PERSONAL UPDATE

With next week off the day job to say farewell to the summer, as a family we’ll be having days out together and finishing off with another camping trip, this time with friends. I’ll be skipping a post next week as we’ll be in the middle of a field somewhere and I’d definitely get shouted at if I start typing away on my laptop!

WORK IN PROGRESS

From the Dead – The self-imposed deadline of finishing the read-through looms at the end of the month and I’m about two thirds through so it’s not impossible. I have to say I’m really enjoying reading what I’ve written and I’m excited to get it out to my readers, even though the series has not found its true audience yet. This will be the first release when I have a fan club, so who knows how it will go.

Purple Rain – Book 1 – I’ve started from the beginning again! Don’t worry I’ve not trashed what I’ve done so far. Despite having only got around half way through the current edit, after a flash of inspiration as I was running in a drizzle of rain, I decided to change it a little and take on some influences from a more dystopian setting. This is not major upheaval for the book but it does mean I need to weave those influences into the MS right from the start and not just at the point of where I got to editing. So far I’m very pleased with the result and I know it answers potential problems with the MS before it got very time-expensive to fix. I’m about six chapters in from the start now.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION

Things are ramping up again after my holiday / sickness and I hope not to lose too much momentum whilst I’m on leave, but if I do I at least know that it is just a blip and I can bring it right back up again.

With the amount of promotion I’m doing and the personal connections I’m making with readers, it means I’m getting some great reviews and ratings across Amazon, Audible, Goodreads for all my books, and on the Google Play store, for my free novellas.

The fan club is going very well. There’s a good response rate and the numbers are growing. Although I’m spending much more time in the zombie group than I am in the fan club, the posts I make are focused.

I’ve just closed a competition to win a signed copy of AFTER THE END and soon I’ll start introducing the Carrie Harris books. That will be interesting! I have ideas up my sleeve to get people reading it.

That’s it for this week and I’ll be back for another update in September. Happy holidays!