Happy New Year

 

Bit late with this, but it’s still the first month of the new year.  Happy New Year all!

As usual, remember, Alyssa can be purchased at Amazon.co.uk HERE and at Amazon.com HERE

So, a lot has been happening in the last few months.

With book 1 out and launched, I spent most of the last few months of 2021 pitching Alyssa and hoping for sales.  I did indeed get sales but not as many as I had hoped.  Still, I learned a lot.

All of January I ran a series of Amazon free book deals for all 3 of my other books. I likewise advertised on Facebook and A LOT on Twitter.

The results were mixed.

On the one hand, I sold over 200 ebooks (as in they were picked up free.) And also a few people downloaded my books on kindle unlimited, reading well over 500 pages.  Additionally, my work on Twitter raised my follower count to nearly 4400.  And this time, not all of them were other authors!

But so far I’ve only seen 1 ebook purchased and no copies of Alyssa seem to have sold yet. I had hoped that purchases of the other books would in turn make people curious about book 1.  Still learning experience.

I intend to use February to concentrate solely on pitching Alyssa, but also, I hope to write book 5.

Yes, book 5 is officially being written!  I have a new idea on an old story plan and am now modifying and improving it.  A couple of thousand words already.

If I can maintain momentum, I hope to release it sometime toward the end of 2022 but I will see how things go.

Anyway, that’s my brief blog update.

Take care all of you.

Haldred Chronicles Alyssa released!

It’s here at last

Well I’ve already been extensively advertising on social media, but thought I’d blog about this as well.

 

It’s out ladies and gentlemen. After 3 years of recruiting, editing, proof reading and production, my first book ‘Haldred Chronicles: Alyssa' is now out!

 

Get it HERE

 

Also, for those in America HERE

 

I hope over the next few months I’ll be posting a little more regularly, talking about the writing and design of Alyssa, what I’ve learnt about writing, the world the book is set in amongst other things.

 

But for now, please enjoy my book.

 

Take care

 

 

Mega progress update!

So last week was a momentous one. Last week, I completed the 2nd edit of my 1st novel ‘Alyssa', and sent it in for final review. This completes the final draft of the rewrite of the novel.
This follows the 1st edit (received in November 2018 and completed May 2019) which was the most extensive part of the rewrite. The 2nd edit, by contrast, was more of a tidy up and improving basics such as descriptions, individual scenes and dialogue.
Regardless, that’s it. The novel is done!
The work now passes to my publishers and I await the next phase.

Its been a massive undertaking.  I have put a huge amount of effort into following the edits and suggestions of my editor and making the original story 10 times better.  Hopefully, this is reflected in this new edition when it is released.
As for a release, that’s up to the publishers now.  Like everyone else, I will now await their word on what comes next.

But that’s not all.  Last week I also submitted two short stories as part of writing competitions. 
The 1st I submitted to Mantic Games, as part of a competition to have a short story featured in the upcoming new rule book for their wargaming system ‘Kings of War’.  The prise is a Mega army box (a big box of toy soldiers) which I am keen for!
The 2nd story, character bio’s and the summary was sent to Black Library, as part of a big competition to seek out new author talent for their line of Fantasy and Sci-fi stories set in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k universes.  Again, I’d be very keen to be writing for Black Library so have given it a good go.

We will see what happens, but I can satisfactory say that my writing muscles have been thoroughly exercised.
I will likely post up my short story submissions onto this blog sometime in the future, but meantime, that’s you all up to date.  Till next time.

Where have you been?

Ah yeah, it’s been a while hasn’t it?  I’ve a good excuse though.

Boyle and Dalton sent through a developmental edit of my book ‘Alyssa’ back in November 2018. They did an exceptional job of diving deep into the style, characters, narrative and flow of the book. Brad, my editor, sent through extensive notes and since November 2018 I had been working my way through those notes.

Alyssa was my first book, written in 2011 and self-published in 2012. At that time, I was still developing my style and Alyssa was very much the test bed for future books. Returning to the book, I found Brad's comments to be right on the button.

Just over a month ago, I finished my editing and rewriting of the novel, and resubmitted to the publishers.

I will now wait and see if my edits are what they need. 

Strange as it may seem, I enjoyed the experience.  I had expected the process of rewriting my novel to be more painful, but instead I knew already that it was badly needed.  Looking at the writing style I used in ‘Anna’ (my fourth book) and looking at the style in ‘Alyssa’ before the edits, the books were very different.  I took the experience as an opportunity to bring the earlier book into line.  It also gave me the opportunity to develop the characters and world a little more, adding much-needed detail.

With the latest draft submitted, I have now found time for other writing and non-writing activates.  My sister-in-law and family got me a Writing Magazine writing course for Christmas, and I have been slowly working my way through the course material.  This has been a very interesting experience, as I’m learning a lot about aspects of the craft I may have neglected, such as keeping a writer’s notebook and Commonplace book.

I’ve also taken the time to write a little fan fiction, writing some stories for some tabletop wargames that I play.  Whether these stories ever see the light of day or if they ever remain just an exercise to keep my writing skills sharp, I don’t know.  We’ll see.

My Instagram account has seen much more posts around painting models and wargaming than it has writing but this has been a good distraction.  Rest and recovery from an intense period of editing.  As enjoyable as I found the experience, it was intense.  I feel I may have put myself under more pressure than I should have to get it finished.  I have learnt from the mistake and will be pacing myself better next time!

The next stage will come after the latest edit comes back from my publishers.  I don’t know when that will be but I’m looking forward to moving the story along a little further upon the publishing path.

Until next time.

Exciting news!

And when I say exciting news, I really mean it.

For the last year, I have been contacting agents and publishers, hoping that one of them would pick up Haldred Chronicles.  It has always been my ambition to become a fully published author.  Sadly, whilst many have praised the writing and style, none have been interested in taking on the series.

Until now.

The wonderful people over at the hybrid publisher Boyle and Dalton have very kindly agreed to publish my first book ‘Alyssa’.  I had contacted them a while back and after a few emails, the exchange of manuscripts and the official signatures, they have agreed to take me on.

This is fantastic news, and both my family and I are overjoyed.  We hope to publish in 2019.

With this news, planning has gone into overdrive. 

I’m researching extensively how to market the series anew, as well as looking into fresh methods of getting the word out.  I’ve set myself a number of goals, such as more regular blogging (I know, you’ll believe it when you see it) and blogging about more than just the books (expect wargaming, sword fighting, airsofting and more to start appearing on the blog).

All the while, I will continue to work on book 5 of the series.  I hope to use the next few months to really get my teeth into the book, and then concentrate on getting the word out about ‘Alyssa.’

So exciting times are ahead, and 2019 will be the year of Haldred Chronicles!