The next book released is Mark Ellott’s ‘Renegade’, a tale of piracy in which many buckles are suitably swashed. It should have been out a long time ago, as should several others in the queue. This also marks the first attempt at the new Amazon option of a hardcover version for us, and it seems to have worked out okay, There is one on order to see if that’s true. There are still books in the queue but the matters that have caused delays seem to be easing and we’re catching up.

It seems likely that previous books could also develop hardcover versions and future ones (single author books) definitely will. They are about double the price of the paperbacks so probably won’t sell many copies but it costs nothing to try.

It’s not likely that the Underdog Anthologies will appear in hardback since they are meant to be as low-priced as possible, although the much vaunted but not so far delivered omnibus editions might be. It’s a matter for the future, there is still this backlog to deal with first.

The ‘spring’ anthology was delayed because an idiot (me) typed May instead of March as the deadline. It wasn’t such a bad thing. It helped move the backlog at least a little and it means authors can submit short stories up to the end of May. So it was allowed to stand. Underdog Anthology 17 closes for submissions at the end of this month.

Also at the end of this month is the quarterly payments to authors. So far it’s not looking good – but then rampant inflation, huge fuel and energy price increases and a general worry about the bottomless pit humanity seems to be diving into all have a generally depressing effect on sales. Of anything.

Publishing is going ahead anyway here. If there’s a recession we’re just going to wait it out.