This journey began in May of 2011, shortly after I completed the first draft of Omnipotence. I got the idea for a story that blended a Jim Butcher style of urban fantasy with a more grounded, gritty realism bearing noir themes. I went through five different plot ideas before I landed on the skeleton of what would become The Curse Merchant.

It would be my sixth completed novel, but as I wrapped up drafting, I realized it was the first book I had written that had real commercial potential. I got excited. I took a course on editing, ran it past several beta readers, made painful deep revisions, and put as fine a polish on it as I could muster.

This novel spent six months on an agent query safari, and received lots of interest. Then I made my decision last month to self-publish. A chain of events cascaded, building its own momentum, leading up to this point. I hired a professional editor and an artist to create the cover art.

And now I’m thrilled to announce that The Curse Merchant will be available for purchase as an ebook on October 31st, 2012. So grab a big red sharpie and jot down “Buy J.P. Sloan’s Debut Novel” in big fat red letters on your calendars, just before trick-or-treating.

I chose Halloween for my release date partly because I’m unspeakably pretentious, but also because Curse Merchant carries deep themes of dark mystery, of sinister forces that lie just outside our notice. I think that really sums up the purpose of Halloween. It’s a time for suspending our disbelief, for questioning whether there’s a reason we’re afraid of the dark.

And this is just the beginning! I have the sequel already outlined, and have begun mapping out single-paragraph synopses of subsequent books. The Dark Choir series begins here…

And now, because I know you’re all eager to see it, here’s the cover for The Curse Merchant:

I’d like to thank Travis at ProBookCovers for his patience. Turns out I’m kind of particular when it comes to cover art, but he stayed with it until I had something I was excited about… and I am!

So there you go… October 31st.

Halloween Day.

The Dark Choir awakens!