Preorders Are Scary

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Admin, Books, Erithenia, Publication

I’ve been working on Reclamation for some time, to say the least. Years, on and off; for a while, it was the book I didn’t want to write for fear I couldn’t do it justice. But for whatever reason, these past few months I’ve felt up to it.

Which is why I decided that I could aim to get it finished well before the end of the year.

And I can — that’s not really in doubt. I can write fast, and I can write well, and while I can’t always do both at the same time, I can certainly overlap them well enough. I’ve got months to go and very little else to do in them, since my chance of summer employment appears to have lost my records down the back of the sofa and refuses to respond to my emails. All is set very fair indeed.

But it’s still rather more scary the longer it goes on. For once I’ve actually promised something, with a certain specific date and deadline, something that I can let people down on. And I really don’t want to do that. But who knows if I will? The future isn’t certain, even when I pretend it is. And I have other responsibilities I’m determined to fulfill.

Still, nothing doing — it’s done, and whether or not it’s intimidating, I won’t back out now!

Coming Soon!

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Erithenia, Fantasy, Publication, Sale, Sci-Fi

The exam period is just about over, and with it I am freed to go back to writing! (I’d have written an explanatory post, but I didn’t realise quite how busy I’d end up until it was already too late!) Which means… that I am now ready to promise you all a new book! Preorders are now open for Erithenia: Reclamation, the first in a new series that will bring us to the world of Thenia, a modern technological society built in part around a power — sharren — as fundamental to Thenians as gravity. Old tales of gods and monsters are a myth — until the day that a cruise liner runs aground, a seemingly reasonless event that heralds the return of the heroes and villains long since thought to be no more than fable.

Reclamation will be out on the 1st of December, but register your interest now to be sure you get it as soon as it’s released!

And in other writing news… there’s about to be a big sale at Smashwords, and for the whole month of July, the ebook of Before the Sun Fades will be absolutely free! So why not pick it up?

Sporadic Reappearances

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Admin

I’m probably not going to be posting with any great regularity for some time. All for good reasons, but I’m afraid I’m not quite going to promise a regular schedule again just yet. I am, however, ready to announce being at least vaguely back. 🙂

All this absence has been because I’ve been working on the most important story I can create — my own. And it’s all going absolutely wonderfully… but that fact is also keeping me busy!

Brief Apologies

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Admin, Fused

Looks like there won’t be a chapter of The Fused going up today, external events have somewhat distracted me from writing it and I no longer have enough time to do so this evening. However, I do know what will be happening, and it is coming!

A Sort of Report

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Admin, Books, News

The month-long ebook sale has ended, and I sold 37 e-copies of Before the Sun Fades in it! I don’t think that’s bad going at all!

In addition, there’s just one major thing left to go before I can finally return to writing properly! And boy, am I looking forward to it. Right now, Reclamation (in the Path of the Gods series) and AIN are the top two projects in my mind, but that may change. The first few chapters of Reclamation already hit second draft status a while ago, and will probably now benefit from more eyes; any volunteers to read and comment on part of a book sometime in the next couple of months will be greatly appreciated! Meanwhile, the other end of it had to go on hold some time ago while I wrote a large chunk of Ascension — the two books are dependent on one another — and now needs both completing and, in the process, working out where to transition into the third book.

As for AIN, it’s rather more choppy: many of the key turning point scenes exist, and the beginning and the end are there, but it’s all rough first draft and many areas are lightly sketched in or altogether missing. So that will take a whole lot of building.

Holy Catbiscuits!

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Fantasy, Publication, Sales

I was going to be good and not constantly post about how BtSF was doing in the sale (where it’s currently free), because that’s really annoying, but it’s now almost at the top of page 5 of the free-in-sale fantasy bestsellers and climbing!!! They default to 20 books per page, which means it stands at sales rank #83! I’ve hit double digits in my category!!!

Thank you! You wonderful crazy people who read random fantasy novels by someone on the internet, thank you all!

So Little, Yet So Much

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Admin, Fused

Augh.

I just filled in cross-chapter links between every single chapter of The Fused, and while it might not look like much, it took for ever. So I hope they’re useful!

How’s Rakariel Doing?

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Admin, Before the Sun Fades, Books, Fantasy, Publication

I’ve been meaning to catch up on my sales statistics for a while now, and since I’m not feeling so great, today seems like the ideal time to do all those minor chores that involve sitting in front of a computer. So, how are we doing?

Well, Before the Sun Fades has shifted 15 physical copies! Not counting the box of author copies I have, which I’ve mostly handed out to libraries and friends/relations. As for its e-sales, I’ve sold 11 e-copies, and handed out a few more. Hopefully, copies of these will be in circulation among a wider circle of people, some of whom will pop by sometime and ‘buy’ a copy to support my work, and some of whom can’t right now – which is a-okay with me.

All this means that I’ve sold 26 books, plus some extra that I’ve handed out in various places, since the 23rd of May last year. That’s only ten months ago, and two and a half books a month doesn’t feel bad at all for a starting out nobody author!

So I’m feeling pretty good about myself and about my writing life right now! And as a celebration, I’m handing out discount codes like candy again! Sadly, I can’t discount the physical book – Amazon controls the special offers there – but I can certainly discount the electronic edition!

To grab a copy of Before the Sun Fades in your favourite e-format for what should be about £1 (Smashwords insist on doing everything in dollars), head on over to its Smashwords page and enter the code UL78V on purchase. It’s valid up until BtSF reaches its first birthday, that is, the 23rd of May! And share the code with your friends – it’s good for an infinite number of uses until time runs out!

Tuesdays, Tuesdays

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Admin

Because the last Fused post was so recent, it’s now gone up on the Tuesday Serial for this Tuesday, and the next chapter will be posted next week. I don’t exactly have a backlog of chapters waiting to be posted, so humour me, and I’ll try to build one back up so that your fix of Ship-based adventure returns to regularity again!

In the meantime, it’s back to work for me, although actually I have a friend visiting, so outside of my day job, a lot of what I usually do is slightly suspended. The day job still requires my attention, but I just sorted that out for the next few hours, so it’s all good! Back to work therefore means…

• Thesis corrections
• The Fused
• Editing Alt-Shift
• Working on Ascension and Reclamation
• Working on the Reclamation roleplay system, which is a slowly-growing thing (currently in alpha playtest), and wondering whether to give it a different name
• Gardening – it no longer looks entirely like a bomb site, but it has a long way to go!
• Writing up some posts to go on here, maybe even about something interesting (you should be so lucky)

Ahem

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Admin

Slightly distracted by personal affairs. However, also, I have new tech, which is excellent and awesome!

Normal posting to resume tomorrow, probably.