Hey everyone!

I'm just now getting my wits back about me. Last weekend I set up a booth at the Pecan Street Festival here in Austin, and it was both exhausting and exhilarating. But more about that in a second.

You're readers, so although I'm sure you're super interested in my comings and goings (or possibly not at all), you're more interested in books. So first, an update on that.

My new trilogy

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Sean Platt and I have started writing together again after a brief hiatus. We're currently roughing out the basics of an Indiana-Jones-type story, but obviously this is that general milieu with a very Truant and Platt twist. What's cool is that this story (which will begin as a trilogy, and we'll see where it goes) covers a lot of the same thematic ground and elements that I'd had in mind for my earlier-this-year project called The Ephemera, which I've shelved for now. So it's scratching a few itches at once.

(It's a long story. I sort of told it before, but the short vision is that I have a lot more fun writing with Sean than I do on my own, and the lack-of-fun of The Ephemera sort of doomed it for now. I may revisit it later.)

The whole thing is pretty embryonic at this point, but the plan is to have the first of those books ready to publish in January. I'll keep you informed.

My new book for authors

I'm guessing you won't care about this update because most people on this list aren't authors, but just in case you are:

The trilogy mentioned above is my "current" project because Sean and I are in its clay right now, even though we're not yet writing. But my CURRENT CURRENT project -- the thing I'm writing while we figure out the bones of the fiction story, which often takes a while -- is actually a new nonfiction book for authors.

If you're a writer or know any writers, you might want to check it out. It's called The Artisan Author, it's about restoring sanity to our out-of-control, race-to-the-bottom world of independent publishing, and it's launching on Kickstarter on July 15. You can learn more about The Artisan Author here if you're an author yourself.

Out meeting readers!

So yeah -- last weekend was the Pecan Street Festival here in Austin. It's a huge event that normally attracts around 400,000 people, but this year they moved it to about ten minutes from my house and seemed smaller than that ... but still enormous.

This was my first year selling at the Pecan Street Festival. I paid big bucks for an "endcap" booth so that I could display on three sides, and my wife, who actually walked the whole thing (I never left my booth) said I was the only author there. I think I was a pleasant surprise for a lot of people. So many folks delighted to see an author in the flesh, with so many books to sell:

It was EXHAUSTING. And also AMAZING. My official load-in window was between midnight and 5am the night before the festival. I was then selling between 11am-9pm on Saturday and 11am-8pm on Sunday. Then I collapsed.

It's a lot, but I absolutely love being out there meeting people and introducing them to my stories. It's also fascinating to see what people gravitate toward and what they don't really care about. Fat Vampire, for instance, sells only moderately well. The big sellers are Pretty Killer, Unicorn Western, Winter Break, and Dead City.

I'll definitely be at the Pecan Street Festival again when it returns in September. I've actually already applied. If you'd like to know where you can find me IRL in the meantime, I always keep this page on my website up to date.

But yeah, I'm beat as hell now. Restocking books, trying to get my head back on my shoulders ... all while working on The Artisan Author while preparing to write that new trilogy with Sean soon.

Man, it's good to have so much going on.

I hope you have an awesome week of reading!
JT