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From my Facebook:
I will never preorder from Steve Alten ever again. Literally people have died waiting for Loch 3 to come out. My mother being one of them. This was a series we shared along with Meg as I grew up. I was so excited to be able to buy her a special edition of something we had shared over many years.
First—my condolences for your loss—but what response would have changed things? My father and I used to watch Philadelphia Eagles games every week before he passed away from cancer. It took them sixty years to win their first Super Bowl—six years after Dad died. Should I write a nasty note to their owner …
Dear Mr. Lurie: When you bought the team in 1998 you promised championships. Philly fans have died waiting—I will never buy another Eagles jersey again.
Yes, LOCH-3 has taken longer—thus delaying MEG-7: Purgatory, but as I have explained on my website and in numerous newsletters, I spent all of 2019 writing the first 100 pages and didn’t “feel it.” Having written three novels in a row, I knew I needed a break. Weeks before Christmas I got an early present when the idea for an episodic TV series called Where Sea Monsters Roam came to me … and took on a life of its own. After a needed 15-month break, I returned to LOCH-3 recharged. After re-reading The LOCH & Vostok (sequel), I found the story and characters I was missing.
Some novels go that way; when dealing with creativity, FORCING the story never works. I have a test I use on each novel: Pick any Alten book, randomly open to any page and read. Can you jump into the story right there? I can now with the new 440+ page manuscript for LOCH-3.
Back to the fan:
Fan: Most of us are upset about feeling like we’ve been strung along for years, not only with Loch 3 but also Meg Generations.
I assume she meant PURGATORY, though GENERATIONS took me 3 years to write.
Fan: It is a consistent behavior with Steve. He does big promos to get people to “preorder” and then continues to “update” as projects get closer to completion, but no real date is ever promised.
I’m not an assembly line with junior authors co-writing my novels. When I say it’s done, I will happily announce a date.
Fan: He just keeps saying he is always working on something big, but apparently not the projects he has already been paid for. By self-publishing, Steve isn’t set to any specific dates.
Most of my novels are published by TOR/Forge books/St. Martin’s Press. LOCH-3 will be published by A & M Publishing which I now own. This is NOT self-publishing, we have published other authors.
See https://ampublishers.com/. A & M used to distribute retail but we were burned severely with the hardback release of UNDISCLOSED after a certain multi-billion-dollar company pirated my novel and sold it via their print on demand press as a horrible trade paperback for half the price. Book sellers loved UNDISCLOSED and doubled their initial orders. By the time I discovered what had happened, our summer P.R. campaign was over and booksellers began RETURNING over 8,000 books, with Ingram charging us for each novel AND postage & handling. Yes, we sued over copyright infringement, but were forced to settle for pennies on the dollar (the pirates’ fifty lawyers would have dragged it out for years).
If you purchased a copy of LOCH-3: Heaven Lake, then you want A & M handling production as we can include bonuses the big houses can’t. For instance, in our MEG: GENERATIONS hardback, we included 30+ pages of art, maps, and photos—way too expensive for other publishers (none of these images are in the GENERATIONS trade or mass market paperback published by TOR). Just look at the chapter dividers that my senior editor, Barbara Becker created. I also commissioned talented artists like Tan Ngo, whose artwork places you right inside the story. My readers deserve the best, and being a VISUAL WRITER, I want my readers to experience my work like it was intended. LEGACY, LOCH-3, and MEG: PURGATORY will have all of these extras … and lots more!
Fan: He gets to choose when a project is released and has continually said he’d rather wait to publish something closer to movie release to make more money rather than delivering to his fans work that they’ve already paid him for.
I have the right to promote a new novel to aid book sales, and it is far easier to book a big radio show with a movie coming out. But that is only for books being sold RETAIL, not presold orders. Both LOCH-3 and MEG-7 will be published by A & M Publishing.
Fan: It’s not about wanting a refund. It’s us who’ve been following Steve and have supported him that are truly just disappointed. If you can’t trust the man’s word, what’s the point in continually supporting someone who has taken jobs and not completed them in a timely manner. Most preorders usually happen under a 2 year time frame.
Believe me, I WISH I had completed both novels in your “most pre-orders under two-year time frame” scenario. Unfortunately, to quote my fellow Philly son, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows; it’s a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you down if you let it.” In the last five years, COVID put Europe in lockdown while I had a film crew and actors in France to film my pilot of Where Sea Monsters Roam, basically ending production. COVID also delayed production (payday) on MEG-2 by three years and The LOCH by three years. Compared to the loss of life suffered, my family got out lucky. But I’ve also fought to survive emergency surgery, seventeen days of suffering in a hospital which I am still dealing with … then cancer surgery—and, oh yeah, seventeen years with Parkinson’s. Do you really think giving you my word would have quickened LOCH-3’s completion?
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