You may have heard about something awesome.

Beginning right about now-ish, I will be joining Mercury Retrograde Press as a Creative Affiliate. This mostly means that over the next two years I will be writing music and helping to develop other interesting tie-in projects based on their novels.

Is that really as super awesome as it sounds?

Yes.

The final number of songs will potentially fluctuate, but it will likely be over 15 by the end of the contract. The songs will be recorded in a professional studio and then released as singles to coincide with the launch of new books and to bring attention the back catalog. Once we have a good selection, the songs will be collected on a CD.

I have written songs based on novels in the past. My fourth album, Nobody Gets The Girl is a series of 6 songs based on the novel by James Maxey. I am currently finishing up three songs for author Danielle Ackley-McPhail inspired by her Celtic flavored Eternal Cycle trilogy that will be rolled out in conjunction with her book launch at Balticon later this month.

But this is something new. A project this expansive is a rarity in publishing. In fact, it may be the first the first time that a book publisher has signed a long-term agreement with a songwriter. Is this a sign of things to come for publishing?

As I write this, I am taking a break from recording the Eternal Cycle songs. Next up comes the recording of Another Creepy Christmas, likely my last CD for a year or so. I’m finishing up a non-Mercury Retrograde book now (blaspheme!) and after that I expect to only be reading MRP books for quite some time. And it looks as though 2013 will be a year full of singles rather than of albums. I don’t know how it will turn out, but I am quite psyched to try something new.