Here’s an email that I get, in one form or another, at regular intervals, as do most of my peers I suspect. This one is from Ian Smith and he writes…
<blockquote>Hi David. When can we expect the next in the series? Having read all of them so far I am in desperate need of a Costa Fix (not one of the coffee variety either!). Will we ever see Nic Costa on the big screen?

Keep on producing the good work.

Regards, Ian</blockquote>
Thanks for the kind words, Ian. Let me deal with the simple part first. I’m not dead keen on Costa on the big screen to be honest. These books are each a standalone story but they form part of a broader tale, one that spans the series, that of a bunch of ordinary decent people struggling to find their way through a difficult world. A movie would, at best, be a single snapshot of that process. I’d much rather that any adaptation reflect the broader picture which would probably call for TV rather than cinema, not that there’s anything to announce on either front at the moment.

Now to the ‘when is the next book in the series?’ question which is a touch more complicated.

<!--more-->This year I’ve got two books out, the eighth Costa, <em>The Blue Demon </em>(or <em>City of Fear</em> in the US), already published, and on November 5 the standalone <em>Death in Seville. </em>I had two books last year too – <em>Dante’s Numbers</em> and <em>The Cemetery of Secrets. </em>

<em></em>This is unusual for most authors. If you’re a giant name – Lee Child or Jeffery Deaver say – you can simply pen two books in a single year and the trade will lap them up. Those of us further down the food chain generally get just one crack at publication a year. I’ve been the exception of late because <em>Death in Seville</em> and <em>The Cemetery of Secrets</em> are reissues of my earlier novels. They have come out again as trade paperbacks, not the usual hardback then paperback route. They’re exceptions; next year it’s back to one book a year, a completely new one.

Why do publishers generally want only one book a year from an author? I can’t really answer for them but I think the answer is that it’s hard for everyone, readers, publishers, and book stores, to keep up with much more than that. There are an awful lot of new titles published each year. Publishing is a complex business involving different formats, different media, territories and rights. There’s a lot of post-writing work – editing, revision, proofing, generating covers and publicity campaigns. Oh, and there’s also the plain fact that most of us are stretched writing one book a year. Trying to turn out more than that and keep up the quality is quite a challenge.

Back list reissues aren't the only exceptions. Shorter books in genres such as young adult can escape the annual cut-off. But if you’re writing full length general popular fiction – which is where I sit – one book a year is usually the rule. Next year’s is <em>The Fallen Angel</em>, out in February in the UK and May in the US, about which I’ll be posting more material, including a video, closer to publication time.

Annual publication does pose some unexpected problems for an author. I'm usually two books ahead of you so the one for 2012 is done too. I haven’t yet started writing what I think of as my 'new book'. It won’t be out till 2013 in any case, so it doesn’t need to be delivered until the end of 2011 or so, though I’ll doubtless finish it before then.

Can I really picture a book that far out? Not terribly well if I'm honest. All I can do is decide what I want to write and go for it, regardless of when it will appear. And this is just one slot, remember, the only chance I get that year. Picking the right book is pretty important. When you’ve been in this business for a while the question ceases to be ‘What kind of book shall I write?’ and turns into the more difficult ‘Which one?’ out of a number of very varied ideas.

Still mulling that question right now if I'm honest.