PERSONAL UPDATE

Like most people in the UK, and many people around the world, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II has hit me quite hard even though her death was always going to be soon. It’s been amazing to see how much of the country has reacted and how well us British do pomp and ceremony. I’ll be raising a Gin and Dubonnet this weekend in her Majesty’s honour.

That said, life has to march on. LONG LIVE THE KING.

In more upbeat new, last weekend I travelled many hours across the UK and climbed Snowdon with two of my best friends. The Ranger Trail was a challenge, and the crowds of people who’d travelled up the easier route to congregate with their packed lunch at the top were a different type of obstacle. Still, we had a great time and travelled back home later that day when rain put pay to sitting around a fire in the campsite.

STOPPING POWER

The release of the second episode of STOPPING POWER went well even though I wasn’t blown away with the number of orders. I hope the fast pace of the release schedule will build a head of steam over time.

I’m doing lots of promotion, in particular with the zombie Facebook group and still giving away tonnes of free signed copies of the first in the series, hoping that these will not only act as advertising, they will also prompt purchases of the books in the series as they come out. It’s only a week until the next episode comes out on Kindle.

Yesterday saw the delivery of episode 4 in print, so along with those advanced copies, I have about 30+ books to send out over the coming days, and the number keeps growing.

WORK IN PROGRESS

I’ve nearly finished the draft of episode 8 which had taken just over a week to complete. I estimate within three weeks I will have 9 & 10 drafted, giving me two weeks to complete the edits. That doesn’t seem like enough time, but I have quite a bit of time off the day job between now and Christmas so hopefully I can make it work.

This whole process is quite a treadmill and I have to keep an eye on the schedule making sure that along with the writing and revision, I’m choosing titles, writing blurbs, creating covers, formatting for print and Kindle, then setting up pre-orders all at the right time, all this whilst trying to get people to buy the books. It’s a good job I really enjoy the satisfaction of when someone loves what I’ve written.

That’s it for this week. Join me in seven days for details of the release of episode 3!