Why the big deal in May? Because May is MY month, and my publishing house is MAY Publishing. How can I not celebrate May? And by that most capitalist of means, a sale!

April was a good month for sales. I’m pushing to make May even better. As part of that strategy, I’ve reduced the price of the ebook to $2.99 and dropped the price of the trade paperback as well. May is the month I will have a few blog tours going on, which may create some buzz. And of course, I have you, my loyal readers, telling everyone you know to buy my book. [insert ascii grin here]

Long-time blog readers will remember that May is my month. MAY are my initials. My publishing company is called MAY Publishing. And that is partly why I’m having a sale on the book for the entire month of May. I actually started the sale today, so you can click through and get the sale price now. You never know how long it will take to get the price changed, and I wanted it ready on time.

I’m feeling very confident about my writing career these days. This time next year, who knows where I’ll be? Book 2 will be out in the autumn, and that’s when I think I’ll start getting a decent amount of sales. Until then, well, I still have my day job. And I’m enjoying the hell out of writing this series.

I can wait. I’m a very, very patient person when it comes to the important things.

BUT–

Now I have more time to write.

My YA fantasy novel, Darkness Rising, is currently in the editing stage. My cover art is due in a week. I found a terrific cover designer. And I’m working on a new website.

This website, my friends, is going to be retired. Sometime next month, my writing website-slash-blog will go live. I will not be posting daily briefs about Israel and politics. I’m not quite sure what I will be writing about besides, well, writing.

When I first started this blog, I had just been laid off from my second job as an entry-level programmer. It was during the bad old days of the bursting of the tech bubble. I decided to create the blog (by hand!) as a way of keeping up my web skills, and also as a way of starting to write every day. Sure, it wasn’t fiction, but then along came Iseema bin Laden and the Hulk and a few other things, and before I knew it, I had an audience and a desire to write even more. Eleven-plus years later, well, the writing paid off. In a few weeks, we will know exactly how much. However, the writing is taking precedence over everything else. Writing for a living is what I’ve wanted all of my adult life. Blogging about Israel, Jewish issues, and politics is a hobby.

That said, well, I’ve never been able to keep my opinions to myself. Honestly, I have no idea what the future is going to bring. But I know that this is the most important, most meaningful, and hopefully most life-changing year I have ever had. I hope you’ll all be along for the ride, but if you’re not, well, there’s a great, big JBlogosphere out there that I helped to found, and that will do just fine without me.

And by the way, take a good look at the rough cover copy. I think many of my readers will find something they like in the novel, particularly the source of the Catmages’ powers.

Andy Cohen was just your average middle school kid who went to class, played videogames, and tried to avoid the class bully–until the day that Goldeneyes came into his life. She’s a Catmage, a cat with human intelligence and magic powers. He’s the boy in the prophecy who is supposed to help the Catmages stop the Evil One from rising again–if they can find Nafshi, the most powerful Catmage of them all. Will they find her in time, or will the enemy kill her and steal her powerful Magelight? Darkness Rising, Book One in The Catmage Chronicles, coming in August. By Meryl Yourish.

If you liked Harry Potter, I think you’re going to like The Catmage Chronicles. And yes, you will hear about it here, first. Immediately after pushing the “publish” button on Amazon, I’ll publish a post with a link to the novel, which will be available in ebook and trade paperback.

Change is often a good thing. It’s time for me to take a new path. Stick around and see what happens. But if you don’t, well, thanks for being here. It’s been a fun ride. But I’m going to make that left turn at Albuquerque and see what happens.

I’ve written a rough blurb. I need to write a better one. But here’s the basic plot of the novel:

Andy Cohen was just your average middle school kid who went to class, played videogames, and tried to avoid the class bully–until the day that Goldeneyes came into his life. She’s a Catmage, a cat with human intelligence and magic powers. He’s the boy in the prophecy who is supposed to help the Catmages stop the Evil One from rising again–if they can find Nafshi, the most powerful Catmage of them all. Will they find her in time, or will the enemy kill her and steal her powerful Magelight? Darkness Rising, Book One in The Catmage Chronicles, coming in August. By Meryl Yourish.

If you liked Harry Potter, I think you will like my novel. It currently stands at about 85,000 words, probably 320 printed pages. And there will be a print edition. I’m using Amazon’s CreateSpace so you can buy an ebook or a paper version. Publication date is sometime in August.

I think my readers will get a huge kick out of the origin of the Catmages’ powers. Here’s a hint: They come as a result of the first Passover. This is not, however, a Jewish novel. It’s a YA fantasy novel. You are all expected to buy it the first week it’s out, because that’s how I jump up on the Amazon charts and stay there. The ebook version will cost less than a penny a word at first. Early readers get the sale price. (ADDED: This is why I don’t do math. I thought that a penny a word was $8.50. Oops. Yeah, the book will be going for sale around $5.99.)

I’m also counting on my readers to spread the word. You can be a huge help to me by linking to the book on Amazon on your own blogs (and if you’re an Amazon associate, you make a little bit of money for every sale) and forums and talking up the book in your offline life.

This is a big, big time in my life. Nervous? Me? Don’t be ridiculous. What do you mean, the post looks a little shaky? It’s your imagaination. :-)

I’m trying to write a summary, but I think I need to farm it out. I’m not that great at it. Also looking for a cover designer. It’s coming out in ebook as well as POD available from Amazon, still looking at a mid-August launch date. So things are going well.

I have to say, since I’m reading it in its entirety for the first time since I wrote it–it’s a damned good story. I’m pretty happy with it. I think you will be, too.

I did it.

I want to jump up and down and shout and then set off fireworks outside. But my neighbors probably wouldn’t like the last, so I won’t.

I am, however, going to go downstairs and pour myself a drink.

I’ve earned it.

Details to come. Soon!

And you know, I’m currently pretty tired of writing, having spent much of the day at it.

So I’ll stop now.

I identified the chapters that needed the work and took them on, one at a time. Chapters one through twelve are effectively finished. Thirteen through seventeen need about 40-50 pages added, I think. The manuscript is going to come in at about 300 pages.

I think I can finish it by this weekend, which is only a few days later than my May 31 deadline. Then the hard work of line editing begins, then I send it off to my friend the copy editor, then I revise it again and send it to the proofreader. After that, it’s time to take care of the business end of things, like completely revising this website. I think I’ve finally figured out what I want to do: The blog will become a writing blog, and I will also post on Jewish and Israeli issues when the feeling arises. Or maybe I’ll run two blogs on the site. Okay, I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do. Darn it.

You know, today I realized that only about six weeks ago, I started my 50,000 word challenge. I was at exactly 41,702 words then, and wanted to see if I could hit 50k by April 30th. I did. And 29 days later, I have another 20k words. That’s without writing on April 30th, because I hit my goal and took a break.

In other words: Things are going very well. I’ll be sending the manuscript off to beta readers in about a month or so. Do I have any readers who are also editors or writers and want to be beta readers? Email me or post a comment here. (Of course, that doesn’t let you off the hook for getting a copy of the e-book when it’s published. We have got to get this puppy up the Amazon lists!)

Things are going very well, indeed.