Demon Road

It was with much glee that I watched your reactions to the video yesterday.

As for those who cursed me for drawing it out so long, all I can say is... "heh." It amuses me to torture you, have you not learned this yet?

Over the coming weeks and months you'll be finding out a lot more about Demon Road, but I figured I'd answer a few questions now.

For starters, this is NOT the cover.

This is just a nifty holding image we give out so that people can pre-order if they want to. Hence the following link: http://www.pages01.net/harpercollinspublishersltd/DerekLandy-DemonRoad/

The ACTUAL cover, and the new cover artist, will be revealed in due time.

The release date is, as you can see, the 27th of August. Yesterday we said the 28th, but we figured out a way to get it to you a day earlier, and we took it.

Demon Road is both the name of the first book AND the name of the overall trilogy.

It WILL be a trilogy.

The books will be released 6 months apart. This is the way the publishing industry is going, to be honest — especially for children's books/YA. It's a hectic, bruising schedule, which will mean I'm gonna be overworked for the rest of the year, but hey... I'm quite looking forward to it, actually. I always felt bizarrely guilty for making you wait a year between Skulduggery books, so I'm going to see if this way is better.

Ah yes, and it will be Young Adult as well. There's nothing in it (yet) that is amazingly inappropriate for younger readers — maybe a word or two, slipping into older territory — but it's just the overall feel of the thing.

I'm TRYING to write shorter books. I was aiming for a Dark Days length, roughly 80,000 words. I have to write three of these books this year, and I can't have them spiralling out of control like Skulduggery did. I'm currently at 91,000 words. Hopefully I won't go above 100,000, which is roughly where Mortal Coil was. Hopefully.

Right now, I've only signed a contract with Harper Collins UK, which will publish the books in Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and Canada. Over the next while, I'll be signing with foreign language publishers also — but for most of them, I'll need to show them the finished book. Harper UK trust me enough to sign a contract with what they've already seen of the book as I'm writing it.

There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be published in America as well.

Oh, and yes, I will be touring with Demon Road, but it's far too early to say where.