Spring is knocking on the door here in the UK and it feels like I’m in a great space with my writing. I’m almost all prepared for the new event season and my latest book is soon to be released, plus the next books are making good progress.

WORK IN PROGRESS

ADRIFT AMONGST THE STARS should be back from my editor this week and it will take me a couple of weeks to get the updates turned around. I’ll put it up for pre-order and then it’s proof reading time. I was hoping to have it ready for my first event but I think it’s more likely to be April now. There’s no real pressure.

Since January I’ve been working on the next instalment of the sci-fi series and the words have been pouring out of me. The latest storyline was intended to be one book but having reached somewhere between half and three quarters through the plot I’ve hit 56k words in the first and dirtiest draft. That could easily hit the 70k mark, and my hard deadline, once I embellish in the next round.

I’ve therefore made the decision to produce the story across two books. They will be a part one and two, although I may not describe them as explicitly as that. At the end of the first book I need to give a decent payoff to the reader whilst also drawing them into the next book without annoying people as to why I didn’t just produce it as one volume. This also means I need to keep the time between the two releases as short as possible. Two to three months should be the maximum.

With this in mind I plan to write the first draft of the second part of the book in full, both in order that I can keep the release times close together but also so I can make any changes in the first part that the second part requires as I write it. Without giving too much away, and remembering the book includes time and dimensional travel, the second book will heavily reference the first.

I’m so into writing this current storyline that I could do without pulling off to get ADRIFT AMONGST THE STARS ready for production, but of course I have to!

MARKETING & PROMOTION

I ran a 99p/c discount promotion for IN THE END, my zombie apocalypse series, last month and it covered a little more than the cost, but that was about it. In general, sales have died to nothing, including days where no page reads are reported at all. It was time to do something about that.

As you may have already guessed, I’ve restarted my Facebook ads, and whilst the start was super slow, things have picked up in the last few days. I’ve used the original ad campaign from last year and just copied and started it. Here goes the drama of the advertising rollercoaster again!

EVENTS

My first event is in Devizes on 22nd March and with new table signs, a re-painted shelf, new stock of dyslexia friendly version (hopefully) and a new focus on three book deals, I’m looking forward to seeing how receptive the British public are to my books again. I’m not going to prejudge it so I’m optimistic that it’s going to be a great year.

Over the break I’ve decided a new strategy on in person sales. Previously I would offer a couple of pounds off when someone asked for a deal on three books. Nine times out of ten they would not take the deal. Most people would either buy the complete set or not, my deal was not what convinced them.

I now reason that it’s better to get the sale of three books at the event than hope they like the first and go on later to buy the other books from Amazon. I hardly see the latter happening. So I will now offer the third book half price, which means I only make money on two of the books, but if they didn’t take the deal then I would only have the profit from one book.

In others news, FATE’S AMBITION shortly releases in dyslexia friendly version. You can check out all the dyslexia friendly versions here.

That’s about everything from me for now. Happy spring to you all!