The Slabscape novels are enrolled in the Kindle Select programme and that means they are available free of charge to Amazon Prime customers and through the Kindle Lending Library. While they are 'free' to the reader, that doesn't mean the authors don't get royalties. In fact, ever since July 2015, we have been paid a tiny amount per page-read (as opposed to items downloaded, because that system was being scammed). Amazon's Kindle system logs the current page number whenever a reader synchronises their device and it's that cumulative data that is used to calculate the royalties.

The upshot of all this is that I know how many pages have been read and I'm hyper-chuffed to reveal that figure has just passed the ONE MILLION mark. Yes, I'm shouting about it and I'm not going to apologise for being crass because although I've sold many thousands of books, knowing that readers have actually read more than a million pages of my sequential word alignments turns out to be the most rewarding moment of the whole process to date. A million swipes, clicks or taps makes me feel a lot more confident that I can actually produce entertaining stuff and that's very important when I'm staring at the current draft of book three wondering whatever made me think I could write in the first place.

And on that matter, Slabscape: Reboot is nearly ready to go to the nasty guy with the red pencil. I just need a couple of uninterrupted weeks. Luxury, I know. Sorry for the delay.