STOPPING POWER: Bloodshot, the fourth episode of the series releases today and here’s a reminder of the link where you can check them all out.

https://mybook.to/stoppingpowerseries

This link works exactly the same as a standard booklinker link but points to the series rather than to an individual book.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Episodes five is completed and with the printers for production of the A6 booklet. Episodes six and seven are in the final proof read and production / formatting stage, almost ready to be sent off for printing. I think when they’re ready I’m going to put them all up for pre-order as there is no need to wait and it sets the schedule in black and white for all to see.

I’ve completed the first revision of episode eight a little bit earlier than I’d anticipated, so now I’ve moved on to nine. Ep 8 expanded by another chapter during the revision process so I’ve pushed the last chapter into Ep 9 and thankfully the cliffhangers still work well for the end of episode. I have to keep each episode below 10,000 words so they fit in the 40 pages of the A6 format.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION

Last week I mentioned the possibility of putting the first in the STOPPING POWER series into Kindle Unlimited and I have now done just that in the hope it will drive page reads as the entire series will be available for free on that platform. This decision is mostly driven by the majority of my fan club saying their preferred choice was via that service (as it would be because it’s free to them.)

We’ll see in the coming weeks if it’s been a help.

Early on in the week I spotted a one star review of BEFORE THE END and they mentioned that they didn’t connect with the main characters, who were lesbians that couldn’t control their urges during an apocalypse, and thought the whole idea was unbelievable, despite having enjoyed IN THE END.

Rather than getting annoyed or taking the comments to heart I decided to post the review to Facebook. Well it turns out that not only did it generate a tonne of supportive comments, and likes (over 130 on last check), I also had people saying how the review made them want to read it. I saw a decent kick up in sales of the series across audio, the boxset and page reads.

The only unfortunate part is that its not a very repeatable method of advertising as I don’t want to keep posting bad reviews or it will have the opposite effect :).

EVENTS

This Saturday I will be at Thame Town Hall for my latest event and there’s a French Market happening just outside so the organisers expect it to have a high level of footfall. Here’s hoping!

OTHER NEWS

Production of the dyslexia friendly version of IN THE END is underway and soon I’ll get to review the changes to the manuscript to see what has been altered to tailor the format.

Right. That’s it for this week. Two weeks for another release so I must keep writing!