June 2021 update

ICYMI (“In case you missed it” — I had to look it up too)

Author’s Edition

I’m very happy to tell you that I have some plans (important plans!) for the hardback of Ringlander: The Path and the Way. If you hadn’t seen the bookmarks already, I’ve had some beautiful character artwork commissioned for the book. I’ve also created a map (which I added as part of an AMA (Ask me anything) on this Reddit post — disclaimer it’s only about 90% complete)

I’m writing a Novella

That’s right. I had always planned this, and now that June hath come along and our 3rd child, I can spend some time every day building, plotting and scheming. It’s set before the start of Book 1 of the Ringlander series and has a working title of “The Battle that was Lost“. It will be completely free for everyone on my mailing list, and cost £10,000,000 for everyone else. (Price not final)

I’m planning a virtual tour

A virtual tour has become the preferred route for authors in a pandemic and is guaranteed not to transmit deadly viruses between new circles of people. (LOL!)

As such I’ve been arranging my little butt off and the conclusion I have come to is that literally everyone in indie publishing circuit is dynamite awesome. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been so supportive, and I could not be happier to be a part of that world. The tour is being scheduled for September to give everyone enough time to read the book in time for a big drop of reviews. All of which I hope, to the Forbringr herself, are good. (No pressure)

We had a kid

That’s right. My life has become even more complicated, and yet simpler at the same time. I have less time than before, but that’s not a problem really. I always knew that my time was best spent with my family regardless of whatever project I happened to be working on.

Ringlander entered two awards

SPFBO7

SPFBO7 or Self Published Fantasy Blog Off 7 as it is known, is an award created by the wonderful fantasy author Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns). He’s been in the circuit a while, and the creation of the award allows untold hundreds of fantasy authors to book a forward for recognition. To quote the Matrix’s Architect “This is the seventh one and we have become exceedingly good at it.”

Amazon Storyteller Kindle award

Because why the fudge not.

Advertising

For those that don’t know, my job is a Senior UX Designer. I spend my days thinking about design, users and marketing. I recently completed the Google Squared course for digital marketing and obtained a certificate, and now that my book is written I am testing all of my theories and the platforms to see where my money is best spent in these two categories:

• Sales
• Mailing list subscribers

The pandemic

The coronavirus COVID19 continues to be a blight on our lives, but it also happened at a time of huge transition for us. So we’ve been kept very busy. However, things are quieting down now and hopefully as the vaccine / daily cases race begins to hot up we’ll find that society will reopen again soon.