What’s been happening…

Okay, I’ve been a little quiet on the blogging front for the last two months. Sure, I’ve published the odd blog entry here, and the even odder one on the Macmillan New Writer’s blog, but they’ve been short (not necessarily sweet).

With this round (and hopefully the last round) of edits now completed for The Horde of Mhorrer, I can relax for a bit and take account of the last 6 weeks, which have been “interesting”. Apart from writing my socks off all hours of the day, I’ve been collating research material for the project in the new year, making amendments to the MNW blog-settings, and doing promotional things, including a few impromptu signings on request. For instance, I’ve now signed two copies of Wachter der Schatten, and unless there are some counterfeiters out there, these are the only two signed copies of the German translation of The Secret War in existence.
As far as I know, paperback edition-Deutsche is doing well and selling a fair few copies (especially on Amazon.de). And it’s being stocked pretty much everywhere over in Germany and Austria. During our recent travels to Vienna, the first bookshop we went into – whilst searching for a decent book on Salvador Dali (yes, I can’t speak German, but I can always look at the pictures) - there were a couple of copies of Wachter der Schatten between the Terry Brook-es and Trudi Canavan-es in a shop called Fricks. Another bookshop, just off the high street, had a few copies stacked up with the other bestsellers, and it did cross my mind to offer signing them, but I get all shy when I go to a country with a foreign language.

Also The Secret War has seen a renaissance – which isn’t bad for a hardback book that’s almost 12 months old and with a comparatively limited run compared to a bestseller. But copies have pretty much sold out everywhere. With the paperback of The Secret War coming out in Spring 2009, I think hardback copies will become rarer – and as for those first few hundred that were printed with the bookmark-ribbons and the different binding… these are like gold-dust now (I guess that must make them limited editions or something). I understand Goldsboro still has a handful of signed copies, but Amazon UK is on the second batch sans ribbon as are most of the bookstores across the country.

Over the past three weeks I’ve also put things in motion that will give me an opportunity to write part-time in 2008, depending on how much interest The Horde of Mhorrer generates and The Secret War too. It also means I can concentrate on The Black Hours which someone described to me as “a Victorian James Bond for the steam-punk generation” - which was nice, though if James Bond was an anti-hero, this quote would be more appropriate.

All in all, I’ve done enough this year to take a contented breather at Christmas (I didn’t have a Christmas last year due to preparation for The Secret War’s publication in January).
But most of all, I have more time to witter on here as well as the Macmillan New Writers blog, about things of relevance, and irreverence…