S.D.W. Hamilton's Blog
June 14, 2025
The Second Time Around
It’s been a minute. The last blog post on my website, in November 2024, said I’d be celebrating the first draft of He Calls By Night on the next post. I’ve gone slightly beyond that.
He Calls By Night has gone through Beta readers, proofreading, line editing and now is in the hands of reviewers, since the last post. Chalk it up to a writer and the criminal neglect of his blog.
The important news is that I can announce that He Calls By Night is now scheduled to release on 09.09.25. Initial feedback has been positive and no major flaws have been noted from the beta readers and I wait with baited breath to see what the first batch of reviewers hit me with.
The process for the sequel has been a lot smoother than the debut. For any debuting indie authors chancing on this blog, I would heartily not recommend giving yourself a four month window to learn about publishing and then following through, while having a baby (to go along with a toddler) slap bang in the middle of said window. Removing such obstacles has made for plain(er) sailing second time round.
On the reading front, the past six months have brought some highlights, even if, I’ll admit, my physical reading pace has slowed to a crawl. The standout was the latest Sean Duffy novel by Adrian McKinty. Sharp, darkly funny, as always, and reliably brilliant..
I’ve been supplementing my physical intake with audio books, something which I am a late adapter to. Highlights include Ellroy’s LA Confidential and the Black Dahlia, both of which I’d read previously, the Big Sleep, God’s Away on Business (a Sean Duffy novella), Micahel Connolly’s The Waiting, and the first four novels in Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. I have to give special mention to Gerry O’Brien, the narrator of the Taylor books,who absolutely nails the tone and voice of the story.
That’s all for now but I’ll be back (or so I say) with more as the countdown to release draws nearer. Thanks for sticking with me, and I’ll see you at the next post.
Shannon.
He Calls By Night has gone through Beta readers, proofreading, line editing and now is in the hands of reviewers, since the last post. Chalk it up to a writer and the criminal neglect of his blog.
The important news is that I can announce that He Calls By Night is now scheduled to release on 09.09.25. Initial feedback has been positive and no major flaws have been noted from the beta readers and I wait with baited breath to see what the first batch of reviewers hit me with.
The process for the sequel has been a lot smoother than the debut. For any debuting indie authors chancing on this blog, I would heartily not recommend giving yourself a four month window to learn about publishing and then following through, while having a baby (to go along with a toddler) slap bang in the middle of said window. Removing such obstacles has made for plain(er) sailing second time round.
On the reading front, the past six months have brought some highlights, even if, I’ll admit, my physical reading pace has slowed to a crawl. The standout was the latest Sean Duffy novel by Adrian McKinty. Sharp, darkly funny, as always, and reliably brilliant..
I’ve been supplementing my physical intake with audio books, something which I am a late adapter to. Highlights include Ellroy’s LA Confidential and the Black Dahlia, both of which I’d read previously, the Big Sleep, God’s Away on Business (a Sean Duffy novella), Micahel Connolly’s The Waiting, and the first four novels in Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. I have to give special mention to Gerry O’Brien, the narrator of the Taylor books,who absolutely nails the tone and voice of the story.
That’s all for now but I’ll be back (or so I say) with more as the countdown to release draws nearer. Thanks for sticking with me, and I’ll see you at the next post.
Shannon.
October 5, 2024
Where Have You Been?
My last blog post was a week out from the release of my debut novel. It's genuinely hard to believe six months has passed but here we are, and I figure it's a good a time as any to give an update now that I have officially joined the ranks of published authors.
So, to answer the first question I'm sure most of you have, no. No, I did not achieve riches beyond my wildest dreams. No, I did not tell my boss to swivel on it as I packed the day job in. And no, riding off into the sunset with millions in the bank and word processor under arm is still a pipe dream.
Well, what did you achieve? Good question. I'm not really sure. I suppose I could pontificate about what success is in writing? I've previously read that 90% of self-published authors sell less than 250 books in their entire career. I suppose I can say I've surpassed that target and for that I can be proud.
From a critical standpoint, reviews have also been good. Blood On The Broadcast (at the time of writing) enjoys a healthy 4.4 rating on Amazon UK and 4.31 on Goodreads.
The book has also gotten praise by writers such as Brian McGilloway and Sara Ochs. A particular thrill was a short-lived, but meteoric bump in sales, following a BookBub promotion, which shot Blood On The Broadcast up the Amazon rankings. For a fleeting moment my book was Number One in Northern Irish Crime Fiction, Top 15 for Private Detective Novels, and had crept into the Kindle Top 500. It was never going to last but to see my little book rubbing shoulders with some of the heavyweights in the crime fiction genre was heady.
Writing has continued. Previously, I had been flip-flopping between the sequel to Blood On The Broadcast, and Portmagic (Title very likely to change), before eventually deciding to focus on the sequel. I have to admit I have found the sequel to be a creative slog at times. Whether it's a touch of creative burnout, or the come down of writing and releasing a whole novel, I'm not quite sure. There's a lot of work to do with it, but I'm aiming for a first draft by the end of October before some hard editing and then throwing it at the mercy of Beta Readers.
In between trying to sell BOTB and working on it's sequel, I've been trying to solidify my crime writing credentials. In May, I was approved for membership of The Crime Writer's Association. I have also saw two bits of writing, a short story and a flash fiction piece, published by Punk Noir Press, with the links below should anyone be interested in checking them out:
Behind The Eyes
Eyes On The Empty
The intro to the tentatively titled Portmagic is also featured in Crimebits, a rather clever book which combines the first pages of one hundred yet to be published crime novels, with corresponding puzzles. Some guy called Lee Child judged the competition and I was rather thrilled that Portmagic made the cut.
Most recently, I've also been interviewed for Writing Magazine about the decision to self-publish and the journey which followed. I had intended in this blog to go further into my journey following publication, including any hard- earned experience I've gleaned, but I'll perhaps leave that for another time.
On the reading front I've been jumping around a number of Michael Connelly books, including The Passage on Audible, narrated by Harry Bosch himself, Titus Welliver. In the physical medium I'm currently reading Fair Warning, Connelly's third in the trilogy of Jack McEvoy books.
In the completed pile, notable highlights of the last few months include Desert Star, also by Michael Connelly, Snow by John Banville, Mick Herron's Slow Horses, and the Wrong Kind of Blood by Declan Hughes.
For now, I'll sign off and hope I'll see you on here again in less than six months.
So, to answer the first question I'm sure most of you have, no. No, I did not achieve riches beyond my wildest dreams. No, I did not tell my boss to swivel on it as I packed the day job in. And no, riding off into the sunset with millions in the bank and word processor under arm is still a pipe dream.
Well, what did you achieve? Good question. I'm not really sure. I suppose I could pontificate about what success is in writing? I've previously read that 90% of self-published authors sell less than 250 books in their entire career. I suppose I can say I've surpassed that target and for that I can be proud.
From a critical standpoint, reviews have also been good. Blood On The Broadcast (at the time of writing) enjoys a healthy 4.4 rating on Amazon UK and 4.31 on Goodreads.
The book has also gotten praise by writers such as Brian McGilloway and Sara Ochs. A particular thrill was a short-lived, but meteoric bump in sales, following a BookBub promotion, which shot Blood On The Broadcast up the Amazon rankings. For a fleeting moment my book was Number One in Northern Irish Crime Fiction, Top 15 for Private Detective Novels, and had crept into the Kindle Top 500. It was never going to last but to see my little book rubbing shoulders with some of the heavyweights in the crime fiction genre was heady.
Writing has continued. Previously, I had been flip-flopping between the sequel to Blood On The Broadcast, and Portmagic (Title very likely to change), before eventually deciding to focus on the sequel. I have to admit I have found the sequel to be a creative slog at times. Whether it's a touch of creative burnout, or the come down of writing and releasing a whole novel, I'm not quite sure. There's a lot of work to do with it, but I'm aiming for a first draft by the end of October before some hard editing and then throwing it at the mercy of Beta Readers.
In between trying to sell BOTB and working on it's sequel, I've been trying to solidify my crime writing credentials. In May, I was approved for membership of The Crime Writer's Association. I have also saw two bits of writing, a short story and a flash fiction piece, published by Punk Noir Press, with the links below should anyone be interested in checking them out:
Behind The Eyes
Eyes On The Empty
The intro to the tentatively titled Portmagic is also featured in Crimebits, a rather clever book which combines the first pages of one hundred yet to be published crime novels, with corresponding puzzles. Some guy called Lee Child judged the competition and I was rather thrilled that Portmagic made the cut.
Most recently, I've also been interviewed for Writing Magazine about the decision to self-publish and the journey which followed. I had intended in this blog to go further into my journey following publication, including any hard- earned experience I've gleaned, but I'll perhaps leave that for another time.
On the reading front I've been jumping around a number of Michael Connelly books, including The Passage on Audible, narrated by Harry Bosch himself, Titus Welliver. In the physical medium I'm currently reading Fair Warning, Connelly's third in the trilogy of Jack McEvoy books.
In the completed pile, notable highlights of the last few months include Desert Star, also by Michael Connelly, Snow by John Banville, Mick Herron's Slow Horses, and the Wrong Kind of Blood by Declan Hughes.
For now, I'll sign off and hope I'll see you on here again in less than six months.
January 27, 2024
The Countdown
Seven Days to Go. At least, it was when I started writing this post.
It felt right that with less than a week to the release of Blood On The Broadcast, that I made at some sort of acknowledgement that my debut book will be out in the world.
Writing a book is a labour of love. Cliché, but true. Even so, I won't lie and tell you that releasing a novel was a dream years in the making, but it has been a journey all the same. It began with an idea, as I suppose all novels do, for a totally different genre. A few chapters in, I began to realise my urban fantasy (a genre I've never read before, so an utterly baffling choice to want to tell a story in) was not quite the tale I wanted to tell.
The characters; Jacob, Natalie, Cora, Helen, and the rest, remained, as did the setting of Belfast and the the idea of the private eye and podcaster team. The locked room mystery stayed too, although now with a notable headache of requiring a solution that wasn't supernatural related. "Ghosts did it," is probably not what most crime and mystery fans look for at the end of their books.
Slowly, the story took shape. I never put pressure on myself, writing only when the mood took me. There were no 5 am starts and no coffee-fueled late nights to put words on screen. There were still moments of doubt, where the words seemed to evade me, or motivation dissipated, and periods of euphoria, particularly on a sleepless night the day before my daughter was born, when I finally figured out a plausible solution to the improbable crime at the heart of the story.
Looking back, the majority of the work began once the book was written, in a ridiculously short, self-inflicted window of less than four months from announcement to release date. The decision to self-publish wasn't taken lightly and it's a daunting world, or it is if you want to it right, of learning on the go, courting favours, relying on kindness and throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. It's been tough, but I have found it filled with passionate individuals who believe in the power of stories.
(I've talked about my issues with querying and the traditional publishing route at length on this blog previously. You can read it here if you so wish: https://sdwhamilton.com/a-blog/f/bett...)
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and many lessons have been learned. Certainly, I'll be allowing a longer window to release. I'll also give you a helpful tip not to plan the release of a book two months after your second child is born.
So, as we count down to the release, I invite you to join me in the excitement. Stay tuned on the socials for updates, reviews and sneak peeks, Your support means the world.
I'd like to finish this blog by noting my gratitude. To my family, friends, beta readers and ARC reviewers who have supported me and my story, and to any readers out there who are about to embark on this journey with me – thank you.
It felt right that with less than a week to the release of Blood On The Broadcast, that I made at some sort of acknowledgement that my debut book will be out in the world.
Writing a book is a labour of love. Cliché, but true. Even so, I won't lie and tell you that releasing a novel was a dream years in the making, but it has been a journey all the same. It began with an idea, as I suppose all novels do, for a totally different genre. A few chapters in, I began to realise my urban fantasy (a genre I've never read before, so an utterly baffling choice to want to tell a story in) was not quite the tale I wanted to tell.
The characters; Jacob, Natalie, Cora, Helen, and the rest, remained, as did the setting of Belfast and the the idea of the private eye and podcaster team. The locked room mystery stayed too, although now with a notable headache of requiring a solution that wasn't supernatural related. "Ghosts did it," is probably not what most crime and mystery fans look for at the end of their books.
Slowly, the story took shape. I never put pressure on myself, writing only when the mood took me. There were no 5 am starts and no coffee-fueled late nights to put words on screen. There were still moments of doubt, where the words seemed to evade me, or motivation dissipated, and periods of euphoria, particularly on a sleepless night the day before my daughter was born, when I finally figured out a plausible solution to the improbable crime at the heart of the story.
Looking back, the majority of the work began once the book was written, in a ridiculously short, self-inflicted window of less than four months from announcement to release date. The decision to self-publish wasn't taken lightly and it's a daunting world, or it is if you want to it right, of learning on the go, courting favours, relying on kindness and throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. It's been tough, but I have found it filled with passionate individuals who believe in the power of stories.
(I've talked about my issues with querying and the traditional publishing route at length on this blog previously. You can read it here if you so wish: https://sdwhamilton.com/a-blog/f/bett...)
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and many lessons have been learned. Certainly, I'll be allowing a longer window to release. I'll also give you a helpful tip not to plan the release of a book two months after your second child is born.
So, as we count down to the release, I invite you to join me in the excitement. Stay tuned on the socials for updates, reviews and sneak peeks, Your support means the world.
I'd like to finish this blog by noting my gratitude. To my family, friends, beta readers and ARC reviewers who have supported me and my story, and to any readers out there who are about to embark on this journey with me – thank you.
November 27, 2023
Betting On Myself
Originally posted on my website 22/10/23
For anyone who had been following the journey to get my debut novel published, this may come as a surprise. Since I started this blog at the tail-end of last year, a constant theme in almost every post was the query trenches and the ongoing quest to land an agent or publisher for Blood On The Broadcast.
Then I go radio silent for a few months and come back proclaiming that I'm suddenly going in a completely different direction.
It wasn't the rejection. I always knew rejection was part and parcel of the publishing game and as seemingly every agent in every damn form rejection will tell you, publishing is subjective. I'm a realist, or at least think of myself as one. Agents don't give a damn about me and my work and I don't expect them to. This is a business and while I hold my work dearly, it's still a product. Submit, Reject, Move On.
So, if not the rejection, what?
Indifference
I can't really think of a better word for it and looking at it now, it seems more than a little ridiculous that of all things wrong in the world of publishing, this is what I got hung up on.
I imagine almost any querying author knows the feeling. You send out the first batch of queries and the rejections begin to trickle in, with wording that becomes all too familiar;
It's not right for me at this time...
Publishing is a subjective industry...
Unfortunately I didn't fall in love...
We don't make this decision lightly...
Yadda, Yadda...
Of course, then there's the agents who can't even muster the energy to send a template rejection to the aspiring writer who submitted their work to them. God forbid.
I'll pull back a second in case this gets mistaken for the beginnings of a rant. I'm well aware writing and publishing is a business and that agents are only human and I'm sure they all have busy professional lives and there are only so many hours in the day. All I'm saying, with a year plus of hindsight spent querying, is that more can, and should, be done to understand and meet the needs of the hopefuls who darken their inboxes with dreams of literary success.
Will anything change? No. From their perspective, why would it need to? As the gatekeepers, the hold the keys and they have the power.
For me, the tipping point came in two stages. The first was a rejection from an agent who had some incredibly nice things to say about my writing, with particular mention of the characters and setting. So touched by the rare (but I should point out for fairness, not the only) example of an agent taking their time to not only reply, but to personalise their rejection.
I typed up an effusive thank you. It was a timely message that there was some humanity in publishing, in a period where I had perhaps needed such a reminder. Cue my surprise when I went on their QueryTracker and discovered a number of other aspiring authors had recently gotten the same, word-for-word rejection.
More fool me, I suppose.
Officially, I still have two full requests out in the wild.
The first was sent on the 12th October last year. I received a request for the full manuscript on the 2nd November and heard nothing for more half a year. I followed-up with the agency on the 2nd of June and received a reply on the 15th, informing me Blood On The Broadcast was still under consideration. A full year has passed since the original query was sent and the email in June was the last communication I have received.
The second full is also the second stage of what led me to my self publishing journey. I initially queried the agent on 29th January and got a request for the manuscript the following day. I sent it and have heard nothing since. I held off until I sent a polite follow-up on the 22nd September which has went unanswered and it's clear I'm no longer in their plans. Common courtesy an apparently unknown concept.
So I took stock, stewed for a bit. Then said, fuck it, why not take a chance on yourself.
Blood On The Broadcast releases on 02/02/24 on eBook, Kindle and Print.
I's full steam ahead to meet release date. It's a lot of work, probably more than I had imagined in truth. Oh, and we have our second baby coming end of November/start of December.
Wee buns, right?
In terms of milestones, I got my first proof in my hand last week and the mix of emotions when holding a physical copy of something you worked so long and hard for, was heady. I tried to come up with a worthy description but I'm not quite sure any word could properly convey the feeling when I opened that parcel.
My ARC list is currently being built with a view to send all copies, ebook and Print, out by mid-November. If you have a genuine interest in receiving an ARC, shoot me a message and I'll add you to the list.
In the meantime, keep a close eye on the blog for more info or follow me on X/Twitter or my new Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/sdwhamilton/
The original intention of having this blog as a monthly feature never really panned out but you'll be seeing an increase in activity as we move forward on the blog and on the website itself. If you haven't already, please consider joining the website's mailing list to keep updated on teasers, video trailers and competitions.
For now, I'll sign off.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.
S.D.W.
For anyone who had been following the journey to get my debut novel published, this may come as a surprise. Since I started this blog at the tail-end of last year, a constant theme in almost every post was the query trenches and the ongoing quest to land an agent or publisher for Blood On The Broadcast.
Then I go radio silent for a few months and come back proclaiming that I'm suddenly going in a completely different direction.
It wasn't the rejection. I always knew rejection was part and parcel of the publishing game and as seemingly every agent in every damn form rejection will tell you, publishing is subjective. I'm a realist, or at least think of myself as one. Agents don't give a damn about me and my work and I don't expect them to. This is a business and while I hold my work dearly, it's still a product. Submit, Reject, Move On.
So, if not the rejection, what?
Indifference
I can't really think of a better word for it and looking at it now, it seems more than a little ridiculous that of all things wrong in the world of publishing, this is what I got hung up on.
I imagine almost any querying author knows the feeling. You send out the first batch of queries and the rejections begin to trickle in, with wording that becomes all too familiar;
It's not right for me at this time...
Publishing is a subjective industry...
Unfortunately I didn't fall in love...
We don't make this decision lightly...
Yadda, Yadda...
Of course, then there's the agents who can't even muster the energy to send a template rejection to the aspiring writer who submitted their work to them. God forbid.
I'll pull back a second in case this gets mistaken for the beginnings of a rant. I'm well aware writing and publishing is a business and that agents are only human and I'm sure they all have busy professional lives and there are only so many hours in the day. All I'm saying, with a year plus of hindsight spent querying, is that more can, and should, be done to understand and meet the needs of the hopefuls who darken their inboxes with dreams of literary success.
Will anything change? No. From their perspective, why would it need to? As the gatekeepers, the hold the keys and they have the power.
For me, the tipping point came in two stages. The first was a rejection from an agent who had some incredibly nice things to say about my writing, with particular mention of the characters and setting. So touched by the rare (but I should point out for fairness, not the only) example of an agent taking their time to not only reply, but to personalise their rejection.
I typed up an effusive thank you. It was a timely message that there was some humanity in publishing, in a period where I had perhaps needed such a reminder. Cue my surprise when I went on their QueryTracker and discovered a number of other aspiring authors had recently gotten the same, word-for-word rejection.
More fool me, I suppose.
Officially, I still have two full requests out in the wild.
The first was sent on the 12th October last year. I received a request for the full manuscript on the 2nd November and heard nothing for more half a year. I followed-up with the agency on the 2nd of June and received a reply on the 15th, informing me Blood On The Broadcast was still under consideration. A full year has passed since the original query was sent and the email in June was the last communication I have received.
The second full is also the second stage of what led me to my self publishing journey. I initially queried the agent on 29th January and got a request for the manuscript the following day. I sent it and have heard nothing since. I held off until I sent a polite follow-up on the 22nd September which has went unanswered and it's clear I'm no longer in their plans. Common courtesy an apparently unknown concept.
So I took stock, stewed for a bit. Then said, fuck it, why not take a chance on yourself.
Blood On The Broadcast releases on 02/02/24 on eBook, Kindle and Print.
I's full steam ahead to meet release date. It's a lot of work, probably more than I had imagined in truth. Oh, and we have our second baby coming end of November/start of December.
Wee buns, right?
In terms of milestones, I got my first proof in my hand last week and the mix of emotions when holding a physical copy of something you worked so long and hard for, was heady. I tried to come up with a worthy description but I'm not quite sure any word could properly convey the feeling when I opened that parcel.
My ARC list is currently being built with a view to send all copies, ebook and Print, out by mid-November. If you have a genuine interest in receiving an ARC, shoot me a message and I'll add you to the list.
In the meantime, keep a close eye on the blog for more info or follow me on X/Twitter or my new Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/sdwhamilton/
The original intention of having this blog as a monthly feature never really panned out but you'll be seeing an increase in activity as we move forward on the blog and on the website itself. If you haven't already, please consider joining the website's mailing list to keep updated on teasers, video trailers and competitions.
For now, I'll sign off.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.
S.D.W.
