Book Launch day! Called to Account, the fourth book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, is now available on Amazon as a Kindle ebook. Amazon are grinding through their quality checks on the paperback, but that’s usually quite quick. My producer has already started recording the audiobook. This is the first book that I’m trying to make a proper effort to launch properly. Aside from a facebook post and tweet, the previous three didn’t really get a launch.
I have my first radio interview lined up. It’s for an NBC channel based in Seattle, the House of Mystery Radio Show. I’ll be interviewed by Zoom on Wednesday evening. My publicist gave me some coaching, the crux of which was that you only have a few minutes, so you have to be sure to get your book title and website address across as soon as you can. When Alan the show host contacted me, he said we’d be recording for an hour. So I assumed that meant a leisurely series of recordings and cuts, then trying it again. That was until I listened to one of his past interviews. They’re hour long interviews, non stop.
I thought I’d better do some preparation, so I’ve been working on a mind map, and thinking about my writing journey. There are two people in particular that I have to thank. Jonathan Norman commissioned me to write Project Sponsorship. I enjoyed the writing process. The thrill of holding a book with my name on the front made me want to continue writing. Brian Evans-Jones was my tutor on the Open University Creative Writing course. My first assignment was a story that Claire loved. Brian asked what the point of the story was, and gave it 65%, or something like that. The next assignment scored 95% (or something like that) and I entered it in a short story competition with Bridge House Publishing. There Must be More, in the anthology, Something Hidden, was my first published piece of fiction. And so the journey goes on.