The price for West Oversea will not be $24.95, but $13.95.

The higher price was just a template thing on the image file from the artist.

I think I can say with confidence that this alone should bring us out of the recession.

I intended to write a long book review tonight, but it’s been a crazy evening. I had to spend a considerable amount of time, both on the phone and by e-mail, discussing final tweaks on the book cover. The artist is a little like an author in that he doesn’t much cotton to criticism of his aesthetic vision. But apparently the editor and the publisher are going to lean on him a little tonight.

This is a new experience in publishing for me. Baen Books, which had many virtues, did not bother giving authors much input on covers (I did get some, but nobody ever sent me a .pdf and asked for my input as Nordskog is doing). I think this will turn out to be a pretty effective cover when all’s done, but it’s a sweat.

And I’ve still got to make a phone call and pay my bills tonight. Not to mention watching CSI and checking my Facebook page. I’ll see you tomorrow.

It’s a highlight of the spring every year—my first constitutional walk down by Crystal Lake. It was too warm at the beginning for the sweatshirt and cap I wore, but I was glad I had them when I got down by the water. Spring isn’t actually spronging yet—we haven’t gotten enough rain—but the sun was shining, the air was mild, and it all made even Hugh Hewitt’s relentless optimism on the radio seem not entirely delusional.

What else is going on? We’re near finalizing the cover for the new book. I think. It will not, as I’d been given to understand earlier, resemble the cover of The Year of the Warrior in any way. They fired that artist. The new guy has put together a yellow-dominated cover with a misty Viking ship under sail in the center, and the title done in an Anglo-Saxon/Book of Kells sort of font. My name will be in a runic font, which is just fine.

I’ll keep you posted as the process crawls on.