Today’s the official publication day of Skirmishes, the fourth Diving universe book. You can now get the book on all platforms. You can find it in your favorite bookstore or order it in trade paper from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online stores. You can also get the ebook in all e-retailers from Amazon to Kobo to Barnes & Noble to Smashwords to Omnilit and more! Plus, you can now get the audiobook as well.
Skirmishes is getting good reviews. Here’s excerpts from two of them:
“A combination of first-person and third-person narrative and flashback segments makes this a complex and compelling story. It’s like having three tales in one, with an added peek into the bad guys’ activities, all of them intriguing, classic science fiction.” —RT Book Reviews
“Expect surprises, plot twists, and space wreck diving danger as Boss, Coop and their respective crews must confront the past in a bid to control the future. They may be out-gunned, but Boss’s knowledge when it comes to diving ancient Dignity Vessels is unmatched.” —Astro Guyz
And, for those of you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the cover copy:
The answers Captain Jonathon “Coop” Cooper and the crew of the Ivoire seek lie in the Boneyards. But they must wait for Boss and her team to dive it, explore the wrecks, and piece together what happened in that faraway place.
Boss loves the challenge. Thousands of ships, centuries of history, all play to her strengths. In her absence, she trusts Coop to defend the Nine Planets Alliance against the Enterran Empire.
But an encounter from Coop’s recent past shows up to haunt him, an encounter he never told Boss about, an encounter that could threaten her future, his life, and the fragile peace between the Alliance and the Empire.
I hope you have as much fun reading this book as I had writing it. Enjoy!
Hi Kris,
I read Skirmishes in two listening session of the audio book. You had me hooked from the first book Diving into the wreck. I hope the novellas keep me in the universe long enough for the next book in the series. When might the diving Omnibus Vol 1 be released. What is the title of the next book? I was totally overjoyed to read skirmishes and stranger at the room of lost souls. Looking for more.
Avid diving universe reader,
Mark
Thanks, Mark. Some of the novellas overlap the books, so do watch for that in the descriptions.
I’m not sure when Diving Omnibus 1 will be released. That’s a question for the folks at WMG Publishing http://www.wmgpublishinginc.com. No title yet on the next book. Titles come last for me, unfortunately.
I appreciate the kind words!
Kris
Hi folks:
Kris kindly alerted me to the questions about non-epub formats on Smashwords. Let me try to shed some light on this issue.
We have been unhappy with the product produced by running our book file through Smashwords meatgrinder. The files produced by that process are, quite frankly, not up to our standards and have resulted in multiple customer complaints. So, we have decided that the best course of action for Smashwords is to upload the epub file only—a file we create and control. We don’t have the option to upload any other format directly to Smashwords except an epub.
We are, however, uploading mobi files, as well as epubs, to Omnilit. For those who prefer to read on their computers, for example, there are numerous epub readers you can download. I can’t speak to its availability outside the US, but the one I use is Adobe Digital Editions 2.0. You can download it on a Mac or PC here: http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions.html. I’m hoping that might help those of you who prefer to read the book in that format.
We highly value our readers and are continuously looking at different ways to offer our books, and we very much value your feedback. Please check out our website, http://www.wmgpublishing.com, for regular updates, and feel free to leave us a comment there.
Warm regards,
Allyson Longueira
Publisher, WMG Publishing
Thanks, Allyson, for clarifying. 🙂
Hi, Chris. Looking forward to reading Skirmishes! (and the upcoming Retrieval book! and more Smokey Dalton…)
Smashwords is also missing the HTML (online browser reading), PDF and RTF formats – probably the same reason the Mobi format is missing. Hopefully some of those will become available in the near future, since online is my preferred method of reading (although I could download the ePub version for my old Nook!).
Susan
Hi, Susan:
I talked to WMG today, and apparently there’s been a lot of problems with the files Smashwords is producing from WMG products. Serious problems, missing words etc. So I’m told they’ll only be uploading epub to Smashwords. However, if you want the other forms, you can get them on Omnilit for the same price.
Wish I could tell you differently.
Kris
As someone who got the book through Smashwords thanks for that option. Though I’m wondering why smashwords doesn’t have the mobi file. I do my ebook reading on the kindle I own but I don’t like buying directly from amazon because they charge me extra for the whispernet surcharge because I live in Finland, this means paying $3.44 price for $0.99 books($2 Whispernet Surcharge + 15% VAT). For Skirmishes when I check the price it is $12,39(for those in US it seems to be $7,99..I check the price on books I buy on amazon.) Smashwords doesn’t have this charge so it is now my first place to buy from.
So I’m just wondering why there isn’t a mobi version on smashwords(atleast I don’t see one when downloading). This isn’t a big obstacle as I can convert the epub but it is an inconvenience.
I don’t know, Vesa. I’ll investigate. Have you looked at the Omnilit version? You might be able to get Mobi there.
Its actually no problem for me, I’ve happily converted it using calibre and right now reading it on my kindle. But I thought it might be something worth telling about as not every reader is always going to jump through all the hoops. 🙂
Agreed. Please see my answer to Susan elsewhere in the thread. Apparently, there are a lot of behind the scenes issues on Smashwords, so WMG has added Omnilit and hopes that folks go there for other formats. Smashwords’ “meat grinder” destroys some of the files that came from older books, filling them with mistakes. Readers have been complaining about that and the new e-pub is the solution. That, and Omnilit, which doesn’t have the upload problems that Smashwords does from the backside.
I hope you enjoy the book!
Kris:
I just wanted to say thanks for publishing on Smashwords. They are the only vendor that allows me to just buy and download the book without a proprietary app. As a Linux user who is excluded by Amazon, B&N and Kobo (and the “read on the web” option is simply not acceptable), that freedom to buy means a lot.
Thank you,
Bill Smith
http://www.BillSmithBooks.com
You’re welcome. My goal is to have as many readers as possible, which means going to all platforms if possible. So I’m glad that’s working!