For some reason, Nerdvana hasn’t come out yet. It was listed on Amazon and other sites as releasing on November 17, but it remains in pre-order state. I don’t know why that is. As soon as it becomes available, I’ll certainly write about it here.

“Rivals,” meanwhile, is full steam ahead for release on Monday as part of the Dreamspinner Press Nap-Size Dreams series. With “Rivals” I had my first brush with e-book piracy this week. I discovered “Rivals” was already available on a file sharing site. I took the appropriate steps to get that removed, which happened within a couple of days. Sadly, it’s not a big surprise that it was there (except for the fact it wasn’t out for purchase yet). Since I’m being published by Dreamspinner I’ve been granted access to their Google author group and I’d already seen several posts about this problem. Luckily there were emails with directions on how to get the files removed from these sites so I was able to take action quickly.

“Rivals” is the first time I’ve taken out a copyright myself so it was kind of fun to go out there and defend it. With other stories I’ve had published, I’ve let the fact that they appear in a physical book or magazine take care of the copyright. Since “Rivals” is an eBook, I filed with the copyright office for it so there is no doubt that it is mine. Having Google Alerts set up for “Rivals” was a handy tip I learned from the Dreamspinner Group. It’s how I’ve been following the web presence of the story, including its inclusion on the file sharing site. I set one up for Nerdvana too so I can see what’s going on with that book as well.

Meanwhile, since work has calmed down I’ve been back to the editing and revising of Neutral Zone. It’s great to be back here. My goal is to have it revised by the end of the year so I can do something meaningful with it in 2010 (as in get it in front of agents and/or publishers) . Wish me luck on that endeavor!

I also killed a story, or at least put a story in a coma, since I blogged last. I was working on a piece for an anthology around sexy skateborders. The idea flowed on to paper pretty well, but it just didn’t gel into something I liked. Needless to say I didn’t submit it. Will is taking a look at the story and might try bring it back to life. It might turn into a co-writing adventure … and that would be fun.