for why the book is coming out via print-on-demand … on two separate occasions, separated by a time span of more than 20 years, my Imaro novels were published in the conventional manner: publisher pays advance, publisher prints books, publisher ties to sell enough books to make back the advance and other costs, and maybe pay author royalties. That paradigm didn’t work for me with DAW Books from 1981 to 1985, nor with Night Shade Books in 2006 and 2007. Both publishers discontinued the Imaro series because sales were not good.Before Night Shade pulled the plug after publishing revised versions of my first two Imaro novels (DAW managed to put out three; there are five books in all), I connected with a young man named Brother Uraeus. He works for a publisher, and aspired to establish his own print-on-demand imprint. He wondered whether I’d be interested in collecting the Dossouye stories into a single volume, to be published via print-on-demand.The idea sounded good to me. That way, both Imaro and Dossouye would be out at the same time.While we were putting this project together, I got the bad news from Night Shade. That was a setback, but it also made me all the more determined to make the Dossouye novel the best it could be. Uraeus was just as determined, as he went about designing and formatting the book. For the cover art, he enlisted the services of Mshindo Kuumba, a renowned artist and illustrator. Mshindo’s work completed the Dossouye package, and I’m proud of all aspects of the book.In the immediate future, I intend to publish the rest of my Imaro novels with Sword & Soul. For now, Dossouye takes center stage. She’s ready for you, and I hope y’all are ready for her.
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