This could be the last blog I post from this website.

A lot has happened over the last month or so, and a lot is still happening behind the scenes. I suspect it looks like I’ve just been absent without leave but this last month has been one of the busiest I’ve had this year.

I finished the new book, The End of Lies, and my editor (hello, Clare!) is working on it right now. I wonder if any author has ever had a manuscript returned from an editor with a note attached saying, ‘It’s perfect! Publish as it is.’ Anyway, I’ll let you know what she says, and I’ll try to share with you how much work it’ll take in order to reach that publication standard – without giving away too much of the plot.

I also trialled some software for keeping the accounts in order. I battled with it for nearly a week. In the end I gathered all the hair I’d pulled out, and threw it and the software in the bin. I’ll stick with my trusty old method of pen and paper. It would have produced some really fancy graphs, but when the tail starts to wag the dog it’s time to rethink things.

And then there’s the website.

The site you’re reading this on now is okay. It serves its purpose: it gives me a presence on the web, and it gives people something to read that they won’t find anywhere else. But that’s about it. It isn’t exactly pretty either. Well, I’ve invested a great deal of time and a fair wedge of cash into creating a new site with a new domain name.

The old (and still current for another few weeks) domain was andrew-barrett.co.uk but the new one is much sleeker, much more me! Drum roll, please; here we go, it’s andrewbarrett.co.uk

Impressed, eh? Good. I’ve coupled that new domain name (in case you haven’t spotted the difference, there’s no dash any more) with a new email account (andrew@andrewbarrett.co.uk). I also wanted the .com version too, but it’s not available. I guess there are a lot of Andrew Barrett’s out there – we’re very common, y’know.

The new site is completely different from the old one. This time around I wanted something less cluttered, less menacing, more homely, and even colourful. Yes, I know the front page is still a bit cluttered, but I wanted to show off the books, their blurb, and offer buying options that you just can’t do with the thumbnail images I have displayed right now.

I’ve tried to use a lot of white space, tried to make it a more relaxing place to visit. I’ve updated the page that’s concerned with how I wrote each book, that The Story of… page, and there’s the Other Writing page too – also updated, and with a freebie or two that you can’t get anywhere else.

One page on there that wasn’t on the old site (there are two or three, actually) is a fan page. I’m in the process of asking people to send in photographs of themselves holding a paperback of mine, or holding their Kindle with one of my books on the scree. It’s just a bit of fun, but it’ll great to see your picture on a website. If you’d like to contribute with a photograph of your own, please send it to photos@andrewbarrett.co.uk

So what’s left to do on the site before I can let it go live? Well, I have yet to configure the blog page and all the blog posts – there are lots of them so it’s no quick task. And on top of that lot, I’m partnering with a new email service provider and struggling to embed forms in the site as well as mastering integration.

Yes, I’ve been very busy, it’s been a very steep learning curve for me (I’m a technophobe), but parts of it have been great fun. That said, I wouldn’t like to do any of it on a regular basis. Once this site is finished, it’s staying like that for the foreseeable future!

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