Hello droogs!

Those of you who have preordered EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE (thank youuuu, black-hearted blood-lusties) may have received notification of a shift in publication date for EotV in the last couple of weeks. I’m here to inform you that, yes indeed, the release date for EMPIRE has been pushed to September 2021.

This is a year later than I originally trumpeted, and I’m aware a lot of you were really excited to read EotV in 2020 (again, thanks for the preorders!). So, before you scream GODDAMN YOU KRISTOFF and start booking in time to get your tattoos removed, let me explain.

The reason for my decision is twofold.

Firstly, 2019 was the single most amazing year of my career to date. Buuuuut it was also the most exhausting, and in some ways, the most frustrating.

Those of you who’ve been paying attention may have noticed I published three books in 2019 (AURORA RISING, DEV1AT3 and DARKDAWN). I spent more than three months away from home last year, solo touring and working my shapely(?) buttocks off. And verily, I got to meet amazing readers and go to awesome countries and have brill experiences, but it was still three months I spent away from home and (mostly) away from my wife.

On top of tour/travel, there was also an incredible amount of time spent on book promo. 2019 was the first time I felt I had to caaaaarve out time to do my actual job – fucking writing – from all the time I spent doing all the other jobs that come with being a fucking writer.

The root of all these first world problems is simple to identify, of course: Three books is a LOT to bring out in a single year. And the solution to these problems is also simple:

Publish less books, dickhead.

I already have two books coming out in 2020 – AURORA BURNING and TRUEL1F3. I’m already touring for BURNING (details soon), as well as attending WorldCon in NZ. And I’ll definitely be touring on EMPIRE when it drops. So doing the math and looking at the 2020 calendar, I realized I was looking at another year of months away from home, and another year of struggling carve out time to actually, you know, fucking write. And I refuse to fall into a mode where the whole reason I got into this game – and the thing I love most about it – is the thing I’m struggling to find time to do.

So.

Publish less books, dickhead.

My second reason is rather more simple, being that the book isn’t perfect yet. Not that any book will ever be perfect, especially in the OMGTHISISSHITANDIAMSHIT mind of your average author. But EotV is a new series, and a lot of people are excited about it and my publishers are expecting big things from it after everything DARKDAWN did (thaaaank you droogs) and basically I don’t want to fuck it up.

So, late last year, I was presented with the choice to either spend this year running around like a fucking lunatic and not spending enough time at home and handing in a book that was not yet, in so far as any book is, perfect, orrrrrrr

Publish less books, dickhead.

Three books a year was fun. 2019 was a fun year. But, much like drinking an entire bottle of scotch and banging it out with half a dozen nubiles of your preferred gender, it’s not the kind of fun you want to have all the time or it’s going to fucking kill you.

So, EotV 2021 it is.

I know this will be a disappointment for some of you. I know you’re really looking forward to the book, and waiting sucks. But I want this thing to fucking shine, and the last thing in the world I want to do is burn so hard I just burn out. You Kristoff kultists already have two books to tide you over in 2020, and when it arrives, there’s going to be plenty of EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE to atone for the year you had to wait. It’s the biggest book I’ve written, size, complexity, scope, you name it.

Seriously, this book is going to be fucking huge. You will actually be able to beat a man to death with it.

It’ll be worth the wait, I promise.

Cheers droogies. And thanks for understanding. Love you all