It’s been a busy 2025 over here, including things going on behind the scenes that keep me invigorated. More on that in the coming weeks I hope!

WORK IN PROGRESS

On the 10th January ADRIFT AMONGST THE STARS went of to my editor so I would imagine it will be back to me around the middle of February. With two to three weeks of work left to review the edits and a final check over, after proof reading I think it will be ready for release in time for my first event on 22nd March.

I’ve almost finalised the new cover, which means I have the not so fun job of writing the blurb.

Plus the narrator is ready to start the book recording in March.

After I finished the second in the Parrallel worlds series I was really unsure what to start writing so I decided to take a look at an Agent Carrie Harris idea I’d already written around three chapters for. At the same time I thought about some possible plot ideas for a third book in my sci-fi series.

Having put together a decent plot outline for Carrie Harris to fight against, I filled in some of the detail, but with 5,000 words put together over the course of the weekend, the spark of a plot came to me for the sci-fi series and that was it, I was off.

Since then, some fifteen days ago as I write this, I have the entire plot of the third in the Parrallel Worlds series outlined, right down to how the final scene will play out. I now have 13 well drafted chapters, plus over 8,000 words of horrible draft and outlines, with the whole ms already coming in at 23,000 words. I have a really strong feeling about this book that is keeping me highly motivated.

MARKETING & PROMOTION

Having stopped running Facebook ads late November, I only used a free book promotion coupled with paid and unpaid email marketing services for December. This cost me around £60 and I made £110 on that series, some of which would have been residual purchases / page reads from my previous Facebook campaigns. This month I’ve already made that level of profit without any costs at all. Now this could be residual from the December campaign, or still from the fallout from the Facebook ads, the only way I’ll know is by not advertising for ages to see what the figures go down to. I’m not going to do that, of course.

Despite the evaluation, it’s clear to see that the free promo was a success in general. I now need to think when I restart my Facebook ads…

The review campaign for LOST AMONGST THE STARS has pretty much faltered. I’m confident the service I used to get people to review the book was a complete waste of money and I shall not be doing that again.

Reviews currently stand at 24 (4.1 out of 5 stars) in the UK and 26 (4.2 out of 5 stars) in the US. I have 4 UK ratings (5 star) on Audible and 11 ratings (4.8 stars) in the US. When the second book comes out it will help me reinvigorate the review campaign. With the third book I can start to look at advertising.

EVENTS

I’m enjoying having my Saturdays to myself but I’m looking forward to the first event in March. There’s not much for me to do in terms of prep, other than getting some new table graphics ready.

That’s it for this month. Super excited to keep writing the third book in the series.