Marvellous. ASCENSION POINT has earned itself another excellent review, courtesy of our new friend Jackie Hames over at the splendidly-named The Spidereen Frigate blog. One line summary: cracking sci-fi, not so good romance. But I could have told you that 😉
Tag: ebooks
January Sales Report: The Slowdown Begins
Another month, another sales report!
As I predicted in last month’s report, January saw a big drop off in sales compared to December and November.
What’s Going On (Right On, Baby, Right On)
It’s been a little while. What have I been up to? There are a few strands.
Venus Rising is mid-edit. I’ve got feedback from a couple more beta readers coming in the next week or so, and then some edits to make. After that, the MS goes to Misti at Red Adept on March 11th for a good tearing apart and putting back together again. Stephanie is working on the cover, and I hope to have that ready to reveal in the next week or so. Can’t wait.
Meanwhile, I’ve pulled together the outline for the next book. It’s going to be a novella, and the third book in the still-unnamed series. I have a title which I love, but which I’m not quite ready to announce yet; I’ve got three parts, and a brief summary for all of the scenes. I still need to expand the character bios and write those up, and then I’ll be ready to start the first draft.
But before I do that, I’m doing something a little bit random. I’ve realised that it’s got to the point where I can’t quite hold all of the important details of the Ascension Point universe in my head. It’s crucial for the continuity and consistency of the other books in the series (and the trilogy I’ve got planned after that–watch this space) that I keep track of all of the people, places, factions, groups, landmarks and technology that I’ve created. So to help me do that I’ve started indexing everything in an already-massive spreadsheet. It’s pretty damn tedious, but it should mean that when I’m halfway through a draft of my sixth novel I don’t spontaneously change the canon I set up in the earlier books. That’s the idea, anyway.
So that’s my update. I’m still on track to release Venus Rising in April, so look out for that!
(P.S. If you didn’t get the reference in the title, it’s from ‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye. Do yourself a favour, and familiarise yourself: Marvin Gaye – The Best Of Marvin Gaye.)
Some Reviewers Made a Similar Statement
Mini-milestone achieved: having enough reviews that Amazon auto-generates the ‘typical review’ lines!
And very nice lines they are, too. So far anyway; all it takes is two people to say ‘book is best used as paperweight’ and it could go downhill fast.
Ascension Point Free Giveaway on LibraryThing
Folks, I wanted to let you know that I’ve just started a giveaway at LibraryThing. I’m offering 100 free copies of ASCENSION POINT, in all of the ebook formats you can think of.
If you’d like to throw your hat into the ring for one of the free copies, here’s what to do:
- Head over to LibraryThing, and create an account (if you don’t already have one).
- Sign up for the Member Giveaway program here.
- Go to ASCENSION POINT in the giveaway list, and hit ‘Request this book’.
- (Optional: Request lots of other books, too! It’s a great program.)
Happy freebooking!
What Kind Of Year Has It Been?
2013, eh? Damn. Where did that come from? All of a sudden it’s time to make plans for a new year to come, but not before taking a moment to review the one just passed.
December Sales Report: Steady As She Goes
Happy New Year everyone!
The advent of 2013 also marks the end of my second full month as a published author. It’s time to check on how sales went during the month, and make some predictions for the future. Also–graphs!
Venus Rising Update: Beta Readers Are Go Go Go
Phew. Just in time for me and the missus to bugger off for a week’s holiday over New Year’s, I finished my initial edit of VENUS RISING, and sent the latest draft off to my beta readers.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, beta readers come into the editing process after the writer’s first edits, but before it goes to the professional editor–in my case, the lovely Misti (Level 80 Dual-Class Grammarian and Sci-Fi Expert).
Betas give feedback on high-level stuff like plot continuity, characterisation, and plain-old whether they enjoyed the story. Invaluable feedback, for which they are paid not at all. Mwahahaha.
Anyway. I was pretty happy with the first draft, and how clean it was. My initial edit was mainly running through and tightening up the writing. I’ll find out if there are any more fundamental changes that need to be made when I get my beta feedback in a few weeks. Nailbiting!
Finally, there won’t be any posts for the next week while I’m away, so I’ll catch up with you all in 2013. Happy New Year, everyone!
P.S. I considered using the holiday to outline the novella that’s next in the series after VENUS RISING, but I’ve decided to just read instead. I’ve got Old Man’s War and Zoo City waiting on my Kindle, among others. Can’t wait!
Important Notice for Kindle Paperwhite Readers
It’s come to my attention that there’s a bug/feature in the Paperwhite that means it displays many, many ebooks in a tiny, unreadable font which the user can’t change. Unfortunately Amazon are claiming this is working as designed, so the only thing we authors can do is reformat our books and reupload them.
And that’s what I’ve just done–a new version of Ascension Point is now live on Amazon.
So, to anyone who has bought the Kindle edition of Ascension Point, and owns a Kindle Paperwhite: please delete the current copy from your device, and redownload it to pick up the latest version.
This has been a public service announcement. THBAPSA.
DAN HARRIS: 10% SCI, 90% FI 