With seven days until the official launch of my second novel, BEFORE THE END, I’ve been super busy getting prepared, plus working on other projects too.

BEFORE THE END

This week has been all about knocking off items from a long list.

I took some more great flatlay shots, finished the formatting and proofing of the paperback, published the ebook for pre-order on Smashwords, Kobo and Google Play, updating my Books2Read links as I went along. Note, the service now supports audiobooks as a separate link choice. Take a look on the link below.

https://books2read.com/u/b5QvP6

I went to add BEFORE THE END to my Goodreads page but found it had already been added under an author, GJ STEVENS, instead of G.J. STEVENS as is required by their policy. So I spent a little time while finding out how to change it. Turns out you have to ask the Goodreads librarians to do it for you. To contact a librarian you have to join the librarian community and then submit a forum post. Much respect, they had the book added to my proper account within thirty minutes.

I’ve received some great feedback by email from my ARC readers, but yesterday I also found that one of my ARC team had already left a review on Goodreads and it was a 2 star. I wasn’t so worried about the rating, honest, but it was more that they’d given me a bad review prior to release despite my specific request. I contacted the ARC reader and she apologised, saying she had got her release dates muddled with another ARC book she was reading. We agree to remove her from the programme, so I guess the positive news would be that hopefully her 2 star review won’t end up on Amazon!

With the paperback ready I’ve set the paperback live on Amazon. Learning from my release of IN THE END, I’ve done it so that I can order my author copies giving them a chance to arrive before the official date, plus it gives time for the kindle edition and the paperback to link up on the sites. This is only a quiet release so don’t mention it to anyone, but if you want to grab a copy to arrive around release day then you should be able to soon. Just search BEFORE THE END PAPERBACK GJ STEVENS and you should find it. It will also be available via the above link real soon. But of course keep that quiet 🙂

Here’s what remains on my list for prior to release day and on the day itself.

• Produce Apple Books Ebook
• British Library copies 
• Update book linker
• Catalogue record
• AllAuthor Book record
• AllAuthor Cover Competition (December)
• Release day plan
• Release day mail out
• Update pricing for ITE (All stores)
• Competition draw
• Promotional Posts (other sites)
• Website update 
• Update / Check Author central
• Collage with paperbacks

I now have chapters of the audiobook being delivered, so I’m having to work through those and sign them off at each stage. It is something I both enjoy and hate at the same time. Here’s the audiobook cover!

Other Writing

Last Friday I received the completed copy edit back of FATE’S AMBITION, much like I have have done for other novels before. Seeing the two page overview report of parts that need my attention and then the comments in the novel itself immediately sent me into a downward spiral of despair.

However, after reading the report more thoroughly I began to relax at little more as it wasn’t as bad as I first thought and nothing that couldn’t be fixed. It got me thinking that actually this is the same feelings I had for each of my other works when they were critiqued prior to publishing and I decided to map out how I had felt and how I know I will feel as I put in the last bit of effort. 

Putting this down on the simple chart below has helped me put my feelings into perspective and I hope it might help you, either for your writing work or for any aspect of your life. I guess the moral of the story is most things are never as bad as they first seem! Wow…I must be getting old!

Fate’s Ambition

It turns out that after all the emotion I felt from the report, I had the whole thing wrapped up in five days. I now have the paperback cover completed and a proof is winging its way to me so I can sign it off. Once BEFORE THE END is released I need to think about how I’m going to market FATE’S AMBITION as it’s a totally different genre than I’m used to selling.

Next Project

All this means I’m now finally able to work on book 3 of the IN THE END series. Just so you know, I’ll soon be revealing the name so I don’t have to keep referring to it as book 3!! Unfortunately because it’s been a while since I last worked on it, I’m currently reading what I have done so far, making the occasional edit, before I can get back to doing actually writing. This is one reason I won’t be stopping until I have the got to the end of the dirty draft!

Sales and Marketing

I have two concurrent Ads on Facebook, both around similar lines and with the same target audience. The plan is that they see the book twice, but in a different Ad and maybe they will be more likely to buy. I haven’t seen amazing success, so it’s still just about testing.

Here’s a look at my latest flatlay for IN THE END.

I think that’s about all I have to say this week. Next week’s post will be on release day so it’s going to be all about the launch and the book itself. The week after I’ll give you a behind the scenes peak at what went on! Plus you might get a sneaky peek of my BEFORE THE END inspired halloween costume!

Comments and questions welcomed as always!