August update
Urban Fantasy
Current project: Bite Back 9.
Not a huge amount to say about writing progress, other than August wasn’t the best month for concentrated work.
As mentioned in last month’s update, some of the scenes are being provided from Amanda Lloyd’s point of view. It’s quite fun using a different voice and perception of events to describe what’s happening at Haven.
I’m still debating on the amount of darkness I have in this book. It’s not so much the darkness itself, it’s the arc of the story. In a single book, the traditional arc of the book goes something like this:
1. Setup and background.
2. The event that precipitates the main story.
3. The major setback.
4. The point at which it all seems hopeless.
5. The fight back and victory.
6. Tie it up neatly.
In theory, a series should have a similar arc, but I’d drive many of you away if I spent an entire book on section 4, where everything seems hopeless. Bite Back 9 is in that area. Amber keeps winning, but she’s losing herself in the process.
As mentioned last time, Amber’s focus for much of this book is hunting down Askrynos, the Matlal operative that is highly placed in the government. That’s distracting her from the new Assembly, i.e. the Assembly put together to represent all the paranormal races. It’s a race between that and the official acknowledgement in the human world that the paranormal exists.
Translations.
Snake Eyes is nearly there in French. I’ve no idea how to market it and the novellas (which are ready to go) in France, where Bite Back 1-7 are still being published by Bragelonne division of Hachette.
Science Fiction
Book 4 in The Long Way Home, Don’t Stop Now to be released as ‘Jetzt oder Nie’ (Now or Never), has been translated, but it still in quality control checking. I don’t have a German-specific Facebook page for Science Fiction, but I will be announcing the release on the German UF page and the SciFi & author pages I run.
Marketing
Facebook is endlessly tweaking its algorithms, and several notable authors have posted that their sales have slowed dramatically, including writers like Jennifer Estep.
I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m spending much less on advertising with Facebook, but my team are coming up with an Amazon campaign, which is probably what we would have needed in France anyway.
I’ll keep you posted!
Other
I’m learning the piano. I can sort of play melodies with my right hand, and chords with my left, but when it gets to putting them together… lol!
I used to play the guitar at school (very badly), but I wrote a lot of lyrics, to which my friend Colin composed music.
There are a couple of lines in my books, which I’ll be turning into complete songs, but don’t worry, I will not be singing them. I may try and persuade Jessica.
May release them in the newsletter…
Also re-read a couple of police procedural books to get my mind into Amber being a PI again. I’ll review those and others in a separate post.
Current project: Bite Back 9.
Not a huge amount to say about writing progress, other than August wasn’t the best month for concentrated work.
As mentioned in last month’s update, some of the scenes are being provided from Amanda Lloyd’s point of view. It’s quite fun using a different voice and perception of events to describe what’s happening at Haven.
I’m still debating on the amount of darkness I have in this book. It’s not so much the darkness itself, it’s the arc of the story. In a single book, the traditional arc of the book goes something like this:
1. Setup and background.
2. The event that precipitates the main story.
3. The major setback.
4. The point at which it all seems hopeless.
5. The fight back and victory.
6. Tie it up neatly.
In theory, a series should have a similar arc, but I’d drive many of you away if I spent an entire book on section 4, where everything seems hopeless. Bite Back 9 is in that area. Amber keeps winning, but she’s losing herself in the process.
As mentioned last time, Amber’s focus for much of this book is hunting down Askrynos, the Matlal operative that is highly placed in the government. That’s distracting her from the new Assembly, i.e. the Assembly put together to represent all the paranormal races. It’s a race between that and the official acknowledgement in the human world that the paranormal exists.
Translations.
Snake Eyes is nearly there in French. I’ve no idea how to market it and the novellas (which are ready to go) in France, where Bite Back 1-7 are still being published by Bragelonne division of Hachette.
Science Fiction
Book 4 in The Long Way Home, Don’t Stop Now to be released as ‘Jetzt oder Nie’ (Now or Never), has been translated, but it still in quality control checking. I don’t have a German-specific Facebook page for Science Fiction, but I will be announcing the release on the German UF page and the SciFi & author pages I run.
Marketing
Facebook is endlessly tweaking its algorithms, and several notable authors have posted that their sales have slowed dramatically, including writers like Jennifer Estep.
I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m spending much less on advertising with Facebook, but my team are coming up with an Amazon campaign, which is probably what we would have needed in France anyway.
I’ll keep you posted!
Other
I’m learning the piano. I can sort of play melodies with my right hand, and chords with my left, but when it gets to putting them together… lol!
I used to play the guitar at school (very badly), but I wrote a lot of lyrics, to which my friend Colin composed music.
There are a couple of lines in my books, which I’ll be turning into complete songs, but don’t worry, I will not be singing them. I may try and persuade Jessica.
May release them in the newsletter…
Also re-read a couple of police procedural books to get my mind into Amber being a PI again. I’ll review those and others in a separate post.
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