It's July again!

Spotted Quail-ThrushI can’t believe it’s a year since I posted here last. What can I say? I’ve been busy. I’ll say more later, but for now …

The Smashwords July Summer/Winter Sale is on again. For the month of July many e-books are available at big discounts, including my books. Until July 31st you can get the e-book edition of Dryad for FREE, and the e-book editions of Naiad and Nereid for 50% off. Just click on the links below and follow the instructions on the Smashwords site to claim your discounts.

Dryad – FREE
Naiad – 50% off
Nereid – 50% off

Enjoy!
[Read more…]

Smashwords July 2014 Promo

Female Satin BowerbirdAfter an extended absence – this always a busy time of year for me – I finally found the time and opportunity to do a little bit of promotion with my books: The Smashwords July Summer/Winter Sale.

For the entire month of July many e-books are available at Smashwords at big discounts, and this includes all three of my books. Until July 31st you can get the e-book edition of Dryad for FREE, and the e-book editions of Naiad and Nereid for 50% off. Just click on the links below and follow the instructions on the Smashwords site to claim your discounts.

Dryad – FREE
Naiad – 50% off
Nereid – 50% off

Enjoy!

Nereid is here!

The Narun (in print)

At last it is done. Nereid is now out and appearing in online bookshops, both in print and ebook editions. Follow this link to the Nereid book page to see links to some of the stores where it is available. More stores will pick it up, if they don’t have it already, or you can ask them to order it using the ISBNs provided on the book page.

Nereid is the conclusion to the series, The Narun. The series runs: Dryad, Naiad, and now Nereid. Yes, it is done. The three books look pretty good sitting together on the shelf, don’t you think? [Read more…]

Naiad is here!

Naiad (in print)

I am pleased to see that Naiad is now appearing in online shops, both in print and ebook editions. Follow this link to the Naiad book page to see links to some of the stores where it is available.

More stores will pick it up, if they don’t have it already, or you can ask them to order it using the ISBNs provided on the book page. [Read more…]

Catching up

Brown SnakeIt’s probably obvious from the extended delay that things haven’t gone smoothly for me since that upbeat post at the start of spring. Rather a lot has happened in that time, but not to do with my writing. I don’t want to talk much about that, I will only say that the photo I chose for this post is only allegorical, no actual snake played a part in what happened. But you have presumably come here to read is what’s happening with the next books. Well, I do now have some news on that front …

Naiad is finalised and the first print copies are on their way – so I’ll put up some photos of those when they arrive. I will add relevant links to the Naiad page as soon as I can confirm the book is available for online purchase. The ebook edition is going to take a bit longer while I sort out my distribution arrangements.

The final draft of Nereid is now with some readers to check for last minute problems, the cover and blurb are done (as you will see on that page). So publication should follow quickly on the heels of Naiad. It may be just as well things worked out this way, for reasons that you’ll work out for yourselves when you read the series.

Things are still changing in the world of ebooks and I’ve decided to change my distribution arrangements to take advantage. The changes will mean some more work and complication on my side, but will hopefully give me a little more control over how the books appear on reseller sites (well, I can hope). While these changes take effect there may be some disruption to the availability of the ebook editions. I will try to keep the links on each of the book pages up to date as things change.

Spring has sprung

New Holland HoneyeaterSpring is here and birds are out there doing what birds do – very noisily. Wildflowers are showing off, and all manner of creatures are out enjoying the sunshine. It’s been a beautiful day here and it inspired me to update my blog with the latest news.

The Naiad post has been updated with the finally completed cover and blurb. The book is getting very close to ready to publish, hopefully you will see it soon. I’m hoping for about a month, but that depends on lots of things that are out of my control.

You may have noticed that I’ve also added a brief post relating to the third and final book of The Narun series, Nereid, and I hope to get into some serious work on editing that over the next couple of months. I’ll update that post again when the cover and blurb are available. My hope is that it will make it out much faster than Naiad did, but don’t hold me to that.

With that said, I’m off to enjoy the last of the day.

An important milestone

Zebra FinchIt’s been a busy couple of months, it’s always a busy time of year for me. As a result it has taken me more than a month to post here about an important milestone…

On June 23rd I completed the first draft of my third book. This is the third and concluding book of my series, The Narun. There is obviously lots to do before the book can be ready for publication, but the story itself is done. As per normal (for me) the book gets put away for a while (a couple of months), in the hope that when I come back to it, it will be with a fresh eye for any errors or inconsistencies.

The title? Yes, I suppose it’s safe enough to mention that now, since I don’t expect it to change: Nereid. So the three books of the series are titled, in reading order: Dryad, Naiad and Nereid.

I have now turned my attention back to the second book, Naiad, and getting it ready to publish. Final edits and proof-reading are in progress, the cover design is planned but not yet implemented, and I still have to write the blurb (I really hate doing that). Six months back I was saying that I thought the book would be published in a few months, but that has obviously stretched. If nothing else intrudes, I am hoping publication will occur in around two months from now, and I am hoping that Nereid won’t be very far behind it.

Good Intentions

Red-bellied Black SnakeThe road to hell, they tell us, is paved with good intentions. I must be well on my way.

I started this blog with the best of intentions. A look around the internet quickly shows you that the most successful blogs are those that are updated regularly (having something interesting to say can help too ;)). “I can do that”, I said to myself. I may have said it to one or two others as well, which makes it all the more embarrassing. It just goes to show that talking to yourself has its advantages … but I digress. I felt confident that I would find something worthy to add here regularly. Probably not daily, but weekly should be within my reach. If not weekly, at least every two weeks seemed certain. Easy.

Not so easy. It’s been two months since my last post. I do have excuses. I was locked out of my site for a few days – some mysterious bug where the login page refused to show (but hey, it’s good security!). The work I get paid to do has gotten more intense lately. And my writing continues. Even so, I had thought … well, you get the idea: good intentions.

And now that I am here, what I can tell you? I have done nothing more with Naiad in the last two months, an annotated manuscript sits next me as I type, reminding me that it deserves attention. The third book has reached up over 140,000 words now and progress continues, but slowly. Please forgive my lapses with this blog, I am still here and the next books are still coming.

Progress Report Feb-2013

EchidnaIt’s been a while since I’ve posted any news, so I thought it was time I did.

I’ve received some very positive feedback on my early drafts of Naiad, and now I have to find the time to do another pass over the manuscript myself. But I’ve been putting that off. I want more progress on the third book before I publish Naiad; you’re not going to like me very much if the follow on from Naiad is slow coming out. Yes, that’s a hint.

The third book is somewhere around half-done I think. I reached 100,000 words in the last few days (that count will come down after editing). It’s been going well, but I can’t yet say when it will be finished. This third one is more ambitious than what has gone before and that has, at times, had me feeling inadequate to the task.

My writing time is still mostly restricted to the wee hours of the morning, so that doesn’t help things to happen quickly. But I’ll keep at it, I want see how this all comes out as much as you do.

Dryad is here!

Books

Three weeks ago my last news post said that Dryad was on its way. Well (drum-roll please) it’s here! I can see Dryad, both e-book and print editions, on enough sites now that I feel I can safely say that Dryad has arrived. And not only that, my very own box of the Dryad print edition arrived today – see the photos.

The Kindle edition of Dryad showed up on Amazon within a few days of that last post, and the EPub edition showed on a few more sites just a few days later … but some others are proving rather slower. The print edition was approved only a week ago, and is already showing as available on places like Amazon and The Book Depository. (Links on the Dryad book post, for those that want them.) [Read more…]