First, thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered my novelette Little Graveyard on the Prairie. Much appreciated! Second, thank you to everyone who has recommended it for a Stoker Award. Again, much appreciated!

Because of the Stoker recommendations and the cutoff date for consideration, I got in touch with Roy at Bad Moon Books today to ask when the actual publication date will be for Little Graveyard. The book is at the printer and, he says, that’s a 22-day schedule. On Christmas Eve the book was in Day 15 of that schedule. Roy expects that he will have the books on Jan. 3 and they’ll begin shipping after that.

This is good and bad. Obviously, the book cannot be considered for the Stoker for 2008 since it isn’t/wasn’t available. Because the copyright date is 2008, the HWA’s Stoker compiler will have to verify that the book was not actually available until 2009 so that it can be considered next year. On the upside, I don’t have to try to get the book noticed by enough people to get it on the preliminary ballot in just a month or so. I’ll have all year to build some buzz on the published book, which is good.

So, if you’re one of those upstanding human beings who rec’d the book, I hope you’ll renew your rec for 2009. If you’ve ordered the book, thanks for your patience. It’s coming soon. If you haven’t ordered yet, there are still some of the 100 copies left for pre-order. C’mon. What else are you gonna do with that Christmas money? Buy groceries? Pfft!

Finally, I just want to mention my ongoing Gift of Lycanthropy Contest that’s going on right now. It’s easy to enter, so click the link and leave a comment. Yeah, it’s really that easy.