Monthly Archives October 2014

Escape, first week and other stories

October 27, 2014 Books

Escape went up last week, with a whisper not a shout, and so I thought I'd mention a first week retrospective. Is it selling a lot? No.Is it selling despite me not actually advertising it anywhere?Yes.Should I advertise it somewhere?Probably.The lack of advertising is not entirely by choice. The health issues that affected me earlier this year have resurfaced, making it fairly hard to use a computer at the moment. I have two incomplete novel manuscripts nearly ready to go (one's at 60,000 words, one's at 40,000) a 27,000 word draft for another and 18,000 word outline for a fourth, and I'm not really well enough to get them done right now. Short stories are about my limit. This is part of the reason why I am looking for an agent for the children's stories - working with a small publisher

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Escape now on Pre-order

October 21, 2014 News

Escape is now available for pre-order on Amazon. A short story, set in a fictional world where a private consortium spent the early 2000's restoring a prototype aircraft to ground running.

The problem? The aircraft is the legendary TSR2, the people in power are the ones that originally killed it, and they want it gone. The engineers disagree. Finding her a new home should be easy, but getting her there? That could be murder.

Escape can now be viewed or pre-ordered on Amazon wordwide, priced 0.99. It will be available to buy on 24th October.

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Escape cover reveal

October 19, 2014 Books, News, Publishing

I'm happy to announce the cover for Escape. Given the aircraft in the book, it was understandably difficult to find images of it in flight, so my original request of a close-up flight shot was not granted. Instead I understand a flight-sim was used to get reference shots, the contrail comes from a 777, and the sunset shot was taken on open land. I actually rather like the results.
Escape short story cover

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Short Story Pt 2

October 17, 2014 News

I mentioned recovering a short story here, which ended with me getting my hands on a hard copy. Earlier this week I  retyped it from the hard-copy and discovered when I did that it was 4,500 words, not the 1,500 I remember.The story is in better shape than I remember.  Originally published in 2009, there are a few tweaks needed to update it to reflect the modern era. I had also expected to be polishing the writing style, since it was four years old and I only had an unedited proof.  Instead, I found out that it had held up better than expected. When I  started trying to make changes for accuracy and correct detail, I ran into a problem. Accuracy slows action.  At the moment, it is a roller-coaster ride, but breaking into a discussion of physics and aerodynamics in the middle of an air

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A Leap into the Unknown

October 16, 2014 News, Publishing

A while ago I was chatting with my publisher about the type of children's shows we remembered - Bill and Ben, Bagpuss - and about how sad it was that shows like that weren't being made anymore. I jotted down a short children's story in that vein as a joke.My publisher loved it. So did his child. So, rather baffled, I sat on the idea for a week. Which was when I discovered what pester power meant, and that was just from my publisher. Around the time I finished the fourth, I did start to think I might be onto something here. However my publisher does not handle illustrated books or children's books, and those markets could be quite specialist.It took me a while to make a decision, because after what happened with Fire Season, going away from my nice, safe, micro-press and back into

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Finding an old shame

October 13, 2014 books, Publishing

It is well known that authors may have problems reclaiming their rights when a publisher goes bankrupt. Less well known is when getting the rights back isn't a problem but getting the story back is.

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